What Makes the Art In A Comic So Pristine?

[Reign]

I know a ton of people have asked this, but I’m lost. I’m sure everyone’s hit those moments where you’re like, “This is gonna take a lot of work. Can I do it? Is it worth it?” But I have some questions to ask concerning art. Recently I’ve started my webcomic Tom and Shelldon. I chose that story because the art is easier than manga, and it’s a simple, goofy story that would be good to getting used to drawing comics and figuring out how they work. So far, the art has been...less than stellar to me. Maybe I’m too hard on myself. Plus, the pages that are on there were rushed to try and meet the deadline. But that’s the thing - I’ve noticed that I’m impatient. I’ll link some of my art below for Tom and Shelldon as well as for a One-Shot that I’m planning on doing. I’m a perfectionist and too hard on myself, and I think I just don’t know where to start. But what tips do you guys have to slow down your pace so that you can get the artwork to look professional and pristine? Because when I ink my drawings, I think I go too fast and then mess things up.

Tom and Shelldon

The One-Shot

First Page

[skicoak]

The most brutal but direct answer to the majority of requests on how to get better...

not mine, but I share it frequently.

[Reign]

@skicoak

I understand that. My question is, which it may have been skewed within all my thinking and text: does anyone have any tips on slowing down and finding the golden spot of not rushing your art, but being effective with it. Not going so fast that you miss crucial detail, but not going so slow that it takes years and years to finish one volume. I’m not asking for a cheat. I’m not looking to find sympathy or be some obnoxious new person who needs to be told Just Do It. I find that I seldom hit that spot to just draw fluidly. And while practice makes perfect is an answer, I just want to see what other techniques people use that I can incorporate into my process.

[joannekwan]

The main thing for me is: if I have a project where I want to focus on making it higher quality, I definitely give myself more time to complete it.

Take this zine I made at the end of last year. It's only 14 pages. But I spent 2 months on the entire thing without a hard deadline. Each page I did in multiple sessions because I wanted it to be at a higher tier than my weekly series. (Still even then I used some shortcuts, like making a splotch of my hatched black that I could tile to fill large spaces.)

Compare it to my series that I update every week with two pages. I like viewing Demon House as my Hanna Barbera production, lots of content on a shoestring budget. xD

Then I have my high middle tier series. I care much more about detail on this one and only put out one page a week and it's solely done with linework and 4 gray tones.

You should figure out how to exactly budget your time. Weigh how much a series means to you, figure out what you can get away with when it comes to its genre, and so on. For a series that updates weekly, one must compromise for optimal efficacy. Go for more detail but have monotone colors, have a simple drawing style but have it in full color etc.

[Jenny-Toons]

For me, it's all about intent!

I find that pristine art has less to do with how neat the lineart is, but more to do with what mood you're trying to convey to your audience.

For mesmerizing moods, in my case, I focus on colors, certain aspects, and reactions. Here's an example:

Details aren't really heavy in these panels. Yes, I could've done more details in her hair and maybe her eyes, but I wanted to focus more on her reactions. There's a heavy focus on her expressions, and that pulls you in more than trying to look at "heavy details".

For high actioned scenes I get loose, sketchy, and I "break the lineart":

These panels are more loose. You can tell some of the lineart is just popping free. Some is overlapping, and some of it is symmetrical. I even do sketchy shading with black. You might say I didn't really try to make it "clean", and you're right!

Because my intent here is to make movement and to bring about a sense of overwhelming feelings. A lot of "stuff" is happening all at once, kinda like thinking of 10 millions thoughts at a time, it's that that "rushed look" that adds to it.

My advice -- think about your intent. If your scenes kinda call for faster motions, actions, and feelings, I find making looser images, lineart, and more helps with those emotions. It can also be a bit easier to finish since it doesn't have to look "neat".

[IdiotWithPencil]

if I'm not mistaking, what you're asking is how to draw comics quickly and professionally?

and sadly like in drawing the only way to draw comics quickly is to draw comics, even great comic book artist took about 1 year per new IP of consistent comic drawing before they got the grove in and could churn out pages like machines.

take your time and keep working.

general tips.
1.zoom into faces, it's quick it's simple and looks pretty good
2.silhouettes are your best friends for dramatic tensions.
3. No background is sometimes better than detailed background, especially if you're in emotional scenes

these is all I can give ya good luck =P

[Pandastrophic]

I think its also important to figure out what you want to focus on in your style and what can you take time away from to do that. For example the lineart for my comic is sketchy and i don't spend a lot of time on it and its so that i can spend more time on colouring because colouring and atmosphere is important in my comic. There are artists who prefer detailed lineart and simplify their colouring to do that as well. I think its about understanding what you can put a lot of effort in and what you can use shortcuts with, if you put a lot of effort in every step of the process it'll take too long, trying to get everything right might result in nothing looking like you want it to.

[Reign]

@skicoak @Jenny-Toons @joannekwan @Pandastrophic @IdiotWithPencil

Thanks, guys! So far all of your advice is really helping! I really appreciate it!

[JeanGuillet]

I can see an improvement in your execution already since I first saw your comic here! Your color washes are much more regular and look really good! I still struggle with the advice that I'm gonna give, and that's line weights. You have to make your inking movements really confidently or it'll look weird. In fact, I'm just gonna invite you to join my Jim Lee spying club and watch an absolute inking & anatomy master work. Just watch some of his streams, I've never seen anyone so good at explaining anatomy.

Jim Lee

[Reign]

@JeanGuillet

Thank you! Anatomy and line weight are harder to do than I thought, so this is really helpful!

[revisionstudios]

Honestly, I don't think it's about you going "too fast" at lineart. A lot of artists use speed to their advantage to get the kind of stroke they want. The problem here is that you don't have things like proper volume, contrast, or composition. You're lacking in fundamentals overall.

Once you fix those, your style will improve because you'll know where to break the rules and where not to. I can see you're trying some cool things, and I think you've got the right idea... but you need practice.

As for practical advice, someone mentioned varying your lines, which would really help. I would also try making a comic with no color and letting your inks speak for themselves. Right now, they are just uniform lines with no indication of depth, so they don't do a good job of moving the eye around. Try learning some hatching/crosshatching techniques and don't be afraid to use black.

Not my art, but something like this:

See how the black in the background sets up the contrast to focus on his head and you get a sense of the room instantly?

The lines or shadows aren't particularly pristine but it gives a sense of the space. I even did a really quick treatment on that last page you showed:

Not that you have to stick with real heavy blacks all the time (makes things pretty dramatic) but it's really good practice. It might especially help you fill in some of that negative space that you have in a lot of your pages. That's something to be careful of in general though, you want every part of the page to be communicating something.

I would also generally advise you do some life drawing and try to learn things like muscle placement. It'll help fill out your characters even if they stay in a simpler style long term. Right now, you should be pushing yourself to learn and strike out of your comfort zone.

I hope that helps a little!

[Reign]

@revisionstudios

Yeah, that helps a ton! In terms of filling up space - that scene that you treated, it's in the daytime. How would I convey that without it being boring? Would it be good to add a simple screen tone? It does look a lot better with the way you've portrayed it. With the Tom and Shelldon comic being colored, do you just mean the colors of the backgrounds aren't good contrast, and that the lines needing depth will help with the color?

[revisionstudios]

If it's day time, you could easily switch it so there's sun behind the boat instead! I'm not sure if your lines near the top of the page are smoke or water, but this is what I did:

Or you could just make some of the lines thicker to indicate depth, leave more white than black.

Screen tones can definitely help, too! But I wouldn't rely on them to do the heavy lifting. Those and the colors should enhance the work, not define it--at least, not unless you're doing something really painty! Different set of values there.

To clarify, I'm suggesting this B&W idea as an exercise more than anything else--a lot of beginners really struggle with putting down anything harsh, and doing B&W can help break you of that.

Here's an example of one of my own pages, ink vs. tone:

The grays highlight the white, but they don't overshadow either the white or the black, if that makes sense?

As for your Tom and Shelldon comic, yes, I think varying line widths would go a long way distinguishing foreground from background. I would also try colors that contrast more in value! Do you see how things blend together, especially in the second panel?

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I think making a comic 'pristine' is all about making everything in the drawing look intentional. The world is full of drawing styles; some simple, some detailed, some cute, some ugly. What makes them accepted as 'styles' and not just 'this person doesn't know how to draw'? Intention.

It's hard to describe what exactly makes a drawing look like it's intentional, but I can try:

-Range of Motion
Are your characters allowed to move and gesture in 3 dimensions, or are they limited (like in some cartoons?). Pick one and stick with it. Most comic artists choose Door #1, of course, which means that they need to spend a lot of time practicing perspective and poses so they don't accidentally slip into Door #2. Nothing breaks immersion like characters that gesture into the third dimension while their clothes are stuck in the second dimension...things like that happen when artists don't understand how perspective works.

-Consistency
Draw stuff the same way all the time. Kinda.
Like, if your character's nose is pointed in profile, don't occasionally make it rounded or hyper-realistic; again, pick something and stick with it.
I'm reminded of the Rozen Maiden manga...personally, I don't like the way the artist does profiles. I think the noses and chins are too short and the necks are too thick. But...they do them the same way all the time, with every character. So much so that when their last anime adaptation decided to copy the artist's style, the profiles still looked the same way.
Even if it genuinely looks goofy, it's so consistent that it's hard to think of it as a mistake. It carries with it an air of...intention.

Of course, if you want to change things mid-comic, feel free; most artists 'settle in' to their style over time, so it's not uncommon for later pages to look radically different from initial ones. But if you're gonna make a change, make it, and stick with it for a while. Flip-flopping and experimenting are what sketch pages are for.

-Solid, strong lines
I notice that some of your lines look a little...indecisive. They wobble a bit from point A to point B. This is usually not a good thing for professionalism.
Either all your lines should wobble or none of them should; staying in the middle makes it look like you don't know what you're doing. And if that's the case, you need to go back to the drawing board and practice until you DO know what you're doing, or at least until you can draw confidently despite not knowing (fake it till you make it~).
If that isn't the case, then it might just be that you do draw too fast...or too slow. Maybe you don't pay enough attention when you put down lines. Maybe you have an inefficient pen that warps your sketches when you ink them by changing your drawing speed. Only you will be able to detect the problem and fix it, so that's what you should do.

-ANATOMY!
This should've been much further up on the list, but oh well. ^^;
Looking at the 'One Reign Note' group picture, I can already identify a lot of problems...for instance, the blonde guy seems to be missing an ear? If it's supposed to be behind that...thing, then that is not anatomically correct.
You don't have to draw realism if you don't want to (although, your style for that project seems to be on the more realistic side of manga). But you gotta learn the rules before you can break them, so that when you do, it looks stylistic and not just plain wrong.
Like others have said, practice, practice, practice. All the pretty colors and solid lines in the world aren't gonna help you if your characters' bodies aren't drawn correctly. Do studies of the clothes and hairstyles you want to use, too, so that you understand how they move with the character. There's plenty of room for improvement.

[Reign]

@revisionstudios @DokiDokiTsuna

Whew. There’s a lot here. This is really helpful, because I wasn’t sure if I was overconfident in my drawing, or undermining myself. Now I can tell that I’m overconfident in anatomy, underconfident in line and color, and that I need to learn contrast. Oh, boy. What would be the best ways to learn anatomy? Sounds like a dumb and simple question with an equally simple answer. I know drawing from life was mentioned. That earpiece is actually his ear. They have mechanical noise receptors. But, if I’m putting it in the wrong spot...

[Reign]

(I should probably get back in school and take figure drawing and anatomy classes.)

[revisionstudios]

It really is a lot, haha! There are so many things to think about.

For me, learning anatomy was a combination of observation and learning shortcuts.

To increase your technical skill, you need to observe and learn how to draw what you see. You have to get accustomed to translating what you see in 3D to a 2D space. Taking classes is a great way to do that! You can also just go to a cafe and draw people, or I know there are websites that cycle through pictures in whatever time interval you want.

Another thing I did in school is drew skeletons and then added muscles onto them by referencing diagrams of the human body. Or, taking photos and drawing the skeletons and muscles over top of them. Here are some assignments I did that demonstrate that:

But to put that knowledge into practice in something like a comic setting--where everything is coming from your head--you need to learn shortcuts that get to the same result. Keeping in mind general guidelines like, "The torso is the same length as the legs" or "the forearm is the same length as the upper arm" or "a hand is the same height as the face" all help things become muscle memory.

I know proportions well enough that I can work off a simplified skeleton like what's below and turn it into any body type:

And that's kind of the goal. You want to get to where you're thinking in 3D and constructing it on the page.

[Reign]

@revisionstudios

Okay! That makes sense! So then I guess it comes down to if I want to hold off on my comic, or just learn as I go - taking a LOT of attention to making sure things are correct. As well as taking classes and practicing while I do it, of course.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

What would be the best ways to learn anatomy? Sounds like a dumb and simple question with an equally simple answer.

It's actually not as simple as it looks. Different strokes for different folks, y'know? ^^;

For me, memorizing shapes and patterns helps the most. Like, when I was a young schoolchild, the art teacher told us that, in general, an ear's vertical placement on the head is in line with the middle of the eye and the tip of the nose. Trace over your own face; you'll see that she was telling the truth.

At the time I was like 'meh; that's cute, but I'll never use it'. Well, joke's on me, because I still use it, all the time, a decade later. Lots of little things like that are burned into my brain, like 'a face is roughly 5 eyes wide', and 'an outstretched hand is about as big as a head', 'a leg is about half the body length'. Just stupid little tricks and details I picked up from kids' shows and art books, but honestly they're the things that help me the most. ^^

[Reign]

@DokiDokiTsuna

I use some of those tricks as well, and I think a lot of it’s just a lack of experience drawing bodies. I’ve gotten so used to drawing heads and faces, and don’t spend nearly enough time drawing bodies - and it shows. I think I mess up using those tricks because I draw too fast. But I do believe some of it is me not caring. I want to care about my drawings. If I mess up I’m quick to scrap the drawing instead of reworking it...so that’s definitely a weakness.