Any tips on what I should do?

[Symson]

This is not the first time you've been told your work is amateur looking. No amount of tips you get here is going to change that by next week or even next month. Only hard work and lots of hours of practice

You need to get more reference points outside of comics. I would suggest for the next six months you concentrate on your anatomy and take life drawing classes. Go to museums and draw the stautes.

You inking is definitely hurting your pencil work and don't put lettering on your samples. You've been told that before also.

Your storytelling and perspective is decent, but not really well developed.

I would suggest you get these books or read them from your public library. Comics have adopted a lot of the visual language of film.

Perspective Drawing Handbook by Joseph D'Amelio

The Five C's of Cinematography by Joseph V. Mascelli

Film Directing Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen by Steven D. Katz

Film Directing: Cinematic Motion, Second Edition by Steven D. Katz

Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner

Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels by Scott McCloud

Successful Drawing by Andrew Loomis

And now the shameless self-promotion. Check out my guide to putting your portfolio together and my blog where I'm really breaking down everything from tools to theory; from thinking to execution.

Now to end on a positive note. The editor liked your writing, that's great! Use that to get into the industry. Len Wein and Marv Wolfman both started as artists trying to break in and finally gave up and used writing to get into the industry. If you haven't heard of them, Len created Wolverine and Marv Wolfman created Blade and both are working in animation right now writing. I don't think they're crying about not breaking in as artists.

So I suggest using that bit of interest to show more writing to this editor.

I hope this helps.

[amadarwin]

Outside of just focusing on anatomy and backgrounds I'm not sure what to do.

Remove the word "outside" and you'll understand what you need to do. You aren't done with focusing on anatomy and backgrounds, so your next step is to keep plugging away at it. I don't really see the reason for confusion.

In addition, when submitting pencils, submit pencils only. Your hand lettering is not professional quality and will only hinder your artwork...your digital lettering isn't much better, so don't even think about it. Something to remember: POOR LETTERING CAN KILL A PAGE. Submitting pencils only will also lift the confusion as to what you are submitting for.

Lastly, learn to be objective and critical of your work as well as be willing to be honest with yourself. Otherwise, you may as well find a nine to fiver and get on with your life.

[Keith]

As an artist, you will get that sort of rejection at least once in your life, it'll burn you up a little inside, but you'll have to use it as motivation to push yourself to the next level. You can't give up because of what one guy says, or what one small-time scumbag publisher does towards you. Use your past experience and just learn to avoid putting yourself in those situations where people can take advantage of you, and move on.

But it's also time to be real with yourself, because I'd have to say the editor was mostly right. When you submit anything to a larger company as an artist, you need to be organized. If an editor doesn't know what you're submitting for, that's a huge red flag right there. Having a good portfolio and body of work, but also being well prepared and organized is key. If you're submitting something as an artist, only show art; don't letter it, color it, or even ink it really (unless they ask or you feel you can ink and pencil your own work.) Also, your samples should be your absolute best work at that point, stuff you put a lot of thought into. You put thought into maybe as a piece to show to your friends here, but as a submission piece it doesn't show too much story telling strength, finish, and clarity, the things a lot of editors look for.

It's easy to use rejection like this to kind of go "man this one company rejected me I'm never going to do it," but you know the other thing editors look for? Commitment to do the work, I've seen guys who simply put, really deserved to be in Marvel, get rejected or get a luke-warm response their first panel review too. They kept submitting samples and posting everywhere until they got in. Show that you can improve, drop them another pack of well thought-out samples again in maybe 5-6 months, put yourself out there and make your work known. Turtling up and putting yourself in constant doubt isn't going to do anything but depress you.

[D.C.]

Are you inking these pages or just darkening the pencils? Either way they're far too scratchy. A little polish would improve them greatly. I would lay off the excessive lines you do. That's the number one that will make your stuff look amateurish. Concentrate more on line weights and spotting blacks. Take into account that more than likely the company will want the pages colored unless you're applying to a place that prints a lot of stuff in black and white. So unless you're set on having your style be super scratchy, the cleaner the better.

While doing three pages in 26 hours is good practice for you, sample pages typically should show the very best you're capable of regardless of time. Unless you're applying for a job where you'd be writing as well, you would be better off using a pro script to work from. Something that can tell a clear story without word balloons or captions.

Do this:
- 5 pages that tell a complete story.
- Keep it in gridded panels (closer to your previous pages). Nice and simple.
- Display characters interacting with each other through facial expressions and body language for some quiet moments.
- Have some action to show what you're capable of for that.
- Draw backgrounds on every page. And as part of that: Establishing shots. (Your first BW page has a nice one but where are they fighting Doom? Be aware of the surroundings.)
- Have a complete uncropped (preferably standing) figure on every page. That will also force you to draw backgrounds.
- Unless you're doing small action to action panels (like the Santa one) always draw each character's head at different sizes in every panel they appear in per page.

[Juggertha]

Your Widow pieces were not your best. I have no idea why you'd choose to submit those.

Who did you submit them to, Marvel?

Or did you submit a Marvel character page to another company?

[Ace Corona]

I can't offer you any advice because I'm still an amateur, but after taking a quick look at your art when I clicked on your link, I think you art at the cusp of turning pro, and any improvements you need to make to refine your technique will probably be minor. What I'm saying is if you follow the advice of 50% grey, it shouldn't take too long before you reach the level that editor requires of his artists. In other words, you're almost there.

[50%grey]

Mike what company did you submit to?

Basically you need to be honest with yourself, do you match up with the company pros that you are submitting for.

If no, then you need to start small, and work yourself up to that level.


You should be glad the guy was truthful about his feelings even under false pretenses. Now you know you need to work more on your art.

That kind of honesty is refreshing because most people just want to be nice. Nothing to be depressed about imo

Study artists that are doing it for a living, and compare that to your stuff. See what they are doing that make them pros.

While you are working on making your art better you should be building a fanbase. Get involved, do fanzines, enter contests, improve your web presence, take commissions etc etc

Some people never make it, doesn't meen you cant be an artist. Nobody can take that away.


I hate giving critiques, and honestly this critique would be based on if you were trying to submit strictly for DC or Marvel.

I would say it just looks undeveloped, almost sloppy. Everything seems to have the same textures, and there almost no spot blacks.

Allot of it is just learning good clean up skills, and the best way to do that is to study pro inkers.

There some good energy there, but I really think it comes down to studying the pros to see what works in everything from storytelling, to drawing to cleaning up ( inking).

The best comic book artist are very clear in everything they do.

Look at Sprouse, this is what you should be shooting for as for as a professional look.

[mjcurry7294]

I recently sent my work of to an editor, the black widow pages some of you saw actually. The editor thought I was submitting a writing shamble and gave me a ton of advice on writing. But one of his last pieces of advice was that I should hire a far better artist. The artist I was using was amateur at best and was bringing down the quality of the writing
After recovering from that I didn't know what to do. I don't know any editors or professionals to get advice from that will contact me, and Im kinda burning out cause I feel like I'm just wandering aimlessly now. Outside of just focusing on anatomy and backgrounds I'm not sure what to do.

Here is my site www.mikejc.com (it also has the newly finished Black widow story) any advice on what I should keep focusing on or what should I do carrer wise... The only thing I won't do is any more backend deal stuff to "get my name out there" cause blue water completely screwed me over and so have many others