When you finally find that thing that you really like, it's natural that you search for better ways to do it so you can improve. In my case, while I was doing Sevenfold, at first it was exciting to get back on the drawing train, but soon I realized that it was taking me too much time to finish a single page, send it to the editor and continue with the next one. I was sleeping just few hours a day and I was having trouble meeting the deadlines. Illustration is always a race against the clock. You have to produce the best art you can within the time frame that you have, and that just means one thing: you need to be organized.
So I started to do some research on the interwebs, trying to find out how other people do it. I know that this is in a great part a labor of passion and love, which believe me I can honestly say that I have, but there had to be better ways to accomplish the task. That is when I stumbled uppon the web site of Scott McDaniel.
Boy did I hit the jackpot.
Scott is a comic book artist that works for DC comics as penciler for Batman, Detective Comics, Nightwing and The Great Ten. Needless to say he is uber talented.
And besides the fact that Scott is an awesome artist, he is a really really great guy. I haven't had the pleasure to meet him in person, but I've talked a couple of times with him through Facebook chat, and he is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He believes in giving back to the art community, so he has a special area on his website dedicated to help aspiring artists to break into the comic book world where he describes the do's and dont's as well as what does one need to start in this business. It goes from the gear you need, tips for the artist, drawing exercises, the process of making a comic book page, cover and how to meet your deadlines keeping your schedule within reasonable times. In other words, it was exactly what i needed.
I cannot express how helpful Scott's website was to me at that time (it still is!). I learned a bunch of tricks that helped me speed up my drawing process, not sacrifying art quality or even time! One of the coolest things I learned was the use of the Light box (which I will explain how I built mine later). If you would be kind enough to pay him a visit and give him some love. I'm sure you will not regret it. Because probably, just as he says, you are here because you love comics and you love to draw.
You can find him on Facebook and on his website, scottmcdaniel.net
Once armed with better organizing techniques, I continue my journey to polish my process and search for more inspiring ways to produce better art.
No comments:
Post a Comment