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ProFile: Lukas Ketner

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment

Lukas-Ketner-ProFile

Lukas Ketner is the artist and co-creator of Witch Doctor, the hit launch title for Robert Kirkman’s Skybound imprint at Image Comics. He was a 2009 nominee for the Russ Manning Award for his Witch Doctor work, which has earned praise from fans and creators alike. Other work includes stories for Dark Horse Comics’ Creepy Comics and Supersized: Strange Tales From a Fast-Food Culture, along with covers for BOOM! Studios’ Hellraiser title. He has twice won entry into the Communication Arts Illustration Annual for his album artwork. He survived a successful full-body transplant from his hometown in Anchorage, AK to Portland, OR in 2000 where he currently resides. You can check out his work and drop him a line on Facebook.

What made you decide to work in the medium of comics?

For me, it was the realization that I could tell stories as well, if not better than prose and film — both of which I tried my hand at, and NO you may not see the results, they’re awful 😉 For me, comics can tell a story as well (if not better) than any other medium, and all it requires is ink, paper, and time. Sure, money helps, but that’s an obstacle that’s easier to overcome in the digital age to reach an audience.

What part of the process is the most challenging or frustrating to you?

Well, challenging and frustrating aren’t always the same thing, although they do overlap quite a bit 😉 For me story flow and lining up shots is very challenging and non-intuitive for me, but very fun and rewarding, much like solving a puzzle. It’s frustrating when I’m inking that same page and I can’t do it fast enough because I’ve added detail to areas that don’t need as much attention as I’ve given them. Then, that elegant puzzle I solved previously turns into a 2-3 day grind that’s totally unnecessary— comics pages shouldn’t take that long for a monthly horror book. It’s a mistake that I’m slowly making less and less, but it still happens. I really admire artists whose styles are more economical, but still great to look at. My studio-mates Jonathan Case and Steve Leiber come to mind, along with Sean Murphy. Murphy does have a very detailed style, but you’ll notice it’s rarely more detail than necessary to make the image really sing.

If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring comics creator, what would that be?

A rule I learned in design school, “Very Little, Very Well Done.” If you’re trying to get noticed, do a “done-in-one”, the comics equivalent of a short film. Make it one issue tops to start with, and NO cliffhangers. It’s got to be a full story, start to finish, no “prologues” or “to be continued”. That doesn’t mean it can’t take place in a world that you’d like to explore further in the future, but it needs a satisfying conclusion, and maybe a hint that there’s more story to tell (if that’s relevant). Print it up! Put it online for free. Put it everywhere that people can see it. You can sell it at shows to try to recoup some expenses, but don’t expect to make a profit. It’s proof that you can do the work and do it well; that’s what’s important. Get some interest behind you, and as much feedback as you can possibly get from editors and other successful creators. Maybe do another, again, done-in-one applying what you’ve learned. Why such small bites? Because you don’t want your first work to be a 12-issue epic, and then find out via feedback that you’re doing it wrong story-wise after you’ve put out two issues of hard work, and editors need to see that you can complete a story in a satisfying manner. I guess that’s a bit long for ‘one piece of advice’, but there it is 🙂

 

Filed Under: Pro Tips, ProFile Tagged With: art, career, comics industry, Communication Arts Illustration Annual, creativity, Creepy Comics, Dark Horse Comics’ Creepy Comics, drawing, Image Comics, improving as an artist, Jonathan Case, learning, Lukas Ketner, making comics, Periscope Studio, Portland, pro tips, Russ Manning Award, Sean Murphy, Skybound, Steve Lieber, storytelling, studio, Witch Doctor, workflow

Drawing for a Living – Podcast episode 29

by Palle Schmidt 5 Comments


Inspired by an article Molly Crappable wrote on freelance life, I sat down and had a discussion with myself about what it takes to survive as a one-man army. If you’re a struggling freelancer or considering becoming one, this episode is for you!

Molly Crabapple’s 15 rules for creative success in the Internet age

Filed Under: Podcast, Pro Tips Tagged With: career, creativity, drawing, freelance, freelance life, mistakes, planning, pro tips, social media, studio, workflow

Why daily sketching doesn’t work

by Palle Schmidt 11 Comments

Woodsman_COLORYou know how important it is to draw every day, if you want to improve as an artist. But more importantly, you need to keep a forward momentum and draw the hard stuff.

A lot of artists share daily sketches on Twitter and Facebook. While that’s a perfectly valid thing to do, I see one common problem with most of these sketches – they are all very good! The problem here is that the artist has sat down with a blank piece of paper and drew whatever he felt like, whatever image he had in his mind.

Let’s imagine you were to do the same. Wonder what image would pop up?

I’ll take a wild guess: Character shot.

Whether it’s a macho superhero, a funny animal or a sexy robot, the problem with that image is exactly that it came from inside your head. And let’s face it: not much new comes from inside your head.

I used to only draw muscular guys with swords and dragons. While I did get slightly better at drawing guys with swords and dragons, this daily exercise didn’t help me get better at drawing. Not by a long shot.

What DID make me better, was being forced to draw stuff I didn’t already know how to draw, the “boring” stuff like flowers in a vase, and the hard stuff, like a street full of houses and cars and trees and people .

Unless you push yourself and draw from life, study and copy from photo reference and other artwork, you’ll only be maintaining your drawing muscle, not improving it. When it’s really hard and frustrating – THAT’S when you’re on your way to getting better.

Imagination is overrated. You need input to produce output – even original, fresh and innovative output!

Sketching daily only works if you push yourself to draw the stuff you can’t.

Filed Under: Pro Tips Tagged With: character shots, creativity, daily sketching, drawing, improving as an artist, learning, mistakes, reference, sketching, workflow

ProFile: Jason Brubaker

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment

ProFile-Jason-BrubakerJason Brubaker began his career in graphic novels in 2011 with the Xeric Award winning reMIND which also got on the Great Graphic Novels for Teens list 2012. In 2014 he quit his full-time job as a Visual Development artist at Dreamworks Animation to pursue publishing his own comics. You can support Jason’s work here: patreon.com/jasonbrubaker

What made you decide to work in the medium of comics?

I grew up loving comics and always wanted to draw sequential art. But when I started working as a professional artist I put aside comics because I thought they were for kids. 10 years later I was convinced to give comics a try again and I’m glad I did because now I realize how powerful and effective they are at telling stories and getting a message across. I love comics because they are the perfect medium for solo artist/writers to tell their stories.

What part of the process is the most challenging or frustrating to you?

I think the most challenging part is the marketing part, or social media part. These are just so unnatural for me as an artist and sometimes I just want to ignore it all and just work on the books but at the end of the day I need to put my stuff out there in a social way to that others can see it and respond to it.

If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring comics creator, what would that be?

Make sure you really believe in what you are trying to say in your story. It takes a lot of commitment to get a full comic story finished and if you don’t believe your own message then it’s going to be near impossible to put in all the work to finish it and it will also be hard to put your best work into it too.

Filed Under: Pro Tips, ProFile Tagged With: drawing, Dreamworks Animation, making comics, pro tips, reMIND, sequential art, social media, storytelling, writing for comics, Xeric Award

Process, pixels and pitfalls – Comics for Beginners podcast episode 27

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment


I got an email from a VIP subscriber who had a bunch of questions regarding his process. What program or software do you suggest for paneling or arranging the images with boarders on a computer? How much bigger should I do my drawing than the actual panel size? Is It important that all my drawings be consistent with that rule? Should I draw out panels into the page and start working on that or draw separate images and put them together on the computer?

I try to answer these and other questions in this podcast.

A shot of my desk, as requested by Joe!
A shot of my desk, as requested by Joe!

 

Filed Under: Podcast, Pro Tips Tagged With: art hacks, artwork, creativity, drawing, how to, improving as an artist, inking, making comics, painted art, painting, Photoshop, pixelation, pro tips, process, scanning, test page, tips for making comics, workflow

Video: Lessons from Thomas Alsop

by Palle Schmidt 7 Comments

I’ve just finished my work on the monthly book from BOOM!, Thomas Alsop. This video is about some of the lessons I learned working on that book – hopefully there is some value in it for you too!

Filed Under: Art Tutorial, Pro Tips, Video Tagged With: art hacks, bonus video, BOOM! Studios, career, Chris Miskiewicz, collaboration, creativity, drawing, improving as an artist, inking, learning, lessons, mind hacks, mistakes, painting, process, productivity, reference, Thomas Alsop, tips for making comics, video, watercolor, workflow

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