I’m jumping on the Influence Map meme train!

Started by DeviantArt user fox-orian you can grab the blank template from the link and make your own.

It’s actually harder than it looks and more than likely I’ll realize I left someone important off of it. Anyway, enjoy!

The following blog was written by my buddy, Nicolas Rix. Nic is a South African artist who I came into contact with some time ago on redbubble.com and not only do I really love his work we tend to think a lot a like when it comes to art and our philosophies on art. This entry was originally intended as a comment to the blog I wrote on webcomics.com yesterday but with Nic’s permission (and because it definitely warrants your eyeballs attention) I’m putting it here. After you’ve read it go check out his blog. It’s also worth your eyeballs.

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Nice read man. You know I will always have your back cuz I think we kinda think similarly on issues like this.

I have not seen webcomics.com. Mostly cuz I close sites that charge cash for something I think won’t help me,
and I’ve never heard of it . Plus there is so much help out there for free.

I just wanted to add to the conversation with some what of a rant / inspiration:

There is one phrase I live by at the moment: “Garbage in. Garbage out”.
If you constantly look at shit work. You will put out shit work.

I had a similar situation a few years back. I really wanted to get better at drawing. I thought I was fairly good.
I wanted to get involved in the local scene. I participated on a local south african forum. The people were great
and the enthusiasm was high. That was the good thing. But no one was really that good. Myself included.
I hung around I participated in competitions. I didn’t do too bad.
It was a place to be the best of the worst.

When it came to creating an actual comic of 9 pages. I struggled. The site that was aimed at south african’s
creating comic books locally with little focus on the basics of nurturing people’s ability to understand story telling.
Which I believe is the basis of comic books. The story is like 99% of the deal. Even an x-men comic can suck
with a bad storyline. No matter how well it’s been drawn.

That said. I eventually left the forum. Or ignored the vapid conversations that was just fan talk really. Plus a lot of
the work there was not great and I wasn’t learning anything. There were no mentors there to lead. Critique went
something like this, “Rad! Awesome sketch. Keep it up. Love how clean your lines are. Nice colors.”

Baisc deviant art type comments.
“Her left hand is a little small. Her head seems too small for a her body.” That’s a bit better. But…
When you’d look at those same dude’s work. It was at a kindergarden level in comparison to my attempts.
How could I take them seriously.

It was no conceptart.org or cghub. There should be an equivalent out there for comics. cghub have mentors,
tutorials form conceptart. Challenges judged by professionals in the field. Not votes.
Guys and gals who talk the talk and walk the walk.

I eventually got a job for about 1 year penciling comic books. Badly written comic books but I still did it.
Despite the fact they were bad. They showed me how badly I drew comics. I was however with some of the
best guys in the local industry who were there to help me and nurture me (mostly ripped me off till the point
that I might burst out crying or kill someone).
People that weren’t gonna tell me my girls looked hot when they didn’t.

My environments sucked, my body language was horrific. Don’t get me started on my anatomy.. All before this I thought I was the shit. Seriously.
I had to complete 2 to 3 pages a day. THAT is working in comics. I’m not saying to be successful in this you have to be
super fast to get somewhere but it helps. What I’m trying to say is. It’s really hard work. Drawing that much changes you.
Either you start hating to draw or you get better at it.

My own advise to myself right now:
Start at the bottom and work your way up. Everyone sucks at drawing for a long time then suddenly something will happen.

Only look at good work. Dissect that good work. Learn real anatomy (it will help your cartoon style you like A LOT, believe me).
Realism IS overrated. But if you are making mistakes in your anatomy they should be on purpose.. if that makes sense to you.

Do life drawing. If you can’t. Get photos and draw an interpretation of them. Study the anatomy of their pose. Get the gesture.
Get the expression. Change the expression. Think about how they might move after what they’re doing. Watch actual moving
cartoons. Study some 2D traditional animation. Think of camera angles. Look at concept art. Environments. Architecture. Interiors.
DISSECT DISSECT DISSECT. Or just draw lots of different shit. Shit you’d never draw. If you must draw a pinup. Create a story.
Think about why they are there. What they might be saying. What could happen next. Tell a damn story with pictures.

I have literally stopped doing finished illustrations because of that very reason. I sucked on so many other levels while the wrong
people were telling me I was great. It’s ok to suck. You have to suck for a while – You will eventually not suck.

Like Rhys has said. Don’t worry about marketing and business side yet. Making money out of it should not be your driving force.
Doing good work should be.

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Just remember, there is no shortcuts, hard work will get you where you want to be. So start fucking drawing.

Let me just preface this by saying, if you didn’t like me before I wrote this, here’s some more ammunition.

I love talking comics, I love talking about local comics, with and to local creators. I am absolutely in love with the small Australian comics community that we’ve all fostered on Twitter in recent months, I think the level of interaction has skyrocketed and everyone is benefiting from the extra communication. I love sitting down and talking about my favourite books and talking about ‘the craft’ and dissecting and just generall oogling the work I really love.

What I don’t have a lot of love for, is chatting about “the business of webcomics” and for that matter, webcomics in general. Might seem odd considering I MAKE webcomics, and as I write this post next to me on my Cintiq is a half finished page for an upcoming update. Back when webcomics.com first launched, and even prior to that when there was a bustling forum on halfpixel.com I used to get involved with the discussion over there but I couldn’t ever deal with it for very long. Look, I’m an art snob and I make no bones about that, I like well done art – so when I’m in a discussion on a forum and the people who are discussing art and commerce and other lofty things in webcomics turn out to be (after clicking through the signature banners) hobbyists with appalling comics it makes it very hard for me to take what someone like that says with any seriousness. I’m sorry, but it does. Unless you can do what I do better than me and prove it, don’t lecture me because I’ll probably tune out.

It’s like, when you read a really great comic, and then you go and sit down to draw your own and you’re being influenced by what you just read you want to make your thing, the thing you just read. I think it’s very easy for people to see a PvP or a Penny Arcade or XKCD and think “I want that! I WANT that.” only they have no concept of how that person went from sitting their house making something for the first time to being a multi employee full time business. Webomics.com can’t teach you how to make great comics. That’s the key though, if your content is rubbish, then whats the point? I think they should be focusing on art tips, basic anatomy drawing, art and writing tutorials instead of telling people how to set up a table at a convention. Anyone can figure that out. I feel a more important thing is learn to do, what you want to do. And not get caught up in the little things. You won’t need to worry about the other things, if you can’t draw a comic to begin with.

There seems to be a thing with webcomics and that is you must constantly discuss and dissect every tiny little detail, and to me its like lordy, give me a fucking break! Why are you talking about making t shirts for your comic when it’s CRAP! It’s crap! I’ve been to your site, read it and looks like a dogs breakfast. My patience for talking about webcomics wears extremely thin about about 5 minutes. So I avoid it, for the most. I’ll talk about it with the small group of creator friends I have but even then I feel like I’m the curmudgeon most of the time. I’d rather be making comics, and reading comics, then talking about it. Because let’s face it the people in these forums and who are subscribed to the site, for the most are people who are either on the cusp of making it, or working towards making it, or people who’ll never make it…ever. (I can think of several people I know who are paying members who I believe are going to break out and it’s just a matter of time) Even reading websites like fleen.com just….dishearten me more than inspire me. I don’t really know why but it’s another site I can only view once a month for the most. It just to me, is more about patting people on the back then reporting anything. I always manage to see the same 10 people mentioned there over and over.

BUT, I digress – Brad Guigar who helms webcomics.com is most definitely paying it forward in the best way possible, with the wealth of knowledge and willingness to help out up and coming, and hobby creators is also setting an example. Maybe mentally theres something wrong with me where I can’t get past this block thats not allowing me to see webcomics.com in an entirely positive light. I’m still not sure I totally approve of the $30 subscription fee, even though I understand why it’s needed. Not living in the U.S, not making daily newspaper style strip, and not interested in chatting about the ‘craft’ of webcomics is probably why I have no interest in getting behind the paywall. I’m not sure there’d be a whole lot there I could glean. Do I think I’m better than that? Certainly not, talk to me for 5 minutes and you’ll see my self confidence about my own work is on the floor most of the time BUT for all the reasons stated above – but mostly because I truly feel that if you’re making a great comic, all that work, all that endless discussion won’t apply to you, if you make a great comic the opportunities will knock on YOUR door, you won’t have to search for, or seek out much of anything it’ll happen naturally. When it’s time to make shirts, you’ll know, when it’s time to overhaul your site, you’ll know. WHEN IT’S TIME TO PRINT A BOOK – you will know. And you’ll be spared the nitpicking, and picking apart that is the discussion of webcomics.

I do wish there was more discussion going on with local creators, theres so many more out there who aren’t active on twitter, or what have you. So I do wish that would change but I don’t think I’ll ever have the tolerence to discuss the micro-business that is webcomics.

I’m opening this up for discussion, so if you have thoughts please, comment away.

I’ve gone and done it, I’m offering up digital commissions for the first time