[ SECRET POST #2560 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2560 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 052 secrets from Secret Submission Post #366.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ketita]

I think that his style has its good points, and works with the story.

"I can't draw proportions" and "I don't know anatomy" are not style, and I think Isayama needs to get on those stat. If he kept the style but knew how to draw the manga would look great, yes. TBH for me it's one of the reasons I can't bring myself to buy the manga.

[(Anonymous)]

yeah he definitely needs to work on those, but with the breakneck pacing of the manga industry I don't know how anyone is supposed to improve! it's nuts!

[(Anonymous)]

Not in the fandom, but isn't SnK a monthly series? If so, then he has more time than those with weekly series.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, more time but not much. Manga authors are know to have very little free time.

[(Anonymous)]

Monthly series of long (50 aprox. pages per chapter) chapters, so he has more time to work on it than if it was a weekly series, but not by much (weekly series tend to have 15-18 per chapter).

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, no. Monthly series are still demanding and as the anon above me said, you still have to do like 10-12 pages a week vs. 17 a week with a weekly.

Seriously, try to make a comic from scratch to finish and you realize it is not easy at all.

And don't forget that mangaka do promotional art and/or special projects (especially if they're hot in the moment like Isayama is right now) and redo the art for the tankoubans on top of that. Then there's the responding to the fans, the meet n' greets, the consulting with the anime staff and the staff who are doing the spinoffs, etc., etc.

And you're trying to have a life on top of that. Not so easy to have some time just to practice. Mangaka are pretty much expected to practice like drawing out the story. Hence a lot of art evolution you see in manga. To be fair, Isayama improved a lot over the past couple of years. Not perfect but tons better, especially if you ever read the prototype for Shingeki with that Ymir look-a-like.

[ketita]

Yeah, I get you. On one hand, yes, you're supposed to improve on the job which many artists do (look at say, Flame of Recca volume 1 versus the last one - it's like a different series!), but with so much pressure for output, it's difficult to invest the time. And tbh some of Isayama's issues are not so easily fixed, though even if he just got himself a spotter for the sketch-stage to go "HANDS TOO SMALL" or "HEAD ANGLE" it would do a lot.

AoT rocketed into fame way beyond what people expected. Hopefully he'll take a break before his next manga to work on his technical skills, if he doesn't have the time now.
It just bugs me when people confuse "rough style" with "bad technical skills". You can like his style while still admitting that he's not a particularly good artist, because he seriously...isn't.

[(Anonymous)]

yeah it bugs me too when people mistake lack of knowledge for style choice, because I am a professional artist. At least its sorta comforting to know some mistakes I make that are glaringly painfully obvious to me would be less so to the readers?? haha

[ketita]

yeah, ouch. I get your pain. For me, it comforts me as a non-professional artist: if his comic could make it on plot alone with shitty art, there is hope for people to not just read things because of the pretty.

[blunderbuss]

Yeah, that's my complaint too. The gritty, ink brush style is fantastic but the guy cannot fucking DRAW. It's not just proportions and anatomy, but even basic things like expressions; there's been so many times that I can't 'read' the emotions of a character because they have some weird trollface.

Hell, in one of the latest chapters someone mentions that Erwin is smiling creepily and I hadn't realised that his smile was SUPPOSED to be disturbing.

[ketita]

God, yes, the expressions! I'm with you 100% - half the time I have no real idea what emotion is supposed to be portrayed. As you say, Erwin's "creepy smile" looked no creepier than 99% of the expressions. Though I didn't jump on that specifically b/c a) it was Levi saying it, and I could see him calling anything 'creepy' if he felt like it, no relation to whether the thing was creepy by anybody else's standards, and b) in that context, most smiles would probably be creepy.

As you say, it's beyond anatomy and proportions. The characters often hold themselves very stiffly, expressions are unclear, it's hard to tell the difference between some, loads of issues.
(but like earlier: I hate when people jump into discussions about Isayama's lack of skill with "but I like his style". I do too. it's irrelevant)