The Comic Art Evolution Thread

[KomiyanZaibach]

We talked about this in the free talk thread and it got a lot of good responses, so let's do this!

Show us how much your art and style has changed over the years! If you can show one character over several designs, all the better, or just your first comic page vs. your most recent. It'll either give you a shot of comedy humility, make you feel good about how far you've come, or inspire beginning artists to see how much they can improve.

I'll put my money where my mouth is and embarrass myself first. I started out with horrible snout-nose big-eyed manga-ripoff freaks and worked up to somewhat human.





My first ever comic was a different one to the one I'm working on now. As you can see I had no idea what a ruler was, how faces worked, or how pretty much any part of a human worked really. Backgrounds were also a big no!
The colour one is my most recent comic page, which still has massive problems with movement and a few other things, but jesus I hope it's an improvement razz

2002-


2009-
http://www.darkencomic.com/comics/20091022.jpg


So, now that I've thoroughly embarrassed myself, it's your turn! Swallow your pride and show us your improvements!

[Psycho Bunny Studio]

Oh hey I used to read your comic!

Can't remember why I stopped tho... I think you quit updating for a while.

hurrrmmm lets see if I can't find some old stuff.


2004


2008

I'll have to scan some old 2004 stuff because that one was the best of the best I had back then.

[The Titanium Spork]

2009. Sloppy, but a reasonable representation.
Early 2008.
(Don't kill me, I know it's s**t.) Linked to a DA page because the file is gigantic and I have no desire to resize it.

[Seijaku_Ishida]

XD

This was around...2000 or 2001 or so. When I first got into webcomics.


2003


2004


2007


Current.

[iianbe]

I only started drawing comics in 2008 sweatdrop

But here's a before-and-after of some panels I redrew after changing the setting of the scene...

[sinistersquid]

Blargg. I was all 'yah, this is a cool idea, I'll just go on to my hard drive and find older comic pages and...waaaait. Those are on my PC. Which does not currently turn on. Hm =/'

And also, I'd say that the super-secret project I am currently working on (alone--I've got current comic pages that I'm working on that are a joint venture, and that are also more than slightly experimental-- I don't really feel like they count) really highlights what I'm currently capable of. But since I have nothing to compare it to, and it is also super secret, I'll have to stick to the design aspect of my evolution.

So here is an old evolution progress pic that I found while going through my stored stuff on my DA account.
http://www.browncomics.com/ran/progress1.jpg

Now, back when I made that, for the starting year, I think I was kind of embarrassed by most of the stuff I did in 2003. I took the three very best ones, and some of those very best ones only looked really good zoomed out, like in this picture. Most of my stuff back then was about this quality, especially computer stuff:

http://www.browncomics.com/ran/2003.jpg

Yeaaaaah....so, in comparison to mt 2003 example, here's the latest thing I've done that I have actually scanned. I'm not super happy about the ink job on it, because i inked digitally (usually use brush pens, but didn't have one on hand where I was), but the result is veeeery different from 2003. This is a character design of a 12-year-old from my super-secret comic project, that I cannot currently post pages from:

http://www.browncomics.com/ran/2009.jpg

So yeah, at least my character design and knowledge of photoshop has improved since 2003 O_o

[megrar]

*cough* i'm going to go waaaay back to when i first got into anime as a fan. had never seen a manga yet, and anime was still $30 per video cassette tape.

1997, age 14:
http://shatterlands.com/sketch/gneeheehee.jpg

i don't even remember the story these guys were attached to. typical end-of-the-world bullshit, i'm sure.

2003, age 19 or 20:
http://shatterlands.com/sketch/scarykid.jpg

2006, 22 or 23:
http://shatterlands.com/sketch/tonerek.jpg

2009:
http://shatterlands.com/sketch/preparation.jpg

this is probably the image i whore out most these days, as i'm really ********' pleased with it.

i picked out the images that are more closely related to comicking. i did tons of illustration type stuff when i was younger (and abused the photoshop filters until they cried). straight comics work though, i didn't start until after i'd graduated college.

[Chinko-chan]

xd Oh geez prepare your eyes for they will bleed.

2005 - My Comic called Fruit medley was a hyrbid of traditional and digital art done very very poorly. I was a huge fan of RPG world at this time.



2006/2007 - Cusp of the new year I played in the ABR alot. Style is a little better, but I never bothered to clean my art. Also most of the time I could only find pink paper to draw on, more anime is slowly creeping into my style.

ABR 1



Also I experimented with brushes... with mixed results.

the most cliche story ever told

2008- Anime has almost completely taken over.



Look Its in color

2009 - Decided to start learning what people actually look like. Life drawing in abundance. Love to draw cosplayers, also made a ball point pen comic before my bpp was taken away at work. T.T


Cosplayers
The text

[Kupocake]

Megrar, your images aren't loading. gonk

Evolution of my character Lavender.
2006 - Girl on the left. I had a very generic anime style.
2007 - Still pretty generic
Late 2007 - Big update here. This was probably a few months after I decided I wanted to pursue art as a career.
2008 - Kind of messy, but I started to emphasize on movement rather than static.
2009 - Done just earlier this month. I have a much stronger understanding of human anatomy and gesture.

Evolution of my character Jonathan.
2006 - The first time I drew Jonathan, I didn't even have a name for him yet. I submitted this to a local art contest and failed miserably. I still kept him though.
Late 2006 - The cover of my first shot at a webcomic. Oh sweet Jesus it was bad.
2007 - I still am kind of fond of this one. I became more serious about art around this time.
2008 - I had this odd idea of drawing him with wings, not because he was an angel or anything, but just because. Also, design revision.
2009 - My 'style' started becoming more realistic, less anime influenced. Huzzah?

I'll post my evolution of comic pages after I actually get a start with NaNoMangO. *excited*

[Ms Terrible]

2007: Skull??? What i do not understand what you mean, perhaps you could try expressing yourself in the form of an anime

[megrar]

Kupocake

Megrar, your images aren't loading. gonk

my host is working fine. do you have images-from-unknown-hosts blocked?

1997, age 14

2003, age 19 or 20

2006, 22 or 23

2009

[The Victorian]

http://thaumic.net/oldnew/takakos.jpg

2001:
http://thaumic.net/oldnew/midlands20010701.jpg

2009:
http://ben-riley.com/images/illustration/comic.png

2005:
http://thaumic.net/oldnew/midlands20050219.jpg

2009:
http://thaumic.net/comics/2009-09-08.jpg

2004:
http://thaumic.net/oldnew/midlands20040403.jpg

2009:
http://thaumic.net/comics/2009-09-15.jpg

[Kupocake]

megrar

Kupocake

Megrar, your images aren't loading. gonk

my host is working fine. do you have images-from-unknown-hosts blocked?

1997, age 14

2003, age 19 or 20

2006, 22 or 23

2009

Nope. I can't even establish a connection with Shatterlands.com. Either my ISP is sucking more than normal, or something is wrong with that website.

[Benjamin van Adin]

Kupocake

my ISP is sucking

[Kupocake]

Benjamin van Adin

Kupocake

my ISP is sucking

I thought so. ._. AT&T is pathetic.