Crass Comic Still Searching for Consistency in its Art

Think your comic can improve? Whether it's art or writing, composition or colouring, feel free to ask here! Critique and commentary welcome.

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Penguinx
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Crass Comic Still Searching for Consistency in its Art

Post by Penguinx »

Hola.

I've jumped from B&W, to full color, to limited color, to markers, etc. All over the board. Here's an example of the current art style:

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More examples can be see in the archives on my comic's site.

What do you like the best and why? Should I stop fussing with it already?

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Escushion
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Post by Escushion »

Of the art through the archives, I think you should stick with the black and white. It looks the best of the different styles.
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LibertyCabbage
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Post by LibertyCabbage »

Of the art through the archives, I think you should stick with the black and white. It looks the best of the different styles.
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Yeahduff
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Post by Yeahduff »

Moving you over to the advice forum.
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Penguinx
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Post by Penguinx »

Interestingly enough, the B&W art is the least liked by everyone else I've shown it to. Hm.

The B&W art is certainly a lot less work, I'll say that much.

But, by B&W, do you mean the recent, shaded B&W or the original lineart only stuff?

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Yeahduff
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Post by Yeahduff »

Your comic doesn't need color. It works much better in black and white. Maybe if you further limited the pallette, it'd work, but the garrish color choice doesn't work nearly as well as the black and white. But then again, I like black and white.

I do like your earlier stuff than what you have posted, but I think that's because you have no true blacks. Just dark greys. If adjusted your settings to make them more black, you'd be good.
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Bluebug
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Post by Bluebug »

Definitely stick with the style that you used for the page you posted above. The colors you choose are a bit too bright, and the simple block shading (ie. cell shading) doesn't do justice to your realistic art style, but rather gives it a cartoonish feel. By contrast, the simple shading with greyscale works.

Another thing I like above the above page is that there are no solid whites or blacks (though the background could stand to be a little lighter/cleaned up). When you use jet black to color in hair and articles of clothing on pages that are offwhite/grey, the emphasis of the piece becomes those things that are in black, and it's very distracting.
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Penguinx
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Post by Penguinx »

I've since updated the way I handle the blacks in the comic. Thanks to your suggestions, I scan the lineart in first, color the comic, scan the colored comic in, and drop the lineart as a multiply layer over the top. The black tones are a lot more consistent as of the last two comics, I think.

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Yeahduff
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Post by Yeahduff »

Oooooo....

I like it.
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Taiwanimation
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Post by Taiwanimation »

The current style works quite well.
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Edgy24
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Post by Edgy24 »

I'd have to agree with the others on the art style. There's something to be said about b&w. Still from the image sample above, I'd say you should place a bit more concern on drawing breasts. Those twins look a wee bit unnatural. :)
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