Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - How About Sharing Some Great Advice?

Hey Everyone, I've seen a lot of people on here offering critiques for comics. Some of the advice, in my opinion, has been pretty harsh and could end a dream or two if that artist on the receiving end is a sensitive person. I'm not suggesting we cuddle anyone because they ask to be reviewed. Fair enough, but it seems that we are putting the cart before the horse. There are some pretty amazing comics on CF and I thought that those creators could share their secrets and philosophies behind approaching a blank page or computer screen. Not every artist is created equal or is as gifted as others but it can be a head start. What do you think makes your comic work? Be SPECIFIC, just not the usual, practice, practice, practice... Why is your comic so damn cool?!!!

I just started my comic only a few days ago myself, so not saying I'm some master of comics...I'll just speak from my observation. But if you're talking about art, there really is no real answer to "how to make amazing art". People who do that stuff have been doing that for his or her lifetime probably, and that's how they got so good
But if you're talking about awesome stories, you can definately learn to do that. My most favorite comics have unique characters and well thought out plot. Personally, I look at the story more than the art when I read comics. :) I scripted up to 80+ chapters before starting my comic, so I'm set on story. I tried to draw and make up the story last time I made a comic, and it didn't go too far... so I learned the importance of preparation haha

Whoa I wrote a lot of junk now that I look at it o_o

M.I. I'm talking about the thoughts,ideas and the process that you use besides what you would get at a typical convention style portfolio review. Work on your anatomy, perspective, pacing, all great advice but some of my favs over the years have broken or never had the standard rules apply to them. Maybe in an overall critique mode, the common mistakes you're seeing out there and how you would fix them. As I stated above, throwing out ideas BEFORE a the creator begins the story, page, etc. It seems to me that so many artists learn things the hard way and give up before the comic develops.We read about it all of the time here on CF. I'm talking story, art, dialogue. It could be a small list of thoughts going thru your head before you start creating.

:U

I...

Might bite the bullet here

I don't know how many truthful responses you will get, mostly because no one wants to be like: "This is my comic, my comic is amazing, give it a lick read it until your eyes bleed" and "practice, practice, practice" is well, all there is to it :c really.

But... I'll... give it a go. I'd rather not go: "lol this is why my comic works" because I'm not comfortable with that, so I'll just use across the board examples.

1. Anatomy, stiff-limb disease

Ok um, most commone mistake, really stiff bodies and limbs when drawing people, it's like everyone's got tetanus. It's like people have looked at the tutorials on how to draw bodies, but haven't actually looked at a real one. Bodies are pretty flexible, and thing syou would normally think of as straight as a ruler, actually bend and flex and warp a lot, and in comics, you exaggerate that to create fluid movement.

Hard to explain, I'll draw what I mean:



see? It's the same bone structure, it's just the flesh is more fleshed out and warped by gravity. :U takes a while to get used to drawing it, of course, because you're head is telling you that the bones in the arm are straight, therefore the muscles and flesh are too. You just need to spend a very long time drawing from photos or real life, not just relying on tutorials.

2. Same face syndrome

where all the characters have the same face, generic female face, generic male face. There are so many variations of facial structure out there, no one is exactly the same in appearence unless they're identical twins, and there seem to be a lot of comics out there with like fifty identical twins running around, (mostly anime/manga artists) you can add variety, don't be afraid of it C:

Hell just google some images of human faces and draw each one, exaggerating certain bits or simplifying shapes until you have a rough caricature. IDK it really irks me to see the same face in every comic, if you have a distinct, recognisable character then people will know it's yours, you won't have people going: "oh yeah that's by some generic manga/anime artists lololol." I do it, all the time :c

3. Planning

always important to plan, ye ken? I keep a little A5 sketch book with me, which I plan all my pages in, they only take a few minutes each and they don't have to be pretty, but it could save you in the long run. c: I also have a massive ass script hanging around, always script first, kiddies, always script first. If you don't have the script first, well, people tend to repeat themselves, and I've seen that happen a few times.

I... also change the script all the time, even change plot points. It's probably really bad of me, but if I think of a good idea, I... put it in, um, that's all there is to it?

1) Always thumbnail your pages out. I have a really good idea of what I'm going to draw before I lay my pencils down, because I've already scribbled it out a couple times on smaller pieces of paper.

2) Don't be afraid to change it up. Brush inking not working for you? Try pens. Feel like your shading technique isn't cutting it? Look up some tutorials other folks have done and see if there's something you can implement.

3) USE REFERENCES. It isn't cheating. It will make you better. There is a ton of stock photography out there you can draw from, and there are a lot of great stock artists on sites like DeviantArt that make great stuff to draw from. Anchoring your art, or at least your practice sketches in reality will add a realism to your anatomy and poses, and just generally improve your art. I frequently snap shots of myself making different funny faces when I need to get an expression right.

4) Spend some time on character design. I have a chart taped up to my wall with the noses of all of my characters. Yes, they each have unique noses. And mouths. And jawlines. Can you tell your characters apart if they're in black and white? What if they're all dressed the same? What if they all went simultaneously bald?

5) This is advice that was given to me that I'm doing my damndest to follow because it's *really* good advice: commit to your update schedule. If you slack off for a decent reason, you'll slack off for a crappy one. If your comic is just something you do for your own amusement, fine, but if you want people to read and want to take it seriously, to take yourself seriously, make damn sure you update when you say you will, even if it means getting less sleep than you'd hoped for.

Boy, that can be a real tough question. So many intangables can come into account in the creative process that defining them is often a real chore. I'm still far from certain on what makes my art tick and grab somebody's attention. I guess the most appreciated aspect of my art is my attention to the female form and specifically how voluptuous I make the women. Curvaceous above the equator, if I may use an euphemism. Outside of that, I like to think that facial expressions and relatively smooth sequential transitions in the art also help to make the art worth looking at.

What I like to do with story is develop characters as well as I can, and lay a strong foundation to the premise. It helps give direction and feed tangents that can in turn enrich plot which in turn can give my characters all the room they need to grow. I guess one thing I do is make sure my story has plenty of room to grow.

Another thing I do is somewhat blur traditional ideas and aspects on morality. I tend to avoid making inflexible, one-dimensional heroes OR villains. I like to show a dichotomy in every important character, a struggle that can change according to situation. Sometimes my storytelling does polarize an audience, but I try to avoid preaching or having a moral to the story. My work is designed to give me creative satisfaction and viewer enjoyment, however either goal is reached is up to me or the reader, or both.

A little narcissism goes a long way. A 20$ tall mirror in the bathroom was probably the most cost-effective investment I ever in art.
"Ok, so that character is reaching for stuff in an awkward position. How far should the shoulder raise? Is the spine straight or curved? How far do unused limbs move back to balance it? Is this body part compressed and where does the squished flesh bulge?"
Answer: Get naked and pose. Seriously, take the clothes off, or wear something very form fitting. You're not only learning to draw this one panel, you're learning how an assumedly normal body is built and functions, and you won't interiorise all the mechanics if you have to approximate through loose clothes.
Of course it'll still have to be adapted to the character's body type, but their bones and muscles should connect the same way, you can always sketch an average body then add or remove mass while detailing it.

Ink. Line art shouldn't be left in pencil. An elaborate, shaded pencil drawing is another story, but if it's just lines, pencil will look terrible on a screen.
And once the ink is scanned, clean the background. Not by hand, of course! Poor thing! You'll see what works best with your style and material, but in general, decreasing luminosity a bit and increasing contrast a little more make black black and white white. Don't overdo it though, you don't want to turn your oblique lines into escalators.
And related: legibility. There's more than one good way to write dialogue, but it has to be clear.

And I almost forgot...I NEVER try to be "cool" with my art. I always want to be "good" than cool in my work.

speaking of manga/anime...please stay away from huge eyes that cover half the face of people...Gah, I hate that.

People tend to enjoy drawing "good looking people," and fill their comics with them sometimes, hence the "universal face" in the manga-world. Sometimes I read manga and wonder if the place (wherever it takes place) is a kingdom of supermodels and prettyboys..And if there is a "unique face," it's likely to be a villain. So my point is...Don't discriminate models while practicing to draw. You'll need to know how to draw ugly people, fat people, and old people too, if you're going to be drawing comics :P

Just to add and reinforce what has already been stated here is my take:

1. Learn how to draw anatomy regardless of what type of comic you are doing. Long before I started drawing caricatures for a living I had learned how to draw pretty good portraits. The benefit was that my caricatures looked liked the people's faces I was exaggerating because I understood facial structure and how everything was supposed to go together. The same goes with how the body is all put together. Bethany made a great point about how bones, muscle, and skin flex, bend, twist, stretch, and compress. You have to understand the structure in order to then exaggerate or change things in order to make them convincing.

2. As others have stated, take time to create character references. Draw you characters with the entire range of emotional expressions you can think of, and draw them sitting, standing, eating, sleeping, fighting, and every other possible action they might do. Why? So that your characters have a consistent look from panel to panel, and page to page. Sometimes this takes time to develop and as you gain confidence and skill the look of your characters will change and become refined.

3. Think about and write notes on why your characters behave the way they do. This will help you develop continuity in your story. This is not to say that your personae will not act out of character, but if you are consistent then a calm character that suddenly goes bat shit crazy can be a very powerful and dramatic moment in the story. Of course there needs to be reasons such a thing would happen.

4. Learn from the masters, by this I mean read, study, look at, and absorb the work of those you want to emulate and even those that do not float your boat. Look at how very different artist approach panel design, how they draw, etc. For example how does Charles Schultz differ from Bill Watterson? How does Jack Kirby approach a page compared to Wally Wood?

5. Think about the interaction of positive and negative space, contrast, light and dark, line quality, and the choice of paper, pens, and other tools you will use to create with. Some here only create digitally but the same principles apply in the choices made on the tool bar.

Aaah great advice you guys :> I don't have much to say but here's a tutorial to help cure same face syndrome!

ohhh that is a lovely tutorial :D

Yea, I don't expect anyone to actually say that they are cool or that their comics are the best thing ever written, that's for the 7 billion others roaming our planet to decide. But I hope that everyone thinks that what they are doing is worthy of an audience. I ask myself and others who show me their work , does it stack up to your idols? If not, what's missing and how can you make it get there. If you are asking people to take the time, and sometimes give their money to you, why would they pick yours over an X-Men or Batman comic? Is your comic ready for the big leagues? Are artists really asking you to point out the flaws in their books when they request a critque or are they asking for encouragement? Plenty of great advice posted already for upstarts and creators having trouble finding the way to success.

This is exactly the wrong sort of comment that should be in a 'sharing great advice' thread.

Please, all aspiring comic creators, never chose to do something in a way that you do not personally love because someone else hates it. If you create what you love it'll shine through and it'll find other people who love what it is you're passionate about.

If you create something because that's how you think it ought to be done, but you don't love it, that'll show.

Create for yourself first. Art is about heartbreak. Art is about pain. It's about being madly in love with everything you hate about yourself, twisting it around and putting it on the page for other people to crap upon most lovingly. One person's hate should never be enough to make you stop creating the type of art you love.

Lots of people love that classic big eyed manga styles. I don't, but I can speak from experience when I say I forced myself to do lineart because I believed that was how comics were "supposed to be made", and listened to the people who complained loudly about how blurry and indistinct and awful lineless art was and how very much they hated it and wanted to see cartoony crisp art... but it wasn't what I loved. And when you love what you make, it shows.

That's my great advice.

My second piece of advice is "just do it." Getting bogged down in thinking you have to learn how to draw anatomy perfectly, have fifty bazillion references, a full script... is exactly the reason why a lot of people don't start. Creation is a learning experience! Go on and make 15 pages and realize you messed up. Messing up is how you learn best, and creating with an open mind is the second best way to learn. If you listen to everyone's advice based on what they realized they should have done from the start, you'll spend six months not starting rather than six months learning and realizing at the end of the line that you did things wrong. I think it's better to learn doing than learn by not doing.

Learn from the tutorials and critiques people are posting but never let that stop you from starting. I regret more than anything the year I spent not creating because I was listening to someone who wanted me to be making a comic that wasn't what I wanted to create.

...I am very much an advocate of the Nanowrimo approach, and very much a pantster. :)

Now on to some useful art related advice things for you all to hopefully play with rather than letting freeze you up and stop you from creating. ;)

1) Don't bog yourself down in trying to get everything perfect. Especially for backgrounds, the almighty speedpaint is a lifesaver for getting realistic appearing things in a very short period of time. Here is a tutorial on speedpainting. And here is one that approaches perspective and a city. Environment painting. And one more on cities.

2) Color is amazing. Here's a great little tutorial on digital coloring effects.

3) Some muscles and anatomy and stuff. And once you've got that, how about some dynamic poses? (The tutorial already posted is pretty great too, so don't forget to look it over.)

4) And let's not forget about the writers in the crowd! On Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. And how about a quick booster for if you're stuck on a short story? These are all handy things that help you keep your stories in track, by focusing on what really matters about the story, and what makes your characters tick.

And my final bit of advice...

5) Never stop reading other people's work, looking at other people's art, and constantly exposing yourself to new inspiration. This lets you network but it will also keep your brain churning.

I suppose I was too blunt about my opinions. People should do what they want. I never go up to a person doing that manga style and tell him/her to stop doing it.
But I do think originality is important. Comic is art. Creativity is foundation of art.
Not saying I hate all of such comics with that certain style. You can't ignore plot and characters. As long as the plot is good and has good meaning in it, then it may be up for a good success. I myself love manga like One Piece (unique style of art), Full metal Alchemist (I found it rather philosophical) and Death Note (Unique plot). And Hayao Miyazaki is a legend.
But nowadays, certain styles and stories in a comic are becoming very cliche. I see it too much. And we all know that cliche is not a way to go if you're looking for success. (And now, personal happiness and measurable success is very different. I'm talking about success now. Like more readers, subscriptions, more sold. Not that success determines happiness, but that's what I understand this thread is about.)

I also think knowing what your readers hate or love is important. You can't do whatever you want just because you like it. Drawing comics is a sort of a service. And its not just you and the comic. Its also building a relationship with readers. And that's another advice. Think of the reader's perspective as you draw, be easily understood, be interesting, be practical. From a success point of view, this would be quite important.

But oh well, people are entitled to their opinions.

My name is E-hero and this is my favorite thread in the Citadel. (Great advice from lots of experienced folk!)

Great craftsmanship cannot be faked, you have to draw and write for along time before you get really good at making comics. Lazyness however, is quite abundant, and is easily spotted.

Lot's of really great information here. My advice is to study the great cartoonists of the past, whoever your favorites are.

If your only learning from what you see in modern comics and alternative (indy) comics, then your missing out on tons of cartooning knowedge.

My favorites are: Charles Shultz, Will Eisner, Dave Sim, Walt Kelly, and Joe Kubert.

But if you really wanna see how to make awesome comics for the rest of your life, go and buy a pile of Robert Crumb comics and study them untill your eyes bleed.

Uhmmmmm, yes, you can. That should be the very first thing that dictates why you start making your comic. "I really like this!" and not "What would a reader like?" And in fact, if you preplan, and have your story all written out before you start at no point will you ever be thinking "will my readers like this?"

Your fans are there because they love what you're doing. And you should be there because you love what you're doing, not because of some success-related hangover where you feel beholden to the three hundred people subscribed to your comic. You shouldn't be letting the readers drag along your comic unless of course you happen to be making say, DrowTales and the comic you're pitching just happens to be a pornographic user voted what-happens-next tale.

Let's take some ridiculously popular example: Penny Arcade. They love gaming. And the readers who came along were people who also loved gaming. Now, say one of them decides "I like manga fantasy bromance"... that would be a stupid move to suddenly switch a very successful gaming comic into a fantasy romance manga... and... I'm pretty sure that this is the kind of thing you mean when you say "don't do things just because YOU like them."

But those crazed fans who love gaming are still going to read Penny Arcade whether or not it's making jokes about an obscure game from Sweden most of you have never heard of... or making jokes about the latest addition to the Legend of Zelda series. The latter may be what the fans both want and expect, but the former might just give them a new game to try that they've never heard of and if they were pulling the horse, they wouldn't have voted for the joke for that game, but now maybe they really like it.

But in this I do agree with you quite strongly: webcomics are a service, whether we like it or not, and considering the experience of the readers in the process is a very important part of that service. If you're not interested in pandering to the fact that you're serving up a dish of art and story with a side of jokes to readers a few times a week, maybe a webcomic isn't the right medium.

The pacing should be considered when you design pages, and the entire experience of using the web to present a page by page format, week by week updates... that is something where you really do have to pander to the readerbase, to make the best possible experience for those reading along, while still making it interesting for those reading after the fact and archive diving. My recommendation is that every page have a punchline or something else to grab you... and depending on your fans, that might just be some new pretty art, or some sexy fanservice, or some other tiny plot reveal or character development... or an awful cliffie.

Success includes poking the ant hill and then going and not giving people what they want right away to keep them coming back. If all people were coming back for was the hopes of seeing say, the main character get laid, you'd better have a new hook once that happens, or keep putting that off for as long as possible. :)

Great stories present a question and then go and not answer that question until people are invested. :D

You are of course welcome to your opinions that the fans come first. But I ran a comic for three years (not on CF) and found out along the way that my fans were really just there to see what pretty things I'd paint next. ;) Turned out, they were just as interested in what I loved as I was... and I'd consider that a success.

Since I started this thread, here's my 2 cents. The thought that goes thru my head constantly is to pay close attention to every panel of my comic. I've seen art that seems to be gliding along until a big splash page and suddenly the attention to detail becomes much more focused. Every panel, every page, every story gets 100 percent. No excuses.
My other thought is to find your style. It's hard to put into words but every artist out there has a natural way of drawing, even the biggest painters of all time. Can you experiment, sure, but inside of you is something that is ready to come out and be uniquely yours.

#1 Do what you want to do and what you enjoy. Don't worry about getting zillions of readers.
#2 Don't do it to please critics. Fuck critics. That doesn't mean not asking people what they think of your work, just dont sweat over it.
Remember... This is all done for free.