Comics for Beginners

How to Write & Draw Comics

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Finding time to do comics

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A lot of us struggle finding the time to make comics. There just aren’t enough hours in the day!

Though some of us are richer or more talented than others, there is one area were we are all equal: we all have the same 24 hours in day. Here are a few tips on how to make your comics hours count.

Get up earlier.
An hour a day can really make a world of difference. Small steps towards your goal is better than none.

Plan ahead.
Before you go to sleep at night, decide what piece of the big picture (page, panel, scene, character) you will be working on the next day – Or whenever you get a time slot. Oftentimes small breaks pop up during the day, which we end up wasting on Twitter or goofing around. Have something ready that you can just pick up and work on whenever the opportunity arises.

Focus on one little step at a time.
When we think of our comics as a whole, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of work that lies ahead; outlining, scripting, thumbnails, rough sketches, research, more sketches, character design, pencils, inks, color, lettering, promotion… Arrgh!

Stop, take a deep breath and focus. One thing at a time.

Just say no.
If we all have the same amount of hours in the day, how come some people get more done than others? My guess: They either have enough money that they don’t have to spend all their time shovelling coal. Or: they prioritize. If you really want to make comics, you will probably have to sacrifice some things to clear your schedule. If you can’t cut down on working hours, maybe cut down on the hours you spend playing videogames or watching tv.

What are your tips for making more of the time you have available? Please share!

Related podcast: Getting Stuff Done

The price of praise

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The-loser-takes-it-allI was up for an award here in Denmark this weekend, the Ping, something like the Danish equivalent of the Eisners. I was nominated for my graphic novel, STILETTO, in the main category. I didn’t win, which puts me in a position to talk about the nature of validation and the need for praise, instead of just tooting my horn and talking about how awesome I am.

Of course I would have loved to win that award, I was hoping for it and at the same time trying NOT to hope for it, because dissapointment is not the greatest feeling in the world. But here’s the thing: If I HAD won that award, it would have felt great for a few moments, maybe a few days. But the need for praise and validation never really goes away.

It’s never enough.

The needy little part of an artist’s soul is always going to want more. I don’t know anyone who feels they have enough fan mail or awards on their shelf that it fulfils their need. I don’t belive those people exist. You can never drink enough water that it keeps you from ever being thirsty again.

So while I would loved to have won, it’s more because it would have helped me with press and such going forward. It’s like those booster points you get in computer games, where you pick up the coin or whatever and you get a rocket attached to your back. An award or a great review gives you that boost for a few seconds, and then the effect wears off. The game continues. You start looking for the next gold coin.

What I’m trying to say is, if you ever find yourself up for an award or a job or anything, think of it as a step towards an end goal. Always keep that in mind. And stay busy! Keeping busy and working on your craft is not only great for building a career, it’s also your best defense against the needy, selfish little part of you that worries wether anyone really, I mean REALLY, loves you or they’re all just pretending. The part of you that looks on other people with envy and want to keep you from building confidence and self-sustainability. I don’t know what the purpose of that part of our brain is, but I’m willing to bet good money we all have it.

I try to teach my kids to be grateful of the things they have rather than bitch about what they don’t have. It’s hard for a kid to see another kid with an ice cream. But that’s LIFE. And it goes on like that.

So I’m here at the studio hunched over my desk as the sun is baking outside, grateful for working on the Thomas Alsop comic more or less full time, grateful for the praise I DO get and the support of all the subscribers on Comics for Beginners, thankful for every “like” on Facebook, but not depending on it for my sense of self-appreciation. Grateful for having done work I’m proud of and having it published, and having a supportive wife who takes care of our kids while I’m at work on a national holiday and who never asked me to get a real job instead of wasting my time doing comics. I am so very, very lucky and very happy right now, doing what I love and am relatively good at.

Thank you.

Now back to work.

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Related post: Why you can’t learn from success

 

Seeing the images before drawing them

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I got a really good question in an email the other day. A subscriber in Nigeria (Hello, Africa!) asked me about conceptualizing: “How do you see each drawing before you actually put pen to paper?”

My gut response was: Well, it just pops into my head.

I realize that’s not very helpful – although it’s very close to the truth! The whole truth is of course more nuanced.

The reason why these images just pop into my head on a very intuitive level is because I’ve put them there. Not on purpose, not by design. But by watching a whole lotta stuff over the years. Comics, painting, movies, real life – all of the things I’ve seen with my eyes, my brain remembers. All right, maybe not ALL the things I’ve seen. But you get the idea. The more you look at images, the more likely you are able to remember and replicate an image.

But again that’s not the whole truth.

Drawing these images vastly improves your ability to remember and replicate them. The more life drawing, the more copying you do, the more images you solidify in your subconsciousness.

The images that pop into my head probably do so, because I’ve seen them or drawn them before. Not that exact image, but something similar.

A few exercises:

  1. Watch movies. Pause the dvd, draw the image on the screen. As fast as you can. Study the composition, the lighting. Save your sketch for later. Steal from yourself.
  2. Read comics. No, in fact just pick a few comic books off the shelf and flip through them before you start your work. Put some images in your head (but don’t copy them!)
  3. Sketch. A lot. Try out several versions of the same image, different angles. Do thumbnail versions of your pages and be conscious about varying the sizes of the panels, shift between close ups, tilted shots, silhouettes – whatever you can do to shake things up.

The image the Nigerian subscriber mentioned as a reference was this one.:

DC-excerpt

I can see why it looks seducingly easy, like I’m some comics genius. But I probably made half dozen versions of this image before landing on this one. At least in my head. That’s where the images usually come from, as I’m writing the script.

It’s not easy. But it get’s easier. The more images I see, the more images I draw, the more I have to replicate from.

And you know that feeling of having an image inside your head and not being able to get it down on paper? Yeah, I get that too. But I’ve learned to ignore it. The image in my head washes away and is replaced with whatever is on the page, and that’s OK. It’s just one drawing out of hundreds, thousands. I get less attached the more I draw. I feel like that’s the secret to making comics in some weird way. Not caring so much for the individual image but caring about the flow of the story.

Hope the longer answer is more helpful!

Related podcast: Drawing Every Day

Why you can’t learn from success

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mindsetWe all want to be succesful  in some way or another. But is success in comics a recipe you can follow? Secret ingredients? Or is it actually better to burn your fingers on the stove? At least you can learn from that experience!

My motto is: “You can’t learn from success”

This quote in a comment on my podcast episode The 3 biggest mistakes of my comics career, got me thinking about this topic.

Looking at people who succeed and copying their strategy would seem like a good idea. And there definitely is a a lot to be said for looking at peers and seeing what works for them. But can you really learn from the success of other artists or duplicate the success you had with a previous project?

Here’s why I think you can’t learn from success:

  • What works for another artist is not necessarily going to work for you. They have a different background, a different skill set, maybe a different home life or financial situation putting them in a better position than you.
  • Success is personal. You might perceive another creator as hugely successful while they see their career as less than perfect – most likely that’s how they feel!
  • You can’t measure success. We as artists have an embedded dissatisfaction with where we are. That’s what motivates us to get going! So the feeling of success we might have quickly fades and gives way to new dissatisfaction.
  • No one mulls over success. The more time you spend thinking about something, the bigger the chance of learning from that experience, right? But who lies awake thinking of their successes? Not comics artists, for sure! We’re much more prone to miring over what went wrong, how we’re not good enough. Let’s use that in a constructive way and at least learn something from those self-doubts.
  •  What worked for you once is not necessarily going to work again! The world is constantly changing and so are you. The circumstances that made a success could have shifted or the artistic side of you refuses to repeat the process.
  • The learning you could subtract from a previous success is usually hidden somewhere in the big picture. What you think made the success and what actually made it happen is probably not the same thing.
  • Success is 80% timing. Okay, I have no scientific evidence for this, but I do believe a lot of what makes a success is out of our control. It’s not just meeting the right peers or editors, being up for the task when opportunity arises. Any work of art needs to hit home with an audience and the market is constantly shifting. Serial killers or cute ponies might be in vogue this year, but next year we couldn’t be bothered.
  • To be really successful in art, you cannot just be replicating what you did last! You need to be constantly pushing yourself.
  • Success is outside of your comfort zone. If you are any good at what you do, you will constantly be introducing new methods, new tools and new influences on your work. See how the list of ingredients is constantly changing? You can’t repeat the recipe, it’s just impossible!
  • No one succeeds from day one! So if you want to learn from success you have to wait a loooong time. Failure happens all the time, especially in the beginning. Great learning possibilities!

So as you can see, learning from failure is a much better strategy than trying to copy your own success or the success of others. And luckily, failure is bound to happen on a regular basis. 

Agree with this perspective? Or think I missed an important point? Comment below!

Digital vs. drawing on paper

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digital-vs-paper-drawing

Everything seems to be moving towards going digital – even making comics. But are you ready to make the jump?

While the digital possibilities are vast and very tempting, I still see advantages in the oldschool method of drawing on paper. Here is a list of pros and cons as I see it.

Pros of going digital:

No scanning.

Since you’re drawing your art directly in the computer, there is less hassle scanning and cleaning up your original artwork.

Possibilities

Being able to move and scale ANYTHING, including reference pictures, sketches and word balloons is definetely an upside. With a CINTIQ , you can even draw directly on the pressure sensitive screen (which also turns for maximum line control) and you have everything in one place.

Undo

Am I the only one who sometimes find myself searching for the “undo” button, when I’m drawing on paper? Granted, the so called “lucky accidents” that come from working with a pen or a brush can be a pro as well, but more often than not, you end up with plain old UNlucky accidents – and correcting is a lot easier to do digitally (and with nicer result).

Speed?

It seems for some artists, the possibilities of going digital also offers more speed and momentum to their work. They are simply able to get to a nice result faster. Used efficiently, digital saves you a ton of time.

Cons of going digital:

Speed?

In my experience, any task I take to the computer takes double the time. You can zoom in way too much and nitpick details. You’re working on a device that also has Facebook, Twitter and a gazillion other things running at the same time. I believe “PC” stands for “Procrastination Central”. And the speed of your work depends on the speed of your computer, your software, your file size and all sorts of other fun factors which you have little control over.

Price

You can work digitally with just a computer and a Wacom tablet. But if you really want to go all in, with all the advantages a Cintiq has to offer, get ready to throw almost two thousand dollars on the table. Ouch! You better be sure you can make that money back. Remember though, that equipment you use for your business is usually tax deductable (depending on where you live).

Updates and breakdowns

When has a piece of paper ever asked for an update, or asked for you to plug in the power cord? The reliability on hardware and software is slightly scary (at least for me) because those things can go flaky on you with no warning.

Low mobility

This is a big issue for me. I like being able to sit with a sketchbook or work out of the house for a day. If I had a digital setup, it would most likely be at my studio and too bulky to bring anywhere. However, Wacom has put out a 13.3″ Cintiq  that is really lightweight and portable – But you still need to hook it up to a computer to work on it.

Back up

A piece of Bristol board doesn’t suddenly crash on you and leave you to have to reconstruct hours of work. Unless you spill coffee all over your original art, it will usually outlive any computer. And if you scan it in, you have a digital backup as well, a lot safer than having just one file.

No original artwork!

Having drawn it all on the computer, you have no originals to sell at conventions or exhibit at your local library or whatever. Sure, you can make nice printouts, but that’s just not the same, is it? Note that this con could be a pro, since you don’t need storage space for your original art! You can put it all in your Dropbox or on a portable harddisk.

So, what’s the conclusion?

Given the price, low mobility and given the fact that I don’t have the time for the learning curve that going all digital will require (at least before the result is anywhere near what I can produce with pen and paper), I don’t see myself going digital anyt time soon. And I don’t like having to rely on power and technology to be able to make comics.

Creating comics can easily become more than just a hobby, regardless of your preferred drawing method. To find job opportunities for comic book artists, consider exploring platforms like Jooble.

What do you guys think? Are there any pros or cons I missed? And what do YOU use to make comics? Comment below!

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