Now and Then

As I was working on Slipping Through I pulled up an old piece for color reference. Struck by the changes time and practice has wrought, I thought I'd post the pieces for comparison.
Here we have Benedict, a magician, drawn just around a year ago.

His hat is so . . . squashed? It is supposed to be a top hat, but it looks more like . . . nothing humankind has ever seen before. And his face is funky. All the proportions all wrong and a year ago I couldn't tell, no matter how much I studied it. Also, he was supposed to have curly hair, but it was beyond my skills. His body lacks any sort of definition, he's just a blocky suit. What is his hair even doing?

Here his is as of a few minutes ago, a work in progress,

I notice I'm less afraid of darker coloring. Also, he's not so stiff and awkward. Necks are something I've been trying to give all my characters nowadays. As well, I've got a bit better about hands, not so much hit and miss as it was.

And a glimpse of his redesigned cane.

A lot has changed in a year. I know, in my heart, that a year from now I will be making a similar post pointing out the weakness of the pieces I made today. For the moment, his original hat will haunt my dreams.

Progress? Yah, Really

I've been thinking about how much work I have to do before I could even begin working on a comic book. My skills with drawing backgrounds are nearly non-existent and my ability to convey motion in still pictures is still weak. So far I'm best at static poses with the characters pretty much just standing there, looking into the camera.
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Before I got too mopey I went and looked at some of my older drawings and sketches done about five months ago. The picture at the top of this post is one of them. Looking over them I realized that I am making progress. I am improving. Just glance at this picture then look over at my other posts and you can tell the difference. A very significant difference.
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This picture (of a fellow named Matthew) has so many problems. First off, this was done before I had any skill at drawing hands, so the poses usually served to hide their hands altogether. He does have one hand extended, but I barely scribbled that in and the other is hidden behind his back.
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Not sure what is going on with his shirt collar, which is way too high up on his neck. Then the hair. Oh, mercy me. It had no real shape and makes his head look flat. I do believe this picture was done before I started sketching in the entire head and not just the face before adding hair.
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There is a second picture, the bottom one. This one was done just the other day, of the same character. They are only a few face studies, not a full body one like the other, but I think it gets the point across. The whole shape of the head is improved and the hair has form instead of being flat. As well, the facial features are more detailed and expression more natural.
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I suppose it also helps that now I ink my pictures and scan them into the computer, rather than just taking snapshots of them.