Comic book artists today need an excellent degree of design and art skills to compete with other artists. Gone are the days of simple outline drawings that resemble silhouettes. To cut it; as an artist, you will need to build an excellent portfolio of your work and an action plan, because you are not going to be discovered easily without them. The likes of DC and Marvel publishers are looking for gifted artists with a resume to prove it! However you do have other options.

If your skill is of a high standard and you have confidence in your work why not volunteer with a comic book publishing house. This is probably my most important advice. You will be in a commercial environment and will be working with talented individuals who can help you. Without an immaculate Portfolio you are going to struggle finding an interested employer let alone volunteering. Concentrate on your Portfolio and use examples of your work that really show off your skills. Your Portfolio should showcase your range of skills to the employer this is important even when looking for volunteering positions. Your selling yourself so be confident.

When you have a website up and running with your comic book art you can contact comic book publishers and direct them to your website. Join forums to do with art, and leave interesting posts, and make sure you have a signature at the bottom of each post with a link to your website. This is very important as professional comic book artists will find your post eventually and will have your website link at the bottom. Go to Conventions and network with Publishers. At first just introduce yourself and make small talk, and mention that you have your portfolio with you, you should have no problem making professional relationships this way, although make sure you are prepared in advance.

Many artists have struggled with pencil drawing and have not really gotten good at it. They then move on to paint with colors, and when they find that they face the same basic drawing problems, they choose to ignore them and make up some excuse so that they can avoid having to face those problems. If you’re facing the same problems, my advice to you is to meet those problems head on and overcome them once and for all. Artists who refuse to face and tackle drawing problems head on can only do so much. Their growth is stunted, and their drawing skills will not improve. Over time, their skills will be overtaken by those who took the trouble to examine the problems and actually solve them.

Once the drawing problems are solved, it’s then a question of consciously choosing how you want to draw. For example, many artists cannot draw realistic pictures using pencil. When the drawing didn’t turn out the way they wanted it to, they say it’s abstract art, or they’re trying to symbolise the subjects. But we all know the truth. There are times when drawing a realistic picture is much better than symbolic drawing, so we can’t run away forever. Sooner or later, we’re going to come face to face with the same set of problems.

But the good news is, once you undersand the basic problems of pencil drawing, you’ll learn that they’re not that difficult to overcome. And if you can learn to overcome these problems, you’ll also find it easier to overcome problems associated with color, since the problems are similar in nature. The number one problem to pencil drawing is control. Artists can’t draw what they want to draw because they don’t know how to control the drawing tools properly. But how difficult can it be to control a pencil? It’s easy if you know how.

For instance, you can vary the pressure of the pencil to shade with a whole range of different tones. You can choose to work with a blunt or sharp pencil, or decide to hold the pencil differently. These are all techniques related to pencil drawing. So don’t jump the gun, be patient, and learn to draw well with pencils before moving on. After all, part of drawing is about problem solving, and if you can’t solve your pencil problems, you won’t be able to solve your painting problems. That’s why pencil drawing is an essential skill to acquire.