[DRAWING WITH PENCIL] Tips to make better art?

[ImNotAaron]

Hey! I'm new here and this is my comic:
AETHER :Terminus

Okay, okay, i know. Shameless pathetic self promotion. Sigh. With that out of the way though I wanna ask something.

I saw a topic asking if Tapastic allows pencil art and... yeah, too late I've already uploaded. It's all I have access to anyways.

SO instead I wanna ask if you guys have any tips to do better pencil arts that would make my comics look better?

I'm here asking this because; other than the obvious not-so-ulterior motive that is in the first two lines of my post; but also I realized that it didn't look as good after scanning and adding a bit of editing as I thought it would be when I drew them on paper.

I'm aware of some problems with the supposed action scenes... those were problems with my limited skills at art. I'm still learning so hopefully I'll improve with time and practice. But either way, I'd really appreciate some tips on how I could improve my art. Mainly on how to make it look better with the limited amount of details a pencil can put in and other stuffs... I have a useless Photoshop sitting in my dad's laptop too! (which I used to put in the text and some other minimal amount of edits) any tips on how to utilize that too?

[isaacfriedman]

First thing's first: excellent work! Most artist's don't make it this far with their work and it's always nice to see another newcomer putting their ideas into the world. In addition, you have an excellent sense of motion in your art and I definitely appreciate that. It's a quality I wish I had a better grasp on,

That said, there is definitely room for improvement. There's a lot of white space on your pages. They feel more like preliminary sketches. With pencil or charcoal or chalk, it's important to remember that you've got an entire spectrum of grays to work with, not just the gray produced with your natural pressure. I'd recommend practicing a style called "chiaroscuro," which is all about over-emphasizing shading, and then tone it down a bit from there in order to find the style that fits yours best. Also, some of your proportions seem a bit... off. I know many artists, myself included, have struggled with this issue many times in the past, so I'd recommend getting either a pose-able figure or a free poser software like DesignDoll or just doing some figure drawing based on tutorials online. Finally, it's apparent that you're going for a manga-esque style, and that's awesome, but don't let dedication style steer you away from what looks "right." What I mean is that in many cases, those who utilize this visual style tend to mangle anatomy at crucial points such as fight scenes or action scenes, creating necks that look strained, arms that look twisted, or shoulders that are way too low on the body (I'm speaking from experience haha).

All in all, you are starting out amazingly well, way better than I was when I first started comics, and I look forward to where you go from here. I hope you'll take my advice, or, better yet, find your own path and make your comic as amazing as possible in your own way.

[ImNotAaron]

That's... really nice and detailed. Thank you so much!

Yeah I tried to study from mangas like Boku no Hero Academia and One Punch Man for the sense of motion... not that I'm anywhere near as good, but I tried to study them as I read them.

As for the white space... they're kind of intentional, though it may be for the wrong reasons and I'm just overthinking about it. I made it this way because I read some of the other comics here... and I realized a lot of them lack this space and seem rather... cramped? (I'm talking about those that have long term story-telling arcs in mind, not the slice of life ones.) And my thought process was that I should make spaces to create that sense of passage of time that you see in scenes in tv shows or movies, ya know? Though I might be doing it the wrong way... considering it probably works better with colour as it would look less bland, maybe.

chiaroscuro... I'll look into it, thanks!

The proportions part are so true I'm still learning though so i'll check that out, aight!

I'm really thankful for your advice(s), they're really nice and practical, I'll definitely check those things out some time. I will try to improve, albeit it's definitely long process that's easier said than done... well, I'll do what I can do

[punkarsenic]

what kind of pencil are you using? If you're not already, i'd recommend working with some xBs and xHs - i like working w 5B and 2H personally. H's are good for fine detail and harder lines - as well as preliminary light sketches - and B's are brilliant for varying line weight and gesture and shading. and get some nice charcoal for deep shading - but keep hairspray on hand or youll smudge everything everywhere.

also, practice drawing smoother, continuous lines. sometimes you draw really hairy, in lots of short scratchy lines, and it spoils the gesture and shape. smooth lines is where its at.

also, consider the possibilities of layering paper. your speech bubbles dont need to be drawn into the page - you could cut them out and layer them over the top. this looks really good w good shading, bc the bubbles leave inevitable little shadows and its just lovely. you could also cut out black gutters, or get really artsy with it. prague race does some brilliant stuff with pencil and cut paper, absolutely use it as a reference.

also, wrt your art overall - look into gesture. its the flow between and through objects, and having good gesture really increases the impact of the art. Proko, on youtube, has some brilliant videos on gesture - and on drawing with pencil, and anatomy, and everything. watch everything by proko hes a brilliant learning resource.
aaaaaaaaaaaaand read understanding comics by scott mccloud - its a really eye opening comic about making comics and i think its fundamental to any comic creator to read and reread this comic.

[ImNotAaron]

I feel like you just hit the nail on the head. As I've never attended any sort of art classes... the thought of using varying pencils and utilizing gradients never occured to me. Thank you so much!!
lol... I'll need to learn about them from now on. (I know little to nothing about those)

Smoother lines... got it. I try. It was a problem of trying too hard to follow the sketches so... I'll try to start with simpler sketches so I don't try too hard to follow them and end up constrained by them.

I'm personally not that keen on the whole artsy stuff... since my attention span and patience is rather limited (I can't even draw any longer than 2.5 hours in one go. I have stop before I continue) but the idea for the text bubbles... I actually really like that. I'll consider doing that for more special moments or maybe after I graduate when I'm more free.

Gestures are my weakness... I watched couple videos from Proko here and there but I never got to watch all of them. Guess I will now. I will read that comic later too.

Damn... people on Tapastic are as helpful as they say. I'm really thankful for your advices! Thank you, really

[SleepingPoppy]

And my thought process was that I should make spaces to create that sense of passage of time that you see in scenes in tv shows or movies, ya know?

Nothing wrong with just using your own intuition, but this was really helpful to me when I was trying to learn about paneling and pacing.

Inking over your pencils could help you a lot with getting smoother lines, and then going back to shade with pencil would be easier. I think spending some time shading, and generally thinking about the balance of light and dark would help give the work and over all more polished/finished look. The linework is really nice, so it's really just about pushing yourself a little farther.

This may be nit picky, but it seems that usually the first chapter comes after the prologue. It seems weird to me to have them combined, but just because it makes me scratch my head doesn't mean it'd bother anyone else. Easy to fix if you wanted to, though. ((sorry that isn't relevant to helping you with your pencils))

[ImNotAaron]

Aight aight! I will be studying them later and see how I can integrate it ^^

Hmm... that's really something I hadn't thought of. I tried inking everything (didn't look good due the the limit in size of paper and pen... some details look better with those 0.38 leads, I feel. I know there exists 0.38 inking pens but the ink spreads and looks not-as-good unless it's very professional equipment?) and keeping everything in pencil, but I never tried combining them... maybe I'll experiment with them. I'm not sure yet, but thanks for the advices

Oh, that, yeah It was intentional for trivial reasons (it doesn't hurt anyone anyways, no? )
My thought process was that while Chapter 1 directly leads to Chapter 2, it's also not a direct successor when it comes to the elements in the settings. Everything changed so quickly it's almost like this is a faraway precursor to the story rather than a directly connected timeline. It feels like a timeskip and a 180° turn in atmosphere without there being an actual timeskip; that's how I felt at least. Maybe the readers won't feel that. Idk. But I feel like it's both Chapter 1 and the Prologue... so that's how I made it

Again, thanks for your advices ^^