Has making comic improved your drawings skills more than just drawing?

[Moe]

For the longest time, I had this mindset of don't make a comic unless your skills are good enough but recently I've been trying to change my mentality to make comics to get good. In the past, every time I start the first page of a comic, I'll cringe at how bad the art is and end up discarding the comic entirely and going back to making anatomy and perspective studies as opposed to trying to continue making the comic to improve.

[mikeyturvey]

Sometimes you just gotta jump right into it. I spent far too long thinking my art wasn't where it needed to be before I started my comic, but every page I'm seeing slight improvements! I mean, just look at the first pages of some of the bigger webcomics to see how they've changed and improved!

[Chopythes]

Oh dear god YES.
I've always been terrible about hands, so deciding I wanted deaf characters (and thus, the usage of sign language) forced me into drawing hands more frequently.

You WILL get better at art. It doesn't matter how good or bad you are at drawing when you're start making comics, you WILL get better.
It's only normal to dislike your old art, as you can see what mistakes you've made in the beginning.

I think you should start feeling confident in your story, art will come later. As long as you're open to critique (and do listen to it, take it in, but only if you feel like it fits your style/work) and have a desire to improve you're gonna get better.

Have a look on your art, and ask yourself: "What is it that makes me cringe?"
See the older art as a way of how far you've improved, and tell yourself: I'm better now!
(And most readers won't notice the small changes you've done and it's only natural to have a panel that looks a bit odd. Try to make one image on each page the best you can, and eventually it'll look like that!)

One of the reasons I started making comics, were to improve my line art, it did set me back in the beginning but I feel like it's really paid off now.

Start with small comics first, like 1 page, 5 pages, 12 pages and so on until you feel confident enough to pull off 300+ pages!

It's never too soon to start making comics!

[AnnaLandin]

100% yes.

Drawing comics forces me to a.) draw on a very regular basis, b.) draw a LOT, and c.) draw stuff I'd otherwise avoid.

If you'd asked me to draw a crowd-scene 2 years ago I would have screamed - now, I still don't enjoy drawing crowd-scenes, but I can pull one off without too much trouble. I can draw architecture better than I could before. I can draw environments and clothing better than before.

I've tried doing "studies" - as in, pictures purely for practise - but outside of a lifedrawing session, I just can't seem to get it together. But drawing comics means I have to practise not just once, but repeatedly, because the story I'm telling demands it.

And yeah, I'd say that jumping in and making comics even though you feel your skills are lacking is a good idea. You won't ever learn how to draw comics if you don't start drawing them!

[Knight_Wolf]

In one word yes you draw more draw smaller so details are harder to do well on real life paper any way and you wont think about on composition but up to 6 or more small compositions per page and more pose etc so yes
your art at first like mine may suck a bit but practice makes perfect right want more practice then a comic page????

[demthorshie]

YES! It's helped with my art overall in a tremendous way. Although I do draw my comic in a much different style than how I normally draw for work, making a comic has helped me a lot with improving on human anatomy specifically. I'm self taught with no prior training in art so drawing human bodies properly was always a huge struggle for me since the beginning. Still is, but updating a comic regularly helps a lot because it means there's more potential for improving along the way.

[monotone_ink]

It definitely helps you with your art. Don't get too worried if your skills aren't up to par yet, just start now and you'll instantly recognise the parts that you need to work on.

The nature of comics demands you to get better at drawing certain things - more specifically, getting better at drawing things your story requires. One of my projects are set in a city, and because I don't have a lot of experience drawing modern buildings, I had to do a lot of practice, and I'm a bit better because of it. Same deal with it being in the action genre, forcing me to work on my body gestures and panel composition.

Just start the comic and keep going despite how cringy it is. Try not to look back - just keep drawing.

[ogawaburukku]

1. Don't let your current skills keep you from drawing comics, otherwise you will NEVER make comics. Most artists are never satisfied with their own art, and one of my biggest regrets is putting off comics for as long as I did. Had I started earlier maybe I would have had a larger following or be a better artist...

If you are too shy to show other people your pages, you don't need to post them online, or you can limit the number of people who see your art by posting in more private places (friends only posts, etc). But if you are serious about drawing comics, you are going to want any feedback you can get, and you are probably going to be pretty bad in the beginning. 99% of artists start out pretty crappy, but you have to start somewhere!

1. When you draw comics (and especially by hand and not digitally) you should see a huge improvement within just a few one shots or chapters. I would recommend starting out with one-shots first. They are great practice and if you don't like the end result you aren't obligated to continue beyond that one story. I did about 8-10 one-shots before I started my series FaLLEN, and some of those are so bad I don't post them online anywhere. But they were valuable lessons and I hope to keep improving.

...also, my 1 and 2 showed up as 1 and 1 for me... what kind of weird glitch is this!?

[lunaartemisasama]

If you want to, just do it. I saw your sketchbook, I don't know too much about drawing but your drawing seems pretty cool OoO. If ONE never posted his webcomic there would have never been One Punch Man.

And yes it helped me. I am still learning, but it's fun.

[punkarsenic]

oh, hell yes.

if im just drawing, id tend to like, just doodle a bust, and another bust, and another bust, but looking in the other direction. very boring. very stiff. making comics has forced me to put my characters in places, doing things, with interesting and expressive poses. its forced me to consider gesture, composition, the entire like, existence of backgrounds. i stretch myself more drawing my comic than ive ever done before.

the downside to this is, yeah, the cringe factor at old or even current pages, because the improvement rate is so fast. what ive done, what i recommend, is start with a 'learner comic.' not a story youre less passionate abt - approach it like any other comic, but accept that your beginning is going to be crap next to your end, and change shit all the time as you develop. keep doing studies, absolutely, but by making a comic as well youre seeing that practice go into, well, practice, and you can see where you want to improve and get more feedback on your comic making skills, not just your anatomy or perspective skills.

[conbon100101]

Yes. yes. and yes.
It forces me to try new things. Drawing a comic forces me to draw motion, emotion and backgrounds (something I rarely do in portraits etc)
I agree that there are times were it sucks to look back at old art, but it's also fun to see how far you've come. Sometimes in a short amount of time. I also always say, never stop learning. Even while making pages, sometimes take a break to watch speedpainting videos, look up lighting tutorials, do gesture sketches or whatever floats your boat.

[DMBrigman]

That is the whole reason I started drawing a comic! I wanted to get better and with all the drawing you have to do, you do get better. I would suggest that you work on something new, so that way it hurts less when the art isn't as great as you want it to be.

With studies you can be lazy and avoid drawing certain things and you don't sabotage your own progress. With comics if you have to draw the characters riding horses there really isn't a way to get out of that so you have to learn how to draw horses!

I suggest start on a comic, something new, and something small, that contains some things you want to get better at. You can see that every person who posted has gotten better as their comic has gone along. I would suggest looking at the first and most recent pages for the people in this thread and seeing how much they have improved, it is very inspiring.

[Zpreader]

Your new mindset is definitely the way to go. You'll likely improve alot more by just drawing what you want to be than you will by forcing yourself to constantly study.

The other thing is that stuff like panel composition can only be learned by doing comics, so it's a good idea to just jump right in.

[sam1992ca]

of course, the more you draw the better you become, here's my comic btw https://tapas.io/episode/671902

[AmysGames]

I would say yes, because drawing comics forces you to draw things that you probably wouldn't draw normally. Dynamic poses, interesting backgrounds... not to mention other skills like consistency between panels and visual storytelling. Basically it forces you to learn skills you might not learn if you were just drawing just for fun.

[KoreanTacos]

I dunno probably. Drawing my series has always felt natural that I don't ever really notice any changes. I guess some of the a-hole critics are partially responsible for me trying to improve (I'm only kidding of course... except for that one dude). All joking aside I guess it has improved thanks to general feedback I get for my comics. So yes maybe?

[indagold]

I improved faster from practicing than making comics. You get stagnant fast and you become repetitive and stop innovating once you realize you gotta make hundreds of pages. Taking a break and trying something on the side gets you back into the art game than constantly working on pages nonstop. It's finding a healthy balance for me. Same can be said for animators, many never improve in their anatomy ever if they never practice on the side. Their animation gets better but their work still looks like beautifully animated garbage.

[schlisselart]

I think other people have already explained it well but yes, comics make you draw a lot and make you draw things you wouldn't normally draw. It's the whole reason I started drawing comics over the past few years and I have definitely noticed it working. I wish I had started doing it much earlier.

[shiftingverses]

You gotta live with your mistakes and identify where you succeeded in order to continue to improve. I don't think anything can beat hard study for improvement, but there's so much more to making comics than just having good technical art skill. By just jumping in and giving it a go I've learned loads about flow, panelling, narrative pacing, writing, colour, planning, scheduling and Photoshop. I've learned a bit about drawing along the way, but if I hadn't just stuck with the comic and improved over the 70 odd pages I've drawn I'd have missed out on all those other things as well.