Shortcuts In Art - Bad or Good?

[jordanthelass]

I don't think it's necessarily cheating. As long as you've drawn the backgrounds yourself, that's okay. Always take in as much inspiration as you can!

On the other hand, if you're using the backgrounds from anywhere else .. maybe that's being lazy. It's always nice to push yourself! ^_^

[Shanny8]

In my upcoming webcomic I traced over a pic of a Prius. There was just NO WAY I was going to gobble up tons of time trying to draw this thing on a screen(I'm drawing the comic digitally). I think I skimped enough on it so that it could fit with my art style...for the most part, I usually draw out most of my backgrounds.

Like a couple other posts stated- you've chose to be a comic artist. Doesnt matter whether you're a industry pro, or small independent artist- as webcomic artists you're trying to get your page/story done within a certain time frame, and unlike industry pros who have been around for a while, we dont have tons of books and/or reference photos...so you have to do whatever you can to give you an edge towards getting your work(s) done by a deadline. If it's using 3D programs, tracing a certain pose, or using model pose material, then it's helping you get the job done.

In your spare time if you wanna get better at doing art the traditional way, then do so...but if you want to make a job or make a pretty penny out of doing comics, then you better be willing to take some shortcuts to get the work done.

[jennula]

I think using sketchup and 3D models are fine if you want to beat deadlines =) If you want it to make it more yours, just do a rough sketch of the 3D render, toss/hide away the layer with the 3D ref and just do your line art on your own rough sketch. The result might not be getting a too much of a traced look then. I've done this a few times to get cars looking right and whatnot.

With that said, it's always good to do studies too! But with tight deadlines, it can be better to just use 3D refs and such =)

[quakeulf]

Lazy art makes me a lazy reader meaning I'll just skip it and move on to something else.

BUT, I use a lot of tools in my own art as well. There's nothing wrong with doing whatever you can to get a good result. Don't call it cheating or shortcuts, it's all about delivering a nice end result. The most important aspect is aesthetics. If you can make it work as a whole then it's golden.