I'm doing it wrong: updated

[Marty Nozz]

I've been doing comics for a quite a while now, mostly on the web. I've been attending cons and slugging it out in artists alleys going on 10 years now.

I have yet to come anywhere near breaking even on anything. I've managed to get some loot in art exchanges such as a very nice mini-bust and some cool DVDs and things. Other than that, nothing.

My website doesn't have a donate option, mainly due to myself and my partner being so swamped that updating every week like we want to often doesn't happen.

The conventions though are what really get me. We often charge $5 to $10 dollars of sketches, and we bust our asses on them often doing full pencils and inks. Still we're getting very little business even though we're offering them at a fraction of what other artists are charging.

Obviously I'm missing something, and while in my case it's possibly talent, Chris (my partner) does excellent work and is in the same boat. What am I doing wrong?

Update: November 6th

After receiving the feedback and critique I went quickly through the seven stages of getting a harsh critique. Of course those are:

1: Denial
2: Anger
3: Crying
4: Mimosas
5: Digestion
6: Retooling
7: Getting back to work

I did have the decency of keeping all of this away from from the forum (although if you want a mimosa I still have some and feel free to stop by!); and did not bring in every mule I could muster, pretend they're not me and have them defend my work and call your all names to make myself look like a jackass and give you all cheap laughs.

So my course of action is quite clear. Download the books that have been provided, and try to squeeze in more life drawing. Taking an actual course is not an option at this time which will be a developmental hindrance, but perhaps when moneys a bit better and I have more time I'll be able to do so. I will be doing the studying, which is of things I have learned and for some reason have gotten away from. Not sure where I lost my grip on the basics, but it certainly seems time to get back to them.

I'll be continuing with the web-comic because it does have some readers, and I don't want to betray them by leaving them hanging. I've nearly completed my third chapter of the story so I'm going to finish out those last couple pages, take a month to get a firmer grip on things and start the new year in a better artistic direction. Of course all the improvements that are necessary won't be made by then, but I'm hoping to be moving into a better direction artistically. I've found that doing the work and trying to make each page better than the last is good motivation for improvement.

This is the first time my artwork has been reviewed and critiqued since I really got drawing again after a (way too long) break. When people come to my site they talk about Chris's art. Any reviews that have been done have been on Mere Mortal. Night Life has been critically ignored, which is bad. It let me know that there's something wrong there, but didn't give me specifics as to what.

Mere Mortal in moving in a direction as far as story that seems to be working for people. The writing has gotten a good review or two, and people seem to like it. I'm confident in that work, although any thoughts or critiques are certainly welcome. I am wondering what people are thinking about Night Life as a story. Now, I know that's a lot to go through, so if I don't have any takers on this I completely understand. Also the first chunk of it is in a strip format. I moved onto full pages in the later pages.

Again, thank you all for your time.

[IronSpike]

I went to your site and browsed the gallery.

I think you're right. The most likely culprit is the quality of your work. With absolutely no intention of cruelty, I can honestly say I was surprised to hear that your comics and pin-ups are the product of ten years of practice.

This piece, for example. The perspective, the anatomy, the inking, and the fakery in the setting drag it right, right down. The bar in the back disagrees with the stage, the floor and the foreground table on the location of the vanishing point, because there is none. The waiter's arm clearly shows you have some idea of his musculature, but not enough to keep things proportional or in perspective. The inks on the figures never vary in line weight, and the few places you've attempted shadowing are just plain unconvincing. And the fakery; you're drawing the idea of a face, the idea of a table, the idea of a serving tray, the idea of a salt and pepper shaker, not what those things actually look like. Some of the faces are even identical, and most of them aren't even emoting; they're like store mannequins. The whole scene is flat, poorly-rendered, and confused.

I won't lie: If I saw this in an Artist Alley portfolio, I'd keep walking.

If you're still open to advice after that, I'd urge you to hit the books, hard. I don't care where you live, you CAN find a cheap or free life-drawing class, and I urge you to go. You need a good, solid year of drawing from life, STAT. I also urge you to download these books and really study what they tell you. And you would definitely benefit from David Chelsea's Perspective for Comic Book Artists and Guptill's Rendering in Pen and Ink.

Appealing art, art that people are drawn to and buy, is a combination of style, charm, and technical ability. Style is something that will come naturally, after you refine technique, and charm is something you cultivate through practice and by discovering your own preferences and approaches. Just will yourself to learn, be open to criticism, and always make time to draw.

[ninota]

Excellent advice from Spike. This is definitely a case of not enough life drawing.

I have a couple of tips that may help you.

1. This book. Breaking out of the habit of drawing from your imagination and using symbols even when the model is right in front of you is a lot harder than it sounds, and if there is one book that will help you, it's this one. I promise if you do the exercises, you will not regret it.

2. Buy a cheap sketchbook that you absolutely do not give a s**t about. Resist the Moleskines and the fancy crap; the last thing you want to worry about at this point is "wasting the nice pages" with ugly practice doodles. Go for the $5 thing with the spiral. It doesn't matter. Make sure it's not huge so you can carry it around with you, and do not leave home without it.

This isn't temporary, you're going to do this for the rest of your life. Drawing from observation is absolutely vital, and even people who are overwhelmingly good and successful, like James Jean, are still doing it. Take this shitty sketchbook with you everywhere, and by everywhere I mean everywhere. Grocery shopping? Bring it, draw while you wait in line to pay. Going to the doctor? Bring it, draw the waiting room. Bathroom? Heavenly for life drawing. Dentist? Birthday? Baby shower? Prostate exam? Bring the sketchbook. The sketchbook is your best friend. Convince yourself that you will spontaneously combust without it.

And don't just draw people. Draw places. Draw things. It doesn't matter if they're not interesting, draw them. You're going to have to draw a cup or a banana sooner or later, trust me.

This is personal and it may not work for you (though it has worked for so many people that I feel inclined to recommend it). Drop the pencil and bring a pen with you. A pen forces you to look at your reference and to draw more carefully, because you won't be able to erase. I do literally all of my life drawing with a ballpoint pen. It doesn't matter if the drawing doesn't look right, it won't look right the first hundred or so times you do it. If you make a mistake, just go over it, it doesn't matter. You can see me ******** up here. I just kept going. It doesn't matter, no one is going to see these sketches (unless you want them to). I'm not telling you to never use a pencil, but give the pen a try as often as you can and soon enough you'll probably drop the pencil because you'll see that you do better with your pen. The eraser is kind of a crutch. I remember looking at my mentor like he was crazy when he told everyone to do their life drawing with a pen, I mean, we were all first year students. Well good thing I listened to him.

As for anatomy, there are a lot of free resources online that are awesome. Like this and this.

You really do need to step out of your comfort zone and start drawing from life if you want to be a good artist. Drawing for 10+ years won't help you if you're drawing the wrong things.

Drawing from your imagination is something that you're able to do after years of drawing from observation. Your style will develop on its own while you're drawing from observation, too. Believe me, there really isn't another way, there really are no shortcuts. It's a lot of hard work. Forever.

[Great God Pan]

Marty Nozz

My website doesn't have a donate option, mainly due to myself and my partner being so swamped that updating every week like we want to often doesn't happen.

So whatever else you do is more important than your art. Got it. I get that having a 9-5 is important, but if you really expect to get somewhere with art you have to put more into it or not expect to get anything out of it. I mean I suck balls and I make more money on art because I focus on it and have made visible improvements in years.

Quote:

The conventions though are what really get me. We often charge $5 to $10 dollars of sketches, and we bust our asses on them often doing full pencils and inks. Still we're getting very little business even though we're offering them at a fraction of what other artists are charging.

As the others mentioned. It's not good. Cheap and bad is still bad. Especially at cons where people want hot chick drawings which you seem to have few if any.

Quote:

Obviously I'm missing something, and while in my case it's possibly talent, Chris (my partner) does excellent work and is in the same boat. What am I doing wrong?

The other guy has some talent, sure. It's not Artist Alley talent. It's "Do a quirky comic and print it" Talent. It doesn't lend well to pin ups. And he could still use a lot of anatomy work.

Don't waste all your money renting tables and looking desperate. Do something short and complete. Like this. It has 3 volumes but they all stand alone. The art and paneling are incredibly lazy but the story is so silly and engaging that my friend loves the s**t out of it. Don't color it, or get a real colorist. Whoever colors your stuff is bad.

[Kupocake]

I don't see why you can't have a donate option to start with. So what if you can't commit to updating your comic every week? I've seen a lot of webcomics that update on a whim and still have a donate option, not to mention that some do get donations. Just tack one on somewhere, and maybe you'll have a lucky pay day.

However, I'm going to have to agree with the above posters on your art, and their advice on how to improve it. I know I've seen you give the "study from real life" lecture to other posters, but perhaps you need to apply that to yourself; your figures are very rigid and stiff, and they have a bit of a same-face problem. Glaring errors like these alongside a not very well-developed style just makes the art unappealing as a whole.

[The Egg Man]

I agree with everything that has been said.

I hope this advice helps you, because it's mos def helping me.

[KayJKay]

Okay so... Spike pointed out this pinup you did. And I went to look at it.

Ouch.

You're attempting to crowd in your scene without any ground plane. And in order to redline your piece, I had to make major modifications.

When you draw a scene like this, what is your subject. Where do you want the eye to go?

Is it the dancer, is it the background guys? The guys eating, the waiter? The girl hiding behind the curtain, the current pole dancer. You're giving EVERYTHING the spotlight and in the wrong way.

First. Let the piece breath. Let there be ROOM for everything.

Handout on Composition

Maybe that will help.

When you set up a scene like this, you have to have a ground plane. How else will everything sit on the floor properly? Now, while Spike mentioned David Chelsea's book on perspective (and I like that book) some of the best perspective artists don't have to grid everything out. There is such a thing as intuitive perspective. And you learn it by doing perspective over and over and over again. You also learn perspective through life drawing. Life drawing the human form is the hardest type of perspective you could EVER think of, and if you can get a good firm grip on that, then you'll be set.

Break the space up. Give your foreground guys the foreground! Let them have it! I would honestly axe the waiter. No point, the composition will work if you let it work for you. That is to say, find your points of interest, and build your composition around that. While I redid your piece, I saw a perfect opportunity to use the dancer to pull the focus back to the foreground.

And that brings me to another point that Spike also touched on. You are using icons or symbols for things instead of looking it up. Why, why on earth would you make life that much harder for you? If you DON'T KNOW what a stripper dance looks like, LOOK IT UP. If you have no idea how a fork looks like, get reference! You are making your life insanely difficult for yourself when it could be super easy. It takes all of 10 seconds to look up stripper dance reference. It will save you hours of frustration to see how they pose rather than attempting to think how they pose on a pole.

Lighting. You're giving us the icon of a spotlight, instead of lighting the scene. USE LIGHT. Mignola does it, Bacchalo does it, all the good artists do it. Let LIGHT in the scene, let light be the reason for your spot blacks.

So with that, here's my "redline" which isn't black on black but I hope it gives you an idea...

[Zee Coldwater]

You have been given very good advice here, I hope you listen.

The root of your problem is that you seem to regard art as a hobby. If it's a hobby to you, that's perfectly fine, but it probably means you'll never make money off it. Like ninota said, it's damn hard work and it never stops. If you're not putting in the effort, obviously you won't see any results. There's no magic bullet, you can't just draw every other day for a few years and suddenly be Picasso -- you have to work for it.

And you have to get into the habit of asking for crit. Seriously. Nothing kicks your a** harder than having your mistakes pointed out.

[Marty Nozz]

Looks like I've got work to do then.

Thank you all for your time and thought.

[Marty Nozz]

I updated the first post. Again, thank you all for your time.