One of the biggest problems I have with my artwork is having characters that look too “flat:” characters that are standing straight up, either facing the camera or shown at a 3/4 view. This works for some situations, but sometimes feels like I’m overusing it. So here’s an easy trick I’ve learned for drawing characters at some interesting new perspectives. All you need is a reference model to work with. You can buy one of these wooden mannequin thingimajigs, or if you have 3DS Max or a similar program, you can open it up and create a biped. Alternatively, you could also use dolls, action figures, or even people as potential reference models. Position your model into the pose and angle that you want your drawing to be in and take a picture/screen shot.

Good! Now, using this reference, you can create the basic skeleton of your character. Draw a stick-figure matching your reference, putting circles where the shoulders, elbows, hands, knees and feet should be; try to get the circles as close as possible to the size you want to draw the parts they represent. I also have a semi-sphere representing the size and orientation of the hips. It’s okay to trace the stick figure over the reference image if you must. It’s what I do.

Now from here drawing the body should be a simple matter of connecting the dots. Fill in the shape of your character’s body as usual, being sure to consider the perspective as you go (remember, things should look smaller the further away they are! Body parts are no exception). Erase excess lines as you finish with them.

And from here you’re on the home stretch. Just start filling in the rest of your character’s usual details. Give it clothes, hair, facial features and anything else you were planning to. If all went well, you should have a nice-looking character drawing!

Mine was a zombie faerie!

If you have any further questions or extra tips, feel free to post them in the comments. Also feel free to upload your results to Photobucket and share the link.

With the introduction of comic-hosting sites such as Keenspot and the cheapness of domains and webhosting these days, it seems everybody who thinks they can draw have tried making their own webcomic. Not everyone may be great at it, but you have to admire the ones who stick through it and update when they say they’ll update (for example, NOT 99.9% of them). Drawing a new comic every day/week/whatever is difficult. If the artist wants to take some time-saving shortcuts in their artwork, can you really hold it against them?

Yes. Yes you can. Without further ado, here are 5 lazy shortcuts too many webcartoonists take.

1) “Hiding” hard-to-draw body parts.

Every novice artist knows that hands and feet are hard to get right. But if you want to draw your characters as anything more complex than stick figures, you’re going to have to make several hands in the course of your comic. But wait, couldn’t so much time be saved if you simply figured out a way to not have to draw those pesky extremities?

The solution, many seem to come to, is to use as many word bubbles and objects as possible to cover up hands and feet. Artists seem to think that nobody is going to notice that big chunk of word-wall blocking part of the image.

None shall be the wiser!

There is really no excuse for this, no matter how self-conscious the artist is about their hands. Skills only get better with practice; trying to hide the issue wont solve it and makes what could have been an otherwise good-looking panel ugly.

This Chainsawsuit strip sums it up best:

2) Copypasta.

While reading a webcomic, have you ever noticed two panels that look suspiciously similar to each other? If so, you’ve just eaten a big helping of Copypasta in lazysauce.

Can you count the 5 differences between these two panels? Yeah, I didn't think so.

If you’re not making a sprite comic, you shouldn’t pretend you are. Artists use this to shave at least 25% off of the time it takes to make the particular strip, but it noticeably comes off as odd-looking. Nobody stands 100% still while they talk. Making your characters do it gives an uncanny valley quality to them. Take the extra time to draw out each panel and keep your hands off of ctrl+c, ctrl+v. Your readers will be much more impressed.

3) Photo backgrounds.

This one is debatable. Some comics don’t use any background at all. Is it really worse to throw a photo background into the panel rather than give it none at all but a solid color?

In my opinion, yes it is. If you really want to portray a specific scene, it should match the feel of the rest of your artwork. A photoshop blur on a photo behind your characters stands out against the art too much and breaks the suspension of disbelief. In other words, seeing the photo background only reminds me of the fact that I’m reading a comic drawn by a lazy artist who didn’t want to draw the background he wanted.

4) Characters of inconsistent proportions.

Some artists seem to have problems keeping their characters’ heads and limbs the same size in proportion to their bodies across strips, or worse, even across panels in the same strip.

Also, see habit #1.

This happens when the artist never took the effort to create a character design sheet, showing the exact proportions of a character for future reference. Use guidelines while drawing if you have to, just make sure that your art is consistent.

5) Insta-Redesign™.

This happens when the artist arbitrarily decides to redesign one of their characters. They break out the handy, dandy Insta-Redesign™! It slices! It dices! It transforms the body of your character! Apply directly to the forehead!

It’s only natural for your characters’ designs to change over time as your artistic skill improves. But for god sake, don’t do a “magic transformation” strip in which your character magically changes his or her appearance at once. It’s been done to death.

I know there are already many webcomic reviews stating basically the same things that I have, plus many more. If adding mine to the pool helps prevent even one webcomic artist from doing any of the things above, I’ll consider it worthwhile to have written this.