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Is your work consistent? It's hard to maintain consistency but it does pay off: consistency in art work, style, character, writing, humour, updates and every other factor. To aid consistency in commercial works they come up with a “bible” which has drawings of character from all angles, all their colour swatches, their outfits, accessories, weapons, vehicles, floor plans of buildings, etc, as well as descriptions of their characters and the story style. That sort of thing is a huge help and especially useful when you have teams of people working on the project and need to hand over to other people.
For a webcomicers a “bible” is usually overkill and involves as much work as several chapters of the comic itself. Some creators find them very useful, but for most of us it's wasted work. It's a good idea just to just a rough page of profile images to refer to because if you base your references on previous pages that's a great way to compound errors that are made earlier in the comic- believe me I know because I do that all the time.
The very most important aspect of consistency though is style. If you have a characteristic style and a specific style of doing characters it does not matter ONE JOT how “good” your art is, and perfection is irrelevant. As long you draw it the same way each time people will be able to understand it and see that it's a deliberate choice. It will make your work look honed and professional.
How do you go with maintaining consistency? I definitely have my own style but I'm not good at consistency as the images of my main character in the cover image shows.
Today we reissued Gunwallace's theme to - Charby the Vampiriate - A classic comic on DD and a very classic theme by Gunwallace featuring a very Vampiric organ (from Quackcast 173). Charby the Vampiriate is a real poster-child for consistency! Although the comic and style have evolved a LOT over the years, Amelius manages a frightening level of stylistic consistency with a massive ensemble cast of different characters.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Pipeline Lizards - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/jun/25/featured-comic-pipeline-lizards/
Featured music:
Charby the Vampiriate - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Charby_the_Vampirate/ - by Amelius, rated T.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Quackcast 694 - Consistency
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, July 2, 2024
Banes,
Charby the Vampiriate,
Consistency,
Drunk duck,
Featured comic,
featured music,
Gunwallace,
Kawaiidaigakusei,
Ozoneocean,
Pipeline Lizards,
Quackcast 694,
Tantz Aerine,
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JohnCelestri at 7:04AM, July 3, 2024
@Ozoneocean, I agree that lack of consistency within a single page shows a lack of pride in one's work.
Ozoneocean at 3:51AM, July 3, 2024
As a professional reader of webcomics (for the thousands of features I've done over the years), consistency is sooooo important. That doesn't mean the first page of the comic has to be the same as the last in style, it just means that your characters are the same pretty much in each panel on a single page. If you're really good it'll be 5 pages or 10, or a chapter. it's perfectly ok to have gradual change and improvement over time. it's just crappy when the art isn't consistent even on single page XD
JohnCelestri at 1:53PM, July 2, 2024
I've found that consistency develops from daily creating your art/writing. Even the greatest comic artists all had a period of awkwardness when they introduced their strips. Professionals always had at least technique to start with, giving them something to please their readers with. But when you do not have much experience, the only way to improve your creative muscles is by exercising them on a regular basis. As little as 15 to 20 minutes a day will do the trick over a period of months.
usedbooks at 9:04AM, July 2, 2024
I'm not publishing and am hoping to improve, so consistency in style feels like stagnation. (But I do my best to make sure characters' scars and piercings and whatnot don't switch locations.)
PaulEberhardt at 7:13AM, July 2, 2024
Agreed. Too much consistency gets in the way of drawing what you want and improving the way you want, even if it's generally nicer to your readers, and I appreciate consistency when I'm in the role of the reader myself. That's why I've come up with the foul compromise of trying to introduce changes gradually over time. It doesn't actually work with me when re-reading my own stuff for reference, but I feel it was worth a try.
dragonsong12 at 3:53AM, July 2, 2024
I kind of wish I didn’t have as much consistency since my “style” hasn’t really improved much since I started and it didn’t start great. A little bit stagnant I’m afraid. …keep up with my updates though! 😅
marcorossi at 1:40AM, July 2, 2024
I think that worrying too much about consistency can be a problem for a webcomic author, because since most of us are not professionals, we are also learning while we go on, so striving too much for consistency could put a limit on stilistical improvement.