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Oct 2022

I've been unable to really reply to this since I'm not sure if I can say anything meaningful to this (but I have been reading). What do you consider good or bad anatomy? Because I'm still not exactly sure how I can really use this feedback to get better.

Generally, it's understanding the shape and structure of the human body and being able to portray it believably through art work. It doesn't particularly mean you have to know how draw realistically, though that does help, it just means being able to draw a believable figure in three dimensional space. If anatomy seems too daunting or too obscure of a concept, then I would recommend looking for tutorials (videos, graphics, etc.) that go over how to construct figures from 3D shapes and go from there.

Darthmongoose and everyone already gave such tips, but here's a tiny one that might make a big difference - if it's not stylistic choice, I recommend capitalizing "One(s)" in the title and URL. There's lots of little things that roll up into a big ball of unintentional first impressions that come before art and writing - and a title that feels unprofessional is the first one.

That's the thing too, there are cool comics out there that aren't the most advanced in the fundamentals, but they hit it off with things like polished marketing, contrast, color choice, solid pacing, and that surpasses what an artist might think is the best way to improve. A comic creator (and novel creators considering how much we've got on tapas now, too) needs to wear a couple dozen hats and invest on them as time and patience allows.

Many folks already mentioned art as a key variable for a solid first impression......

But i will suggest an alternative that can work if you are struggling with time:

Maybe you can save some money and hire an artist. I did that for one of my comics that required a more detailed art style i can't currently pull off......

Of course, before any commitment, make sure the person you choose has the skills, discipline and integrity for the job, and save some cash to pay upfront. Is hard to convince someone to go on percentages of future profits.

Most of the folks i've hired and worked with are people i know enough to trust.....Met some of them here in Tapas.....

Personally i don't choose the same artist for all projects, it depends a lot of the skills and art style i need for that project.

Another important thing to mention if you wanna hire an artist is that communication is key. Make sure to be clear on what you want. For comics i do a sketch that is clear and legible and send some notes for details i consider important.

Hope this helps!

You can't because it's bad critique. Not that Candiedcotton and the others are being malicious or anything. Their replies are pretty normal. But critique is a teaching tool and thus it requires actual teaching to be useful. Pointing out the flaw is easy, teaching how to fix it is difficult and time consuming. Most people don't have the time or the ability to teach and this always leaves the artist not knowing where to go next.

Proko's channel on YouTube is the usual go-to for free anatomy lessons. There are tonnes more if you look. Also, your local library... assuming you live somewhere near one... will have piles and piles of books to choose from.

The rest is just practicing your ass off.

i know it is hard to build an audiance, heck im in the same boat, i know im not the best artist around and there are people way better then me,and so on but i do keep trying my best,what i think holds alot back is how the landscape is for webcomics, alot of the more popular titles seem to be more of the romance genre, so for alot of other genres like scifi /fantasy its much harder to get attention

It hurts, but you're right :sweat_smile:
It's definitely not worth the rush if the quality suffers like that (in addition to a plethora of some things I have to be sure to account for!)

It would be nice to be honest, because its currently kind of discouraging atm to just keep uploading episodes like that.

I've only really done one reboot, and one redraw of an earlier short chapter actually.
Right now, I'm redrawing one of the older chapters because the jump between that and chapter 2 in just paneling is too drastic.

I don't really like the idea of just starting either a whole new series or just reboot it after working on it for this long. It's a disservice to the few readers I actually have (one of which being a friend who actively consumes my comic and gives lots of feedback).

I'll say I have been starting a side project of just for fun on the side that I might one day bring into my comic too (making music with another music learned friend) and its been fulfilling and keeping drawing fresh when I go back to it.

so ye.

Understandable, and glad you have a side project for some extra juice. I'm working on redrawing some pages myself :slight_smile: .

Wish you luck!

I used to be something I like to call, too humble. I've taken advice from other people because I either didn't have the confidence or I was quick to believe that whatever a person said was the definitive truth of what was the flaw in my work (regardless of said person's actual merits). I've even taken advice from someone and it just blew up in flames.

Hence why I specifically asked Candiecotton for elaboration in the first place :sweat_smile:

I don't think Candiecotton is a bad artist or doesn't have the experience to back up their words, or that they are ill-intent, but you're absolutely right. It's easier to tear someone apart instead of trying to help them find solutions (I used to be said people who tore into others, that's destructive criticism, not constructive criticism).

Not to say that I shouldn't ignore EVERYONE who says anything remotely bad, sometimes people have important things to say but are pretty bad at expressing it (I'm people too). I'd lean toward taking criticism with wisdom if that makes sense. Even if it's good or bad, it's not effective if I'm not trying to understand it, haha. I just don't have the balls to call people out like that asdfgh, but yeah, you speak truth.

Whenever I pop back into this thread after work in the morning @N1ghtm4r3, I'll check out as many people's comics in this thread as I can, especially the people who are struggling with the same problem I'm dealing with (yours), because it does kind of suck.

WEBCOMIC HIPSTERS SUPPORT EACH OTHER!!!

(this is in reference to @Spectorium_1's advice of interacting with the community, but also this first and foremost comes from a genuine place. If I can't get reader interaction, I'll be reader interaction. I also mentioned in the post to link your comic if you'd like, so long as you're trying to make a real discussion.)

Telling someone to learn anatomy is not bad critique, it's -common- critique.

There is no structure to the bodies, there is a lack of symmetry, there is no consistency between bodies, there is no understanding of three dimensional space. There is no fluidity to movement, the characters are stiff, often appearing to be floating in a void because there are no established environment shots.

When someone suggests the 'basics of anatomy', that is a literal term in art education. The basics. There are dozens upon dozens of free courses online that literally go over the basics.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=proko+anatomy+basics

More on point to topic:

It doesn't matter how stylized something is, if you don't know anatomy it will show in your work. So regardless how many ideas get thrown out there, the lack of understanding of anatomy is going to be a problem. I'm not trying to come off mean or anything like that, but if we don't understand what we need to fix then it's never going to be fixed and you end up stuck in the same cycle for years. Which it seems is the case here.

Learning anatomy, learning motion/gesture, learning how light and shadow work, all of these things are part of the basics and they take a very long time and a lot of work to master. It's something you can't do alone and without some form of resource to learn from (like the various youtube videos above).

I would like for everyone here to succeed. We cannot succeed if we are not honestly told what is wrong and what needs to be fixed.

To be tedious about it:

Critique is teaching. If a person won't teach then, as shown by Moron's response, they are not providing anything of use.

What you all gave them was an opinion and advice. None of that was badly intended. That's why it's -common-. But they need more than that if you wanted them to learn and improve.

So teach, teachers. Teach.

I'm not a teacher and critique is telling someone what needs to be fixed, not sitting down and going over how to fix it. OP asked why their comic isn't doing well, I gave my thoughts. I wasn't aware I was required to write an essay on the steps needed to fix everything.

However, if it helps, I did take the time to explain visually what I mean.

Perhaps it will help OP to better understand.

OP:

You can still have it extremely stylized but make changes like the below. Consistency in limb thickness, fingers having structure, understanding of lighting, so forth.

I think I should just drop some of my more recent concept sketches for some characters in my comic who have yet to be added that only my friends (and D&D players) know about. (I drew these too, my friends told me that this would be cool as frick if these were the Doomed One(s) artstyle)

1



This one is a full-body piece because I want to include a drawing with not just any ol legs, but whole bird legs. This drawing is specifically a reference drawing for myself cuz it ends up I draw this guy a lot for a D&D campaign I run.

This one might not be up to standard but I draw abstract action pieces because at least to me, gesture and motion matter a lot more than any detail in anatomy when it comes to action, the anatomy can come after to further support the piece.

Action sequence down here too (two panel piece)

Darth is kind of right about contrast, improper/lazy ink strokes with :sweat_02: high s-stabilization (I had just realized my stabilization settings were way too high on my main inking pen after my latest episode, which lead to strokes that feel less natural and precise. Which the way, my sketching/brush pens have almost no stabilization which make things look cleaner in the sketch phase)

And well, me just not cleaning up some lineart too, and the contrast (it has nothing to do with hiding art, I just wanna desaturate the overall colors because generally speaking, I want a gloomy atmosphere, the darkness nobs are just way too high.)

LOOK, sometimes episodes take a 1-2 weeks to a month to draw because it's not very rewarding to me, compared to when I sketch things like these above where I go sicko mode on anatomy, action, and contrast of all things, because my friends/players are both invested and interested in the art I do for some of these cutscenes.

I think once I get around to redrawing my first chapter, I'm probably gonna go back and revise some of panels in CH3 of my comic (Seeing my pen stabilization being too high in these panels + contrast, and a LOT of advice I got here and learning things now working on CH1).

Especially that panel right there! At least what I'm getting here is just something about how I drew the characters that just doesn't look appealing in that chapter, or that it just looks a little amateurish. I'll admit I did rush these panels and it shows.

For a panel of a guy getting crushed and dying by a bunch of cages, I could do a bit more to really convey the brutality of that. I mean, for a panel like THAT I should have gone hard!

I'll still consider a lot of the feedback you gave there, I wouldn't mind just taking that extra elbow grease to draw individual fingers or proper hand structure if it's important (like that panel if the focus is just a hand, yeah, I can agree with that).

critique is telling someone what needs to be fixed

Yes. And then the critique giver does the rest of the job so it matters.

You're not being attacked for offering your opinion and giving some basic advice. But it should be obvious that it was inadequate for what Moron needed.

This anatomy looks decent to me. The poses read clearly, there's a sense of volume and depth, and there seems to be a consistent, stylisation that works. The one of the hand/claw is a bit rough, like when you're doing a close-up of a hand or claw as a focal point, you maybe need to give it a little more time or an extra try or two.

Still... overall this figure drawing looks good enough that it wouldn't put somebody off like the levels issue or messiness.

I don't know if CandiedCotton will agree... and I'm not trying to get into an argument here, because I'm sure CC is coming from a place of wanting you to improve and clearly believes very passionately that strong anatomical drawing skill is a foundational element of being a good comic artist.
My personal opinion is that the most important thing for being a good comic artist is clarity. The thing we should all strive towards is the ability for the reader, at a glance, to understand what place, object, action or emotion we were trying to portray. Becoming better at anatomical drawing and perspective to apply that to poses, gestures and expressions in order to better convey what's happening is of course a good general thing a comic artist should always be doing, and putting a little extra care into how we precisely draw a pose, expression or gesture to make sure it reads as intended is important.

So my personal take is to keep working on your anatomy and perspective... but as part of a general quest to be able to clearly draw things that "read as intended". Which honestly is something all of us should be doing all the time!

I'd definitely recommend an excellent book on this subject called "Drawn To Life volume 1" by Walt Stanchfield. If you can get hold of a copy (even by requesting it at your local library) it could be a big help. That and obviously "Making Comics" by Scott McCloud, which actually has a bunch of sections touching on elements of exactly the discussion happening in this thread.

I don't think it's up to a critic to teach a person how to improve whatever they are critiquing. They can give them actionable advice, pointing them in the direction of where to go or what to use to get better, but giving them detailed instructions on what to do next is not their job. Should they elaborate on how to improve, sure, but everyone critiques differently.

Critiquing is not only teaching, though it can sometimes be, it's merely giving informed suggestions and opinions. Most critics don't even have the qualifications to teach another person in the first place.

Lastly, because most critiques are suggestions on how to improve, if someone does not want to listen to a critique they've gotten, no matter how accurate it is to their situation, they don't have to take any of it on.