What's the perfect balance between fundamentals/creative work

[Anonymous No.3777298]

Let's say I wanna be a comic book artist, am I going to improve faster by making more comics or by studying fundamentals more?

[Anonymous No.3777311]

>>3777298
Comics are an entirely different beast than illustrations. Forget about comics in your process of learning how to draw, comics are like learning how to write a book. Once you get good at drawing those cool people, you'll go through hell learning paneling and dynamic action and storytelling. Just get your fundamentals right for now and do a big cool drawing every now and then like your pic but don't waste time thinking about full stories.

[Anonymous No.3777324]

>>3777311
I agree that comics and illustrations are different but I disagree with you about not doing any until you get "good." A lot of people on /ic/ think like this and then they end up grinding boxes or anatomy for years without creating anything, often losing sight of their goals in the process. If someone wants to make comics then they should make comics. Sure they should also dedicate a lot of time to studying the basics and improving their drawing skills but there's no point in learning how to draw if you don't actually apply what you learn and do what you set out to do. That's how you end up like those people who only draw boxes or naked anatomical figures with anime heads tacked on.

[Anonymous No.3777482]

>>3777324
like nosebro?

[Anonymous No.3777524]

>>3777298
You're gonna improve faster making more comics.

The only thing you should get right first is perspective.
Two good books are Perspective for Comic Book Artists by Chelsea, and How to Draw Manga,Sketching Manga-Style vol.4 All about perspective.

By "getting right first" I mean understanding the principles, not mastering it.

Also read a lot of comics.

[Anonymous No.3778206]

>>3777298
>anatomy
>dynamic posing
>perspective
You need at least some kind of grasp on these before anything but at the end of the day, you need to draw COMICS. Like the others have said, it's a different beast from just drawing. How many artists have we seen with good art, rendering, and lighting - only to see them try to make a comic and fail. Draw lots of mock up comics with situations and characters that you will use in the future. No one has to see them and you can keep them to yourself and just focus on improvement.

[Anonymous No.3778328]

>>3777298
Hey OP, I’ve got something for you.

Imma tell a story and you give me 4 panels right before the fight.

You don’t have to like this story but just do it.

Kid watches hid dad get killed by gang in small villainess in Japan.
He vows revenge, especially against the leader who did the actual killing of his father.
Kid trains for 10 years and becomes a man.
He finally feels ready.
He goes to city where gang rules and has headquarters.

Panel one man (former kid) walking and coming upon the city in horizon.
Panel two same man asking at city gate where he can find gangster so and so...word starts to spread.
Panel three same man walks into restaurant where gangster is sitting at table with his back turned, eating, knowing the man is standing at the doorway, knowing man is there for revenge, but being a badass and ignoring him, keeps eating.
Panel four man issuing his arrival and intention to avenge his father.

Build up the tension and make us NEED to see the fight and the man prevail against the gangster.

GO!

[Anonymous No.3778350]

>>3777524
why is his gun making fart noise in the first panel?

[Anonymous No.3778402]

I'd say its like 90% fundamentals, 10% creative work at first. Your creative works will mostly be skills checks and for fun/blow off steam. You want to focus on the fundamentals mainly for a while though. You may think "well my art doesn't need to be hyper realistic masterworks for every panel!" but like any kind of interesting comic is going to have dynamic action, and that means perspective and anatomy and shit which is hellmode if you don't have references. As you grasp the fundies you can start skewing more towards creative.

[Anonymous No.3778547]

What if I'm actually afraid of creating anything and just keep practicing the essentials over and over "until I get good enough"?

[Anonymous No.3778594]

>>3778547
I think you'll notice it when you finally draw something that doesn't hurt your eyes and you can do it with relative ease. When I started 7 months ago somrthing like this took me 6 hours of careful work, now I did it under 30 minutes. You'll eventually notice that your work is better and faster but it takes lot

[Anonymous No.3778603]

>>3778547
that's a real problem honestly, i definitely had it after like 2 years of just doing studies and feeling like i was too bad to do anything. try like 2:1 ratio of pure study to creative work, but make the creative work half-studies; put together a spiderman comic using a figure drawing as reference for the pose and a landscape study for the background, or something, you know? fundamentals and creative are NOT mutually exclusive things, in fact they're always hand-in-hand and you should be doing them together

[Anonymous No.3778747]

>>3777298
maybe the best thing to do would be to make mini-comics that incorporate whatever fundies you're working on atm/ cater your learning to whatever sequence you're trying to to make. a lot of the work you do starting out is gonna be really shit and demoralizing but if you can get past that hurdle early it'll help you in the long run.
>>3778547
i did that desu. you can do this for a while as a beginner and still make decent gains but you'll hit the wall hard once you start getting to a more intermediate level. creating & designing from your imagination is an entire skillset in of itself that goes beyond simply being able to draw accurately. i really think you'll probably learn faster if you just bite the bullet early on.