Inconsistent art in a comic?

[Chocolate]

What do you think of drawings that are not uniform/coherent in a comic? Does it seemed unprofessional? Would you recommend for artists to have a consistent artstyle in their comic?

(PS: my art style keep changing. Sometimes they looked great, but sometimes they looked like its drawn from completely different artists. Would changing in artstyle affects one’s comic greatly?)

[IndigoShirtProd]

Inconsistency is a given when it comes making art, especially if your actively growing. Seeing an artist's progression of skills throughout the course of a webcomic is actually something that readers appreciate. On the flip side, changing styles chapter to chapter or even page to page can be off-putting because it comes off as unprofessional and unpolished. You might lose readers if they don't like a new style you adopted that's different from the one that drew them in. I would recommend a consistent style, but with room to improve your skills within the style.

Edit: Another thing I didn't account for anthology series. If an anthology, then it's fine for the styles to be different, it's just the themes that have to be consistent.

[PapaDom]

If the original artist can't work anymore on their comic, it's totally fine if someone else starts where they left off.

If an indie creator keeps improving over time or has to make the art style simpler due to health issues or other things (like getting used to a new job that takes time and energy from them), that's fine too.

But it's not okay if the art style changes with each page making it an incoherent mess that's hard to follow. It's better to stick to one art style and try to focus on the panel flow so that readers, new and old, can keep track of the story.

[NickRowler]

Your artstyle will evolve overtime especially if you start your series as an amateur and you are using your series to help improve your skills.

I think what is more distracting is if you can't keep the style consistent for a single page or a chapter/episode.

[LunarScyphozoa]

I think there’s a difference between inconsistency and evolution in the art. The artist getting better over time is definitely different from two panels on the same page looking entirely different. I personally find art getting better one of the best parts of webcomics, but that might just be me.

[JaveCraze]

I think inconsistent art isn't bad, as long as it steadily improves. If there's a random page that looks extremely lazy, not just "oh the artist didn't know how to draw this", but instead they chose to rush then yes imo that's bad, but if it's inconsistent in that page 1 looks like a beginner drew it and page 15 looks like a pro drew it then it's fine. People improve the more they draw, and comics are a lot of mini drawings. I would personally like to see examples of your artstyle change, but I assure you it's (probably) not as bad as you think.

[SoftWonderBun]

Progression and evolution in your art is only natural over time. However, if you find that page to page or even panel to panel you cannot keep a consistent 'look' for you characters, environment, props, etc. then that is potentially a lack of foundational drawing and composition skills, maybe even an under developed plot that is making hard for you to progress with the story.

Style, format and execution all contribute to making a comic enjoyable for readers. Lack of consistency on a micro-level(panel to panel, even character drawing to character drawing) make it hard for readers to enjoy the ride of your story because things like that can be very distracting and take them out of the experience. If you find that an issue for you, taking some time to build up your basic skills and working on your page execution(drawing sample pages) will give you skills to fall back on for future pages.

These are just broad guesses as your work is not linked but hopefully it is of some help to you.

[ccmatta]

I did it a lot when I was in the begining (and still do with characters I draw less), and I think the issue is that I hadn't drawn them enough before starting the comic, so they wouldn't be uniform through the pages. Now I have a better grip of them so I have a more consistent artstyle.

I do think the lack of consistency shows that we are amateurs and make our work less professional, unfortunatelly. At the same time, I agree that improvement is different from inconsistency though. Your artstyle can always evolve and change, you can always see that even in mangas (I only can think of Gravitation right now) and I find it fascinating, I love to see that improvement, but changing from panel to panel is... complicated, you know? It kind of shows you don't know how to draw your own character in a way, cuz you're always changing it. But that's my own take on it, and obviously I do that from time to time yet, I'm far from professional xD

And if that affects the comic I can't say for sure, as a creator, I notice those things when I'm reading a comic, but I may not drop the comic just because of that if the story is good, you know? An avarege readder may not even notice it em keep reading it.

[TheLemmaLlama]

I assure you it's (probably) not as bad as you think.

^ This! Artists tend to be a bit paranoid about minor inconsistencies in their art that most people won't even notice I remember many times where someone was all 'help my art is inconsistent' and when I looked at their art, I'm like ... I literally can't tell the difference :'D

Too much inconsistency does throw readers off (and I guess look unprofessional), though I daresay you'll improve faster if you're not afraid of experimenting with different ways of doing things. It depends on your priorities really; are you making this comic to improve your skills or to put out a polished product?

[JaveCraze]

just fill the whole comic with dream scenes or something and you'll have an easy excuse
lol kidding but this mentality can help with a lot of other problems too, sure, your art may not be as amazing as the ones on the top, but if it looks interesting then who cares?

[system]

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