ART – How Artists can Better Learn to Teach Themselves
The Simpsons Quotes:
So when I took the test, the answers were stuck in my head. It was like a whole different kind of cheating! – Bart Simpson
When you haven’t got a mentor around, or when you’re the only person you know who draws. When the figure drawing teacher in your class is awful or if there isn’t even a teacher at all, how can you learn?
How do you improve your art when there’s no one who can help?
Today I’m going to write about some possible solutions to this problem, and it really begins with self motivation.
You can watch the video below or read the information on the post below. It’s really the same info either way:
There’s a section in the book called “Meta-Learning” where he brakes down the concept and teaches you how to teach yourself anything. I found this really fascinating.
Why is it important for us as artists to learn this sort of thing?
Well, the things you do when you’re meta-learning are very similar to the things you do when you want to teach somebody to draw.
It teaches you how to break things down, how to study it so you can do so. It helps you break a subject matter down to it’s building blocks. Then find what you really need from those building block and learn from them.
Bite Sized Chunks of Info
If you’re an artist and you don’t have access to anyone that will do that for you and if your going to have to do it yourself, it would be a good idea to learn to do it well. It’s one of the reasons why some art teachers tend to learn more about the subject that they’re teaching, than the students.
They have to break down a subject in such a way, that they can explain it to their students in a way that it can be internalize. Break it down into small size bites so that the students can learn it.
The very process of doing that is a learning experience, and it help you internalize stuff. Once that’s done, you can practice what you’ve broken down over and over.
But that’s not the only book I recommend. I also recommend a book by the name of Game Frame: Using Games as a Strategy for Success by Aaron Dignan. The reason I bring this one up is because it puts forth the proposition that games are fun because we are learning something. We’re learning to control a character, or a rules or something.
Part of the fun of playing games is the slow learning process you get when you play the game itself. The best games have this thing called “flow” where they’re teaching you a skill that you don’t know, in such a way that it’s challenging but not frustrating.
If it’s too frustrating you’re not having fun, if it’s too easy you’re not having fun. When you get the right balance, between too frustrating and too easy, that’s when you’re actually learning. That’s when you’re having fun.
Gamify the Process
That’s one of propositions in the book. The book itself is about adding a game layer to life. Trying to find a way to “gamify” your life. That way you can find ways to make things that are dull a game. If you can make things like that fun, then they are motivating.
Motivating yourself is really the tricky part we have to deal with most. Even in the The 4-Hour Chef there was a part about finding incentives for yourself. He called it, setting stakes. Have something be at stake if you don’t complete what you’ve set out to do.
In a game, the stakes are, you don’t want to lose, you’re in a state of flow, you don’t want to stop playing. Like if you play a game of Civilizations you want “one more turn”. Games are really good at doing that. Getting you into that flow.
Melding Ideas
If you want to learn to grab that idea from the book Game Frame and you read The 4-Hour Chef, you can combine the ideas in both books. You might find a way to become a better artist. And you might be motivated to learn a lot of other things too.
And it’s fun. Learning is actually fun.
I just thought I’d bring those up.
I’m gonna be reading another book soon on habits and few other game design books and I might talk about those too. I’m really into this kind of meta-learning thing and I’ve been trying it out in my life.
Comment
How about you? What have you found that helps you learn that can make you better at drawing?
Pulp Simpsons Continues
The Simpsons and Pulp Fiction mash up that us layout artist drew for fun is still being sent off in my newsletter. If you want to see this art, sign up to my newsletter and you’ll get to see the art.
COMIC BOOKS/VIDEOS – Mark Waid on Digital comics
This was posted on Mark Waid’s blog a while ago but I recently became aware of it. I thought I’d share:
For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIESIf you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
COMIC BOOKS – Working on a Mike Allred Simpsons Comic Book.
Hmm, that lightning exclamation point looks awfully familiar.
The Simpsons Quote:
In the alley behind his store CBG: (throwing out a large stack of comics) It seems I will never sell these “She-Hulk vs. Leon Spinks” comics. Worst cross-over ever!(leaves) Nerds: (getting the sent of the comics, one grabs the comics from the trash bin) CBG: (points a flashlight at them, which make their eyes shine red) Nerds: Aargh! (they run away) CBG: (Waving a broom at them) Shoo, nerds, shoo!
I’d done other work besides working on The Simpsons show.
Sometimes, doing this sort of thing actually makes for some fun adventures.
Today I’m going to talk about one of those fun moments that happened when I worked on some Simpsons comics.
You can either watch the video below or read it. The information is the same either way:
(All the links to the products below are affiliate links.)
A Fun Freelance Job
While I worked on The Simpsons I used to freelance for Bongo Comics.
Well, I’m a big fan of Mike Allred, the creator of Madman. My boss at Bongo, Bill Morrison, knew this. He was also a fan and we used to talk about comics all the time.
BUT I drew the plots and I still have them. So check this out. Here’s the rough plots of the page above:
Pretty cool huh?
Surprised at Comic Con
So here’s the interesting part, okay. So I drew this comic, that year I went to San Diego Comic Con. Laura Allred, Mike Allred‘s wife was in a booth there selling their extra comics.
They were these old comics they had worked on called Grafik Muzik. That was, actually the comic that had made me become aware of Mike Allred. These Grafik Muzik comics.
The comic made me search out for more of his stuff which led me to his Madman comics and all his other books.
So I started talking to Laura and I told her I was a big fan, and I bought some Grafik Muzik comics. I also told her that I had worked on the Simpson Comic her husband had written.
She told me to stick around for a moment because she was sure that he might be coming by. Sure enough, he showed up.
I introduced myself, we shook hands and I told who I was and what I did. I was 19 or 20 years old at the time. I don’t remember but I was much younger then.
And he was so awesome. We just started talking about comics, The Simpsons and all kinds of things. Then he says,
“Come on, come with me,” and we just walked off into Comic Con. I went with him as he bought comics and we talked and looked around.
It was fun. He spoke with a lot of industry guys as I tagged along, and it was fun. It was really nice that he did that. I really appreciated it.
I have fond memories of having worked on the comic. And I have fond memories of what happened after.
Working on the Comic
And here’s the thing. The script he actually wrote that he wanted a iris panel, because that’s his style. He does those old school grids and page layouts. He basically choreographed the way he wanted the grids and the panels to work. I was familiar with his style so, to me that was a lot of fun too.
Embarrassing Myself
I ended up sending them a thank you note via Bill Morrison after I got home from Comic Con a few days later…so embarrassing.
It’s this drawing I did of Bart Simpsons on Madman’s leg and Madman is trying to shake him off. BUT then on the drawing I wrote this, like, love letter to both Laura and Mike Allred and it’s…it’s bad. I really hope they forgot about it…
ANYWAY, I hope you’ve enjoyed this, anecdote. Let me know what you think of my story. Are you a fan of Mike Allred. I can only say good things. He’s a great guy.
A Better Look at All the Roughs
This week’s newsletter has the roughs for the comic, if you want to take a look at them. Give’s you an idea of what the story he wrote was like.
PODCASTS – Simpsons: Then and Now
Tonight, as of the time of this writing, my co-worker Chance Raspberry and my pal and animator Larry Whitaker are going to meet up with animation fans for our second live recording of our The Corner Booth podcast. Our podcast where we talk about the animation industry from the inside.
It’s happening tonight in a secret location, in Burbank. The topic for this recording is, The Simpsons: Then and Now.
Chance and I will be talking about our experience working on the show.
How we got our jobs on the show and the madness that is producing an episode.
Plus some anecdotes from our time working on the movie.
AND the best part, you can interrupt us anytime and ask us questions about the show.
Depending on what time you’re reading this, you might still be able to come and join us.
Like I said, the location is secret BUT if you opt in to The Corner Booth notification email: http://www.thecornerbooth.net/welcome/ BEFORE 5pm tonight and you live near Burbank, we’ll send you the info.
So this epic storyboard I’m working on has turned out to be…well…epic. It’s a little over 40 scenes (shots) long but there’s a lot going on in it. I was thinking I’d be done by Friday but I had three meetings with the director and the head director over it and there’s always something that can be done to improve it. I don’t mind, this is the process. How it all works. I especially don’t mind since the changes are all done on the first “rough scribble pass” which makes things easier for me as an artist to change or throw out.
The project has no dialogue and we didn’t know exactly how long it would be, so I also had to time my roughs in order to get an idea for it’s length. It’s a fun project, I must admit. I only wish I didn’t feel so pressured to finish. That said, I WANT to be done by Friday. Hopefully, somehow, I might be able to clean up the whole thing in two days. Whether or not I will succeed is another story.
I might be going on hiatus later than I thought, because of this. Which isn’t horrible, but it will take away time from my commission work.
ART
Speaking of special projects, I’ve finally finished getting passed thumbnailing page 7 of my script. I just forced myself to sit down and really concentrate on getting through it. So far, I’ve thumbnailed out 327 scenes/shots. Far more than I anticipated:
I thought about it for hours before I got to the drawing it and by the time I sat down, I knew what I was going to do. It went by much faster this way. It also helped that I watched a movie with a fight scene that game ideas. I really should have been doing that much more before I sat down to draw the fights. I just didn’t have time to do that since I worked on this stuff during lunch. It would have taken all my time looking at fight in order to get inspired or get ideas. By the time I would be ready to draw, my lunchtime would have been over.
Perhaps, during hiatus or during the weekends I can be home and look at fight scenes I like to see if I can plug in some of what I see into the roughs I’ve already go. It would be much easier to do something like that, now that I have something down, than it was when I was starting from scratch.
In any case, I think the worst is behind me now. There’s still one more battle to thumbnail, but it’s not as physical as the ones I’ve just done. It will hopefully be less of a handful.
COMIC BOOKS/BLOGS
Digital/Web comics are becoming more and more exciting to me. I’ve been getting more and more into them lately. For a long time I hadn’t been very interested in these comics because the quality of the art and storytelling hadn’t really been up to snuff. I really wanted a similar experience reading them as I did reading printed comics. Well, it seems like that’s changed quite a bit the last couple of years. Comics online and “digital only” comics, are just as good now, and sometimes, better than the printed stuff. Part of the reason is that many professional comic creators have started doing Digital work.
The latest of the these is Mark Waid, who wrote KINGDOM COME and SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT among many other things. He decided he was going to start putting out Webcomics. He’s also turned his blog into a “process blog”. Kinda similar to what I do here in my ART sections.
His Digital comics site will go up on May 1st and it’s called THRILLBENT. I’ll let you know what I think about it when it goes live. But right now, I want to call attention to his blogMarkwaid.com. Mostly because I like how he’s approaching doing the comics. Though his a professional comic writer, he’s quite frank about how little he knows about writing for digital comics.
Digital comics and comics on the web are a very different monsters than printed comics. What works in print doesn’t necessarily work in the digital medium. So he’s writing about what he learns as he goes. He also writes about the approaches he takes and the experiments he makes. I like to read this stuff because it puts us all in the same boat. Also, he likes some of the approaches to digital comics that I also like. This makes it seem to me, as I read his blog, that we’re on the same page.
Since I’m also going to put a web comic up, when I’m done with my current project, building on what Mark Waid discovers that works or doesn’t work seems like a good idea to me. I’ve been reading his blog with great interest and I’m very curious to see how things pan out for him.
Check it out, if you’re interested in this digital medium. For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
Last week I managed to not only rough out Act 2 but also Act 3 on show 21. I spent this week trying to tighten up the roughs on both boards. I managed to finish Act 2, I have yet to finish Act 3. I’m not sure my revision partner will get to Act 4 and I might end up getting it at the last minute. I hope not. We’ll see.
WEBSITES/COMIC BOOKS/CATHOLICISM
I’m usually not a fan of “Catholic religious comics”. The ones I’ve been exposed to have really been way too sweet with Saints that are so perfect they might as well be walking icons. They’re so perfect they’re inhuman and the stories are so preachy and contrived, they are completely unrelateable.
If they aren’t that, then they are so serious, humorless and full of suffering that, reading them is like subjecting yourself to torture.
I myself have thought about creating a Religious comic in order to see if it’s possible to create an appealing, compelling, fun and entertaining one. Well, I’m happy to say that I don’t have to do that, because someone already HAS.
Mitchelle D’Souza, a cartoonist currently (as of the time of this writing) living in Canada is working on a Fatima Webcomic, and it’s exactly that. It’s appealing, compelling, fun, entertaining AND FUNNY. I LOVE it. It hits all the beats I wanted to see in a Catholic comic. If I make a Religious comic, I hope it’s half as good as this. Reading it really made me smile. The characters are human, and full of flaws, which makes you really feel for them.
It’s a comic that retells the true story of the extraordinary events that happened in Fatima in 1917 to three Shepherd children. It’s all told through the eyes of the youngest of the three, Jacinta. Her antics are just really fun to read.
Here’s a sample page from the comic:
If you’re Catholic or interested in history, or are really into Fatima. If you want to put a smile on you face to see Jacinta do silly things, you should read this comics.
It’s moments like these that I wonder why I decided to go with an action story. There’s nothing worse than sitting down, knowing you have to write action and not knowing what the heck to write. Trying not to repeat myself while attempting to write something interesting was a huge pain. Perhaps I was approaching it the wrong way, I don’t know. All I know is, that this was very difficult for me. In the end, I think I DID repeat myself a bit.
It’s hard because the point of the fight was not the fight in itself but the outcome of the fight, namely, the prevention of Rob being able to eat his hot dog and the knocking away of the hot dog from Rob. In fact, I kinda started in the second part of the fight before I wrote the first part. I don’t know why. It just seemed like a way to get started.
The entire fight was just a stream of conscientiousness kind of thing. I didn’t know what I would write until I wrote it. I’m just glad I was able to put something down.
You will notice that the small synopsis below is different than the original I wrote a few weeks earlier. I moved the stepping of the hot dog moment into this act as opposed to next act. I thought it would create a much more climatic low point for act 2.
Scene 6 (Inequity/Projection)
Finding himself friendless and trapped, Rob decides to eat his hot dog there and then only one of the monsters causes the hot dog to end up a few feet from him, safely on it’s plate. The bad guys close in. Ignoring the Sorcerers, Rob goes for his hot dog only to have the Other Male Sorcerer step on it, leaving Rob stunned for a second. They laugh seeing that they’ve won and look forward in anticipation to the glory they will receive. (Act 2 climax).
Outdoor Shopping Area – Day continued
Trapped, friendless and alone, Rob sees there’s no hope for getting away. The Sorcerers and creatures slowly make their way closer, relishing the situation. Rob has reached the point of not caring about anything anymore except getting to eat his hot dog. If they aren’t going to let him leave, and they’re not going to leave him alone to eat his lunch in peace, he might as well eat it in the midst of all the chaos. He’ll eat as he fights. At least that way, he can get what he wants in the end. It may not be the most ideal way to eat, but he’ll get to eat.
Rob expresses this out loud to the Sorcerers, and it actually hurts their pride to be taken so lightly by him. Especially considering the situation he’s in.
He grabs his hot dog, opens his mouth and is about to take a bite. Before he can get to it, he ducks under a Winged Ape’s claw. He quickly climbs over a bench and hides behind a tree putting in between him and the Ape. He goes for a bite but finds another Ape behind him who tries to smash him with both it’s fists. Rob moves out of the way and almost drops his hot dog. He then dodges a tree that was hurled at him from an Ape. The plate was hit off of Robs hand and goes flying through the air.
Rob runs after it and catches it. Before he could catch his breath his looks up to see the Viper Creature’s fanged face lunging at him. He doesn’t have time to leap and he finds himself prying open the Viper Creature’s jaw with one hand and his two feet, while holding on to the plate with his lunch the with his free hand. The Viper Creature begins to fling it’s head around, trying to get Rob to stop. Rob tries to hold on to his hot dog while keeping from being smashed. His strength begins to give out. He could only hope he could let go of the jaws fast enough to not get caught in them.
He let’s go and goes flying through the air. He lands hard on the ground, almost right back where he started in between the creatures and the Sorcerers. The plate gets knocked out of his hand when he lands, flies through the air, bounces and lands safely a few yards away; hot dog miraculously still on the plate. Rob sits up.
Everyone stops to look. They all turn to look at each other for a beat.
Then chaos.
Ice flies toward, Rob who dodges it. Rob runs toward one Winged Ape. The other Winged Ape slashes at him but he was using the other Ape to crawl and leap off of. One Ape slashes the other sending it reeling. Rob sees fireballs coming his way, at the same time he sees the Winged Ape that was left standing coming at him. The Viper creature spins around to get at him as well. He heads in the direction of the Viper creature as the fireballs land behind him. The fireballs continue to follow him landing on the Viper creature’s body and it hisses in pain. He heads toward the hot dog, jumping on the viper’s body as it tries to get him off. Fireballs still hitting it. The Winged Ape flies up to reach Rob, and Rob leaps off the Viper Creature as a fireball hits the Ape which land in the spot he had just vacated. The fireball blast sends Rob tumbling to the ground. He looks up and sees his hot dog a feet away. He scrawls to reach it. Right as he about to get it, a foot slams into it and smashes it. The hot dog is nothing but mush and completely uneatable.
Rob looks on shocked. He can’t believe it. After all that. The ONE thing he wanted. The ONE thing that made the intolerable situation he’s in tolerable. He slowly looks up, his eyes following the foot that had smashed his hopes. The veiled face of the Other Male Sorcerer stands about him. His shoulders chuckling in amusement. Rob lowers his head in defeat. He gives up. They won.
The Sorcerer mocks Rob, like a bully in a playground. Asking him if he’s going to cry. The female Sorcerer laughs. The Lead Sorcerer frowns at his colleagues’ childishness. The Other Males Sorcerer, glories in their triumph over Rob, as he announces out loud to the Lead Sorcerer how they will gain honor and prestige from all the other Sorcerers for doing what no others had been able to do before them. The Lead Sorcerer responds, telling the Other Males Sorcerers that even if it’s so, they should at least behave with dignity and have some semblance of honor in their triumph.
The Other Main Sorcerer, tells his boss that he’s giving Rob all the honor he deserves and proceeds to kick Rob in the face.
END OF SCENE
The last kick to the face was just to add insult to injury (or is it, injury to injury?). At this point in the story, I’m hoping the audience is emotionally ready to see some justice done.
Since I wrote the above, I thought about it a bit, wondering if I could improve it somehow. I’ve decided to leave it that way it is for now BUT it’s not set in stone. I think if I change it, I will go with another version that I thought up recently. I was thinking that, instead of the bad guys trying to hurt Rob, they might just be trying to destroy the hot dog deliberately. That would actually change the dynamics of the fight quite a bit and might even make it more interesting to watch. I’ll think about it some more and decide on what I’m going to do at the storyboard stage.
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Wow, it was a really heavy work week last week. I was under the gun all week and just barely managed to squeak out my assigned Acts both Act 1 AND Act 3. I was even given a last minute fix on Act 1 that I had to finish before my wife (whom I carpool with) and I had to leave to pick up the kids. I was sweating it to the end.
Compare that to this week where I started revising a different episode. I’ve been assigned Act 2 and the rewrite is VERY lite. So lite in fact, that I’m almost finish revising it, and we only have a three day work week.
Can’t say this job doesn’t keep me on my toes.
ART
(For those of you coming in late to these posts, if you want to read what my project is about, CLICK HERE to learn about the general world the story takes place in, and CLICK HERE if you want to know the story itself.)
This is taking a long time and I apologize if you’re getting tired of basically seeing the same drawing over and over. That said, this IS the process. Granted, only doing this in 30 minute chunks everyday, does make the process go at crawl. Believe me, I’m feeling it. I want it to be over so I can get to the next step. Which leads me to think that I’m being too precious about all this and I might be going about it all wrong. Perhaps I should just be rougher with the final product. That way I can finish it sooner than later. I’ll really have to think about it this.
Okay, so here’s what I’ve done this week:
I’ve added shadows to all the drawings and began changing up the edges on them a bit. I’ve also added some core shadows to parts of the drawings. My plan is to continue adding core shadows where needed and then I’m going to add a few slight highlights or lighter areas to places that might need it. I hope to have that all done by next week. Once I do, it will basically be done. The tricky part once I’m done doing it though, is figuring out a way to show you what the finished product looks like. I’ll figure that out, once I get there.
FAMILY
Okay, so, we had quite an interesting start to our week. Sunday night, my 4 year old daughter and my two and a half year old son, were playing together (as they normally do). At some point (as it sometimes happens) they began bickering over who can play with what toy. Well, we didn’t really see what happened exactly but somehow the attempt to either hold on to the toy or take the toy away, led to Dante getting poked, scratch, or swiped on his unprotected eye ball. So began a really tough rest of the night.
Dante came crying into the living room, screaming in pain. It was obvious that there was some serious hurt in his eye. I became very upset with Elizabeth and reprimanded her. She went to her room and cried. I took Dante in my arms and held him, hoping that he’d quiet down soon. When he didn’t I really started getting worried. He wouldn’t let us see his eye and refused to open it. He just cried and cried. I started freaking out. Alesha just got mad at me for it. She decided to tell Dante that if he calmed down, he’d give him a treat. I thought it was a ridiculous notion since the boy was in some obvious excruciating pain. He wouldn’t even be THINKING about having a treat.
She took him and gave him a treat and he was fine as if nothing ever happened. I felt like a complete moron for having freaked out. Was he play acting? Was he just letting off steam? Did he just like being held and pampered so he decided to play it all up? I was upset with everyone after that.
I took the kids to bed, and after praying with them, I went downstairs having to deal with a headache that had been building up all day only to become a migraine after the whole eye poke thing.
I decided to go sleep early to try to get rid of it. Easier said than done since baby Ambrose, who sleeps in our room, was bothered by all the fuss and decided to be fussy too. I fed him a bottle and he fell back asleep after a while. I fell asleep for about an hour myself, when I got woken up from Dante screaming and crying. It was coming from downstairs. It seems Dante was not faking the pain in his eye. He must have been rubbing it in bed and just irritated it more. I had seen him rubbing it when I put him to bed. He was crying as if he’d been hit in the eye again. No matter what we tried, we couldn’t make him stop crying.
Every idea of possible horrible things that might be wrong with his eye began passing through my head. It was heartbreaking. I began to freak out again. Do we need to take him to the hospital?! Alesha tried to be much more cool headed and went more for a, “wait and see” attitude. After all, he was fine and had both eyes open when he went to bed.
After being with him for a while as he cried, asking him questions and holding him, he finally began to calm down. He did NOT want to go back to bed though, nor did he want to open his eyes. I held him for a while and then I asked him if he wanted to lay down with me in my bed. I thought perhaps he would feel more comfortable knowing one of us was there. My headache was still there and hadn’t gone away. I was also really tired.
I took him to our bedroom and lay him down, but he started crying again as if he’s eye hurt. I thought perhaps being prone actually hurt his eye more so I sat him up and he calmed down. I picked him up and took him back downstairs. Baby Ambrose was woken up by the whole thing and was crying as well at this point. Alesha went upstairs to take care of him.
I took Dante and sat with him on the couch. I took the blankets that we have by the couch and covered us both with them. I told Dante that I’d sit and sleep with him there on the couch, sitting up. He seemed fine with that idea and we began to try to go to sleep. Except he kept trying to rub his eye, and I would tell him not too. He’d keep trying or pretending not too and then go for it. I tried holding his hands down but then he’d whined. I wanted him to go to sleep, only he kept being really fidgety with this hands and try to rub his eyes with the blanket. This must have gone on for a good half hour (or at least if felt like that) when I finally just got mad at him and said,
“Stop it. JUST stop it!” He did. Suddenly it was as if he was just tired and he didn’t move his hands again. Ten minutes later, he was asleep.
I fell asleep for a bit too but woke up because I was really uncomfortable. Dante was half on my lap and half on a cushion. I slowly extricated myself from under him, making sure he was sitting up and comfortable and made my way to the other side of the couch where I made myself as small as possible. There, I attempted to be fall asleep. Which I did, because I was sooo darn tired.
The rest of the night I spent, what seemed to me like, every ten or fifteen minutes, waking up, making sure Dante didn’t fall of the couch, making sure he was sitting up, keeping him from rubbing his eye, making sure he didn’t sleep on his eye and generally not getting any good rest at all. The next morning Alesha woke me up and I just felt awful. Alesha hadn’t had a very good night either because, baby Ambrose, sensing the tension in the house, had been fussy all night.
We soon discovered that Dante refused to open his eyes still. The problem now was, what to do. It was Monday and if Dante was seriously injured, we needed to do something about it. We didn’t know if he was just sleepy, so we couldn’t just take him to daycare. Alesha decided she would stay home with him and observe him. If he didn’t recover as the day went by, she would take him to the doctor’s office.
I took the other kids to daycare and went to work, worrying my head off about the boy. By mid morning I was calling Alesha to check up on him. Turns out that Dante was fine. He seemed back to normal and was watching cartoons with BOTH eyes open, asking about when his sister would come home. I was very relieved to hear it. I spent the rest of the day worrying whether or not I would be able to stay awake, on the way home.
We did make it home safe, but even though I was drinking coffee, it was actually starting NOT to work.
COMIC BOOKS
So I saw this video earlier this week and it got me thinking about digital comics on the iPad (or similar touch tablet device).
What if you did something like this with digital comics? What if, when you open a comic page on a touch tablet device, the page would look normal and you can read it like any other comic book page. Only, if you were to touch one of the panels, you could interact with it in some way. It wouldn’t change the panel layout but you can cause some motion to happen in the panel. For example, if there is a person walking in the panel, you can see the person’s walk cycle or in case of a close up, he would bob up and down and the background would pan by. Maybe in a panel there’s a spaceship flying through space, and you can pass your finger through the panel to have the background pan at a speed you want and have the ship’s thrusters animated appropriately. If a person is sad and you touch the screen, he could hunch over a bit more. Nothing extreme, just subtle little changes just to make it more interactive if you choose. What do you think?
For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.
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Comments Off on Heavy week last week, lite week this week. Second color pass. Dante almost loses an eye. Applying some slight interactive motion to a comic book panel?
The count down has begun the pressure is on to finish our show on time. It’s the first story reel of the season so we need to start this season off with a bang. Sheesh!
BLOG/COMIC BOOKS
I’ve heard a lot of complaints, online and off, about comics and how difficult they are to get into. I don’t see that at all. I’ve found the opposite is true. Before I begin to explain myself, I will first point you to two online sources that put fourth good arguments against my position. The one that started me thinking about this to begin with is this one:
You should first read these two articles. I think their arguments are very sound, but limited in what they put forth as the way to get into comics. I left a comment on Krishna‘s post but I don’t think I truly answered Krishna‘s concern. I mostly commented on everyone else’s comments to Krishna‘s argument. I recommend you read the comments as well.
Okay, now that you’ve read those articles, I’ll put forth my thoughts on the topic. Before I begin though, I will first tell you what I’m not going to be writing about. I’m not going to argue whether or not the modern superhero genre is catering to a younger audience nor will I write about whether cartoony comic artwork is better than more photo realistic comic art.
I will use the superhero genre of comics for most of my examples, mainly because they are by far the most complex type of comic to get into and it’s the genre that more quickly comes to mind when we think of modern comics.
What I mean by “mainstream” comics in this article is this: Marvel and DC comics, and to a far lesser extent Dark Horse, Image and Top Cow. I also include, in my definition, all English translated Manga. This might be surprising but most younger readers are more familiar with Manga than with Marvel and DC books. I will also use the word “floppy” to describe what most of us know as a regular flimsy comic, as apposed to a much sturdier trade paperback comic (a.k.a. “graphic novel”).
Okay, so, the topic that concerns us here is how easy is it to get into reading comics. I propose to you, that it’s easier than it’s ever been to get into comics. Comics and information about comics are everywhere. The internet has a ton of free legal comics at your fingertips. Cartoons and movies are great introductory ways to get you intrigued and curious about reading comics. Newstands may be dying off but comics are thriving as trade paperback books in all major books chains. Libraries carry comics now and there are even Encyclopedias that explain some superhero comic book universes. There really is, no real reason, why someone who wants to get into comics can’t get into them. If you think it’s too much work, trust me, it’s worth the effort.
As I was growing up in El Salvador (I lived there till I was 6 years old) my grandmother had a bookshelf of comics in her house for us and we used to look through them and read them. Surprisingly enough, this is not what got me into comics. What got me into comics was, years later, when our family had moved to California. Sometime when I was around 11 or 12, I picked up a copy of Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham #15 at the local Circle K convenience store. It cost 75 cents. The same book now would probably cost $4.00 and I would have probably gotten it at Barnes and Nobles or Borders.
I wasn’t interested in “serious” comics at the time. I just wanted the funny cartoony stuff. Eventually, the book was canceled (I guess I was the only person that bought it) and the Spider-Ham stories where relegated to the back of Marvel Tales featuring Spider-Man. I bought those for the Spider-Ham stories but eventually, got bored one day and read the “serious” Spider-Man story which I fell in love with. This lead to my love of the “serious” comics.
I learned real quick that I had no idea what the heck was going on in any of the “serious” comics. In fact the only reason I knew who anyone was in a Spider-Man comic was because the Spider-Ham comic had spoofed them. I read the comics anyway. I thought I’d eventually understand what was going on. This worked some what. In those days the only way to find out what had gone before in a superhero book was really limited. You either bought back issues or read the “old issue index” comics that gave you a synopsis of the years of comics that had come before. If you were lucky you collected the comics that had does indexes.
Okay so what’s my point? Why the personal history? Well, on the one hand I see the point that a floppy comic now a days being $4.00 is a barrier to entry. I may not have bought my first comic if it was $4.00. But lets say I got a comic somehow. If it was a cartoony superhero comic like, Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam, it would have a good long story for a good value and it would have appealed to me where I was at, taste wise. I would have come back for more. Okay, lets say I wanted to get into a “serious” superhero comic, lets say, Spider-Man. Somehow I got hold of one and read it. Exactly the same thing that happened to me the first time would happen, I would read it, be intrigued and not know who anyone was, but I’d probably come back for more to find out.
You would probably argue,
“See you’re assuming you would read a floppy and get into a comic but comics are $4.00 so how would you even get the chance to read them at all?” Well, I’d read them for free at the Marvel website or download it for free from DC KidsWB. The Marvel website even has books that help you catch up with what’s currently going on.
There are more ways now than any other time, to get into comics and find out who the mainstream characters are. For starters, there are animated cartoons that do a phenomenal job of introducing people to the mainstream characters. I know because, it was through these cartoons that I got introduced to the characters of the DC Universe. Now, I love to read those comics. I’ve also gotten exposed to a lot of great Manga from watching their movies and anime, like the Lone Wolf and Cub manga and the Akira manga to name a few. My wife learned and became familiar with the X-Men and the JLA from watching their cartoons so when she reads those books, she knows who everyone is. The same goes with my Sister-in-law. She loves reading DC comics because she watched the Cartoon Network Justice League cartoon. My kids know who the Justice League, The Teen Titans, Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Legion of Superheroes, and Astroboy are from watching my DVDs of those cartoons. During her nap time, my daughter flips through kids comics of some of those characters before she goes to sleep (they’re all totally trashed, and very well “read”. She’s only three). My kids even ask me to read them comics.
My brother and sister-in-law bought the Marvel Encyclopedia and the DC Encyclopedia in order to get caught up on who’s who in both Universes. If you don’t have the money to spend for one of those, go to a website like Comic Vine. They have up to the minute explanation on what’s going on. Something I wish I had been able to do when I first started collecting superhero comics. The superhero comics I read as a kid in the 80s needed that as much as the current superhero comics do.
If you don’t want to deal with the big history of most superhero comics. Most Manga doesn’t have that problem (some do though) and there is also DC’s Vertigo line. Many of those don’t have as much history to catch up on, if any.
Not only that, but you can’t really argue that current superhero genre comics are too complicated, too adult or too , whatever you’re prejudice, and that older comics are better. Mainly because those very superhero comics are now collected in omnibus editions. Some of these collections can be found used for as low as $4.00! So if you want to read “better” superhero comics, then nothing is stopping you from reading those and literally starting from the beginning. If you want to make sure that the comics you let your kids read are “kid friendly” why not buy them or encourage them to buy and read those collections. They still hold up and there’s plenty of them; and when it comes to manga, there are plenty of kid friendly comics there too. Astroboy anyone?
If you want a complete comic story (old or new, adult friendly or kid friendly), you can pick up a trade paperback. There are many of these which are good introductions to a hero or universe. You can find all these and more at you’re local book store (here in the U.S.) or even *GASP!* at the library. Something unheard of in the 80s when I started reading comics. I would have LOVED to have that opportunity. I went to the library all the time as a kid.
Okay, having said all that, I want to argue that the price of floppies is too much for the value you get. $4.00 seems too much. Yet, a Magic the Gathering Booster pack, (same target audience) is about $4.00 for fifteen cards. A Yu-Gi-Oh! booster pack is $5.00 for nine cards. A Playstation 2 game averages $35.00 (double the price of most trade paperbacks). Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games are about $60.00. The target audience of today’s comics are pretty used to forking over a lot for a little. I don’t like it at all but the price seems about average. Whether you get $4.00 worth of entertainment out it, that depends on the comic you buy and how it’s written. This is especially true for floppies since many (but not all) of them can be read in about 15 minutes.
Still, in the end, I don’t think floppies are as important as they used to be. Don’t get me wrong, they still have a valuable role to play, but they aren’t theonlyway in anymore. In fact, I will go so far as to say, floppies are not the way to get into most American superhero comics. Floppies are mostly written for comic geeks, trade paperbacks are for everyone else. Times have changed.
“But wait,” you say. “Encyclopedias? Looking up characters on the net? Watching cartoons and movies? That’s an awful lot of work. I want everything spoon fed to me”. Sorry, I can’t help you. Reading comics is a hobby. Every hobby has a bit of a learning curve. In knitting you have to first learn to knit. In putting together model kits, you have to first learn the best supplies to use and the best methods of assembling. In wargaming, you learn the rules and then learn tactics and strategies. The same goes for board gaming. If you golf, you learn and practice your technique. If you’d never played a video game before, how steep would the learning curve be to play a game like Halo 3? Most people that play video games spend hours looking up games and reviews to see what games are coming out that they’ll like to play next, as if researching for a school report. That’s a lot of work. Most hobbies require some level of work on your part. Work that you enjoy doing because it’s fun, enjoyable work and you find the reward from the hobby worth the effort. Comics are worth the effort.
After looking at everything that is available, I don’t think that mainstream comics are difficult to get into at all. It’s easier than it was when I started. I only had superhero comics to choose from. There’s more variety out there than there ever was. If you want to get into them and you’re finding it difficult, you must be working pretty hard to not succeed.
It’s the first week back at work for the new year. It’s been business as usual…sorta. I’ve been asked to work overtime to try to make up for the time lost because of the holidays. So much for our time of rest. I guess it’s okay. I really need the money anyway.
MY WEEK
During my time off, I had all the time in the world to work on my comic. It was the perfect opportunity to work on my project and get it done faster than in any other time. So what did I do? I spent all my free time reading comic books. I got through about 60 comics or more. On the one hand, it was a complete waste of an opportunity, but on the other hand, not only was it relaxing, but I was ready to start drawing by the time the holidays were over. It really recharged my batteries. I got very little drawing done but it was a good trade off.
In case your wondering where I got the comics, they where the ones I picked up at the kitchen at work for FREE. The ones that Drew Johnson leaves there because he has too many. Therefore, all the comics I was reading where DC comics.
Damian Wayne – He’s the current Robin and Bruce Wayne‘s (Batman‘s) son. His mother is Talia Al Ghul. Bruce married her in a story a long time ago called: Batman Son of the Demon.
Tim Drake – The third Robin. He’s been the Robin you’ve seen in most modern Batman stories. My personal favorite so far. You can see Tim as the younger Robin in the Bruce Timm Batman adventures cartoon. He is currently running around as the Superhero Red Robin.
Jason Todd – Better known as, the Robin that died. Jason was the second Robin and was a huge jerk. He was such a jerk that when the readers where asked whether Jason should live or die, the readers voted him dead. The Joker, beat him with a crowbar then blew him up. He’s came back to life a while ago and has made the “Bat Family’s” lives a living hell. He seemed to have died again recently but it’s very unlikely that he’ll stay dead. He’s still a jerk.
Dick Grayson – The first Robin. The Robin most people think of when they think of Robin. He’s the “Holy (insert random word) Batman!” Robin. In the comics, he had a falling out with Bruce Wayne and went his separate way. He later became a new superhero called Nightwing. He’s been Nightwing for about 30 years now. I really liked Nightwing and my brother and I would get into arguments about where or not he was a necessary character.
In a way, my brother was right, Nightwing seemed like he was just a bench warmer character waiting to come into his own. He was just sitting around waiting for Batman to die so that he could finally become Batman himself–which he now has.
It thinks it’s AWESOME. I was getting tired of Bruce Wayne and I thought he was a bit “played out”. I wanted him to go and become the Gandalf/Obi Wan Kenobi character, that way, a new Batman could take over and maybe surpass him. Besides, Dick Grayson is a cool character and it’s pretty much what he was created for isn’t it? To become the next Batman. It’s about time! I haven’t gotten to read any of his stories yet but I really want to. I haven’t wanted to read any Batman comic for a while, until now.
ART
So when I got back to work I thought it would be fun to draw a new Superhero Versus Superhero drawing , like the ones my friends and I did last year (click on the numbers to see what I’m taking about: 1,2,3,4,5,6). I started the drawing and I even began to ink it. I took a break from it before it was done. A few hours later, I looked at the drawing and wasn’t happy with it. I was planning to finish the drawing at home but as the day went on I disliked the drawing more and more to the point where I was considering abandoning the drawing. On the drive home I decided to give the drawing another shot. I needed to adjust the characters so that they were better designed and better drawn. When I got home, I put some tracing paper on it and gave the characters another pass. I was much happier with the drawing after that. As of time of this writing, I’m still working on it. I’ll put the drawing up next week if it turns out okay.
ART
I’ve written about the podcast Big Illustration Party Time. It’s a podcast where the hosts talk about being freelance illustrators and give tips on how to survive being one. Well, both hosts have a passion for drawing comics. They both have comic projects they’re working on.
One of the hosts, Kevin Cross, has begun a web comic of his character Monkey Mod. I think the character has a cool look to him so I decided to try drawing him as a fun bit of fan art:
It’s not looking good for our crew so far. We’re very far behind on our work. Looks like I’m really going to have to go into focus mode if I even stand a chance at finishing all I need to do this week. I’m probably going to be working over time. I guess that’s okay, I need the money.
COMIC BOOKS
I really felt like drawing something different in a different style this week. The Disneyland strip story will return next week. In the mean time, I have other news.
My friend Raul has just self published a comic book. I was fortunate enough to read it and I thought it was great. It’s really entertaining and it cracked me up. I few years ago I was looking around for funny comic books. I wanted to know what one looked like, (that wasn’t a Simpsons comics). I asked the guy at the counter if he knew of any. I asked him if he knew one that actually could make you laugh at loud. He showed me the one he liked. I bought it.
It wasn’t funny.
I was looking for a funny book because, at the time, I was thinking of writing a funny comic short story. Well, I wish Raul‘s comic had been around when I was looking for a comic because his made me laugh out loud. It comes across as a “serious” comic and it is in a way, but it has so many jokes and fun banter between the characters that you can’t help but laugh. Fun stuff. I highly recommend it.
I liked it so much, it inspired me to draw some fan art for it. So this is my drawing for the week:
Pick up Raul‘s book Codename: Sparrow by clicking below. (You can even get some sample pages to look through.)
WEBSITES
Does the drawing below look familiar?
It should, I drew it for this very blog when I reviewed Paul Nowak‘s book The Inconvenient Adventures of Uncle Chestnut. Paul liked the drawing so much, he asked if he could use it on a t-shirt. I said, “yes,” and, “Ta da!” here it is. I own one already that Paul was good enough to send me and I LOVE IT. IT’S SUPER COOL! Impress your friends kids. Buy one today! If you do, I’ll get a little something as well. Yay!
Comments Off on Things are coming to a head on this current show. A small break from the Disneyland story to stretch my (drawing) legs. Uncle Chestnut T-shirt.
This is the last full week I have to work on the the episode I’m on. Tuesday, my work load doubled. I have more work than I think I can do. Still, I’m going for it. I have to figure out a way to get it all done. Wish me luck.
Okay so, as of the time of this writing, this is the last of the drawings we’ve done of the superhero versus thing. Once again, Tommy drew something I can’t put up on my site so if you want to see it, you have to go CLICK HERE. When he showed me the pencil drawings I was planning to put it up, and then he colored it and added some details that I thought were a bit inappropriate so…
Paul‘s drawing I can’t put up so here’s my last one:
I drew Spider-man (Marvel Comics) Vs. Batman (DC comics). Yeah, this is reeeaaally stretching it. They fight because their main mode of transportation, in their respective comics, is swinging around the city. Which is to say, I was using any excuse to draw these guys together. I couldn’t help myself and gave Batman “Astro Boy” boots.
Interestingly enough, after I finished the drawing and handed a copy to Paul. He told me I should ink it. Paul is really into inking right now. I told him I might but I’d rather start drawing new drawings than keep working on ones I just finished. I then said, I’d probably go back and ink all the other drawings I’d done, just so that I can get some practice in at some point.
The next day, when I got to work, I found this on my desk:
It seems Paul had gotten a bit of extra time and decided to ink my drawing. Not only did he ink it but since he has been obsessing over inking and he’s been studying Michael Golden‘s work, he decided to ink my drawing in Michael Golden‘s style. The thing I found most interesting about the drawing was that he fixed the things I was most annoyed about in my drawing, namely, that the black had pretty much covered up most of the details of the characters. Paul took in upon himself to add a secondary light source when he inked the drawing, adding a new dynamic to it. Only after seeing what he did, did I kick myself over not having thought to do it myself. It was a good choice on his part.
COMIC BOOKS
A kinda of weird thing happened to me this weeked. It started sometime last week. I was listening to a Role-playing game Podcast were in there was and interview of a game designer. I’m not sure which podcast it was or who the designer was, but they were talking to him about his superhero roleplaying game. He mentioned that he had made “stats” of some public domain superheroes and put then in his game. I thought to myself, “Public domain superheroes?” So later in the week, I recalled the interview and decided to look up these superheroes and I found them. About 100 or so Golden Age superheroes that were never copyrighten and that had fallen into the public domain.
I then discovered how there had been attempts over the last ten to twenty years, by different companies to use and revive these character, without much success. After reading the characters’ their bios, I got excited and wanted to do a take of some of these characters of my own.
May 2nd was Free Comicbook Day. I went to the comic store with Dante, my Brother, his wife Deborah and my little nephew Paolo. Among the comics I picked up was a free issue of Savage Dragon by Erik Larsen, and lo and behold, one of these Golden Age public Domain characters was in the comic. That was a pretty big coincidence. Then doing more research, I discovered that these same characters had made their way into Alan Moore‘s hands (of Watchmen fame) a while back and he had written them into one of his Tom Strong comics (issues 11 and 12), which I owned. I took out my copy of the comic and was blown away. I had read the thing before but I didn’t know that the characters had been public domain. Then I discovered that Alex Ross was having a go at these guys too in his Dynamite comics run, currently on sale. So it seems everyone knows about these guys and I’m really behind the times.
In any case, I think that’s pretty cool. It makes me want to try to do something with them. I think I have an idea for one of them already. We’ll see if I can actually get off my lazy bottom and do it.
FAMILY
My mom got mad at me because I forgot to write about my nephew Paolo’s baptism last week. I had forgotten all about it. Work is really stressing me out right now. It’s almost all I think about. It was a nice baptism. Hurray for Paolo! She also got mad because I didn’t draw a cartoon about it. Well, I only have so much time in the day. I’m working on a commission right now that’s taking up all my drawing time. I wish I could do some cartoons but I can’t.
In fact, I wish I had the time to draw a cartoon about what happened THIS weekend. My Godmother’s daughter Lili, her husband John and their daughter Stella came over to visit from out of state. Stella is the same age as Munchkin and they are both very energetic little girls. I was really excited about their meeting. I wanted Munchkin to meet Stella so bad. I’d seen and read a lot about her from the photos that Lili sends my mom. Well, I won’t go into much detail right now because maybe at some point I might have the time to do that. What I WILL say is that the day was full of fodder for cartoons I don’t have the time to draw. Here’s hoping I can at least get ONE done at some point in the next couple of weeks.
Love you Lili, John and Stella! It was great seeing you.
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I’ve got a ton of work to do and it all has to be done by May the 13th. It feels as if I’m getting no where fast but that’s only because it’s still early and I’m only now getting into the meat of the work load. It also doesn’t help that we’re inventing the “pipeline” as we go. Nor does it help that many of the scenes I finished need more work done to them so I have to fix them while still getting new scenes done. One great thing about how we are doing things now is that I feel like I’m getting to propose my own ideas into the show. It feels like I’m more involved in the process. This actually make the giant work load much more tolerable since it fuels my creativity and makes me WANT to come in to work everyday. I hope other directors I work with are as open as this one.
So our superhero drawing thing is still going on. Tommy has eased out of it because he’s doing some freelance work for Ben Ten, so he has no free time. Still he managed to draw a few pieces before he started on that. Thankfully, he drew one that I could post on my blog, so here’s his drawing:
Then, just because he could, using the magic of Photoshop, he changed the colors of Flash‘s costume and turned him into the Reverse Flash (a.k.a. Zoom).
Meanwhile, Paul is getting himself married over in his home state of Hawaii. Besides, as I mentioned last week, he doesn’t want me to post anymore of his drawings since he’s publishing them in his Sketchbook. He’s probably over there drawing pictures of waterfalls or something and having a great relaxing time with his new wife…Jerk.
So instead, we have a picture from someone else who decided to join in on this craziness. Raul (remember him from a few post’s ago?) decided to draw this:
It’s the Green Hornet (Harvey, Now, Acme, AC comics) Versus The Spirit (by Will Eisner). They fight because they look very much a like only one is green and the other blue. One of the reasons Raul drew this was because he didn’t think we had thought to put these guys on our list. He was right.
So here’s my drawing for the week:
I’m cheating today. This is an original idea and not a “comic book versus” idea. It’s the image of a High Fantasy Western. The week I drew this, I wanted to try my hand at something different. I was driving home from work and I was trying to come up with story ideas just for the heck of it. One of the story ideas (or in this case just a random concept) came to me with a fun little image, so I thought I’d try to draw it. This is the first time I’ve attempted a drawing like this. I want to learn to do animated feature “development drawing”. This is my first stab at one. It’s heavily flawed. Especially since I rushed through the drawing of the background, plus I really didn’t make much of an attempt to smooth out the pencil strokes (among other things). I’m only partially happy with it. The idea was to put the generic fantasy archetypes in a western setting. The Native American looking guy being the Warrior. The elf woman in the center would be a Ranger/tracker with a magical, rune encrusted, prosthetic, machine arm. Behind her is the wizard who is also a bit of a Rogue since he’s a Gambler. They’re in the forest trying to track down a dragon that’s sneaking up on them from behind. This was all drawn with some hard and soft pencils on regular old animation paper. I really need to practice this a lot more. I also need to have more patience. I really got tired of the drawing after a while and began rushing it at the end. It looks very sloppy.
My inspiration for this drawing were artist’s like:
Marcelo Vignali – a good friend of Paul‘s who I got to meet one day when I went to The Sony Feature Animation Studios (when they still existed) where Paul was working one year during hiatus. He’s as a great guy and showed me all the drawings he was doing on the movie they were working on. I was a fan of his work before I met him so I was geeking out. I think that helped get me on his good side. He’s amazing. He’s worked almost everywhere in the industry.
Richie Chavez – another friend of Paul‘s and an good acquaintance of mine, ever since we took a Kung Fu class together. He was the art director on Prince of Egypt and he also worked over at Sony when Paul was there. This is another guy that’s worked almost everywhere in the industry. He doesn’t have a website though. One of his drawings is posted in this website: CLICK HERE.
Paul Felix– he was one of my drawing teachers. He worked over at Disney Feature and TV developing movies and shows. He’s awesome too. He doesn’t have a website but you can look at some of his drawing on this post HERE.
Those three guys are just amazing artists. Talk about being able to draw anything and draw it awesome.
MY WEEK
Saturday I was out in the cold without a jacket. The next day I woke up with a crazy cold. It knocked me out. I managed to make it to Church with Dante but once I got back, my body went into shut down mode. I was in bed the rest of the day. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was reading some of the comics I had gotten a few weeks ago, so it wasn’t all bad. Still, I wish I could have stayed home Monday to recover but I really needed to get my work done. Whatever it takes to keep my job.
Thankfully, by Tuesday, I was feeling much better, so it turned out that my cold didn’t last for very long.
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