Words and Pictures
I've been watching a lot of Critical Role lately, Gen, my girlfriend and I have been working our way furiously through the first campaign on YouTube. Currently into episode eighty-odd.
One of our favourite parts of the show is the fan artwork, there are some talented D&D fans out there. Each time we would watch the fans' interpretations of the characters and encounters it would inspire me to get back into making my own artwork. Art was always my number one subject at school, and I always kept drawing and painting for years after. Until adult life put things like day jobs in the way and put a limit on how many of my multitude of hobbies I could commit myself to. I've always leant toward the creative, be it art, music or writing. I just love the concept of creating something that didn't exist beforehand. Throwing myself into my Magic: The Gathering "career" has also prompted me to get arty again, the cards having some stunning artwork.
Seeing that a lot of the fan art on Critical Role was done digitally - as is a lot of the artwork for Magic: The Gathering, and D&D books, and pretty much anything else Sci Fi & Fantasy and gaming based that is heavily illustrated - I toyed with the idea of getting a Tablet and Pen set up for my PC. In the end I took the plunge and got myself a small and, more importantly, cheap Huion tablet. I didn't want to invest too much money in case it proved to be a bit of a passing fad that I would grow bored of after while. A month on I'm using it daily and now considering in investing in a larger and higher spec tablet. The small size of the one I'm currently using can cause a bit of pain and discomfort when used for a long period of time.
There was also another motive for getting myself a tablet and getting back into getting my art on. At the same time I was looking at picking one up I was throwing myself into catching up on my graphic novel reading, mainly the series Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples.
For some years now I have had my own bit of Science Fiction brewing in the back of my head. Although I had initially intended it as a comic, for ease I started writing it as a straight novel with that only requiring a word processor. This was about six years ago. It ended up falling apart a bit as I found I was good at creating characters and writing dialogue but my narrative was lacking. Although I could thoroughly picture the scenes I wanted to convey in my head, I struggled to put them into words. So for the past six years it has sat doing nothing, just being something I would think about now again when it would poke its head out in the back of my head as if to say "remember me that you'd left unfinished?"
So I got my tablet and pen, downloaded a copy of the free Firealpaca software (which I highly recommend if you don't want to fork out for a digital art program) and I thought to myself I can practice and practice and eventually I might get good enough to finally make my comic and have that story and those characters fully realised.
Then I had another thought. The great thing about digital art, is that it allows you to go back to it and re do things with ease. So what better way to practice than by drawing an entire graphic novel? Yes it'll no doubt start off a bit ropey but as the story progresses I should (hopefully) see improvement in my art and as I get better can re visit the early pages and touch them up.
I've now been working on my comic for about two weeks and have seventeen pages planned and laid out, six of which I would say are complete. I then have a word document with a general overview of the overarching story line. I'm actually really pleased with how things are turning out, I'll admit the quality of the artwork is not what you'd consider "professional," but as this is something I'm doing for myself, I'm less concerned about the quality of the art and more about completing the story I'm trying to tell.
Although I say I'm doing this for myself I have looked into ways to share it online for anyone who may be interested in reading it and I have found a website/app called Tapas. It's a platform for independent comic creators to share their work, and for people who want to read comics on the go. I've already got tons of use out of it and have read several comics on there. (There is also an option for novels.) It's designed so that creators can upload a page or two at a time, serialising it I suppose you could say. As I'm working at a rate of completing two or three pages a week this means I should be able to keep up with regular weekly updates. Although my plan was to revisit early pages as my artwork improved, I like the idea of uploading the work as I create it, it could almost work as a record of my progression. Also the Tapas service allows you to re upload already submitted pages if I did want to revise any.
I've recently had to weigh up what hobbies and past times I can really commit to and it was decided that Magic: The Gathering would be my main focus for the foreseeable future. I now think that regular work on writing and illustrating my comic balances well alongside this, with the occasional session DMing Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe then when the comic is finished I will look at making music again.
I think it likely that there will be future blogs about the comic as I progress with it. For now here's one of the "completed" pages (I use the word completed lightly.)
One of our favourite parts of the show is the fan artwork, there are some talented D&D fans out there. Each time we would watch the fans' interpretations of the characters and encounters it would inspire me to get back into making my own artwork. Art was always my number one subject at school, and I always kept drawing and painting for years after. Until adult life put things like day jobs in the way and put a limit on how many of my multitude of hobbies I could commit myself to. I've always leant toward the creative, be it art, music or writing. I just love the concept of creating something that didn't exist beforehand. Throwing myself into my Magic: The Gathering "career" has also prompted me to get arty again, the cards having some stunning artwork.
Seeing that a lot of the fan art on Critical Role was done digitally - as is a lot of the artwork for Magic: The Gathering, and D&D books, and pretty much anything else Sci Fi & Fantasy and gaming based that is heavily illustrated - I toyed with the idea of getting a Tablet and Pen set up for my PC. In the end I took the plunge and got myself a small and, more importantly, cheap Huion tablet. I didn't want to invest too much money in case it proved to be a bit of a passing fad that I would grow bored of after while. A month on I'm using it daily and now considering in investing in a larger and higher spec tablet. The small size of the one I'm currently using can cause a bit of pain and discomfort when used for a long period of time.
There was also another motive for getting myself a tablet and getting back into getting my art on. At the same time I was looking at picking one up I was throwing myself into catching up on my graphic novel reading, mainly the series Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples.
For some years now I have had my own bit of Science Fiction brewing in the back of my head. Although I had initially intended it as a comic, for ease I started writing it as a straight novel with that only requiring a word processor. This was about six years ago. It ended up falling apart a bit as I found I was good at creating characters and writing dialogue but my narrative was lacking. Although I could thoroughly picture the scenes I wanted to convey in my head, I struggled to put them into words. So for the past six years it has sat doing nothing, just being something I would think about now again when it would poke its head out in the back of my head as if to say "remember me that you'd left unfinished?"
So I got my tablet and pen, downloaded a copy of the free Firealpaca software (which I highly recommend if you don't want to fork out for a digital art program) and I thought to myself I can practice and practice and eventually I might get good enough to finally make my comic and have that story and those characters fully realised.
Then I had another thought. The great thing about digital art, is that it allows you to go back to it and re do things with ease. So what better way to practice than by drawing an entire graphic novel? Yes it'll no doubt start off a bit ropey but as the story progresses I should (hopefully) see improvement in my art and as I get better can re visit the early pages and touch them up.
I've now been working on my comic for about two weeks and have seventeen pages planned and laid out, six of which I would say are complete. I then have a word document with a general overview of the overarching story line. I'm actually really pleased with how things are turning out, I'll admit the quality of the artwork is not what you'd consider "professional," but as this is something I'm doing for myself, I'm less concerned about the quality of the art and more about completing the story I'm trying to tell.
Although I say I'm doing this for myself I have looked into ways to share it online for anyone who may be interested in reading it and I have found a website/app called Tapas. It's a platform for independent comic creators to share their work, and for people who want to read comics on the go. I've already got tons of use out of it and have read several comics on there. (There is also an option for novels.) It's designed so that creators can upload a page or two at a time, serialising it I suppose you could say. As I'm working at a rate of completing two or three pages a week this means I should be able to keep up with regular weekly updates. Although my plan was to revisit early pages as my artwork improved, I like the idea of uploading the work as I create it, it could almost work as a record of my progression. Also the Tapas service allows you to re upload already submitted pages if I did want to revise any.
I've recently had to weigh up what hobbies and past times I can really commit to and it was decided that Magic: The Gathering would be my main focus for the foreseeable future. I now think that regular work on writing and illustrating my comic balances well alongside this, with the occasional session DMing Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe then when the comic is finished I will look at making music again.
I think it likely that there will be future blogs about the comic as I progress with it. For now here's one of the "completed" pages (I use the word completed lightly.)
Love the sneak peak - can't wait to see more! :)
ReplyDelete