#tipz

-always try slightly different things. if you’re super comfortable drawing heads ¾ view facing left, draw them facing right, or front, or angled looking up. especially angled looking up. just always try to do something that’s a little hard, until you start to improve at it. 

-standard practice, esp when doing client work, but in general- plan. don’t just dive into something and commit to a composition without drafting it first! planning out the compositions of your drawing helps to get an idea of the image as a whole- so you can organize the different characters against the bg elements/check rule of thirds and the like/make sure you have space for word bubbles/make sure your panel layouts aren’t too repetitive/etc. even if they’re just shitty thumbnails, having a first draft will help you have a more organized and thought out final product.

-take breaks. when you stare at your drawing too long you can get kind of blind to it so take a break from it. put it away, grab food, watch some youtube vids, take a shower. sometime you need to get the image of it out of your head for half an hour to be able to look at it with new eyes and see some of the things that need to be fixed

-rework things and try to push them further! it will be more work but sometimes your first try or two or three isn’t the best.

-use reference- STUDY reference. if you don’t know how to draw a car, then google search cars, break down the form of a car, do some quick studies of cars, look at how other artists draw cars. you don’t have to draw a perfect car by any means but you still have to understand what you’re looking at

-if you see something you like, try to make something like it. if you admire an artist, think about what qualities of their work appeal to you and experiment with those qualities in your own work. be an artist you think is cool

-vary your line width to push back and pull forward parts of your drawing and to lead the viewer’s eye where you want it

-when picking colors for characters vs background, don’t just focus on hue!! desaturate the image to check that there’s contrast in values, otherwise your image will become flat and nothing stands out