This is about styles..... we see many here in this forum... we have the more realistic styles like rezo would typically use combined with his more manga-like people....then we see some anime type stuff from Nymph and various others, then a comic strip style from Black Dragon, and I have the american comic book style.....as well as many other things I've seen here.

I'm just simply feeling incompetent right now. I draw my people comic book style, I don't put much time into shading or figuring out light sources, I don't even spend much time with backgrounds, I just do linework and the "small lines everywhere" detaling learned from people like Todd McFarlane and Greg Capullo... and the shading is generally just stylistic and not realistic.....

so does that make me a flawed, average artist?

I'm just wondering....can you still be a GREAT artist, and draw comic book stuff, anime people....or do you have to be able to realisticly recreate nature to be considered one?

I'm uncertain.....

I think its the relative skill level. If you CANT do realistic shading or whatnot, then your stylized shading would be faulty inthe same way. If we're talking about shadows, what matters is knowing where to put them, not how they're done. You can get realistic shadows in a black/white comic setting. Drawing in a comic style shouldn't be a limitation on doing this. The good comic artists don't arbitrarily place shadows anywhere. They put them where they need to be. The things that are being shaded are done in a different style ,but the shadow placement is universal. I think when doing your comic drawings, pickwhere the light is, and the shadowing should come in naturally. All you need to do is know where the light is coming from, and remember throughout the entire shading process. But as far as it goes as a technique, it doesn't require much skill. Do the miniscule line detailing, and put the shadows over it when its done.

Naturally I consider being able to create backgrounds important. But they're also much simpler than the people you're drawing, its just a case of the amount of time you spend on them. I can spend 10 hrs drawing a tree, but the actual skill required to draw that tree is low. If you can make a single branch with leaves on it , then you can do it 100 more times. So I don't consider the ability to draw backgrounds a sign of artistic skill so much. I think its a sign of the amount of patience a person has when doing a piece.

The main goal of the artist is to be able to create whatever you want, whenever you want. I would like to know that, when I want to draw a guy jumping off of a building into a city from a high view, that I would be able too. If I want that park to look realistic, I would like to be able to do it. So the limits aren't based on what you draw, but on what you can draw. If you feel shadows and backgrounds are important and that you're lacking, then work on it. If you think its something you'll never feel like using(I don't use the non-outline shading technique that Nymph used in her Gackt picture because its a technique for recreating real-life or photos and I don't like doing that) then don't worry about knowing it. Something like shading is important. Something like backgrounds, thats a skill you likely already have, so its just about spending the time to implement it. I wish you had a copy of one of the Akiras. I used to stare at those books angrily in highschool, but for a way to learn how to draw detailed backgrounds, its topnotch. You notice that the buildings are often simple structures repeated over and over again, and its possible to do this at a very basic skill level. One you should be well above by now. Just make use of your friend the ruler.

I dragged on a bit.

I think comic is basically a form of abstract? You draw a person and you exaggerate.

Personally, I can draw all kinds of styles. I just like drawing anime better because I like anime.

I like seeing the different styles people have. Everybody's drawings are unique in their own way.

Hmmmmmm.
I must admit, I don't draw backgrounds unless they're absolutely nessessary. I can draw them, though. I think I'm just too blase about making a picture to bother with it. (reads: too lazy)

Ktulu. Don't be silly, man. I've seen some of your stuff and it is fantastic. How can you forget so easily the fact that you're the most highly decorated artist here. (actually as far as I know, you're the only one that's won any prizes for it).

Surely that speaks for itself.

If you want to draw better backgrounds, start with using the scenery around you. It's easier to use a scene that is in front of you than create a whole and detailed image in your head. When I do in fact make a scene in the background and it is a made up one, I start with the basic shapes. Just like what I do to create figures.

;D


Black Dragon.
PS; Hope I was of SOME help.

It dosent matter. Whatever you say is art, is. Its all about what people think and what you think..It just reminds me of some old story ive heard...Adam our first father was scratching in the dirt with a stick and making patterns. The devil came up behind him and looked and the skratchings..he said, "its pritty, but is it art?"
I think this is asking wether or not art and beuty have to be connected at all. you can have terrible creatures, or flowers and its still called art. anouther way of thinking about it is, art is anything you can convince others to beleve it is. And the worth of art is only as much as you can convince that person to think that they want it.

In the end I could give a million pointless arguments so I leave it at this; You decide on your own what art is and what art isnt. Then you decide if what you do is art and go from there. Others shouldnt tell you what to think.