How can I spruce up this lineart? Trying to avoid shadows

[akitsukino]

I’m wondering if I can just avoid adding colored shadows to my work by doing more with the line art. Does anyone have an suggestions on how I could add extra flourishes to lineart like this so the flat colors don’t look too bland?

[reddinggray]

Try to thicken the lineart a bit. The early episodes of my comic is also just flat colors so... yeah. Nice art btw!

[dreamysheep.01]

Try exaggerating your lineweight more to better show depth, also using thicker lineart in general might help since your lineart is overall quite thin so a lot of the the details in become lost when zoomed out, especially once the colour is added.
Your colour palette is quite busy as well which can distract from the lineart, using a more limited colour palette or applying an overlay to subtly unify the colours would help to pull the image together.

[Kaydreamer]

I agree with all the points listed above! A comic which successfully uses only flat colours will have two major artistic strengths underpinning it:

• Dramatic variation in line weight. Have a look at my friend's lineart, she's masterful at this: https://www.instagram.com/themarshallarts/?hl=en
• A solid colour palette underpinned with a high level understanding of colour theory. You go for tone, not strict character palettes here, and lean hard into colour theory rules: https://townsquare.media/site/622/files/2010/04/casanova4.jpg

To be honest, it's a much harder style to pull off well. Shadows and lighting can actually serve to mask a lot of structural and anatomical weaknesses in one's art. I could make a passing attempt at such a style, but it wouldn't look nearly as good as my regular work because it's absolutely not where my strengths are. I do rely on a few 'frills' to mask certain weaknesses, and they'd be on full display in a flat style.

[rajillustration]

Yeah, I think that you can spruce up the line quality by exaggerating thick and thin like other's have mentioned, as well as making sure that overlaps are a little thicker than the lines behind it--creating a sense of depth. Also, you have parts of the characters that are solid black, which is great for creating interest. If there were some other black elements as well, either clothes or the ground or even as a solid shape in the background, it may help draw the eye and create interest? That's just a passing idea, though.

[TedGravesArt]

I've got a few notes:
Personally, I'd add some hatching and maybe some blacks around some of the darker ambient occlusion areas to help sell form and depth, but too much might not jive with the cartoony vibe you're putting down. The idea of exaggerating your line weight is a good one. Maybe if you're sold on the thinner lines on the character interiors, consider adding thicker lines just around the outside of characters you want to pull focus.
The lack of focus is the first thing I notice, tbh, not the line art. What you want your reader to focus on isn't being communicated clearly, so it makes the page feel scattered. Thoughtful composition could help a lot there. How your camera sees the scene tells the story, so give your camera a character and a perspective. Choosing more muted colors for your backgrounds could help a lot too. People's eyes are drawn to saturated colors and contrasting values, so when I look at this page, the first thing I look at are the backgrounds, because they're the most saturated element.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Lots of good suggestions have been given about the lineart, but I think tightening the panels could help, too.

There's a LOT of empty space in that page alone, and if you're not going to put anything in the background (which is a bit of a questionable choice, considering that it seems to be a party scene...ideally you would want it to look lively and busy) you should keep your shots tight on the characters. Let them (along with the speech bubbles) take up all the space that they can.