Do you feel your comic challenges your skills?

Siabur · Post by **Siabur** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 5:31 am

The only challange I get from my comics is getting them done before the deadline. Summer's here so I don't pay much attention to it like I do in the winter when the heat from the monitor keeps me warm.

Webkilla · Post by **Webkilla** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 6:34 am

my comic... if it challenges my artistic skills?

often!

Doing anatomy right, hands, feet, faces... gah - its hard, but I learn! Also, IMO then one of the best things I've gotten from my comic is that I've gotten better at doing my artsy fartsy thing FAST...

I can now draw what would have been a 4 hour page in 2 hours - and while that might not say much about the quality of the art, then to me it says that I'm better at 'just' doing it.

Renee Katz · Post by **Renee Katz** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 6:42 am

Drawing this thing everyday has made me a better artist, I hope. It definitely doesn't take as long as it used to.

Garneta · Post by **Garneta** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 8:38 am

Mine is absolutely a challenge. I've been kinda slacking on the artwork lately, just so that I can get a comic up every week or so, but if I were trying to the best of my abilities, I still rarely get it exactly as it is in my head. The story challenges me too, since I've never been all that great at writing anything but poems. I get so far along on the storyline, then I get writers block for a couple of months. The scripts themselves are usually easier to write, but sometimes I get to one in particular and think, 'Now how the hell am I supposed to draw that well?!'

Jekkal · Post by **Jekkal** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:54 am

Oh, absolutely. It almost tears me up to have a buffer because it means I see just how much better I'm drawing at my current rate compared to what's online at the time I draw it.

This also seems to work to my disadvantage sometimes when someone else criticizes my skill level based on the current strip.

I accept that my work improves with each piece, but Christ...

VIIStar · Post by **VIIStar** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:03 am

jekkal wrote:Oh, absolutely. It almost tears me up to have a buffer because it means I see just how much better I'm drawing at my current rate compared to what's online at the time I draw it.

This also seems to work to my disadvantage sometimes when someone else criticizes my skill level based on the current strip. I accept that my work improves with each piece, but Christ...

I'm toning and posting with a buffer of about 8 months so i <i>completely</i> understand.

As for being challenged, it's more of a speed and quality balance. I don't really think of pages as i would individual pieces; i originally posted in chapters so each individual panel wouldn't be scrutinized (allowing for a few mistakes). Before Raeux i did a 10 page test and didn't think to use toner and ended up hand texturing everything... now <a href ="http://www.viistar.com/images/2d/manga/ ... m">that</a> was a bitch.

Redtech · Post by **Redtech** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:01 pm

No way should the chars of NieceWeb be killed off! I like them far too bloody much!

I feel that drawing my comic is challenging. I have a 12 comic anti-buffer to do and a week to do it!

As for artistic skills, as a non-professional I have to draw well the good-ol' fashioned way, so things like pose, lighting, colour, even how to shade are things that needed to be picked up through brute force.

NakedElf · Post by **NakedElf** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:27 pm

It seems to me that if your webcomic isn't challenging your skills in a way you'd like, the easiest thing is to change it. I mean, that's the beauty of a webcomic. You're not constrained by printing techniques or costs. You don't have to do the same thing you've been doing, and readers often enjoy seeing the style change over time.

Of course, if you go from writing gag-a-day humor to writing epic pathos and drama, readers might not take to that. :P But in general, if you decide to do the art in a different style or add panels or subtract panels or whatever, you can...

Eve Z. · Post by **Eve Z.** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:44 pm

yeah. it challenges my writing in English skills, my drawing skills, my making up a situation skill, but especially my skills on drawing things I don't like to draw and are goddamn necesary.

VIIStar · Post by **VIIStar** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:08 pm

Eve Z. wrote:but especially my skills on drawing things I don't like to draw and are goddamn necesary.

like backgrounds that are not organic, with objects, all in proper perspective.
amen.

Adobedragon · Post by **Adobedragon** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:20 pm

VIIStar wrote:I'm toning and posting with a buffer of about 8 months so i completely understand.

Wow! Just wow. In my case it's more like, "Look, Ma. No buffer! Wheee!"

VIIStar wrote:like backgrounds that are not organic, with objects, all in proper perspective.
amen.

Planes, trains, automobiles, and all things man-made. I hate drawing 'em.

And yes, if it's possible to challenge non-existent skills, then my comic challenges mine.

VIIStar · Post by **VIIStar** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:52 pm

adobedragon wrote: Wow! Just wow. In my case it's more like, "Look, Ma. No buffer! Wheee!"

I just kept working... I was going to go back an add toner earlier... Didn't think i'd take so long... that and if i scanned daily my old computer, connected to my old scanner, would surely perish ;__;

adobedragon wrote: Planes, trains, automobiles, and all things man-made. I hate drawing 'em.

right now i'm looking at a huge study with books and multiple floors...
Deep, cleansing breath...

Everything can be broken down into basic shapes and rotated into perspective. For me, it's not a case of doing it, or even doing it right, it's how much patience i have to sit long enough to get it right. ^^;

Geekblather · Post by **Geekblather** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:46 pm

Mine also hones by other skills. Bow hunting skills, numchuck skills- bass-fishing skills...

I started the comic because I was drawing consistently every day, and getting decent feedback from it, and I figured I might as well put that work into something constructive, and I find that it's always making me new learn things, about everything from club scenes to floorplans to restaurants to programming to networking. The project wouldn't have any value if I wasn't learning new things.

Dragoness_Minerva · Post by **Dragoness_Minerva** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 8:33 pm

Sure does. In my case it's making me a better artist (I hope). I never used to color anything, let alone ink it. Now with each new comic I find myself improving on something I did wrong in the past and trying to find ways to do things better.

RobertBlake · Post by **RobertBlake** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 8:57 pm

Yes. Writing a drawing my comic damn near every day helps to improve my skills, but it's a challenge I'm willing to take.

Of course, I've also been feeling the want to tell other stories besides the one I'm telling now.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 2:21 am

It's interesting, I realised that my comics challenge my acting skills.
Which means, it's very important for me to be able to speak for other people in my comics. I don't want all characters to be some projection of me, so I often try to make characters that are the very oposite. In order to make them convincing, I try to fit into a role, to try to think like them, actually try to figure out the way they're thinking (which is, again, one of the most interesting things for those who like psychology).
And that is kind of similar to acting. One of the most noticeable things is, for instance, cursing. People are always surprised when my characters curse, while I don't. But I realise that when writing a character that does curse, I am so in his skin that curse slides overy my mouth very easily.

Jameslong · Post by **Jameslong** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:46 am

geekblather wrote:Mine also hones by other skills. Bow hunting skills, numchuck skills- bass-fishing skills...

what, no "mustache-growing skills"...?

Keffria · Post by **Keffria** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 5:57 am

I make a point of doing something that challenges me with every page, whether it's an odd pose or camera angle, a background in proper perspective, a different lighting effect, or (as with the beginning of my latest arc) full colour. This leads to cop-outs in other areas (cool pose? forget the backgrounds!), and snail's-pace updates, though. It's an unfortunate trade-off, but I don't want to stagnate.

Hellbenders · Post by **Hellbenders** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:28 pm

Ah, the attack of the "Maybe if I went back to the beginning and redrew everything from scratch, no one would notice?" complex.

A lot of us go through it. Just move along with the flow. I know it can suck for you to look back through in retrospect, but just think of the readers who start from the beginning and see improvement in every page.

Kels · Post by **Kels** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:36 pm

Hellbenders wrote:A lot of us go through it. Just move along with the flow. I know it can suck for you to look back through in retrospect, but just think of the readers who start from the beginning and see improvement in every page.

Heck, that's one thing that got me doing a webcomic in the first place. I've followed enough artists through their archives and watched them get better as a result of working diligently at their comics, that I realized that I could improve my own skills by doing the same thing. And I think that after only three months of strips, I've already seen a big difference in my own work.

I'll probably never go back and re-do my strips, although a year-by-year comparison, somewhere down the road, would be pretty cool.