Im 18 <3

but i have had the idea for my comic a long long time. and I have been atempting to make a real professional comic ...since ah well. late 17?

I don't think age matters how good you are -if u never had skill to begin with.
It's how many years of practice you've had. Iv'e been drawing insanely since I was small so i'd like to think i'm pretty decent at it.

mishi_hime
Im 18 <3

but i have had the idea for my comic a long long time. and I have been atempting to make a real professional comic ...since ah well. late 17?

That's cool.

I really wanna have my own manga series when I grow older. I've been working on a storyline ever since I was about 9, and I don't plan on throwing that idea away.

Like you said, age doesn't matter at all. Sure, if a 10 year old girl can draw better than someone 40 years older than him/her, it's bound to look extremely impressive. Although, I believe it depends on how you grasp ideas. If you were able to take a scribble and transform it into anything beyond a 'normal' person could see, you would have the capability of being a skillful artist. But looking less generally, anyone that is able to take a piece of paper and draw the exact image they have in their head: now that- that is art. Age can never matter.

EDIT: Wow, that's really corny XD

Eunice P
>_< Who says I'm a great artist from day one? I just happen to have the experience of being immensely absorbed by the artworks through reading over a hundred volumes of well drawn mangas every year when I was a teen. Reading tonnes of well drawn comics, believe it or not, does help improve your artstyle unconsciously.

It's very similar for me. I was reading American comic books from... well, before I could even read to myself, my Dad read me Elfquest. So essentially my whole life. When I decided I wanted to be able to draw like my favorite artists, I devoted a whole sketch pad to copying panels I liked in comics. It's pretty terrible, looking back, but getting good at copying the pros really gave me a head start artistically. I read some manga now, and I love the way the pacing is, and the art, and some of the language of it (facial expressions particularly,) but when I think in comics, I think more in western style.

I've been drawing my whole life, but during college I was only doing theatrical design work, and that set me back a lot. It's hard work to try to make up those years development wise. I've only taken one actual art class, and that was a figure drawing class my senior year of college... I wish I could upload some of that to show. It was only a couple of years ago, but it's leaps and bounds better than what I post in my comics.

(I'm 24.)

I second what Aeon said. I too have some horrible sketchbooks with meticulous sketching of a vast array of art pieces, from black and white photography to statues and paintings of the masters and comic book panels. I also tried to compose my own images by trying to use my developing skills. I also read a lot on drawing methods. I still do. I think the secret is to believe that there is always something new for you to learn, always room to improve and that pointers may come from any place and any source.

Otherwise, one may become stagnated, and well, where is the fun in that? ;)

I'm 17, soon to be 18 in a month. I feel that from the beginning of my comic I've improved greatly! But I want to improve even more.

There's nothing perfect to being an artist. Every artist grows and developes a way of art they personally perfer. :)

I'm 16, and I don't draw enough or have enough talent to be good. I'm pretty good at digital graphic design, but that's different.

Terminal
In the three years doing my comic, I've never ever revealed my age or name (something to do with staying faceless).

Congratulations, you are now smarter than 80% of the total interneters.

I do the same. I may have slipped up in the past, but now I am going to try and hold true to that.

I... shall do the same as KC3T and Terminal. I will not reveal my age, because it makes me seem a bit more mysterious. LAWL 13

I won't reveal my age either. I'm jumping on this bandwagon 4 life!

Me
I'm 12,

Crap.

I am 15 years old at the moment, but I've been drawing since God knows when. Probably somewhere back into the wee years of my life. As for my "level" of skill... er... check out my comic?

http://www.drunkduck.com/Under_Management

Errr, I'm 17 now but I don't see any difference from when I was 16... and I haven't made that much progress from when I was 15 either. I'm kind of beginning to suck. I don't think enough about what I'm drawing. When I watch back pages I made when I was 7 or 8 years old or so I LOVE them. It's weird, stupid and doesn't look good, but the faces... the hands... the movements... by then I already did everything by feeling without much thinking anout 'how' or 'what', just kept drawing and I did that quite good for my age. It makes me sad to see that and think of the opportunities I actually had. I've just always had faith in myself that I when I would grow up I could draw just like Walt Disney ;) So far I faild. Hope making progress wil go a lil' faster in the future, but I still have trouble with perspectives and backgrounds. But I am quite happy I still have a lot of my imagination from back then.

Age DOES matter to some extent. Considering basic physiology, before a person is ten or so, their fine motor skills are not completely refined. Also, skill determines alot, regardless of talent. The more years you've spent drawing, the better your skill (at least in a general sense). I've been drawing seriously since I was about eleven. I sucked. Badly. I haven't actually had the ability to draw in a professional manner until I was about 18.
I have seen many prodigies that are excellent artists even as young as eight years old, but they are no where near as good as they will be with time, precision and practice. Experience is no substitute for innate talent, though both are necessary for a good artist.
I'm sure every single artist in the world who has drawn for even as little as a year can look back at their older work and think "Holy crap that's ugly."
For the sake of arguement, I've also seen artists who are much older then myself who have mediocre at best drawing skills. Some people just never improve while others should have never picked up a pencil at all.

Maybe it is kind of dumb revealing name and age on the internet (says Kristen Gudsnuk... oh the irony!) BUT there's a reason why I put my real name up!! I plan on being famous, so I'm just getting my name out there. Also, a goal of mine is to have cool results when I self-google. So far the results are ehhh.. ok. (one time while googling myself, I found a random article about how shitty my artwork is in the London News Review, but the article's gone, sadly. Well, the article was called "defending the dragon" and it was... defending a shitty dragon I drew. ^_^ momentarily famous!)

I'm 19, and by DD's standards I'm an old lady. In my defense though, I'm better at realism/oil painting than I am at... comics ;_;

I don't have anything recent on my computer because most of my stuff is big (around 30"x40" ) and I can't scan it and my camera's broken, but I'll give some links to old-ish pictures (that I did when I was 18).

here's a picture I painted of my little brother (it's a huge painting, egads!). Unfortunately it's a little blurry. And I palette-knifed the sand at the bottom, wahoo texture!
http://www.drunkduck.com/Wake_Up_David/gfx/ericptg%20003.jpg

here's one I painted of my sister. I won a monetary prize (3rd place) for this one from the Dimock gallery, but she's mean and she got mad at me because she says she doesn't look pretty in it. There's only so much I can do, for chrissakes! (jk don't kill me Kathryn) This one's blurry too, and for some reason it looks really different in person. The face has little shadows that got eaten up by my evil camera.

http://www.drunkduck.com/Wake_Up_David/gfx/kathryn.jpg

here's a self-portrait sketch. It was a practice sketch for a self-portrait charcoal drawing, which came out much better, but unfortunately is too big for my scanner ;_;
http://www.drunkduck.com/Wake_Up_David/gfx/lamelamelamelameLAME.jpg

Age totally matters. You should see my old Elfwood stuff, from when I was 12-13. Yikes.

i like your colors. good stuff, good stuff...

subcultured
i like your colors. good stuff, good stuff...

thanks! :D

*_* Your realism and traditional media skills are absolutely awesome *envious*

Kristen, your painted art is awesome, but why do the comics not hold up to that? For example the character in your banner looks kinda awkward. When comics are basically just putting drawings in panels, why is there such a difference? If it's reference problems you should work on getting reference, since most pro comic artists get lots of reference for their pages.

ccs1989
Kristen, your painted art is awesome, but why do the comics not hold up to that? For example the character in your banner looks kinda awkward. When comics are basically just putting drawings in panels, why is there such a difference? If it's reference problems you should work on getting reference, since most pro comic artists get lots of reference for their pages.

heh heh heh...
I *try*, it's just that I've just started watching/drawing anime this summer, so I still haven't caught the hang of it. AND there's the references problem. I can't get references for the random poses I have; plus I'm drawing cartoons, which have different anatomy than real people. I plan on getting better, trust me; but the only way to improve is through practice, which is what I'm getting by drawing my awkward comics.

plus, I don't know, realism always has come more easily to me. Also, I painted those for class, and had friends in my class who'd say, "kristen the angle of his leg is wrong, he looks like he has one giant leg and one tiny leg" and stuff to help me.
And I've only just been doing art on the computer for like a month.

but what looks awkward about my banner??? I'll fix it!!! the only problem I see with it is around his hip, it's a little fuzzy (and somehow his eyes turned purple) Seriously, honestly, please, please, please point out what looks funny about it (or if it's just the design in general, I'll make a new one!!!)

Kristen Gudsnuk
AND there's the references problem. I can't get references for the random poses I have

Porn. It's the answer to so many of life's problems.
It can certainly help with posing occasionally. I only wish I used references more often... I'm usualy too lazy and a lot of my figures reflect that. (not all, but a good proportion of them!).

Kristen Gudsnuk
heh heh heh...
I *try*, it's just that I've just started watching/drawing anime this summer, so I still haven't caught the hang of it.

Who said comics had to be in anime style? Anime style is just a style that a lot of people use because that's all they know. You do a comic in a competely different style if you want. There's no rules that say "All comics have to be in anime style" at all.

AND there's the references problem. I can't get references for the random poses I have; plus I'm drawing cartoons, which have different anatomy than real people.

Google Images. Also cartoons are just simplifications of real life. You can make your characters look completely realistic proportionally, but do less detail. Play around with styles. Having a sketchbook is key, because it allows for experimentation.

plus, I don't know, realism always has come more easily to me.

Good, you can use that. Plenty of comics use a lot of realism, like Berserk, or that comic on Drunk Duck called "Freshman". Also check out the graphic novel Watchmen. It's the greatest of work ever done in the genre and is a great source of reference to see how the sequential scenes are constructed.

but what looks awkward about my banner??? I'll fix it!!! the only problem I see with it is around his hip, it's a little fuzzy (and somehow his eyes turned purple) Seriously, honestly, please, please, please point out what looks funny about it (or if it's just the design in general, I'll make a new one!!!)

The arm and the hand look really stiff. I guess the face looks a little too cartoony also, although it doesn't all that bad. I guess I was over-reacting.

ccs1989
Who said comics had to be in anime style? Anime style is just a style that a lot of people use because that's all they know. You do a comic in a competely different style if you want. There's no rules that say "All comics have to be in anime style" at all.

The arm and the hand look really stiff. I guess the face looks a little too cartoony also, although it doesn't all that bad. I guess I was over-reacting.

I like anime, though, because it's really pretty! I only do realism for class, or when I oil-paint (which is so time consuming that I only do it for class, or for commissions.)

I changed my banner a bit!!! I drew the hand that way on purpose though, to make him look all tense. But I enshrouded it in shadows, now, so that it's less of a focal point. And I slightly altered some angles of the arm.

thanks for your advice! I'll use references more, I promise!

I think the banner looks better now.

I'm the direct opposite of Kristin. I do better in drawing comics than drawing realism. Maybe because I don't have the patience in drawing real life objects and painting. I remembered during my highschool days, all of my artworks are graded D and below. I have no talent in painting and sketching realism.

So what if you know my age and name?

My name's Mark and I'm 16 LET IT BE KNOWN!!!

Eunice- wow, now I feel better about sucking at cartooning!! n_n Although I find it hard to believe you got bad grades in art, having read some of your comics.

Mark--- OMG NO why did you tell us?!?! NOW EVERYONE KNOWS!!! you may as well have given us your social security number!!!!!!!!!!

OHMFG!! There's only thousands of 16 year old Marks in this world. I'm gonna get raped!!

Eunice P
I'm the direct opposite of Kristin. I do better in drawing comics than drawing realism. Maybe because I don't have the patience in drawing real life objects and painting. I remembered during my highschool days, all of my artworks are graded D and below. I have no talent in painting and sketching realism.

It's good to try anyway though. It can only make you stronger as an artist, and therefore stronger as a comic artist.

Anime style makes me mad for some reason.

Well, I like both anime and american drawings. Just not too overly anime. Like where they have the 9 cm eyes and they are midgets (chibis or whatever).

worrying about how good I am and how good I'm supposed to be ruined completely my hability to enjoy drawing, and in time that ruins drawing altogether. I got better at it, but I was no longer able to enjoy it. For years all I could draw were shy sketches made on little pieces of paper, barely using a pen. Three years ago a friend of mine had a comic here on DD and he said to me "hey, why don't you start a comic here?, you can draw". At first I was skeptical, but since then I'm slowly recovering the will to create/draw, and I think that's the most important part of it. I've returned to my watercolors, inks, color pencils and also got a tablet. It feels like creating a whole world from scratch, just like it felt before. I owe it to the duck.