My art style has changed many times over the many, many years.
Back in the late 80's/early 90's, when I used to draw my Sam the Shark comic, it looked like this:
When I drew people they tended to look like characters from The Simpsons:
So did my animals:
Eventually I switched up my style to something a little less Simpson-esque (please forgive the water damage, these drawings are 30 years old and stuff happened):
Then I stopped drawing for nearly three decades. I decided to pick it up again during the COVID pandemic, so I bought a Microsoft Surface Pro 8 and got down to it. I wanted to reboot my Wild Nights, Hot and Crazy Days story, and this was my first character concept (first row). I hated it, so I redid the characters (second row):
As time progressed I learned the art program better and refined my style:
And refined some more:
Eventually I figured out shading, lighting, and transparencies:
...And started paying attention to backgrounds:
When I started my new story I wanted more realistic characters (no "cartoon eyes") and really got into backgrounds:
But the problem with drawing like this is that I cannot draw a straight line. It's a medical thing. My hands have always been really shaky. I have carpal tunnel syndrome and Parkinson's runs in my family. I forced myself to try, but it took a lot of effort and I wasn't really liking the results, so recently I decided to switch styles again to a rougher, "sketched" look. I still spend way too much time on shading, but I like the new look:
...And am now applying it to new updates of my first story as well (this is the most recent, just finished yesterday):
