How to do a battle/action scene?

[Vibrantes]

Considering OP asked for coreography, martial art moves and strategical use of power, I don't think their problem is only page layout or composition, but primarily the logic of how to choreograph their own fights in their head. And static images are not going to be enough for that. You may be good at drawing dynamic/fight poses, but not necessarily good at fight coreography or strategy. That's why you should look at many resources so you combine the information you absorbed into something you understand and can start visualizing yourself.

It's also important to at least try to be believable for certain characters (and I mean believable, not necessarily accurate). For example, if you have a sniper character that is supposedly the best sniper the world has ever seen, but you don't even know how to draw him holding a sniper rifle properly, it's going to feel really off to the reader. You need real photos and information for that. If you just copy another author just because their art and layout looks pretty, but they also don't know how to properly draw a character holding a gun, you will just be copying the same mistake they were committing. It's important to look at many sources and start being able to make these judgments yourself.

[Vibrantes]

I would say this is similar to the topic "don't draw only anime if you want to learn anatomy". At some point you need to look at the real thing to stylize it properly.

It doesn't mean you can't use anime references, it just means it shouldn't be your ONLY source of information.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

Definitely. Branch out when it comes to drawing action stuff. Anime only has so much to offer.

[jgreene2433]

Exactly this is about choreography of a fight on a comic page and nothing is going to teach you that except comics. Reference photos are fine, definitely use them if you need to learn how to render something accurately, but rendering an image well on a page is not the same as telling a story well. You can have all the ideas in the world from all the outside sources, but if you don't know how to compose them on a page properly then you haven't really done anything. If you're drawing comics than comics need to be your holy Bible. Film and photographs aren't going to help you figure out how large or small you should make your panels, how many details to put in them, should you or should you not use speed lines. How many panels to put on one page. Again outside sources are great for ideas and inspiration but you want to really be good at drawing comics study comics, learn the foundations of good story telling before you even think of innovating it.

[Berserker]

Watching a few boxing matches could be helpful. You could look up certain famous ones like Ali vs Foreman. Watch how the fighters react after taking a big hit.

You don't have to replicate the exact movements, hell embelish them a lot, but you can get a feeling for how a fight flows.

[Vibrantes]

But that was not the question. OP didn't ask how to draw them, they ask how to think about them. Copying something and understanding the logic behind something are different things that require different sources.

[jgreene2433]

No one said anything about copying, I said study. But any good art teacher would also tell you that there is something to learn from copying another artists work(for practice) because it does teach you how to go about thinking of ways to produce the desired results you want in your own work. Good art has to have a foundation that you build on. You want to make good comics than comics, there language there rules need to be your foundation.

[Vibrantes]

If OP already has a good foundation in comics, they won't be interested in the layout alone. They probably already have an idea of how their paneling could go, just not the strategy of the fight within the plot. That's why the question was about creating strategies for magic systems and such and not about paneling or comic foundations. There are a lot of books, movies and so on that depict good magic systems with good battle strategies. If the interest is not how to draw it but actually how to think about it, then the fact the material is visual or written doesn't matter. In the idea-generating stage you should be open to a variety of sources to get your creative juices flowing. Then when you have at least some direction to go, you should move to drawing stage and start worrying about drawing technicalities.

[GloamingCat]

Honestly I want to know more about this too. But like OP, I want something with magic, and most examples here use physical fighting only. If I was making physical fights it would definitely be waaay easier, because there's a lot of references out there, and well, I can always try it myself (Kung Fu fighter here lol).

But stuff with magic is very tricky, and I can barely find examples of primarily-magical fights. I can think of Avatar and... that's it lol. Not even a comic. Maybe some Mahou Shoujo but most fights in there are too simplified or just plain bad. Even typical Action-Fantasy stories rely a lot on melee combat and can't be used as ref for magic combat. If someone knows more good examples of this in comics it would be veeery helpful! (The more the better)

[konori]

Hmm... If the magic is being shot out like projectiles, then maybe air/space battles may be something to consider? (Especially so if the magic casters are able to fly.) Unfortunately, I don't know of any examples in comics, but for mecha series like Gundam and Macross, they have some nice-looking battles from what I last saw (which was back in the late 2000s). There's also Strike Witches and Youjo Senki where their "magicians" use a mixture of magic and guns in their aerial battles.

[jgreene2433]

First, let me start off by apologizing, I didn't mean for.this to turn into an argument. We both clearly feel passionate about this subject and shouldn't really bicker about it. It was not my intention to offend and I could'vesaid somethings better, so I apologize.

So, just speaking from my own experiences and from things that I've observed in the works of others, choreographing a fight scene by looking at outside sources, like for example can be disastrous. A movement that takes like 2 seconds of film could end up being like 6 panels of art to draw, which is tedious and can really drag out a scene. So I feel it's good to look at comics specifically in this instance cause you'll just understand better what works and what doesn't work. Figure out stuff like shortcuts and the best kind of images to get the most out of your scene. But, to each is own and ultimately it's up to all of us as creators to figure out what works best for ourselves.

[Vibrantes]

No problem, my friend! It was a good passionate discussion! Hahah

In art is hard to have any kind of "ultimate truth" in how to make things after all.