Quackcast 694 - Consistency

The QuackCast

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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