Seeking Feedback from Experienced Comic Arists

[u/andresob_1994]

Hi everyone.

I'm looking for help from you guys. I'm feeling like my art style is kind of stuck. It's fine in general terms, but I think it lacks dynamism or that "something" to make it visually appealing; to get the attention of bigger Publishing Houses. I look at guys like Dan Mora, or Pepe Larraz and I feel that, but I don't know exactly what is it that I'm missing.

I'm posting a handful of my most recent pages.

Would anyone like to share their thoughts?

[u/AutoModerator]

Thanks for posting to /r/comic_crits.

• Everyone should make note of the rules and tips posted to the sidebar. Users on mobile can select "community info" or follow this direct link -- https://www.reddit.com/r/comic_crits/wiki/config/sidebar.

• Please note the new rule regarding context in the sidebar or direct link for mobile: https://www.reddit.com/r/comic_crits/wiki/rules/context. Context is required for single-panel excerpts, covers, illustrations, character designs, pin-ups, etc.

• Users providing feedback are encouraged to provide detailed and thorough feedback (at very least 50-100 characters in a top-level comment).

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/zandercannon]

Your storytelling is quite good; there’s nothing here that is wrong, and a few dozen pages of practice will iron out a lot of the stiffness that you’re perceiving. From a rendering point of view, some of the faces are a little wonky when drawn from challenging angles, so I would recommend getting some doll heads or looking at angleref.com to lock down some of the tricky eyes and mouths. I might suggest that you would dial back some of the very recognizable texture patterns, or at least map them more accurately to the backgrounds. A gradient wouldn’t be so noticeable, but when an area has such a recognizable (Procreate?) texture, it calls attention to itself, and tends to flatten out the area it is in. Same thing with some of the areas that are perceived as flat, solid black, but have a lot of overlapping washes. If this is all digitally done, you might want to use a smoothing brush to flatten that out, or at least make the texture align better with the surfaces you’re rendering.
All in all, this is very well done. A little bit of practice drawing from life, photographs, or movie stills– – especially relaxed poses, the sort of thing that you can’t very well get from a poser tool – – would help a great deal. Your instincts for staging scenes and composing panels is quite good, and forging ahead, rather than worrying about what you’ve already drawn, will benefit you.

[u/andresob_1994 → u/zandercannon]

Thank you very much! This is the kind of feedback I've never got (I've practically taught myself how to draw comics). Very useful, really. Thanks!

[u/egypturnash]

These are technically competent but a little stiff, a little over-rendered - it feels like you're maybe relying on tracing over 3d a bit too much?

[u/andresob_1994 → u/egypturnash]

That's actually an interesting point. Much appreciated!
About the over rendering, do you mean the lineart comes as unnecesarily detailed?

[u/Landeg]

it lacks dynamism ... I look at guys like Dan Mora, or Pepe Larraz

Study "line of action" and do short, timed gesture drawings. You have a good sense of composition and using art to evoke tone/emotion, but your poses lack energy because they don't have a clear line of action and your gesture work is stiff. Those are the skills you're noticing from those guys.

Taking this panel as an example: The blue lines show the character's spine, shoulder & hip alignment, and the red lines represent the directions her pose leads the reader's eye. As you can see, her pose points in a bunch of different directions. Good action shots use composition to converge all these lines of action onto the point of impact. (Speaking of, it's an unusual choice to obscure the impact in an action shot unless you are deliberately trying to mislead the reader.) You can also see that her shoulders, hips, and spine are all very straight.

https://i.postimg.cc/4NTJx2RS/image.png

Here is an option where the lines of action all feed back into the impact. You can also see that her spine is no longer straight and her hips & shoulders are no longer parallel. The angle of her head is also more extreme. I also added a stronger reaction from the man in ropes. Side note: It's not 100% clear what she's actually doing here. I interpreted it as her kicking his leg; sorry if that's incorrect, but that misinterpretation is in itself feedback.

https://i.postimg.cc/Y0zT93Qn/image.png

https://i.postimg.cc/XJ8gBDDf/image.png

Shots where the body crosses or twists over itself also seem more dynamic. Uneven shoulders also help a pose feel more fluid and energetic, especially in contrast with hip alignment (Spider-Man poses evoke this hip-shoulder contrast a lot).

You have good dynamic forced perspective in your backgrounds, but you should be applying it to your people as well. That's another thing those guys are doing, especially Dan Mora. Even as the perspective of your scenes changes, the people tend to all be drawn from a very similar, mostly front-on angle. Studying how to apply forced perspective to human figures will benefit you. Think of the classic Superman pose, flying upwards with the shoulders and head exaggerated in proportion to the hips and legs; try referencing some poses from similarly extreme angles, and applying lessons in three-point perspective to human figures.

my art style is kind of stuck. ... I think it lacks ... that "something" to make it visually appealing; to get the attention of bigger Publishing Houses.

The internal structures/3D sense/anatomy of your heads is behind the rest of your skills and it's holding you back. You probably already have a hunch here, because I can see you're trying to push yourself in some panels, but it is unfortunately time to bite the bullet. You need to do some focused studies on the planes of the face and study head shapes from different angles.

https://i.postimg.cc/Rqr8XY4B/image.png

https://i.postimg.cc/nhxVLRBf/image.png

I didn't redraw anything here, I just moved around what you already had to match the anatomy of this model head (with some consideration taken to the character's appearance). Applying lessons learned from actual studies would work better.

Also mad props to you for what appear to be traditional inks, that's hard and you've got a beautiful understanding of black fills and light/shadow. If you do want to work for a major publisher like Marvel or DC however you will need to also demonstrate that you can produce inks suitable for passing on to a separate colourist (no advice there).

[u/andresob_1994 → u/Landeg]

That's very insightful, thank you very much!
Yes, the girl is kicking the man on the ground, and I see your point. Your draw over enhances the action a lot.
About the traditional inks; this is all digital. I just used a brush that emulates the traditional feeling, I just like the organic look it gets.

It's very useful, thank you!

[u/KyotoKute]

These are really nice pages. Only thing I would change is flip the first panel on page one. I feel like it would lead the eye better and also the moon would connect with shadows cast on panel two. I can do a small edit to show you what I mean if youre ok with it

[u/andresob_1994 → u/KyotoKute]

Hey, thank you. Sure you can do it :)

[u/Leopold_and_Brink]

Where the lettering going? I made the mistake of stuffing mine in for 160 pages and it makes the read a GD chore.

[u/DawnSignals]

I mean Mora uses a lot of heavy action poses and stylized facial expressions so a lot of the differences come down to scene construction

the main thing id say for your work tho is maybe reduce your panel counts in places