How did you find your art style?

[TonyEsp]

so i been doing comics for quite a while now, and senced the very beginning i have always had this problem of being unable to keep and arstyle, every time i draw a new episode the arstyle is diferent, these three are only 1 episode apart from each other.

so my question for you is, how did you find yours and did you had the same problem as me when you first started?

and this just pure curiosity of mine, but out of all of these three styles which do you like more?

[dawgofdawgness]

My art style didn't suddenly come to me, but rather I kept drawing nonstop every day and slowly I started noticing some changes in my characters, like the heads got super flat and there were 5s inside of the ears, and there were hard angles in certain places.
I think my style started developing especially when I started doing gesture drawings, since that's when i really got the chance interpret "real life" in my own style.

Also I think I like your 3rd style the most. I just think it's cuter than the other two

[akemikae]

So, your art style will start to become more and more consistent the more frequenetly you draw it. My first few updates are a freaking mess, cause things kept changing (and they were pretty obvious changes too), after a while, things kept changing, but were becoming way more subtle throughout, you'd have to start looking for the difference. Which I think is normal. I think the key here is don't try too hard to keep your style the same, just for the sake of consistency. I did that for a bit with my coloring style, and it was REALLY holding me back. Just let your hand do what it wants to do. Eventually, it'll start to keep doing the same thing, and change more gradually.
Here's an exampe for me (covers, not pages.) The first is from a little over a year ago, the second one was drawn a week ago, and is what my art looks like pretty consistently now.

[spadesart]

art styles evolve over time, you dont just suddenly find it. its good to experiment with styles, its how you grow

this was just over 2 years

& im kinda partial to your first style but that all up to you

[YangKoete]

I just got really jealous of some Manga and how gorgeous it looked, so I just drew it from the ones I've read. Basically, my art's just an amalgamaition of all Anime and Manga I like. ^_^'

[eleviken]

I think my art style is still subtly changing even now!

I started out by copying anime drawings when I was younger (hidden weeb!!), and as I saw more works from different artists, I began to develop a style that I'm comfortable with. I think the more variety of things you draw, the stronger your artstyle gets! :0

[XzynderVexymous]

A bunch of drawing and studying other art styles.

[TimCaloweh]

I had this a long while ago.

After realizing i couldn't replicate this i started looking up different drawing styles but the damn search engine only took me to different artists that all had the same list of drawing styles from Adventure Time, Star and the..., Rick and Morty, etc. So i started looking for more traditional styles.

I found something and tried to replicate it. It didn't work.

So i tried replicating the replications.

Done.

[TheFalseVyper]

I know of some artists that create a reference page for their characters. It's great to establish your style and your character's distinctive features in a way that is easy for you to refer back to when you become uncertain.

As for how I've kept and developed mine, that came through trial and error as well as watching other artists. I learned from those wiser than me and it helped my style develop at a much faster pace.

One last thing, try not to confuse "inconsistent style" with natural development. Judging from your first picture to your third, it looks more like you've improved a ton in just those three slides! That's amazing! Your character looks much more lively in the last picture than the first.

I hope you don't mind, but I used an example from my own comic.

On the page below, it doesn't look too terrible, however the color is lackluster, the chat bubbles aren't clean, and the dialogue could have been written better.

This is a similar page drawn a month later. The color is much more vibrant, the city actually looks like a city, and the chat bubbles are clean and legible.

At the end of the day, it's your comic and ultimately, it'll be up to what YOU want to do with it. You're improvement is evident in just the little you've shown us. I don't doubt that you'll find what works for you in no time

[punkarsenic]

• copy someone elses style
• fuck it up
• fuck it up more
• copy another one
• fuck it up so much
• you now have a unique art style

[Wumbl]

Art style doesn't develop on purpose. It's more like... You try to do what others do and experiment with it until you start subconsciously changing it and combining different elements.
I mean, my art style came from trying to copy Man of Action, and Seinen anime. It looks very little like either of those, because it's kind of grown on its own.

You're just in a phase of experimentation, that's all. Every artist has like.... several of them per year.

[Tycade]

I love the bodies and form of comic book characters, but, I feel like their faces lacked in personality. Where as manga and anime, the faces have GREAT expressions and personality, I felt like if I found a happy medium between the two, I'd figure something out and I think I did! I ended up mixing the two together fairly well

[MoonSquid]

I think I’m still developing my style (and I assume I’ll never stop learning and changing as I find things that I enjoy more), but as I progress through my artistic career, I went through steps. I drew things as naturally as possible, without anything in mind. I had started as an anime artist, but harsh criticism from art teachers made me move into some sad, flat “realism”* thing. When I got comfortable with the sad realism thing, I’d pick out something I wanted to improve on (maybe hair techniques, face types, etc) and then reference some artists that I really admired and practice their techniques. NOT copying them, but studying how they make their decisions, what the stylisation is representing (with note taking and my own written explanations) and then seeing how I could comfortable do something similar that made me happy.

*i say “sad flat realism” because I moved to realism from anime without anatomical experience. It looked really... sad and flat... lol. I have to say that even if you’re going from a dramatic style, understanding anatomy is SO important.

[Mango-Kiddo]

Right now i'm going through an artstyle crisis trying to impress someone but, they prefer my old stuff and i can't un-improve my art

[LCT_m_a_d]

As far as graphic art goes, I knew what I wanted to create just because I had an idea in my head. I then studied a lot of comic art tutorials and started looking at artists who I thought mastered specific aspects. My style is still developing trying to make all of those things work together, to create a single unified experience.

[Emevsa]

I feel like your style emerges in time. I didn't realise I had one until someone looked at my art and literally said, "Did you do this? I recognize your style,"

It's still changing though. The more I do, the more tricks I learn and refine. I draw close to everyday and I am now trying to find a balance between the detail and how labor intensive drawing can be.

[crocuta]

I basically really liked Chuck Jone's style from Tom & Jerry and mixed it up with Akira Toriyama's Dr. Slump. Still working on it.

[indagold]

I change my style for every project I work on, even animation and other stuff. I dunno I get bored repeating the same style over and over again. I feel it helped me develop as an artist, being able to be diverse in what I produce and approach things in different ways but still have a unifying look to tie it together. It takes time and a lot of practice.