How satisfied are you with your art/writing? How are you actively trying to improve?

I am one of those people who is never satisfied with anything I do but I'm slowly trying to improve both my skills and my self-esteem. I tend to only look at all the things I could do better, which is great for improving but not good for self-confidence.

Unfortunately I don't have the time and energy to work on my drawing and writing skills as much as I'd like at the moment but just doing my comic does help. I get to draw things I don't normally draw and thus push my limits to learn new things. I often intentionally try to include things that are difficult for me, so that I am forced to go outside my comfort zone. It's there that I learn the most and also get to feel somewhat accomplished.

However I try my best to learn not just by doing but also by observing. I look at the world around and study the colours and the way light works. I love walking because that's when I can study my environment slowly and maybe see things in a new light. When I watch movies I look at all the visual elements that tell the story, the composition and the camera angles and all that. Same goes for all other media I consume. I enjoy it but I also try to learn from it.

Good question!

I go through stages with my art, sometimes I'm satisfied with it and others I'm not. If I am dissatisfied though I tend to look back at older work to see how far I've come and try to identify why at that moment I'm not happy with it.

I've noticed that I make a bit of progression over time with just the sheer volume of comic work I'm doing. But I tend to try and work on what I see are my weakest areas- for example at the moment it's environment work, I don't feel I put enough effort in so I've started focusing on that. I also think my basics are starting to slip a bit so I intend on doing a couple anatomy studies a day next week as warmups just as refresher. Just little things like that every now and again seem to help me and if I'm really stuck I tend to resort to watching other artists work- youtube is a godsend sometimes XD.

As for writing I don't focus on it probably as much as I should and as such feel a bit more shaky about it it. Though I did a ton of research when I was actively writing my scripts. I am currently trying to work on my dialogue as I think it's a bit flat sometimes. Reading comics and novels always helps improve but I find TV, games and films to be an good source of inspiration and help too. I tend to pick apart any of these things and think about what they did right and what I liked and then what I thought didn't work and what could've been done to fix it.

Ah that is most definitely helpful!

I would agree, though I can look back on older scripts and pick up on things that I think were bad, who's to say someone else wouldn't have liked the scene? It feels almost like writing is more subjective than the art style to me, though in true both are probably equal in that respect.

It's another good question and would be an interesting topic :). Ironically I'm more willing to overlook the artwork if I think the story is good which is almost the opposite of where my focus is. Though perhaps it's because my script is pretty much set in stone now so I have more time to dedicate to my artwork.

Writing is... I don't know. I can write papers on Japanese economy or politics, no problem (well, relatively), but when it comes to writing stories I don't have much experience tbh. My script is reworked every other week when I get a new idea on how to improve it, and only recently have I begun to feel that I'm getting closer to the "heart" of the story. My approach might be a bit too stilted and close to writing papers though haha xD

As for art, I sometimes have a thing I'm okay with, but it's pretty rare that I feel that something's good. I always see tons of stuff that could be better, and when I actually am satisfied with something, I have that little voice telling me "it's no different from everything else you make... you just can't see the mistakes right now. But everyone else can."

I wish that voice would shut up.

As for improvement, I'm enrolled in Schoolism online classes, which I definitely can recommend.

To improve on my art I largely analyse the artists I love and try to understand the patterns in their work. Like sometimes my faces seem a bit off, or my colours seem flat, or my levels aren't so great, but by seriously analysing photographs/people/artistic renderings I learn to recognise where I'm coming up short and make an effort to change. I also keep a pile of inspirational material by my laptop and flick through it every now and then when my panels seem mundane or repetitive. It'seasy to fall into the habit of using the same headshots or angles in a long form comic but simply being aware of that is half the problem already dealt with. I know I have a lot of weaknesses and limitations but I'm so thrilled with how far I've come since I began this whole thing that I know those problems are small potatoes. One day they won't be limitations any more, just got to keep practising.

For writing I try to read, though not to too much because I know I'm very suseptible to embodying the latest thing I've played/read/watched and injecting it into the comic by accident. I've avoided playing the Witcher and watching certain films for this reason. I know I'd be waaay too into them.

I do improv writing where I can, roleplaying where I can, and generally do a lot of research day to day. I use dice to mix things up as well. It can be fun to throw a Hail Mary plot changer and see how things play out from there.

Dialogue is improved by playing it in loops in my head for days on end-- not sure I'm actively doing that though! It's quite passive. I just edit things as need be. Active listening is a huge thing for me too. Like actually playing close attention to the way people talk to each other. You can learn a lot about personalities and attitudes just by observing them in action. Work is a great place to do this. Try looking at your colleagues like characters and defining their quirks.

That's all I got, though. I know there's a lot more I can do but there just isn't enough time!

Schoolism is great! I've learned so much there, right now I'm in composition class. I only miss getting feedback, but don't feel like paying for those classes... They're a tad expensive xD

I'm not satisfied with mine. I want it to look better just not sure what direction to take. There are so many things and no time to really hard core work on them for me.

I have always been pretty confident in my writing. I also have a friend who I call my "concept teammate" because she asks tons of questions about my story that I never would have thought of and has added a depth to my story just by having conversations about it.
My art is alright. I stopped drawing a ton since my freshman year of college so my skills have dwindled. I don't have a specific style so from panel to panel my style changes - my characters don't have consistent proportions either. I am working on it though. I figured that it would be best to get my webcomic posted story wise and maybe one day I'll go back and re-draw panels or whole pages if I'm not happy with them. I use a lot of pinterest pages for pose references and my concept teammate friend is always sending me video tutorials about animation, and concept art.

Well, my comic strip is patterned after the ones in newspapers, so what I do most of all is read the funny pages every day. I've picked up many different ideas by studying line art, and hope to be that good one day. Secondly, I draw comic strips nonstop. As I once read, it's hard to get worse at something you do everyday!

I'm personally ok with it, but it doesn't mean I think my work is perfect. I'm always trying to improve how my work looks. I mean I look back on my older strips all the time and compare it to my new work all the time to remind myself I am slowly improving. I want to improve my comics look for the sake of my readers and future readers, and until I feel especially confident I can't get to work on my other project ideas. This month ironically is a month of me making remakes of my first comics which I include my new ones compared to my old ones.

I'm never fully satisfied with my art or writing. But I always try to stay positive with my improvements through each piece of art or script I complete. I'm always trying to improve and I spend time everyday practicing, especially with the art side. Even if its just for 5 minutes I make sure to sketch something little everyday. I find it good practice to observe surrondings on a daily basis too. Focus on the lighting where ever I am and how its effecting objects and people within the room, different architecture and textures too.
I don't believe there is a way to become 'perfect' with art, but that helps me stay on the positive note that even if I'm not fully satisfied with my art, I am getting better and will continue to approve with time

How satisfied are you with your art/writing?

But seriously, I think I've improved more at writing than at art. (Except when it comes to literal writing, like a novel. I found out I'm apparently very n00b at that. XD) Though even when it comes to writing I vary on how well I do.

Looking back at my early chapters of Daniel, I suppose my art's gotten better, little by little, but I do wish I had more time to really buckle down and improve on certain things, like anatomy, perspective, coloring/shading and just overall design for random pictures. I just do my best to experiment and improve on things I'm bad at as I go along.

Writing I have a ton of confidence in. I've done a lot of writing in my life (more scientific than creative), however, that's only because I have never decided to actually put my creative writing to good use. I only wish that my artistic skill could even be half as good as my writing is (though obviously that's not perfect either).

Having never drawn before at the age of 34, I've really struggled to start. I have purchased a couple of books by Christopher Hart. Those have helped to try and grasp some of the fundamentals. I also subscribed to a course on Udemy to help learn the fundamentals. YouTube has been helpful to a certain degree. Having gone through this thread however I've found quite a few new things to help me on my quest to improve my artwork. Thank you all for sharing, and if there are any other beginners out there I'd recommend the Christopher Hart books.

I tend to procrastinate because I'm lazy and depressed. When I finally drag myself into a drawing or writing session I always feel fulfilled by the writing and disappointed with the drawing. I think it's because drawing is visual so it's a lot easier to see the flaws in a drawing than a piece of writing. I also set my expectations too high.