That initial improvement - how quickly did your comic's art change?

[oakiel]

So I'm still working on a buffer for https://tapas.io/series/DEADPAN , which is currently at 9 episodes long (about 40 pages), and recently i've noticed that during this time the art has gone from:

in a space of those 8 updates. the difference is particularly obvious for me since i started making the buffer in may 2017, and have taken month long gaps between contributing to it, which means there'll be a year's worth of art improvement in what the reader will see as a few weeks.

it's got me wondering - how much improvement do you expect of a comic, when you start out reading it?
do you always anticipate an improvement in artwork in the early stages of a comic; would you stick around for the first few updates, even if the art was lacking (see above!) because you know that it will soon get better? how long would you give the comic to improve to your desired standard? i'm a little concerned that people will be turned off my comic by the lame artwork in the prologue, but because it's such a long comic i'm resisting the urge to go back and redraw old episodes - otherwise i'll never get it finished!

i'll be interested to know if anyone else has encountered these same worries, and how their audience reacted to it

[joannekwan]

I expect all comics to change in style gradually. Even if you start off as a master of anatomy and what not, you eventually settle into drawing your characters over and over again and they will look different from the beginning to the latest page.

As far as art goes, I don't have a set standard per se, even if it looks like the most novice thing, I'll read it if it is overall pleasing and I like the story and characters.

And in your case I don't think your beginning art is bad at all! Your recent stuff is like a more polished version, but the change isn't drastic and not glaringly obvious at first glance. You started off with a very marketable style already. You will definitely find and keep an audience.

[spadesart]

here's 3 pages that are around a year apart from each other, spire's improvement has been a bit more gradual, but definitely improved the fastest within the first year. it's at 174 pages right now and the style difference from the beginning is really hard to look at for me, but it's really to be expected of longform comics. at one point i just put a disclaimer at the beginning about how the art improves

i don't have a standard for the art, as long as it's readable. i actually really like seeing how the style improves over time.

[BABYbluez]

Oh man, I had this happen to me too! I also have a buffer that's a few pages ahead and quickly noticed the difference after 2-3 updates when the style changes. So now before updating, I go back and tweak them constantly to make sure it's more consistent with the current updates, which works pretty fine for right now. Not sure if that's a good thing since it'll just show the changes in my work sooner

[Rhonder]

@ the "Will it be jarring for the quality to change over such a short amount of weeks?" question, I'd say don't worry about that... like at all LOL I'll give you another perspective to look at it from:

You're worried about your week-to-week current readers seeing a drastic change over the course of a few weeks vs. months or whatever. BUT a new reader who happens upon your series will probably blow through all of that content in a couple sittings max to get caught up. So no matter how long you space your stylistic change out in real time, there will always be some portion of readers who will see it go quickly anyways, so don't sweat the small stuff Plus, I don't think I've ever read a comic and thought to myself "crap, their art got better already?? I didn't want to see improvement for at least another chapter." The faster the better xD

@ the "how much do you expect an artist to improve/what's your baseline quality for reading" questions, the answer to both is not much, I guess?

To elaborate, art improves in comics naturally, but I don't have like... a standard of improvement I hold a comic to while reading. If/when the art gets better I'm like "awesome :D", but realistically if it's entertaining enough to read from the outset, I'm not going to set it down just because the visuals didn't improve a set amount.

Similarly, I don't really have a quality standard to start reading a comic, art-wise. While it's true that a gorgeous cover might draw my eye in easier, the story content is more important than the art quality usually. An entertaining story can carry poor art, but amazing art can't carry an uninteresting story, imo. I think one aspect to consider is first impressions though, as those are admittedly important! I would make sure that your icon/banner/cover/wev kind of convey your current/best quality style as that is a way to imply to readers where you're going. Like if I see a really pretty banner, and then open up a comic's first page and see less developed art I think "wow they've really improved a lot!" and eagerly charge ahead haha. No clue if that's the case for everyone though. I'll reiterate that story content is a lot more important anyways.

[shazzbaa]

Honestly I see a lot of folks thinking "GASP LOOK HOW MUCH OF A HUUUUUGE CHANGE IN STYLE!" and yet to me it just looks like "oh, the artist got a little more comfy." Things can be visible and feel enormous to us, because looking back we see all the things we would do differently, while readers see the same soul shining through, just a little more polished.

As a reader though, I've never started reading a comic and thought "I don't like this, but maybe it'll get better later." Like, if it has mediocre art but I like the story enough to keep reading, then I'm reading because I like it and I'm interested to see where it goes, not on the off-chance that mayyyyybe the art will improve in a way I like later. If I ever read a comic and thought "wow, I would like this if the art were better, but if it looks like this then it's not worth it" then I'd just not read it! There are so many other comics I could be reading. But....... this isn't a thought I can recall ever going through my head!!

People talk a lot about "giving a comic a chance" but honestly I don't really do that. There are ten billion comics out there; there are more comics I would enjoy out there than I could ever find time to read. So something has to hook me -- either I'm hooked by the concept, or some recent art I saw, or the character interactions I saw in the most recent page, or a character design that looks like my jam -- and once something hooks me then I'll sit through a rough start and slow pacing and off-model characters in the beginning. But if nothing has hooked me yet, I won't usually stick around to wait and see if it will eventually become a thing that I like.

[TheFalseVyper]

I've only been working on my comic for a couple of months, but the difference in art since the beginning is huuuge. I have the same fear as you, that people will be turned off from how bad the prologue looks in comparison.

One suggestion I saw lurking around on the forums was to only update the prologue cover art page. This will instantly show readers the kind of style you have developed so they are more inclined to keep reading. If you also feel it necessary, you can include a brief explanation that your style has improved over time and that the prologue isn't at the standard the rest of your comic is.

I expect that I will be doing this shortly!

[beta1042]

Mine changes alot. I'm just not worrying about it. It's kinda cool to see the progress in my opinion, although my early chapters make me cringe alittle. I can't imagine what my current chapters will look like to me in a few months.

[feuersichel]

My art got from this:

To this:

The story of Osram :: Page 5 | Tapas

In two years. The goal of this comic was to improve my artskills - Mission acomplished, I guess ^^

Well starting from a low level, there is more amount of improvements to archive than if you already start with better skills. But now I fear that potential readers will stay away because of my early pages.

For me personally, I don't really care if there is change and improvements when I read a comic. It's even a good thing! As long as the story keeps me interested, I keep on reading.

[N1ghtm4r3]

on average for me its almost 5 to 6 months that i see some significant changes,right now i am not worrying about it, i have done full redo's and it eats up waaaay to much time
https://tapas.io/episode/648888

[fuyudust]

I just started out, so for me, instead of saying it changed, I would say it is not stable yet, my art changes every chapter I created

[SpavVy]

Lol whenever I look at my old pages I cringe. The top is a screenshot from chapter one and the bottom is a sneak peek from my most recent page and the 3rd page to chapter four.

[jordanthelass]

I didn't really find my "groove" until I started studying other people's styles of backgrounds, perspective and composition. It's still a work in progress--but I saw the change immediately.

Here's how my comic Whose World used to look:

And here's how it looks now:

It took me a year and some change to realize that some people would think that I'm copy-pasting my backgrounds and such--so I had to change my style a bit; and it's still evolving I think.

Even my word bubble placement and style has improved!

All I can really say is, the more you draw your comic; the more you'll see yourself improve at certain things little by little, you know?

[Cavechan]

The first page of my comic from 2007

The second to last page from 2015

And one from a few weeks ago...

I feel like change for me has been more gradual...

For anyone interested in reading more: https://globalcomix.com/a/cave-comics-and-art or http://www.smackjeeves.com/profile.php?id=14910

[akemikae]

I started my comic like 2 months after a 3 year art hiatus, so my first chapter was changing every few updates pretty notably. It started to get stable near the end of chapter 2 (which was about a year after I started) and it's stayed a lot more stable since. It's pretty common for comics (even professional ones) to have notable differences, especially when it comes to how they draw characters. It can take a bit to become comfortable with how they're drawn, which overall, tends to make your art differences a little bit more obvious, I think.

After I felt that my art was gonna stay consistent, I redrew the series cover that I had on the top of the first update to be the current art, so that people can (hopefully) figure out that that's the art they can expect if they can just manage to get passed the first bit. I wanna redo the first chapter REALLY REALLY BAD. But I must hold back the urge for a bit, till I find a time that's reasonable.

It really depends on the artist. But oh boy. yeah. My art changing has become a lot more subtle now that I feel more settled.

Chapter 1 and then current.

[9outofPen]

I'm working on my first comic Overclocked, so the style is still inconsistent. Here's one of my more cringeworthy pages from chapter 1 compared to a better shot from chapter 2. I still have it where some panels look really good, and other ones just look weird no matter what I do to them

Ignoring the top two panels on the second image, (because I was tired and fed up lol) I think I'm getting the hang of it more. I take a long time on each page, so depending how I'm doing that day, it will either come easy or hard.

[KSlinger]

it's got me wondering - how much improvement do you expect of a comic, when you start out reading it?

When I come across a new webcomic and it lands me on the latest page, I'm never surprised to find that things look different when I flick back to the start. I expect growth and improvement over time. I think most people do.

would you stick around for the first few updates, even if the art was lacking (see above!) because you know that it will soon get better?

YES! The reason I went back to those early 'not so great' pages was because I was so intruiged by your current skills that I want to enjoy it fully with all the info. It's not about where you've been, it's about where you are.

how long would you give the comic to improve to your desired standard?

I'll happily read a comic with low quality artwork but great storytelling so overall artistic improvement is nice but not necessarily required. I won't commit to a comic if there isn't something for me to get invested in. I'd say my 'desired standard' has more to do with immersion than execution. If I can read 30 pages of your comic without noticing I've done it, you're doing great.

[lynestjules]

You're always going to change no matter what, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. However, as far as keeping it consistent, you don't necessarily want to change too much from page to page. You definitely want it to be gradually. Here's examples of mine with every page being a year apart (give or take)

[Laht]

2016 - I was experimenting the sketchy water colour-ish style...

2017 - I was learning how to use textures, pattern, lightning...

2018 - Combination of things. I don't know.
All I know is every panel now takes a lot of time. I wish to learn how to draw faster.

Artists will always improve and changing as long as they keep drawing.
Usually the readers like to see the improvements over the time. I have a lot of long time readers saying they're proud to be there to see the change.

It's like seeing someone grows up, I guess. Usually it's more interesting to see the struggles and journey of an artist trying their best to became better, than seeing someone seeking to be perfect all the time and unchanging. Maybe.

[nikaalexandra]

I agree with some of the comments made above- it takes a long time and a lot of practice for your style to evolve to the point that your audience starts to notice too. I don’t think it’s something super noticeable within the first few months of starting a comic, even if you as an artist has improved by leaps and bounds.

as far as your concerns, anyone reading isn’t necessarily reading for your art to improve- but because they like the story! There’s an old saying that good writing can support bad art, but good art cannot support bad writing. Your style will naturally improve over time whether or not you want it to, just focus on making an appealing story to read! There are hundreds of examples of artist’s who’s style and artwork have changed drastically over time, and not lost a lick of sleep for it (the infamous z-t00n always comes to mind)

That being said, here’s a four year difference between one of my first pages for 64:

VS an update from a few weeks ago:

which feel night and day when compared to each other, so yeehaw regular practice