This looks very well done. :) Personally, I think the cover fits for this comic and it highlights your talents as an artist at the same time. As far as art skill goes with me, I'm only good with raw penciling, some coloring, then...MAYBE a little highlighting (needless to say, this sort of thing isn't my forte ). It's easy to underestimate just how many steps go into creating a pic of professional quality until you see just how the creative process works from start to finish from the artist him/herself.

If you don't mind me asking, how long did it take you to create the cover from the raw sketch to the finished version? I'm thinking it must have been some hours, at least.

Thank you I greatly appreciate... but if you see something that is wrong please let me know. I sometimes stare at a monitor all day and I can't spot my mistakes sometimes. I always welcome great productive feedback from people, but not like that one Ass Hole a few weeks back.

Yes there is a lot that goes into these images but It takes a lot of practice. Because of the kind of work I do I've had to get better at all of steps of the process. I personally love just doing pencils only, but hey... I got to pay the bills. What's even better is I usually don't need to ink because I've been trained to do very clean line art for animation so that's become one less step I have to worry about. Just simply bring it in digitally, play with the levels and most of the art looks very neat and clean with out a lot manual clean ups.

As for the time.. it depends off the complexity of the page. This cover took me 5 hours from drawing to final step, but at this point I had colored 3 more pages for a professional book so I had a great beat and Flow. On average I can pump 1 to 2 1//2 pencil pages a day 11x 17, but that's if I'm not working my regular job, or if I have no interruptions. As for colors it can take me between 5 hr per page to about 24 hrs in the most complex color pages. I handle colors a little differently since I have to stare at a monitor I have to take more breaks so I do damage my eyes. I'm pretty blind as is.. I don't need to make it worst before I'm 30..lol.

But if you want to get better just start with the basics. Start with improving you line art first. Learn basic stuff such as perspective, human anatomy, animal anatomy (in this site), proportions, proper shading, and contour lining. Once you understand those everything will fall into place. After you have mastered that move on to composition, rhythm, flow, positive and negative spacing, and layouts. Then colors.

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm very new to the color thing my self. It's a lot more complicated than people realize. There's literally something called "Color Theory" you can google it up, but that is something they don't really study here in the states. So Im learning it on my own so It's a lot of stuff.

Anyway.. I hope this answers your question... I'm sleepy....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

This does answer my question, thanks for the feedback and advice! I will keep it in mind should I start taking up art seriously again.

I actually studied things such as perspective, human anatomy, and proportions in one of my drawing classes and then studied about 3-D modeling and animation using a program called Maya, 2009 edition. These classes were required to take for the Game Design degree I'm working towards at my local community college. Not that I didn't enjoy them, but they were required for the degree, but they were fun once I got the hang of the lessons we were studying. Like I said before, art in general isn't exactly my forte (more likely, writing narratives and writing for literature is :) ).

You are right though. It DOES take a lot of practice, and I unfortunately learned that the hard way in those classes by underestimating the amount of time that goes into it. That's why I can now look at a pic done by an artist (be it at FA or Deviant Art or another art website) and analyize it somewhat better to give better critique and/or opinions on a pic and have a better feel of much work that must have gone into it.

Thanks again for your advice and feedback. Much appreciated.

Ahhh.. yes Maya a 2D persons worst nightmare. I learn maya back when it was Maya 4.5 to 7.5 back in the day. But if you really want to get into 3d modeling for games you really need to know the basics of drawing (especially anatomy). It really shows on the models when people don't understand the basic fundamentals. The industry is also looking for you to know ZBrush, Mudbox, and 3dMax. check out CGSociety.org it's a great place to start.

Cheers.