[ShrapNet Studios]

Yo, wut up guys! Im new to the boards and got this question. Lately, ive been drawin crazy from life. Be faces, hands, people , etc. But i plan on doin comics as a career. Im tryin to get my style goin but everybody ive talked to says that i should not think about style and ONLY draw from life. Is this true? Ive been lookin at alot of Joe Madureira/Jim Lee type of stuff lately. Basically my question is how should i incorporate that stuff into my real life stuff? Should i copy sum of their drawings or what? Lemeno what u guys think....thnx!!!

[ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: ShrapNet Studios ]

[BlackPool]

Well the comic book "style" comes from two things mainly: 1. The limitation of applying black inc to paper, and 2. The necessity for clarity both for the inker to see what to ink and the reader to percieve at a glance what is going on in a given panel as he reads through the book. The rest comes from traditional training. So I would say draw from life as others have told you, learn anatomy so that you can draw the figure and face from any pose and, ofcourse, all those things that make up a character's environment.

Believe me, if you know how to draw tradtionally, then when you go at with black ink, it will all take care of it'self.

[Liser Studios]

i remember hearing this somewhere, which is what made me start drawing realism:

every type of art style, wether it be manga, american comics, impressionism, cubism, or any other style are all simplifications of reality. If you can draw reality correctly, then you can simplify it in whatever way you want. But if you can only simplify it a certain way, you won't be able to do reality, and you'll be limiting yourself a lot.

or, to relate it to something else
let's say that you are a big huge guy.
now, you've trained yourself to bench 700 pounds. it was hard, but you did it. now, if someone asks you to benchpress 400, it will be EASY. But, if you didn't ever train and you could only do 200, but you did 200 really good, you won't be able to do 700 when you're asked to do it. And you'll be limiting yourself to competing with the little high schoolers in lifting competitions.

I don't know if that makes any sense, I'm not good with words. lol

[BlackPool]

That's the idea. Now go draw til your hands bleed and your head explodes--