Unseen problem, art has... improved?

[yoshibb]

So excuse the weird title but I'm having a bit of an issue right now. I feel like I've improved on my art style which should be a good thing. The issue is when you are working on a project. So basically my cgs at the beginning feel inferior to the ones I'm making now. I know I've seen this happen before on other games, but the only option seems to be to start over. But it kills me to think I'm just throwing out my old work, I still like it, I just wonder if it's too noticeable.

Anyone have opinions on this? What would you do?

[CSV]

It really depends on how noticeable a difference it is and on your motivation to redo the CGs...well, if it was me, I would consider making new CGs and then including the other ones as bonus content for when the player completes the game (like in a concept art page). I don't know if this makes much sense, though.

[yoshibb]

I understand, I didn't think about including them as bonus. That's a good idea over simply deleting them. Although, it might work better if it was simply a different style. Right now I just think that the old ones look better than the newer ones I'm doing now :/

It doesn't help that I'm lazy of course and I don't want to redo them

[PyTom]

"Real artists ship."

I mean, you can go back and improve your CGs - but if your skill keeps improving, you'll wind up having to do it again, and again, and again. If you don't improve, you're not trying hard enough.

You have to release sometime - so why not now, and move on to the next thing?

[trooper6]

This will not help you now, but it might help you later!
I read a tip to help avoid the art improvement problem that seems quite good.

That is do all of your art at the same time in stages. So if you have 3 pieces of art you are making, and your drawing phases are (Sketch, Line Art, Coloring), instead of this:

Art 1: Sketch
Art 1: Line Art
Art 1: Coloring
Art 2: Sketch
Art 2: Line Art
Art 2: Coloring
Art 3: Sketch
Art 3: Line Art
Art 3: Coloring

Do this:

Art 1: Sketch
Art 2: Sketch
Art 3: Sketch
Art 1: Line Art
Art 2: Line Art
Art 3: Line Art
Art 1: Coloring
Art 2: Coloring
Art 3: Coloring

So...may not help you now...but it seems like if might be really good moving forward.

[underbliss]

There is also 'Art is never finished, only abandoned.'
It comes down to a question of judgement, it's hard to say without seeing the pictures themselves, but often an artist will think slight inconsistencies are far more noticeable than they would be to their viewers. Then there's balancing whether or not your energy spent redoing the pictures is even worth it.
Honestly, the best thing to do with the situation at hand would probably be to show the pictures as examples to someone and get their opinion on if showcasing the CGs would come off poorly or worth the effort to redo.

Avoiding falling into the loop in the future is a combination of PyTom's advice and trooper6's, I think!
Style consistency is a battle all on it's own for some people, but getting hung up on something like this to the point of distraction especially if it's not even necessary is a quick motivation and productivity killer for any sort of creative project.

[yoshibb]

Thank you for all the suggestions. I've always just done everything at once, I've never thought about sketching each thing first and so on. I will have to keep that in mind. And perhaps I am just over thinking cause I do tend to see every mistake and inconsistency in my art. When I'm ready show something, I will definitely get people's opinions of it and go from there.

[SundownKid]

Release it anyway, don't bother going back and improving the old ones, otherwise you will just be stuck in a loop of improve > fix > Improve > fix. It's likely that you will be more sensitive of the differences than most people anyway.

[Artsupplies]

It is a common problem so don't worry and no need to start from beginning. Keep practicing on your weak points and try to improve your next work.

[truefaiterman]

If possible, make sure to have a VERY strict process when working in a certain project. It helps keeping the overall look and style of the game, even when your own is changing.

Also, try to focus on a single graphic material: if you work on sprites, try to finish them before getting into CGs, or BGs.

Related to my first point, make sure to use a very consistent set of tools.

As an example:
When I work on sprites, I make sure to always sketch them the same way and format (Din A5 sheet of paper with pen or mechanical pencil), lineart them the same way (Ink pen tool with a fixed size and stabilizer on Sai) and same about colouring (Moving to Photoshop, using the exact same predefined brush for everything, and shading with very well defined layers with a fixed palette and blend modes, always working in the same order [shadows, lights, extra colours on the skin, extra hues on the whole sprite to give some ambient, and textures if needed]).

Even though my style is taking some relatively huge changes, I manage to keep everything very consistent.

Other suggestions I have:

-Leave the main characters and CGs until the end, this way, even if your style developes too much, the most important characters will have the best looks, and keep consistent (since they are the ones the gamer will see more often).

-If you can manage it, the way of working suggested by Trooper6 may work wonders for you.

-Don't be afraid of making a lot of guidelines to make sure about how do you want the characters to look like. Even with a different style, sometimes it's enough to keep the measures so the style will look consistent.