Your Favourite Comic Art Styles?

[Kayas_Kosmos]

Hello everyone.

I'm a fairly new member here having joined only a month ago. I am also currently on the hunt for comics with really unique art styles and interesting methods of visual storytelling. With comics being a visual medium, I really enjoy seeing a lot of effort put into the art itself.

I'm going to start off by sharing two comic series that I personally feel have really interesting art styles. The first is "Scurry" by Mac Smith, and the second one is "The World of Wishes" by Fany. The former has amazing and atmospheric lighting with fantastic character designs while the latter has a jaw-dropping use of colour to create something truly magical.

Scurry - https://tapas.io/series/Scurry

The World of Wishes - https://tapas.io/series/ww

Now it's your turn! Please feel free to post any comics in the comments which you think handle visual storytelling particularly well.

While I'm here, I might as well shamelessly plug my own comic. I am currently working on a practise comic set in the Overwatch universe called "Overwatch - Lost Light", a short comic telling the story of the first omnic ever created; a tiny and adorable clockwork contraption who ends up in a rather horrible situation. The project started off as a set of Schoolism assignments which I expanded out into something bigger to fit the kind of skills I am trying to develop. You can see more details and development of the project in the link below:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3oq8wE

The aim of this comic is to help me improve my visual storytelling skills for when I move on to doing a larger original webcomic series in the future. I'm trying to find a way to imply a heavily detailed scene without actually having to agonise over putting in too much detail, which has been difficult so far. I am hoping that with each page, my art improves a little bit more. Any critiques would also be hugely appreciated as I aim to make every new page better quality than the last.

Here is the comic if you are interested: https://tapas.io/series/Overwatch---Lost-Light

Oh and... you are welcome to share your own comic in the comments if you really want to

[nathanKmcwilliams]

Mine is pixel-art. There aren't that many out there that are action series. I thought pixel art would be easier, than my other style, surprise! It actually requires more attention to detail than my other style does xD

Dragon Sparking | Tapas

Regarding yours:
I don't know anything about Overwatch, but I can say I really like your style, it's really expressive. If I had one thing to critique it would be the small font in the narration. But that's a nitpick on my end.
Granted, I'm not the best at critiquing others. I'll be looking forward more of it!

[Coati]

I have a thing for the Nine Stones painting style. Looks like each frame is a full illustration on it's own.
Samuel Spano is my senpai XD

NINE STONES | Tapas

Always Human have such a lovely style that I really love too

Always Human

About mine, I still working on a style, but I just love put colors and glow on everything, so I'm just having fun with it for now.

Flower Field | Tapas

[Coati]

And HOLY COW @Kayas_Kosmos your pages are gorgeous <3

[Kelheor]

Wow, your style is great! How many pages do you intend to draw? It would be really hard to draw a long comic with this quality of art!
I would choose Berserk by Kentaro Miura, Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue and Stand still stay silent by Minna Sundberg to represent comic art styles I like They all are hilariously great for different reasons.
Our comic is neither manga, nor it is seinen, it is a very colourful horror.

Hexameron | Tapas

[jessicaherman27]

Wow. This looks really nice. I haven't seen anything like that before.

[Kayas_Kosmos]

Ooh Pixel art, nice! Your comic definitely has that retro video game feel to it, it works well!

And thanks! To be honest, the comic is somewhat removed from the main lore, most of it is original content. The only two things important to know about Overwatch are that Omnics are a self-aware brand of robot in the Overwatch universe and Mercy is an angelic character. That's pretty much it.

I was wondering if the font was too small. I may make a mobile-friendly version in the future. Thanks for the feedback!

[mariusthered]

first and foremost welcome to Tapas I hope you are enjoying being here.

I love all sots of styles having trained in traditional art for years. I love any kind of animation but my fave at the moment is Queens Blade.

here is my comic Blunderland, a comic with different styles in places but good story telling all the way. However that story telling is not always to the readers liking but we offer fair warning. within these pages you will find mature content not suited for young eyes (and young eye who see it are reported to Krampus!) It is the tale of Marius the red and his pals who go to live in Blunderland where many adventures are found. i will also add the link to my Compendium that started not long ago.

Blunderland | Tapas

Blunderland Compendium. | Tapas

[nathanKmcwilliams]

Okay that's cool. I was definitely interested in the story! Even not having any context of Overwatch lore I didn't feel lost.

[Kayas_Kosmos]

Thank you! I'm really glad you like my art style!

Wow, Nine Stones is very impressive, I'm definitely subbing to this comic! Also really liking your art style, too! I think we all like colours and glowing stuff

[Kayas_Kosmos]

Thank you! This comic I would like to be just over 20 pages or so. The comic series I am planning afterwards is much longer so I may need to simplify the art style or get good at speedpainting.

Ooh these are nice looking comics! Also, wow, I love the atmosphere in yours, you have a new sub now

[baasinsimple]

I just have a love for Yasuhisa Hara's art on kingdom. You can tell that all Hara really wants to do his keep your adrenaline pumping and I can really respect that.

I also really like Black Clover's and One Piece's art. They simplify things just enough and BC's artstyle has this floaty aspect to it that gives it a magical feel

While One Piece's is so positively organic and gives you the idea you're looking at real flesh despite the fact it doesn't look realistic at all

I honestly think watching the anime makes you miss out on a lot of the artistic merit these guys and most mangaka in general have and I think each of these guys need much better anime then they got so please don't watch the anime for any of these. While One Piece's artstyle has been easy enough to replicate, the organic feel it has is completely forgotten in the anime. Black Clover's anime can barely stay on model either long running or not it just doesn't justify the amount of bad in each episode, and don't even get me started on the Kingdom anime which got rid of one Hara's biggest strengths, his gore, his shading (even if his actual character color choices are not good) and his exaggerated grasp on anatomy, turning the whole thing into weird CG bullshit. These guys have artstyles, that in their current state, deserve to be experienced.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

@baasinsimple

Eichiro Oda is one of my all time favorite artists. His character designs are so interesting and bombastic. The anime has definitely tanked in the last few years. Too bad, because for a long time it was pretty good. The manga still impresses me with every new chapter. Oda's just got a good grasp on how to make dynamic scenes.

[baasinsimple]

Oh definitely, Hara has a similar talent but makes it dynamic mostly through his use of blood and weapons I totally recommend the read.

[Kittosaurus]

@Kayas_Kosmos You have a beautiful style and I think this is a great way to practice your art to get it to "blizzard standards". I love your use of color and light and I am excited to see where you take this! (I haven't even played Overwatch and I enjoy it).

*A word of caution with fan comics be careful if you monetize it in anyway - even accepting ink!

I have tried to achieve a retro golden books inspired look with my comic:

The Librarian Arachnid Slayer | Tapas

And here are some other comics with interesting styles:

I love their use of color in this one!

Living When Dead | Tapas

Humor me is beautifully illustrated:

Humor me | Tapas

Clink is just beautiful - love their style:

Clink | Tapas

You would probably like the style in this one - realistic painterly:

Angels Don't Live Long | Tapas

And finally Cucumber quest is probably one of my favorites:
http://cucumber.gigidigi.com/cq/page-1/

[Kayas_Kosmos]

Thank you! I'll be sure to check out Blunderland

[Pandastrophic]

I don't think I have a fav comic style but I always find any style that uses colours, lighting and shading really well as extremely beautiful!

I think the best example for me is Heart of Keol, beautiful colouring technique, use of colours and amazing lights and shadows and it's all used so well in the story telling and the emotions conveyed by the characters.

Heart of Keol | Tapas

Monster pop, I love the use of colours and lighting to show the emotions of the characters

Monster Pop! | Tapas

Hidden in Plain Sight, such a pretty style and I love the colour palette choices!

Hidden in Plain Sight | Tapas

[Kayas_Kosmos]

Wow, this really makes me realise that I've been thinking about manga the wrong way this whole time. With me being a bit of a colour nut, I've always turned away from most manga and not had as much of an appreciation for it as I should. With how eloquently you've described the ways these styles function, it does make me genuinely interested to check them out However I am fully aware of how anime can completely ruin the original tone of a manga. I love the film "Barefoot Gen" for example, but apparently the manga is even more hard-hitting and there is a lot of hidden symbolism that was never in the film. I am also intrigued by the original Akira manga because the film's plot feels rushed and messy even if the visuals are astonishing.

[baasinsimple]

Yeah, I can confirm that. Akira's story in the manga is actually quite good. same with Barefoot Gen, though I'd say that in B.G's case it's an amazing experience either way. I mean if you just look up anything from the Kingdom anime, at the very least you'd get nauseous, it's just that bad and Hara has only gotten to really know color theory recently even if he's always been good with methods anyway. Kingdom and Black Clover are manga that are quite enhanced by their styles of line art and shading that would be much less impactful if colored. The first picture I uploaded for Kingdom was actually fan colored. The Actual colored variation gives me a headache.

[Kayas_Kosmos]

Wow these are all stunning. Thanks for sharing them!