Art Feedback
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Hi there!
My name is Felipe and I'm a self-taught cartoonist living in the Seattle area.
Being self-taught and not having a good way of transportation, I live a bit isolated from any artistic community near me. I'm preparing myself to start showing my work, but I'm not very confident yet since most feedback I got is from friends and family, which makes me a little skeptical.I have no idea of what's my current level of skill. And to be honest I think some of these pieces are not up to my current level. But they're everything I have in terms of finished art. I really would like to hear opinions from people with a fun and cartoony art style since this is what I intend to go to, but any sort of advice would be welcome. These are all original art and characters I created myself. Again, any kind of feedback would be nice! Thanks!
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I'm currently working on some comic ideas, so these are some more recent pencil work I have done. I think they show a little more clear what I can do with my current skill, but since I never got the chance to ink these, I decided to post them in separated:
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And finally this is my most recent work. It's a 22 page long one-shot story I finished and just started the inking process:
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It looks like your drawing and composition are improving. When you color try varying your values and hue more. Your color ones have a lot of dark rich color, it is hard to know where to look. Keep practicing!
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@holleywilliamson Oh, thank you for the feedback! I actually never saw myself as a colorist, those were my very first attempts at coloring. I should probably try doing some proper research on the subject at some point. I don't feel like I put enough time and effort to get good at it yet.
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You have some good things going on here, I really like the way you vary character positions throughout the panels - it adds nice tension. I agree about varying colors and values, right now it's hard to see what your focal points are, especially in the colored pieces so the eye doesn't know what to look at first, or what's most important in each panel. I would also keep an eye on tangents or overlap, such as the panel with the gun pointed at the man. The gun is touching him, and there's no value so it doesn't read that the gun is closer to the viewer then he is. I hope that helps, and you have my admiration for being self taught!. You are in a great supportive community here,
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I see some really good potential here. Maybe just some insight on perspective, and how to break rules consistently would really help you out. For instance, the guys playing cards at the table: the table and the people are in perspective to each other, but the floor isn't. If it is intentional to have the floor somewhat not follow proper perspective, then the characters can't at the same time be in perspective to each other.
However, I relly think you have some great talent, and would encourage you to keep pressing on and check out the classes on that subject here.
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not really a comic guy so I won't offer any advice.
I do get a Robert Crumb vibe here.
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I like your characters! They're really fun and imaginative. They remind me of classic cartoons.
The things you need to watch are your colours and perspective. The hue is the same throughout. What I mean is the background is as bright as the foreground which makes it hard to pick things out. If you knocked the hue back on the background the foreground would pop out more. I'm no expert on colour but if it's cartoons/comics your into then K Michael Russel does some good videos on colouring. There's also an SVS class which I haven't got around to watching yet. As for your perspective just be aware of the horizon line and your vanishing points. Perspective is a little trick and I could use a little practice myself! I haven't checked out the perspective class on SVS yet but I suspect it'll be good. Youtube will have some videos on perspective in comics as well.
You have great potential and I really like what I'm seeing so far. You only get better by doing so keeping doing it! It's also worth mentioning that comics/cartoons don't always have to be master pieces so long as they tell a story or joke well.
K Michael Russell colour vids.
This is online comic I'm reading at the moment which might be useful looking at. It's a simple cartoon style but it works really well. Also it's a good example of toning the background colours down. BACK.Thus ends my overly long ramblings!
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@Rebecca-Hirsch Thank you! I like watching and drawing scenes from movies as storyboards for my reference. So I think that helped to give an cinematic feel to my own comics. And I will be sure to take note about color and values for my next colored pieces. I guess I didn't put that much thought in that particular area so far... But I will be sure to change that in the future.
@Eric-Castleman Thanks, and yeah, it's not the first time I hear about the perspective issue. That one in particular is an old drawing and I already can see several ways of improving it. Back in those days, I would draw the characters and then the background around them and it was more like filling blank spaces than having a clear structure behind it. I still struggle with perspective and the books I got on the subject were not able to help me much. I'm not very good at following the rules while I'm drawing because I tend to do my sketches really fast, so these days I use toys close to objects of similar scale as references so I can get at least the proportions right. I will definitely check out the classes as soon as I have the chance.
@mattramsey That's an interesting observation. I'm not very familiar with Robert Crumb comics, but I have a good idea of what it looks like. I know he was self-taught like me and we probably have some mutual influences, like E. C. Segar, and the classic Mad Magazine.
@IanS Thank you! I will check some of those videos as soon as I can! Right now, I'm putting the coloring on hold since my priorities are to improve my inks and storytelling skills and that might take some time. But it's good to have any sort of feedback and advice! And now I can see how there's an pattern here. I agree about the tricky part about perspective, and to be honest, I can see issues even in my favorite professional cartoonists. I think some of them never really mastered it, but got good enough to be able to tell stories without it being too distracting. Maybe if I can at least get the basic rights, I can make it less noticeable. And I will be sure to take a took at the comic as well! And don't worry about being too long, I really appreciate all of it.
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You have a great start to a unique style and feel to your art. I really think the best advice would be to keep at it. Keep learning new techniques by watching tutorials and taking some classes and keep drawing. You're lightyears ahead of so many people because you have projects that you've started and finished. So my advice is to keep doing what you're doing! Nice work my friend!
