Improvement? Maybe?

[amae]

Haven't done this in a while. Put comic pages, starting from er..2007 (ish?) to now next to each other in a feeble attempt to see if I've improved in the past few years.










So I can definitely say that I've improved since doing Elliot/Variations on a Theme (the first picture), but it kind of gets hard to say if I've stagnated or not past that point, haha. I guess things have stopped looking as Ribon-esque shoujo as they were for the second page, but that's not saying that much. More blacks, which I think is a good thing, and more backgrounds, which is also a good thing (though I admit that I still need to get better at that...especially how to continually include backgrounds without things looking boring). Anatomy has improved slightly, but that also needs a lot of work. Drawing guidelines for characters' bodies has been a good start and I'm definitely continuing that.

I really need to stop...avoiding drawing things that make me anxious (it's a bad habit that applies not only to drawing, but to just things that make me stressed in general). I want to draw a comic that is mainly told through characters' hands as practice, but the thought is honestly so terrifying I've been putting it off, lol. Maybe I should start a bit slower...

Doing Overland has helped with my mindset when doing comics, and it's become a lot less stressful than it was before but I think I'm ready to push myself a bit more. As soon as I finish writing up stuff for Chapter 2, that's exactly what I plan to do. :)

What do you think?

Comments

[pinkchan.livejournal.com]

I actually prefer some of your older pages better. You use blacks more, but haven't actually balanced the blacks- whereas before I felt like you had a better handle on balance when you used more tones. Lately everyone's been trying to completely stop using tones, like it's always better to use less tones or something...it's good to learn how to do more with inks, but when you don't balance that with an eye towards whether it helps the page as a whole, it negates the positives.

As for pose creativity, maybe you could start out by looking at an artist you admire and trying to do the poses they do? Just remember not to reference the original illustration. Like take the general pose from an illustration you like and then try and recreate it by looking up the anatomy yourself. Try even mirroring it to make completely sure you're not just copying the original illustration.

And even just looking over your old pages, I see a lot of anatomy that could be improved upon...so maybe just look through your old stuff and try and redraw it with concentration on getting the anatomy right.

As for being nervous, remember that nobody really has to see what you're drawing. Don't be afraid to fail and practice the same things over and over again. I can't tell you how many of my sketchbook pages are just the same body part in the same pose over and over again because I can never get them right.

[maiteoida.livejournal.com]

Haha, I kind of like the move from the amount of tones I used to before, if only because I think it fits Overland more but I agree that I need to improve the way that I use blacks (it's a bit addicting in itself, so it's just as easy to get carried away with that as it is with tones, I guess?).

I never really thought about going back to old pages and trying to redraw more correctly...that sounds like a really good idea. I think I'm going to invest in a mirror very soon, because my current room doesn't have one where I draw so it makes it kind of difficult to reference my own body when I'm drawing like I do at home.

And while I know that no one really has to see me mess up at drawing certain things, when it comes to stuff like Overland where I do post the pages up, the anxiety tends to increase. But I think...in my case, it might be good to allow myself to mess up a bit in public so I can just get over that barrier and accept it as a necessary evil when trying to improve. It's going to be hard, though. Really hard. :/

[charmwitch.livejournal.com]

Just know, if you get anxious now, you're going to need to expose yourself especially when you become more of a published artist. You're exposed to everyone, you have to be confident and have your basic structures down for when that time comes. It is better to feel anxious but override it now than later.

It's part of the professional world. You can do it.

[pinkchan.livejournal.com]

The problem was less the tones and more the reliance on tones to fill in for details and textures that should've been done in ink. So now it's like, you're trying to do the details in ink, but no longer remembering that the tones are there as a tool you can use when appropriate? Sometimes you put blacks for the sake of using more blacks when it would've been more appropriate to use subtler textures. (Like tones or more subtle inkwork than solid washes.)

So it's like one problem for another, when the solution could be a marriage of the two.

As for performance anxiety on Overland, the whole point of a personal webcomic is you have the freedom to put things on pause as long as you need to to really get things polished if you want.

Of course, the self-imposed schedule of a regularly updated webcomic is to avoid perfectionism, but I think in your case perfectionism isn't the problem, since you're wondering what needs to be done to improve after viewing the body of work that's already been produced... so yeah, don't worry about the need to publicly perform if it's getting in the way of improvement.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if improvement is your goal, do what you gotta do to get over your fears and do that. Public or private, it doesn't matter.

I personally had to give myself permission to be private about my art... for some reason I felt like I had to 'check in' with everybody. Then I thought about it and realized that was a stupid idea. So if you're having the same problem, feel free to artistically drop dead to the world for however long. Feels good man.