I definitely approve of your burning desire for improvement! I can completely understand that feeling of "I need to get better at everything! ASAP! By thinking about where your weaknesses are and striving to be better, you're already on the right path.
Looking at your work, I'd say that while your colour work has room to grow, it's not that bad, so I'd say your main areas for improvement are perspective and learning to apply that to your figures so they have a bit more solidity. You have a decent understanding of how to place figures in a scene, your proportions aren't bad, particularly the faces, and your panels are readable. The main issue is your understanding of space, depth and volume.
Seek out the following books:
Perspective! For Comic Book Artists - David Chelsea
Colour and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter - James Gurney
Making Comics - Scott McCloud
Drawn to Life volume 1 - Walt Stanchfield
For you specifically, I'd recommend Perspective! and Drawn to Life first to build up your figure drawing skills. A bit of observational drawing (like life drawing, doesn't have to be naked) would certainly help, and speed figure studies to build up your confidence in where you put your lines.
Thanks for checking out my profile and seeing what my weaknesses are!
I will definitely take your advice and work on that.
It's funny you mentioned observational drawing because I just started a sketch book of drawing random people on the bus when I take the bus places! Completely observational . Just draw what I see.
I wil try to get these books I hope they're not expensive.
Thanks again for your review!
Yeah, comics are complicated... There's just so much to learn.
I think it's important to focus on one thing at a time. If you try to improve everything all at once, it will be much harder and not as efficient.
I'd also like to add that I don't think you need to master everything. It's ok to have strenghts and weaknesses. Are there certain things you enjoy drawing more than others? What do you think is the most important?
Some people are able to draw extremely detailed backgrounds and architecture. Others can draw expressions really well etc. I think it's important to focus on the parts you find the most enjoyable, because that will become your strength!
To regurgitate some of the above good advice in my own words, I think the most important aspect to focus on improving is always legibility/clarity first (and/or aspects that are making your work less legible or clear) and then work on other elements afterwards.
I think if I were to pick one or two from the list in the OP, I would suggest perspective first, and then tackle environments at the same time or second. I agree with an above comment that your colors and anatomy are definitely good enough for now Like, they're something you'll work on and get better at too, but I think getting perspective down helps with clarity because you can look at a panel and logically make sense of where things are in space. It'll also increase the types of camera angles available to you if you have a good grasp on how vanishing points work, and what happens when you add more, or move the horizon line up or down, etc.
Adding better environments to that next is nice for a few reasons. Firstly, the better you're able to render out a background with important details the more you can use the surroundings to help tell the story. Secondly (and not as important, but still kinda), being able to draw nice backgrounds can honestly elevate a comic above a lot of its peers in quality since they're... hard and time consuming. It's an investment to learn how to do that will continue to pay off in not only any comics you do, but other types of drawings too.
Thank you for your feedback! I agree that knowing perspective and drawing diferent environments will help me build my story better! It would also increase my camera angles too.
Thanks so much for your feedback I will keep this mind with what everyone else has been saying.
This is going to be a real challenge.
Making comics is easy.
Making them successful is hard.
But I really dig the advice you got here, especially @skicoak and the "Jaws" poster. That's literally what made everyone read the book. This was like Advertising classes for me back in art school, thank you for the memories.
I totally understand. I upload once a week to give myself room to improve and have a buffer for the next pages. My script is fine but the artwork needs some help and the storytelling aka use of panels, etc. You can do it! Just keep working on what you need to tell your story better. Everyone here gave good advice
It is in my opinion =)
Anatomy is something which takes time to learn. However, picking angles and panel excerpts or perspectives can improve the joy of reading a comic incredibly! I noticed that people care only secondary about perfect art, they want to feel like they are IN your story, not looking at a pretty picture book with characters tehy can't relate to
I started to notice the difference with a short story I drew in 2007, where I tried perspectives I had never tried before and made sure I put at least one detailed background per page instead of doing only headshots. Showing a wall clock while people talk instead of those people can change the pacing of your comic completely. A dramatic perspective can make a simple stick figure look like it is in mortal danger, etc =)
The feedback was incredible - My anatomy and stuff were far from perfect (they still are today), but the feedback on the short story was great: I got encouraging comments on the crazy perspectives or the love for details (I researched as much as I could on historic sailing ships, so working with references is a great help!) - and this motivated me to grow even more =) Art is a process of learning and every time you think you're good, you notice how you can improve even more - because the learning never stops
The most important thing though, as I write this post, is: Have fun and don't put yourself under pressure.
When in doubt with your main story or about starting a bigger project, why not make several short stories instead? Make one in a crazy fantasy world where EVERYTHING goes.
When you struggle with human anatomy, draw monsters or Pokémon - they are much easier than humans, because they are fictional - by doing this I actually improved with human anatomy as well, because drawing monsters (or Pokémon) taught me about stuff like anatomy, perspective and unexpected stuff like "how to draw lightning" or fur texture or how does a character surrounded by fire look like.
All of these things combined make for your personal learning experience =)
Or, as an example, October is the month where all artists go crazy, be it by participating in Inktober or another preferred -tober by choosing a prompt list they find appealing. =)
Ask friends to give you prompts, you will probably get a ton of things that will pull you out of your comfort zone - and this is actually rather a fun part! =) Some of the most fun things can come from the weirdest prompts. Or you could use prompt apps, like e.g. Jazza's arty games app (not free, but incredibly versatile with randomized and fun prompts!)
Plus: Working with prompts that are not your own clears your mind when the thoughts are spinning, it's like putting that vicious circle of "I don't know where to start on improving!" on a small timeout and allows you to relax a bit
It can be really overwhelming! I think it helps with each page or each project to choose just one very specific thing that you want to do better at (hands, night lighting, sky, trees, etc etc)--and eventually as you do pages and choose a different area to specialize each time, you'll broaden your expertise. But being an artist can't be done in a day, and trying to fix everything at once can be kinda discouraging. Becoming the best artist you can be is a lifetime in the making, so I think it helps to just focus on micro goals and really celebrate them as you accomplish them. Those itty bitty goals add up. So, you'll be fine, it's a marathon, not a race.
Would you like access to a book you can download on the net? It's literally the best anatomy, contour and drawing book in the world. It has helped literally millions of artists. Trouble is, it's super old and outdated. I think it was written in the 1920s or so. But STILL...it's worth checking out. It even helped me. And I suck! lol
Anyway, private message if you'd like it.
That's right. Visual storytelling is less about "drawing well" but more about leading your reader's eyes through your pages. I'd say, however, that this is more of a topic for intermediate to professional artists.
@CrystallikeICE If you're still struggling a lot with anatomy and perspective it would be putting the cart before the horse to dive into visual storytelling head first while leaving perspective and anatomy to rot on the sidelines.
I mean, you can try reading up on visual storytelling while practicing anatomy and perspective. Putting the information into your head and letting it sit and simmer there for a while isn't a bad thing either.
Two imho very good books on that specific topic are "Framed INK" (by Marcos Mateu-Mestre) and "How to draw Noir Comics" (by Shawn Martinbrough).
On another note I have to say I kinda agree with Cleo. While you shouldn't just not practice better anatomy and perspective she is surely right that conveying the emotion and or dynamic is more important in a comic. (see Attack on Titan for a very good example of "not so good art but awesome dynamic and emotion")
Also at some time you (or any artist - I went through the phase a few years back) can get stuck in a phase where your anatomy and perspective is technically right... but it looks just wrong. I'd say always keep in mind, that a comic is not a photo-story. Purposely overdrawing something or morphing images can and should be used.
Maybe the conclusion is "learn how to draw it "right" and then take what you used to morph it to tell your story".
People usually can tell when it's "technically wrong" because the artist is inexperienced or because it's on purpose / style.