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Wednesday 27 December 2017

Imitation is the best form of art

So, these past two weeks, I've QUIT and RESTARTED my 'career' as a comic book illustrator several times over. Every time I sit down with the intention of drawing something good, within a few hours,  I'm snapping my pencils in disgust at my clear lack of talent. However, oddly enough,  being good at drawing isn't necessarily important when it comes to creating comics or art. It's just my own art snobbery that prevents me from accepting anything that I draw as competent and worthy.

My ultimate goal is to be able to draw my conspiracy based series, Get Woke, to a level where I wouldn't be embarrassed to show it to people. The script is very funny (which can help carry poor-average art) and conspiracy is so zeitgeist right now that I know it could be a hit. However, even the first issue, clocking in at 40 pages, is going to take me at the very least a year to draw! And that's if I can actually see it through until the end. 

Get Woke also features some of the most famous people of all time set in world renowned locations. It's a full-blown, giddy AF, international super-blockbuster of a series, with racing action scenes and visual gags galore. I couldn't have picked a harder story to try and draw. I do, however, have a plan...



Peppa Pig: looks like it's drawn by a five year old and is wildly successful. That's an extreme example but it proves good drawing isn't essential. My problem is that if I'm not drawing precise lines like Steve Dillon or Chris Weston I hate what I'm creating. These are amazing artists who spent years crafting their skills. I'll never be as good as these professional artists and that's something I need to accept, despite how fucking obvious it is.



What I need to do is get good at some more simplistic art. No less credit to the creators of Adventure Time, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab and cartoons of that ilke (it's all very purposefully simple and clever and very hard to get right) but if I can somehow copy these simple styles with flat colours and basic shapes, I believe I could evetually come to some sort of level of drawing I'd be happy with. I think it would suit the subject matter really well too.



Here's a load of reference pics for some of the other top kid's cartoons at the moment.









I have no doubt that, given tons of practice and some hard work, I can create something similar to one of the images above.


Thursday 21 December 2017

The Fright Before Christmas

Here's a festive story I've been saving for Christmas time. The Fright Before Christmas appeared in the Back from the Depths 2010 Xmas Special SHOCKING CHILLERS! with art by Christopher Geary.







Saturday 2 December 2017

Learning to Draw #1

I've been promoting this blog as a place where you can follow me as I "learn to draw". Apart from the occasional short comic strip or sketch I haven't really fulfilled this promise. Time to make amends!

I'm fortunate enough to know enough comic artists and editors that I can usually find a home for the short comic strips I have written. When it comes to securing an illustrator for longer projects, the only way you can be sure of getting a what you want is by paying for it. That's not currently an option for me and it sucks!

Writing a comic series takes a serious commitment. You're not just making ink appear on paper you're creating characters and worlds and pouring time and energy in to a story. A standard 4 issue mini series could be between 80-150 pages long. Pulling together a full art team of pencils, inks, colours and letters means a project of that size could easily cost at least £4000. That's enough to put you off writing longer series as what's the point if you can never afford to bring it to life.

Anyways, I could ramble like this for ages before showing you any art. I'll continue this conversation later in the Learning to Draw blog series as the drawings flow and I reveal my full deluded intentions.

Meanwhile, I been sketchin'...