Bang Head Here: or how I change my style. Critique welcome.

[Thereisnosaurus]

Hello everybody. I thought I'd post up a topic as I go about rebooting my comic back to full updates and the considerations that entails. I'm a very art-focused person when it comes to constructing my comic in the sense that I began it not because I particularly wanted to tell a story or that I love drawing, but because I wanted to learn how to do so (draw that is, I flatter myself that I'm a competent storyteller already). In four years I've gone from tragic to passable at the art of drawing, likely through the potent application of picassian techniques (that is to say, stealing every single idea, style and method I can lay my eyes on). However, late last year I reached a point in the comic where I found I was just drawing it. I was improving noticeably still, but more slowly and with less direction than before. So I took a break to look at what I could do differently.

As art improves, faults that once were not noticeable become more so and new ones occur, so taking a break to address these before they become habitual is another benefit. I've currently been on hiatus for about five months, in which time I've drawn a lot of assorted art and sketches around character design, fanart and general fun art, as well as producing a portfolio book and a series of summary comics that cover my first four years to save new readers the trauma of having to read through my often quite horrible archive.

Now it is time for the final run of alterations to the comic, applying what I've learned through study to a new look, format and palette in actual comics, this thread will chronicle that approach, partly for purposes of garnering critique and comment and partly to show off the process, which I think can be good for people who get stuck in a bit of a rut.


Here's the first comic (which will double as filler to placate the audience):


In this one I was trying a few new things. The way I go about drawing is designed to be optimised towards speed, as I like to maintain a 3/week update, so I sketch, ink with pencil in PS, bucketfill and (previously) used soft brushes and gradients for highlights. Recently I've experimented with cellshading using the pencil and found it as fast and, now my art is at the level it is, looks good enough, so I've switched over to that. Following on that theme of speed = good, I tried a new way of drawing text bubbles that is as fast as the old method I used (elliptical selections bucketfilled under the text), using a freeform lasoo to get nice crisp curved tags which previously I hadn't tried.

I've also shrunk my comic size down to try and get a crisper feel, muted the colour palette a bit to cater for the darker tone of more recent stories, gone to a classic black separator line between the panels rather than my more elaborate former one. I'm also trying to nail down some simple shading rules, for example, 'use the lightest colour on most materials and only shade, but for hair use the darkest colour and only highlight' that I can apply comic wide. With a varied cast and wardrobe, rules like this help you throw together bit characters a lot more quickly and it also gives your work coherency.

Since I'm focusing specifically on layout and colour concerns, I decided to skip backgrounds for this comic, letting the changes speak for themselves. The next one or two I plan on is to play with backgrounds, traditionally one of my weakest areas.


For a final reference section:

Here's an example of a comic from my pre-revision period, as close to the change as possible that has the same characters:




and an example of my art circa 2006, for all you people who get depressed about not being able to draw:




I believe that with the correct attitude and mental rigor, anyone can get good at anything, physical disabilities aside (and even there, habituation is a wonderful thing at times). My work thus far has been a labour of love to prove it ^^.

[Pixel]

Coming from someone who doesn't read your comic, your new style looks good. The thick lines like in the 3rd-to-last panel really made it pop.

Unfortunately, with the new text bubble tails, it seems pretty hit or miss. The first panel ones look kind of awkward, but they got better around the last four panels. I guess it's just something that practice will fix.

[JGray]

I have to say the guys don't look as good as they did. They've lost detail and character in their faces. Women do look better. More feminine. I think you need to work a little more on this.

[Alectric]

I would try putting more variation between the characters' faces.  It can be tricky when you don't draw with much detail, but try for example to make their noses more unique.

[Pixel]

Yeah, Alectric's got a point. Female noses and Male noses in particular should  be drawn different. The nose you're using now is kind've uni-sexual, but that doesn't mean use it for everyone. My rule of thumb is to try to draw everyone's nose differently [if you have to repeat one or two for different characters it's no big deal] but that just might work well for my style.

[Thereisnosaurus]

@Jgray: It's odd, because if you look closely, the drawing method for my faces is identical to the old method. I've changed a couple of things with the style of lines I use (for example, gareth's chin is now drawn straighter and his eyes wider and less rounded at the top and bottom) and the colouring, but that's really all. Could you be more specific?

@pixel/alectric: mmm. the noses are certainly something I'm aware of. I've tried making a lot of differentiation but it ends up looking very forced. I do have some deliberate variation between characters, in two departments of size and roundness. the girls typically have smaller noses and less of the bridge drawn in. I try and differ my characters subtly in how I draw their eyes, nose and jaws, though obviously there is some overlap.

On the speech bubble tails, noted. I drew that bunch at low resolution, I'll try doing it more carefully before I shrink the image next time. a friend of mine suggested manually brushing in intersecting curved lines as opposed to using the lasso, so I might give that a shot, though I've tried it a while back and found it didn't work so well.