I’m worried I’m too young

[KilljoyConstruct]

I really want my comics to take off someday, but like the title says, I’m worried that I’m too young. Not young as in age (though I am that too) but young as in my journey as an artist. I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in my work, even though I absolutely love what I do. I’m scared that one day I’m gonna look back on my current work and realize that it’s not good enough to publish. I know that improvement is inevitable, and that my future work will be better than my current work, but I want my current work to be good too, if that makes sense.

Idk, I’m rambling. Anyone have any advice on how to feel better about my art?

[SmidgeArt]

I've been in your shoes
I've been drawing since I was 12 and even now I don't feel good about my art, I'm almost 25
Keep practicing, try experimenting with new mediums! Challenge yourself by working with 3 colors, using pen only, listen to some new music and let it take your art, doing contour art etc.
You should go after anything that interests you. If it doesn't work out at least you can say you gave it a shot instead of wondering if it would have ever worked out

[byelacey]

I’m scared that one day I’m gonna look back on my current work and realize that it’s not good enough to publish

You might! You probably will! But that doesn't mean it'll never be good enough to publish. I think it was Spike Trotman who said we all have about 200 pages of bad comic in us to get through before we're any good (big paraphrasing here). I look back at my old pages and cringe, I know I can do better now, but I've committed to a long story and I'm going to finish it. And I'm going to be much better at comics by the end of it.

The only way to get good at something is to do it, and to keep doing it.

[Jenny-Toons]

I’m scared that one day I’m gonna look back on my current work and realize that it’s not good enough to publish

Well, let's flip this coin on the other side -- One day alludes to your improvement in the future. As we keep working to improve ourselves and our work, we start to see those results. In the process, looking back on old work can feel like cringe.

But -- that past you and your past work is the foundation to the new you and your new work. Personally for me,my improvement has helped me look back on my older work and see why it feels cringey, but also see where I was going right. Even more, I still see the love that went into it and the love that kinda kept me going to where I am now and where I'll be in the future.

It's good to be aware of how you can improve. But it also helps to embrace old mistakes and understand why we made them creatively. As cringey as they can be, even if it's a few years apart, we can kinda see where we were going and maybe even see parallels in our newer works.

[xabelmind]

Not young as in age (though I am that too) but young as in my journey as an artist.

I love this phrasing so let me elaborate a bit here:

Your age in your art journey is like your mental age, it only changes if you do something to change it. Making a comic is a great way to not just develop your artistic skills one by one in a regular basis, but also to slowly stop "being too young as an artist" and flow towards a more calm and experienced look towards your work and the world.

From my own experience, one day you'll look back and realize "wow, look where I started and where I am now... it's amazing" That's the kind of level-headed look you acquire in your journey and you seem to be right in that path. Grab your confidence from under the rag and keep giving your best to improve, you'll be there faster than you think

[lynestjules]

I've been in your shoes and I honestly felt that way about my comic series. It's actually one of the many reasons why I held off on starting to produce pages. I felt that it wasn't exactly how I had envisioned, but I really wanted to get it out there. However, I wanted to get it printed and hopefully get it into some comic stores. I felt that the story I had was too important to mess up by rushing into it.

It's inevitable as an artist to change over time. It is extremely likely that you'll eventually look at your first chapter and cringe a things. It's part of the journey as an artist. I'd say most of us look back at our own work and cringe. But, at the same time you think "Wow! Look how far I've come so far!".

Don't tell yourself you're not good enough to get it published. Because, honestly you never really know what's going to happen. Artwork makes it pleasing to the eye, but if your story is solid and interesting, you have more than you think. Because, you can have the most beautiful artwork, but unless you have a solid story, you have nothing. Artwork will only get you so far with comic books.

I don't have a publisher for mine, I'm completely independent. Started it to design and write it when I was 17, but held off on producing the final artwork to get it printed until I was 28 (although I have a draft comic done at the age of 17 of it. It's absolutely terrible!!!) . However, now it's printed and it's in some comic stores and an art gallery.

My suggestion is to make sure you have a solid story and just keep working on your artwork, if you feel like it's not where you wanted it to be. It's not a race. We all progress at different speeds. As for publishing, it's 2020, if you want to publish, you can publish. But, save a lot of money, it's not cheap.

[amortelito]

There is the other side of the coin: I felt too old to even start publishing stuff. I wish I had started younger and learnt earlier what should I do and don't. I'm glad I started when I had a decent technique, but no matter how much I practice behind closed doors there are things that can only improve when you start reading feedback and interacting with readers. I I know that my previous work would have been ugly and wonky and still I wish I had showed them before.

Just do your best, If some drawings look too "amteur" keep working on them before uploading them.

[k5rakitan]

I know a writer who is over 40. She's employed as a narrative designer by a gaming company, and she still has anxiety over her work not being good enough.

My advice is to keep going no matter what. I'm only sharing my latest piece on this platform, but I wrote some stuff on fanfiction.net about ten years ago. I don't want to look at it, but I leave it up because people tell me they still enjoy it. Someone somewhere will like it, and even if you only make one person smile, it's worth it.

[Ardelvion]

I'll just be offering advice based from my experience because I'm sure there are other artists here who've been doing art longer than me.

Just keep practicing and doing what you love. Read other webcomics/comics and see if there are art styles that you look up to. And once you find those art styles, experiment with different art mediums (be it digital or traditional) until you're satisfied with your work. Perhaps one day, when you become successful in that area, you'll probably look back at your old work and realize just how much you've grown and how much you've achieved.

As you can see from the pictures above, I'm also quite young in my journey as an artist because I started taking it seriously in December 2018 (I was 27 that time). And my art during that time was the same art I used for March 2019 up to August 2019. You can't see pictures of my art between August 2019 and September 2019 because I was trying to learn more about anatomy.

If there's one thing I've learned from all of this is that I should've started young because as I get older, I probably wouldn't have more time to improve on my art because of "adulthood" responsibilities. I try to find time working on my current webcomic though but not to the extent where my health would be at risk. Sometimes I have eye problems just by looking at a digital screen for too long or hand problems because I've been drawing with my hand in the same position for too long.

[thel3tterm]

I've been there, but I can assure you, it's never too soon to start a comic.

Making a comic is one of the BEST ways to grow as an artist, and you can always go back to fix up older pages that you don't feel are up to snuff.

Get out there, experiment, and make something only you can. I PROMISE you won't regret it.

[darthmongoose]

It's inevitable that someday you're going to look back on your work and go "UGH." Even if it's verified as being print quality by people in the industry, and even if you did it for a professional gig, even if you thought at the time it was the best thing you'd ever drawn, you'll still go "ugh. That was awful." It's really just an inevitable part of being an artist whose work isn't stagnant.

Example:Here's a piece of art of Marvel's Runaways I did when I was 25. I was doing professional gigs at this point, mostly for events and the like, and I'd been a finalist in the Tokyopop UK Rising Stars of Manga....

AT THE TIME I thought this was AWESOME. The best thing I'd ever done! I was like aww yis, look at my awesome compositional skills fitting all these characters in and check out my totally rad inking and colouring, I'm SUCH a PRO! I showed this to a Marvel editor and, along with some samples of sequential art, they actually did send me sample scripts to have a shot at being a penciller. So this... somehow... was considered "professional quality work" or "printable".
But when I look at it now? All I see is poor use of space, too many muddy middle values and poor use of saturation, not enough line weight variety, faces badly in need of flipping, flat bodies with no volume, everyone's too straight-on to the camera in an unappealing and amateurishly staged way, poor perspective in how characters are integrated into the scene, face structures are too similar, the top of Nico's staff is crooked and her foot is in a weird position etc. etc.

The thing to take away is... the print industry standard for what looks professional is lower than a lot of artists think it is, a lot of artists are better than they think they are because they forget that for the entry-level small gigs they'll be competing against people who can't draw, not to everyone else who can. It's good to think in terms of "I'll always be evolving and improving" and to be realistic about your skill level, but it's also good to just take a chance on pitching for pro work, or printing stuff to sell at a con or going to a portfolio viewing. Becoming a pro and getting in print isn't an end-point, it's just a thing that happens on your journey as an artist. Here, this is one of the earliest published works by Emma Viecelli: Manga Shakespeare Hamlet. You can see how much better her work has become during her professional career so far in her comic here on Tapas, Breaks.
You'll keep improving and will almost certainly have pieces where you think "Oh geez, somebody PAID me for that!?" or "People actually bought this comic!?" So don't worry! Just do your best, keep improving and get advice from people with professional experience whose opinions you trust.

[humhumsong]

You better start it when you are young actually or you won't matured through experience and regret it. I have been drawing from child but I never make a comic up until I reach 20. So now I am 20, I feel like "I already 20 and achieved nothing in my life,". It feels like I already late for this and the younger artist is doing much better than me and all. Because of that I always question myself every-day "Do I even have a talent for this? Why do I even bother to draw when I can be something else? No need to be a webtoon artist,".

But because of the comment from the readers; saying it is good a webtoon, I decided to hang in there and give it all for my first webtoon.

So..um, well, before you end up like me, it's better to start early. Thanks for reading

[Darth_Biomech]

I waited 7 years before starting my comic, thinking that my drawing skills were inadequate for something like this. Don't repeat my mistake.

I’m scared that one day I’m gonna look back on my current work and realize that it’s not good enough to publish.

Oh no, it's not just that, you will want to burn it with a flamethrower. Definitely. What people do when they want a publish and their first chapters don't meet the standards anymore? They remaster them anew.

[azzy-m]

Honestly? You're going to hate your first comic and/or episode no matter what when you look back on it. Everybody who's been doing art for 1+ years has that moment, lmao. I accepted that a long time ago and I've kind of learned to deal with it.

Something that has made me feel better is that readers typically love seeing the art improvement in comics. I know I do when I read it. And readers like new content more than remasters of old content.