Find Your Comic Art Style With 3 Steps
Updated: Nov 20, 2020
Hello, my name is Imani aka MaddMoniArt, I’m the creator of the psychological thriller manga Bleakville, and the founder of MaddIndies, a place where I review and support independent Web Comics.
This topic was requested a while ago. At first, I knew what I wanted to say, and I wrote the whole blog down, but it wasn't clicking the way I thought it would, so I took a break from it. However, I've been working on my official character reference sheet for my comic, and I was going through the process of perfecting my art style. Because of that, I decided to come back to this topic since its fresh on my mind. So, today I’m going to share with you all how I found my art style in comics, with three simple steps. I hope you all can find this helpful.
step 1: Finding inspiration
Get inspiration by researching other artists' styles and influences that catch your eye.
You can get influence from the many genres of manga, anime, comics, and cartoons. Check out other mediums too like video games, movies, different cultures, makeup art, cosplay, whatever interests you.
Looking for art styles can be overwhelming. If you're having that problem, one suggestion is to explore the fan art of a character and find a style that you would like to emulate. Art is subjective, and observing how a character can be expressed in numerous ways should be motivating.
To make sure you keep your inspiration for reference, save what you like and put it on a mood board or a place like Pinterest.
step 2: breaking it down
Have you ever asked yourself why you like a certain form of art? That question has helped me define what styles I like and how to use them for my own work. There are two things we need to analyze; the genre, and the individual's style.
First, we are going to breakdown the similarities that make up a genre.
What makes up a shonen genre or the horror genre? What defines a Disney style?
For my research, I analyzed what makes up the up psychological thriller manga genre, and here's how I did it. This wasn't a process that took a day or two, it took a while, but overtime I read many different psychological manga stories and found the similarities between each of them.
Researching the genre itself kinda kickstarts how I want my comic style to be.
The Second part is exploring an individual art style.
Back in "STEP 1: FINDING INSPIRATION" you are going to choose a few styles that you like and analyze them further. I break it down by taking notes of the features of the style.
A few basic elements of an artwork are the lines, shapes, and colors. Another important element is the character's face; the eyes, nose, mouth, hair, chin, head size, ears, everything. Then you have to look at the body types. And you cannot forget about the inking and line art. The list is endless depending on what you are looking at.
step 3: MAKing IT YOURS
Take the notes that you wrote when you studied the different styles, sort out what you like, and make it yours. Of course, you don't just pick one style, pick what you like, combine the different styles and influences together. You never know what you're going to get because at the end of the day it's what you like, it's a mixture of your inspirations.
HOW I FOUND MY STYLE
I found satisfaction with my art style by researching some of the influences that made me want to create comics in the first place. Courage The Cowardly Dog, The Boondocks, Tokyo Ghoul, Grand Theft Auto, is just a snippet of inspirations that I have for my art style. Do you see a pattern here? If you don't, well, that's the point. There is no pattern because it's about what I like. I took notes on what to do and, what not to do. I wrote down how I want my animals to look, how I want children to be drawn, how to color hair, and how I draw eyes. I do this to ensure I keep my style for my comic consistent, and the way I want it. I studied what I'd like and applied it to my style.
Exercises to help
Redraw Challenge
Redraw a scene from a TV show or comic in your style
Draw this in your style challenge
if you have permission draw someone's else character in your style
Art Style Bend Challenges
Find the characteristic of what makes up your art and do the opposite.
Practice
Now that you have found your own style, keep practicing until you feel comfortable, and don't be afraid to experiment. After all, it's all about having fun and staying true to yourself.
Nothing is 100% original
You can talk to any big-time creator and they will tell you that in some way they were influenced and inspired by someone else's work. There is no shame in that. If you have any tips for finding art styles or you want to share your story please feel free to leave a comment down below. I hope you found this information to be helpful. If you did, please follow me on social media, also if you're feeling generous you can leave a tip on my Ko-Fi page. Thanks for reading.
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