Should I make art style simple (-er)?

[BiTronic]

So, I mainly started my comic to improve my drawing.
Lately though, I have less free time to draw because I have more things I have to help out with at home.
Also, this is more personal but my depression makes it hard to be motivated to finish a drawing.

This is the latest page I did, its bigger than when it's displayed on Tapas because of the 940px but it took 2 months in total to finish, so art wise should I cut my losses and simplify it even further than I have?

Also a bit unrelated, should I make the text bigger on future pages? I don't really draw this with Tapas' size in mind but any advice would be helpful.

[fleohr]

First: OMG, your art is truly amazing!!

Ok, so if you want to make a comic with very consistent uploads, then you must do something more simple and leave the master pieces to patreon supporters to see how you usually draw. You can do wallpapers, WIP, etc

And about the text, if you can read it on your phone without having to zoom in or wear glasses, then it's all good. I think 18 pt was one of the suggestions, but it depends on what font you are using, some of them can be smaller than the others, so be careful

[leecomics]

Why not simplify your art for most of your pages and do one such page every so often? (either for Patreon as @fleohr mentioned or for impactful pages).

If you're trying to tell a story taking 2months per upload will drag this project out and make it take far longer to complete than necessary.

[Wumbl]

I'd actually recommend simplifying most of the panels and then adding more detail to the ones that require extra emphasis... I'd mostly recommend just reducing the amount of detail - if you want to upload quickly you've got to figure out a way to get your pages finished without depression / time getting in the way. I find that simplifying backgrounds a bit helps with this... I take forever to draw out backgrounds, so I skip out on some details just to save time, in some of the panels. So long as you are indicating the space you can play around with them.

[revisionstudios]

I would definitely try to simplify. It's absolutely gorgeous, but with a comic, getting content out is usually more important than making it really pretty.

You can still do full color with shading and make it look great without going into the same amount of detail. Instead of painting each panel, limit yourself to one shade color and maybe some gradients.

An awesome example I know of that has gorgeous art with simpler technique is Unsounded. I linked a page that has some atmosphere and effects.

She puts out 3 pages a week. Of course, don't hold yourself to that speed yet--but try to get it down to at least once a week! It's hard to see with the display of the pages being smaller, but her lineart tends to be on the sketchier side (but still looks good since it flows so well), her base colors are on point to convey lighting and atmosphere, and her shading looks like it's limited to one or two layers.

So your job is going to be to learn how to imply detail without actually doing it. Find techniques that are quick and do the job rather than sweating over the small stuff.

[joe_galindez]

I'd say simplify. You're almost falling into Heavy Metal syndrome, where every page is so dense and ornate it breaks up the flow of the story.

Also, got a link I can bookmark?

[BiTronic]

Thanks! Oh, I don't have a Patreon or am doing this for money or anything like that, it's free real estate.

[BiTronic]

I guess I'm already doing that with reserving more detailed/painted panels for important plot point scenes that wouldn't be resolved in the arc, but I'm worried of making it too simple looking.

[BiTronic]

Thanks for the advice, and yeah implied detail's something I need to work on, my draftsmanship's still "eh" so detailing as is also something I need to learn along with shorthand
Though idk, I havn't gotten around to reading it (backlog for a few years now) but Unsounded still looks fairly detailed for a cel-shaded style :o

[SleepingPoppy]

The art is gorgeous, especially your color theory, which practically glows off the page. I think part of the problem is that you're not being consistent between panels. The two semi close-ups appear to be drastically more painterly, when it really isn't necessary. As mentioned by others, save the extra juice for when it's really important, and give things a more uniformed style through (unless you're experimenting, then do you!)

As far as simplifying, I think working in a consistent method will help streamline your process and get things going faster. You have to decide how simplified to go or not go and what speed works for you. Ideally for a web comic you usually want to be producing at least a page a week. BUT you're making this thing for free, you absolutely can do things at whatever pace you want. It depends what your personal goals are.

That said, the text is pretty small. These days a lot of readers are on their phones, so bigger text can go a long way toward readability. If possible, check your comic pages on the tapas app and see how it looks. I turn my phone sideways so I get the bigger view without having to zoom in. If the text and images are readable like that, then its good!

Also, as someone who digitally paints their comic, totally sympathetic for pages taking forever. I hope you find a style thats simple enough to get things moving, but still show cases your awesome skills! It might just take time to find what works for you!

[BiTronic]

@joe_galindez Here's the link

FAR AWAY | Tapas

@SleepingPoppy I'm planning on doing that with painted stuff, but idk since plot wise that is an important moment (or at least the dialogue is)

I don't have the Tapas app on my phone for reasons basically involving the app store and invalid credit/debit cards, so thanks for your feedback and advice about the text! I need to try to optimize it not just for Deviantart.

I can't change the text size now for pages I've done without changing composition and doing entire redraws, so if I could ask, would you think it would be better to switch to a larger font size midway the story or after I'm done for the chapter (and for future chapters) for consistency?

[Luminosophy]

I really dig your artwork, not just the technique but I love the atmosphere through colour, too!

You could always try working on a side illustration and experiment with new means of painting? I normally paint my BGs and a /lot/ of time went into them. Recently though I found a way where I can "paint" things in a much faster method by using a form of cel-shading. Really when you get down to it, placing the right colours in the right areas is really what pulls off the illusion of depth, light and form. When I realized colour placement took precedence rather than just blending things for shadow and lighting, it increased my productivity ten fold. For example;

I was able to paint this image in a day:

Mun

Compared to this which took a few weeks at the time:

Peeko's Day Out Series Icon

Granted it's only increased speed on subjects I'm familiar with, still need to spend time learning the texture of new objects. The above might be too messy for you, I know it is for me. But it's at least a proof of concept that once you place down your colours, you only need to spend a little time smoothing it out and you should still be able to get some painterly feel all the same. I don't think it's nearly a matter of simplifying overall style as it just simplifying your approach. (I'll still use blending as a basic gradient underneath, but then use cel-shading to flat in details on top.)

I really think focusing on colour placement will speed up everything overall. :>
(It looks like that's what the artist of Unsounded does as well. Subjects only have colours that denote basic shadow and light placement, not much beyond that. Which is all that's truly needed.)

Here I found an article on painting, where one artist is using a technique called 'tiling' to just lay down her values first of all like a map. Then works on top of it to bring it together.

4 Pro Tricks for Painting Realistic Portraits Every Time

"Ann Manry Kenyon is a direct, or alla prima painter, which means she likes to complete a portrait while the oil paints are still wet. This allows her to lay down thin patches of color mixtures and then blend them together as she refines the portrait.

Some artists refer to those brushstokes of color as tiles—disconnected marks indicating the appropriate shapes, values and colors that can eventually be brought together to create the appearance of skin, hair, clothing, etc."

Anything like this will increase your efficiency.

[Ironscarf]

I agree with joe_galindez. It's not just about how long it takes to make a page IMHO, but the reading experience. If you give the reader to much information, it can be a bit daunting. Great for covers, but when you're pacing a story sometimes less is more. It gives readers a chance to fill in the detail themselves and feel more involved. Sometimes I look at comics I loved as a kid and I'm always surprised how little of the detail I remember is actually there on the page.

The hardest part is resisting drawing something you know will impress people, in favour of something that tells the story more effectively. Like the guitarist who wants to solo through the whole song.

[Rhonder]

Another aspect to consider when evaluating how much you need to reduce your time-to-page ratio is how long the whole story is, and if you'll realistically be able to finish it at the current pace. For a short story, going over the top and making amazing pages like the one presented might be totally acceptable to you if it's, say, 20 pages, then you'll have this gorgeous masterpiece done in a year and a half, and it'll be awesome!

On the other hand, if this is like a 20 chapter story or something, I would definitely work on figuring out where you can give and take to get your time-per-page down xD;; This may just be me, but I get burned out if it takes too long to make progress in a story. Like if a year goes by and I'm only 12 pages into the first chapter of a longer comic, chances are the plot hasn't gone very far yet and I'll start to consider if the current project is an effective use of my time or not... I did this very thing at the end of last year, actually. over the course of 2 months, put out 8 pages of a story (which isn't a bad pace for a newbie) but realized that my planned tale was 10's of chapters long, and nothing exciting would happen, even at that pace, for like... over a year. So I shelved the project until I gain speed and even when I return to it, will likely edit down the story as much as possible and perhaps make some concessions with my art style (grayscale or black&white instead of full color) to make it happen. Working on a 60 page one-shot now instead xD even 8 pages in, fun stuff is already happening, which is good for my morale.

[danitasibert]

Hello, your work is FRICKIN AMAZING!!!!
Even thought it's nicely detailed, it would benefit you to have some pages that are simple. It will give the readers a break from detail overload, which isn't a bad thing! Other than that I think your comic will be really successfu much luckl! ^_^