My Art: an update.

Improving my comic technique has been my main focus since the beginning of summer, and while I have half an hour spare before I head for bed, I think now is a fabulous time to go into some detail about the thought process behind my diary comics, explain some of the things I am trying with them, and why I think they are important.

University is taking an undeserved and probably unwise back burner at the moment. I've had some difficult family stuff to deal with recently, I've also been looking into restarting my self-employment as a means to make a little extra cash, and of course I have been reading, writing and studying comics and illustration for the past few weeks. All of this leaves me little time for University, which I admit is not really a terrible thing. I know, I know! It's what I have been working towards for the last four-or-so years, but I will be honest with you (as I always am), I have been studying media performance for the last two years with very little gratification from the course; I am starting to burn out. Naturally when you start to feel the strain of work, the best solution is to shift your focus to other activities until your interest is renewed. For me, my interest has shift back to my art.

I'd report back here during the middle of summer that I was trying to improve my comic process, this continues in much the same way having experimented with a number of techniques and confront some issues on that list. I've had a lot of fun working in different ways, with both traditional and digital material. I realised not too long ago that while the quality of the artwork has improved over these last few months, and being published has been a good indicator of that, my work was taking too long. Each comic of Steven took between eight and twelve hours to produce; one of the reasons there are so staggeringly few of them.

Enter the Diary Comics.

With my diary comics (DC's) I am able to still experiment with my art work, framing, speech bubbles & lettering, panel placement, storytelling and relevant subject matter without having to worry too much about polishing the final product. My DC's are admittedly a little amateur looking, but I am happy with that as I still consider myself somewhat amateur on the web-comics scene. It is also somewhat gratifying to know that I can have a subject in my comic which can be blissfully self indulgent of my own thought process, and people will still enjoy them. A few places around the web will tell you to avoid talking about yourself as the subject of your comic. Obviously most artists, if not all artists, put portions of themselves into every piece of work that they do. This is certainly true for character work, as far as I have seen. Some of the best characters in terms of depth, relatability, consistency and likeability have a noticeable trace of the artist; of the real in them. Then you get real gems such as Erika Moen's DAR Comic, a very impressive and in-depth diary comic which is very engaging to read (I really suggest reading it from the beginning).

So far, each DC has engaged my brain into trying a new storytelling approach, or a new approach to colouring or inking. Publishing on a regular schedule is very satisfying and because I have a bit of extra time right now, and the passion to tell such stories as I experience them, I am even pleased to say that I have a comic buffer for when things really heat up and I have less time to indulge.

I hope you enjoy them, I would like to say that I have not at all abandoned Steven, I just feel I need to wait for inspiration to approach me rather than force myself into making a comic. I felt I did that with the last one and as a result the whole thing suffered. I am pleased with how it turned out, I just didn't enjoy producing it as much as the first two.

Goodnight dear reader, dream of green fields~

Steven: An update...

So the first issue of Out On Campus is available online. If you are a loyal fan of my work (either of you) and are only interested in seeing Stephen the Gay Stormtrooper in a publication, don't bother; he isn't in there.

I feel like such an idiot. I was told he would be, I told others he would be; now I fid that he isn't by reading the thing myself and so now what? I'm now a liar...

Sorry. This late night pity party was sponsored by boredom I think. I am sure there is a perfectly logical reason that they didn't include the strip. I am not assuming they have done it to spite me, I am just annoyed that each strip probably clocks about eight hours work, and they couldn't find five minutes to drop me an email explaining their change of plans. Here I was thinking I was part of the picture, the team. I was assuming too much.

I have previously read warnings from other artists regarding working for free/charity/the promise of future rewards. The usual idea is that the people are offering 'exposure' and 'a good cause' and artists are advised to beware those fatal signs of no more a 'good cause' than a 'lost cause'. But this time I thought "No! It's students working together with a common goal!" and "They are begging for content, they must really need contributions!" and of course, couple that with my own insecurities about my art; such as the fact that it takes me eight hours to produce one strip and it takes others four hours to produce a full page. I said to myself "The only way I am going to produce work for someone else, for free, was if I was part of a team. An equal member of a team, a partner."

They didn't tell me it wasn't going to be in the first issue. At this point I do not know if it will be in the second issue or any other issues. I have sent an email to ask, but this blog post is me venting my anger.

Steven #3

Here it is, number three of Steven the Gay Stormtrooper. My idea's list is getting low for Steven so I might make a dent in my regular comic idea's page. This will be nice, although Steven is only one strip, roughly the size of a quarter of an A4 piece of paper (in portrait) it is still a lot of work.

I prefer working at A4, I feel I have more space to tell a story. Also my jokes tend to need a bit of set-up for their full impact, so I feel a little cheap coming up with these one line jokes and obvious punchlines and puns (I don't, I love them, I'm just saying that to sound superior.)

I'm set until next year for the magazine, I might get some full pagers done in the meantime until I think of some new gay jokes.

Steven #2

The second one in the series 'Steven the Gay Storm Trooper.  A few notes I think I should make at this point...

• It's a little joke within the joke that you can't tell the Troopers apart when they are in uniform. I know they are supposed to be clones, and so they really should be the same size and everything, but I am using the Troopers from the original trilogy as a base model, and at this point the world didn't know the origins of the Troopers (artistic licensing meets my private sense of humour)
• I'm still learning the ins and outs of specific panel, word bubble and colour conventions for printing, normally I publish on the web where I can be as creative with the above as  I like, but for print there are certain rules I'm finding important. For example, I can't have too much text per panel, I can't go overboard on the art work (as I seem to have in the last panel, derp) and the text/important stuff needs to contrast highly with what isn't important so that the eye goes where I want it to.
• I'm avoiding textures, I don't want the reader to be distracted.
• I'm using colour because I can, I know most printed comics are either heavily desaturated or black and white. Both can be effective, but if I can have lots of lovely colour, I will do. However the colour might be a little too distracting in the last panel, your thoughts are welcome.

I can report on the situation regarding having Steven published however: They loved it!  The magazine (Out On Campus) are offering me a regular spot on the features page for Steven. However, there was a mix up with how often they will publish. See, to regular Joe's like me (and probably you) bi-monthly means 'twice a month' but to publishers, it pretty consistently means 'every two months.' You've guessed it already I can tell, that means the magazine only needs six strips for the entire year, two being published digitally.

Still, published is published. I will be popping them on the website and hopefully I'll have time this year to do more than what they will be needing. I have idea's for about four or five now besides the two I have already done. I've no doubt I can produce at least one a month, so whatever extra I do I shall just publish online.

Stay tuned gang, more to come!

(As usual, comments and critiques welcome)

Steven: Pilot

This strip took a little too long to polish, I think if it is going to be a regular thing (as I hope it will be) I will need to be more economic with my time and effort. Comments and critiques welcome!