Ever look back at your older pages and want to re draw them?

AnnaLandin 2016-07-11 05:46:16 UTC #30

Yes, I do occasionally look at the earlier pages of Grassblades and think "Oooh, I'd like to change that, and that, and this" - but then I decide not to.

I DID do a big bunch of edits (mainly adjusting hair/skincolour) on the first three chapters when I was preparing them for print, but those were big-batch edits, not complete redraws, because that way lies madness.

Unless you can draw really fast, and unless you have ridiculous amounts of free time to do it in, redrawing old pages is a good way to get very, very stuck. Because you're always going to be improving, and old pages are always going to look a little bit worse than the newer ones, and if you keep giving into the urge to go back and fix stuff and redraw, you're never going to be able to move forward.

Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is live with our mistakes and resolve to do better tomorrow.

WhatAHero 2016-07-11 06:42:34 UTC #31

ahahahaha.
ahha.
ha.

this subject struck a hard chord with me, especially since i decided to do a style change a good third into the first chapter of World at Strife.

First page:

Latest page:

i've been uh, slowly dying to redo the first couple o' pages ever since i made this change. but there's no way in hell i'm sacrificing more comic making time to redraw everything.

StevenDacasin 2016-07-11 07:02:21 UTC #32

From the looks of it it's a good change!

shazzbaa 2016-07-11 07:12:27 UTC #33

I mean.....

.....sometimes I would like for the first chapter to just magically be the same skill level I'm at now, but the idea of going back and redrawing all that..... pass!! I'm very much on team Once It's Done It's Done And I Ain't Fixin' It.

The thing I ask people is this -- how long has it been since those first pages? A year? Two years?
So if you did go back and redraw them, what are you gonna do in two more years when they look horrible again? Are you gonna redraw them again? And again? Every time they look horrible?

Basically, if you have the time and have a good reason why, like "I'm printing the book" or "the first five pages are the wrong size" or some tangible thing that will be fixed after one go, something that's NOT just "I'm itching to redraw because they look bad," then go ahead, but otherwise,

....it's normal for art to evolve, and everyone expects it --- don't worry about it. : )

@WhatAHero for the record, from an outside perspective the difference honestly isn't jarring! Like, when I'm looking, it's visible, but if I were just reading through the comic I wouldn't be like "WHOA WHAT'S THIS NEW STYLE"??? -- at most, maybe 5 or so pages into the shift, I might be like "hang on, is the art different?" But the characters and the way they're portrayed don't feel vastly altered, it's mostly the rendering that's different, so I don't think it feels like a really jarring change to a reader!

MissMagicGirl 2016-07-11 09:55:00 UTC #34

It took about the same time but I just really am pleased with the overall design of the page

robertsienicki 2016-07-11 10:05:01 UTC #35

My webcomic Under Pressure was kinda redrawn. It's autobiographical, so I was doing some stories for some years now, but never published it. Now I decided to turn it into a webseries I had to redraw some pages (the ones i found funny after all this time) to fit it with the style I use now.

OLD - NEW

quakeulf 2016-07-11 14:44:00 UTC #36

All the time, but now it's more a matter of time and what I can afford than anything else.

Mharz 2016-07-11 15:43:08 UTC #37

really? My first chapters looks horrible through my eyes though. I guess I'm that over-critical to myself.

littleelliebot 2016-07-11 16:40:40 UTC #38

I did! I ended my first chapter, and everytime I went back and looked at my intro comic I did before ch1 I would cringe.
horribly.
it was BAD. I didn't like it, and it just irritated me seeing it :T I also figured it's the first part of my comic people will see when looking at it.
i wanted to make it worthwhile to read and good looking. So I just recently did that and finished it up!!
it took too long tbh, but I feel comfortable moving on in my story now and continuing it :3c

indagold 2016-07-11 21:38:49 UTC #39

I would love to for Forgive Or Forget but honestly after losing all the work for it 5 years ago, the ref sheets, the bonus comics, backgrounds and the fact I kinda like what I did with it, it's safe to say I'll keep it even if it's messy. Shows what I drew like all those years back.

StevenDacasin 2016-07-12 00:00:29 UTC #40

@quakeulf what do you mean by "what I can afford"?

StevenDacasin 2016-07-12 00:01:36 UTC #41

I probably have to look at the first chapter to see but in terms of faces it seems you have consistency on lock.

quakeulf 2016-07-12 00:26:19 UTC #42

Time is unfortunately money when you're old and self-employed.

StevenDacasin 2016-07-13 09:34:15 UTC #43

ah self employed seems nice. Well at least you're young at heart! I see it in your drawings!

quakeulf 2016-07-14 02:39:46 UTC #45

Because I started working on this comic when I was 15 and decided to keep most of my ideas and setting from back then.

eslameldeeb 2016-07-14 03:03:20 UTC #46

ALL THE TIME
based on past experiences with this, re-drawing old pages somehow makes them lose their purpose and mood and turns them into something ugly
so, i invented the concept of "the first time brilliancy", where i convince myself when i review old stuff that there was a reason why i drew them that way back then, and i should respect that and don't repeat any bad traits and move on with my life..
so far, this way works just fine...

PurpleGround 2016-07-14 03:09:34 UTC #47

I would suggest only doing it if
A. You have no more art work / comic / story planned ahead,
B. You think that comic idea is so good that it deserves the attention of your current audience you want to revive the series, like a fresh start.

Otherwise, keep moving forward. thumbs up

Doubtcent 2016-07-14 14:36:00 UTC #48

I used to be all about redos, especially with my older stuff because it just looks so bad!!
But I spent way too much time on the remakes rather than on the new content.
At the same time, people would see the most recent episode and then go back to the first and leave because it wasn't consistent.

Now I just keep going. If I wanted to, I would rather do a retread, like a revisit of an old joke and see how I would do it now, and make it apparent to the audience that I had done the joke before, only better this time.

First attempt:

HUGE DIFERENCE:

serenitysquirrel 2016-07-18 22:40:40 UTC #49

I did the first half chapter of my first comic with the very intention of redoing it down the road. I knew when I started that my artistic skill was nowhere near what the story deserved, but the only way to get better was to just do it. The redo is going slow, but at my own comfortable pace and will be uploading a scene at a time.

blargen 2016-07-20 21:48:36 UTC #50

Yes, I have, and to be honest a part of it is because a lot of people have even told me that I should redraw the first three Episodes of my series since they were traditionally drawn, while the standard now is I do them all digitally. Yet I have like, two problems with that.

One, I honestly don't know if I'd be able to capture some of the fun and energy the original pages have if I redo them XD Especially in terms of faces. But primarily I don't do it because I'd gets tuck in an endless loop. It just doesn't make much sense to me dedicating lots of time to redrawing already treaded ground when I could spend that time just creating a new episode, not to mention, by the time I finish remaking the first three, then the fourth one will not look up to par with the quality of those ones and then it gets into a whole new loop haha!

I say, just leave things as is and let them stand as a testament to how much you've grown as an artist since the first pages. It makes the quality of the newer stuff all the more impressive if there's something to compare them to.