Not worrying about being perfect/popular & improving

[dalo]

Seriously, I've seen too many artists who spend like 50 hours on one page for their comic, trying to make the art super detailed, perfect line art, etc. then see them stop making their comic after three pages or so. Don't use up all your stamina on one single panel, the goal of making a comic is improving your art, writing, and pacing, so you dont want to spend like 5 hours just doing the line art for 1 page of your comic. If you want to make your art better, experiment with colors, shading techniques, 3 dimensional perspective, and whatever. go around the whole color wheel, use tones, tints, shades etc., and do something different each time. try making different color palettes for your pages (go take a look at the art on Drawception , they make use of limited color palettes, and people can create masterpieces with only 5 colors!) You don't need to make your characters the same color the whole comic out. You need to think about how light affects colors depending on how light/dark it is, and stuff. Plus for darker parts of the story, people usually use darker tones, and for happy moments, lighter tones, etc. i dont teach art, so you can research more about color theory, comic pacing, writing, story tropes, etc. by yourself >:]

You may be devastated that your comic only got 2 views on your first day, and you may worry about changing your art style to make it more "appealing" to others, but don't even think about it! Just keep going the way you're going, and you'll get better and better. And the longer you're at it, the more people will be around to see it. Take constructive criticism well, if someone says they hate your art style that is not constructive criticism, but you can use that remark to feel like you want to prove to that person that your art is going to be the best in the west, and keep on drawing, and changing, and learn everything about art, and soon you'll be better than you were months ago. Don't think too highly of your art, but still take pride in what you draw. Avoid hugboxes, where everyone is fawning over every drawing you make regardless of how good it is. find people who can criticise your art and tell you what to improve on. Your art will never be perfect, but that means youll never stop improving. There's always something new to learn about, something to try out, Don't worry about being weird, being unique is how you stick out in the crowd.

Concentrate more on making your story unique and interesting, than on your art. Sometimes if a comic has a really, really good story, i wont care about the art at all (maybe just a little bit). One example you should look at is Weaver's art for Ruby Quest.

its very simple, yet the story and the writing made me binge the whole thing in 2 days. (u should go read it, a whole lot of gore though) Look at abstract art games such as Space Funeral and Off which have amazing art styles, character designs, colors, and very very cryptic storylines- sometimes you can let the audience interpret what your drawings & story means, much like when you imagine what a setting or a character looks like in your head when you're reading a book. Dont be afraid to use inspiration and meld it into your own style.

so what im saying is, go experiment, and keep improving and changing your comic! its ok to change your art style, use different tones of color, and change your character designs to make them stand out. If you think the title of your comic or your characters names aren't catchy or unique enough for you, then its ok to change them! If you're losing the willpower to resume your comic, then think about plot points that you will be excited to reach. Don't rush the comic and reach the climax in like, 2 pages though. That's a big mistake I did.

Don't make your comic 100% serious! Even if your comic is categorized as Drama, you dont need to make every character super gruff and edgy and serious. HEY IM BATMAN, AND IM HERE TO FIST OF THE NORTH STAR YOU IN THE CROTCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you can put jokes. jokes r .FUNNEH!!! puns are not PUNNY ARRGH!! jk JK! be careful not to put like 100 of them in 1 page then your drama will becom a COMEDEH!!!

ok yea i cant think of anything else. my brain is encapsulated in a flask of molten sand I recently gravitated from the beach to my humble home into my galactic microwave, in a form of what you may call "SLUDG"

ok when i mean focus on the story & not art is because i am really lazy and i have never put 100% effort into anything lol AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA im tired its 11 o clock and i havent done anything today
o yah exercise is imporktant dont stay cooped up in your room hunched over your desk like quasimodo go run a goddamn mile you slobbbb and get RIPPED >;{{{{ GO OUTSIDE AND GET INSPIRATION FROM TREES AND STUFF! need that uv radiation in your skin bro
yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
wat

[ble]

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[keii4ii]

Concentrate more on making your story unique and interesting, than on your art.

What about those of us who worry way too much about making the writing perfect!?

(only semi-joking...)

[gh0stcr33p]

If you're losing the willpower to resume your comic, then think about plot points that you will be excited to reach.

that's the main thing that's been keeping me going all this time... I'm glad someone else thinks the same

[LCT_m_a_d]

In a world where everyone is just trying to get stuff done there's nothing wrong with wanting to do one or 2 things perfect

[Tobirone]

Wanting to be "perfect" is pretty "normalish" I think, at least for most comic artists. Or maybe even artists in total.
I think what is even more important than the style of ones art is the story itself. I am not saying I am perfect myself, in fact it's quite the opposite. But the story needs to have some kind of consistency:
Does the deeds of your characters have consequences?
Or is every episode of your story a fresh reset (like in Family Guy, Simpsons etc... I know those franchises enrage quite a lot fans and non fans, but they are perfect examples. )

Art is of course important too, but it all depends. "Cyandide and Happiness" for instance didn't become kind of popular for their perfect art style (cough to say the least!), but because of their hilarious, sinister and outright dark humour (everyhting themselves).

My point being: Story over art ... but try not to be lazy. Try to improve both in art itself and art-creation-time ratio.

Is it easy? No. But we don't want to drop out comics because it is an easy thing to do, do we?

[Rhonder]

I totally resonate with this. With my comic I allow a certain degree of "sloppiness" in order to get through pages faster, and try not to sweat the small mistakes too much. Like with my linework, I ink traditionally so some mistakes are bound to pop up here and there. And on coloring, I'm still learning the ins and outs of digital coloring, so my shading is sometimes a tad blotchy.

But I think the important part is to strike a balance. Obsessing over making everything perfect can make a page take "too long", but it's also noticeable when you allow your drawings to be too lazy. Even simple styles that are popular maintain a certain level of polish and consistency. And like I'm chill with the allowances I take because even with those, the art has gotten a lot better over the course of the comic. As long as it continues to improve, I'll be happy~

The writing's a different beast, for me at least. I did all of the writing for this short story up front, so there's not a lot of visible progress on that front, aside from the dialogue which I adjust on the fly. It wont be until I finish this project in a few months and move to the next that I can apply my new knowledge in that area I do see a lot of mistakes that were made with the original plot/script so I'll be happy to give it another shot next time.

[unknown_user]

But if the person wants to draw comics nearly to the best level possible for them, because they really enjoy to get a good result and want everything to look as close to how it looks in their head, as possible - is there really anything wrong with it?
I think that the best way to do comics is just that way, which makes a creator happy, in one way or another. And since some people enjoy one aspect of creation more, and other people - another, there is no universal advice about art quality possible.

[zammap]

That's kinda why I picked this style for my first comic. It's much easier and simple than my other styles that I can do.

[QueenofBabyLoon]

If people weren't dissatisfied about their art, if they didn't wish to make their performance and the image they have in their head match desperately … there wouldn't be much progress, would there?

It can be difficult to understand the difference between being satisfied with one's effort and being satisfied with one's work. It is normal to be happy with improving, with moving forward, with the results of hard work and commitment.

But when someone gets satisfied with a level of art achieved, that is where the progress stops. The skill just stop evolving because there is no drive to improve anymore. You willingly reach a baseline (to all those who think I am dissing artists who believe their art is amazing - nope, I am just talking about myself having at one point reached that baseline, is all; not trying to be snarky).

Long story short … I agree with you absolutely.

[dawgofdawgness]

Yup, I think it's important to keep a mindset of "I'm doing this for fun, I'm trying to write a story, and worrying about the art shouldn't keep me from having fun." or else you may become burnt out.

On top of that, you SHOULDN'T try to make everything perfect if you're aiming to improve as an artist. If you spend 8 hours on making sure that the head is perfectly round, or certain lines are straight, you end up losing sight of the big picture. And that's honestly what art is - the big picture. That's why you squint your eyes when you're done with a digital piece, or have a friend hold your painting from the other side of the room. Because if you're leaning way too hard on making the details perfect, and don't spend time making sure the "big picture" makes sense and looks good, your entire painting is soiled.

Same thing with comics. I see this a LOT - the artist spends 10 hours on a single page, making sure every line is perfectly straight and there are no bumps in the lineart. Every character is meticulously rendered, and everything is put in neat little boxes. And in the end, it looks stiff and bad. On top of that, they just spent like half of their lifespan making a SINGLE page. You bet your ass they're going to be burnt out after that.

One example I like to look at when I find myself becoming a perfectionist is the art from Koko Be Good:

this thing is LITTERED with tiny imperfections. Jen Wang didn't even bother making the PANELS look straight - they look wobbly as hell, yet they fit the art style. You can see the blue pencil marks for godssake. The plates aren't perfectly round, that spoon on the bottom left looks dumb, and the perspective isn't perfect. But as a whole, it's gorgeous. And it gets the job done.

That being said, you shouldn't use "my art is terrible but story is AMAZING!!!11!" as a crutch. Comics are a visual medium, and you should 100% use that to your advantage. If there's room to improve, then do it. If you're drawing terribly proportioned people and using neon colors after drawing comics for 10 YEARS, I don't care how good your story is. At that point you're just lazy and don't want to improve. Like take Loadingartist as an example. The guy is funny. You could say that people read his comics for the "content" rather than art, especially when he first started.

This is his first comic:

and this is his latest:

Even if your art doesn't MAKE the comic, you should still at least make an attempt to improve. Experiment, try new things, and stay loose. It's not just for art. It's how you're supposed to live. :^)

[racarter]

There’s not anything wrong with wanting to create amazingly detailed pages to the best of their ability or anything. The issue is more getting wrapped up in the perfection of it.

It took me a long time to learn to not do that because I’d get frustrated if I couldn’t get that one little detail, you know? I found that not stressing so much about these things actually improved my art overall. I was drawing faster, my details were better, because I wasn’t fixated on making it look perfect.

As for making progress, well, you can be satisfied with your art and still make progress as an artist. I’m satisfied with my art but that doesn’t stop me from learning and improving as time goes on. Like recently I was getting stressed over this male character, since I can’t draw men as well as women, mostly because of his hair and outfit. Nothing I did looked right and I got too caught up in getting it just right. But I had to draw this one page, realized I didn’t have a final design for him... so I just went “screw it” and made something on the spot without fixating too much on it. He came out looking closer to what I imagined for him to begin with.

The issue is more about burnout. I could make an amazing page but I’d spend 3 days on it, effectively putting in too much effort into something people will take 5 seconds to look at. Some people can create detailed stuff easier than others, but I save my detailed stuff for every once in a blue moon because it’s a lot of effort. And I could have spent that time getting 3 different pages done instead.

By all means push yourself, just don’t push yourself so much that you get fed up with it.

Also accept that perfection doesn’t exist as beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What you consider perfect, someone else considers it a flaming garbage barge fire of dog shit. Meanwhile they may think stick figures are the height of artistic achievement. Lol

Frankly, most people are not going to notice little mistakes anyway - which is why striving for perfection is pointless. Once you free yourself from the idea of perfection, ironically you can come closer to achieving perfection.