FAQ!

Recently a very cool person sent me a bunch of questions as a sort of interview for a school project, and it occurred to me that I get asked these questions a lot so I’m throwing them down under the readmore for you guys in case you wanted to know this stuff/so if someone asks me one of these in the future I can just link here. So yeah lots of talky talk under the whatcjamacallit

1) For how long have you been drawing? What inspired you to become an artist?

I’ve been doodling for as long as I’ve been able to hold a pencil (or, by photographic evidence, able to wield clumsy paintbrushes overloaded with black paint), and I don’t know if anything inspired me to ‘become’ an artist- in fact, odd as it might seem for someone who has worked as a professional storyboard artist for three years- I still find it hard to call myself an artist. It is a very big word, but I love to draw and create from all the way inside me, which makes its way all the way outside and results in pictures and words happening, so I suppose that is what I am. Still, I feel more comfortable with calling myself a cartoonist (although I will argue until I am blue in the face that cartoons are works of art, so this makes little sense in itself).

2) How would you describe your work?

Impolite. I often have arguments with it, not because I disagree with it particular but because I have enough work to be going on with without my brain writing another story at three in the morning without a by or leave. It can be very inconvenient. All the same I enjoy doing it, and I can’t easily stop so I have to get along with it somehow, and the only thing worse than being hounded by too many ideas is having none at all (see below).

3) How do you generate ideas? How do you overcome art block?

I have only been plagued by the dreadful art block curse a total of three times and I can remember each occasion with the clarity of a particularly violent nightmare; my usual situation is quite the opposite. On the whole I am more troubled by having too many ideas and end up with a mental bottleneck where I cannot chose which one to work on (the recipe for this ailment is not one which I know so I’m afraid I can’t easily explain how to catch it, although I suspect reading a lot of books and being enthusiastic about everything helps), but when I do find myself without any idea what to draw I just draw. Anything. Something I can see in the room, something a person mentioned the day before which was funny, something that I have always been bad at drawing and know I need to improve on. The worst thing you can do when faced with a void is to leave it that way- nature abhors a vacuum, so does a cartoonist.

4) Who/what are the biggest inspirations for your work?

Oh goodness, lots of things! Everything! It changes everyday (this really is an unfair question in that regard), but a few people I look up to are Lewis Carroll, Neil Gaiman, Hergé, Brad Bird and Buster Keaton. I am very dedicated to the study and love of silent movies and early cartoons, and did once burst into tears while watching a documentary about film restoration, which probably says far too much about me but there you have it.

5) Is there a central theme to your work, or do you prefer to explore a range of ideas and topics?

I am very much an explorer- mostly because I never feel I can profess to being good at any one thing! I just want to learn as much as I can in the time that I have, and have fun while I’m at it. The best way I have found to do that is to constantly change what I am doing and try new and different things, but I do find I slip back into certain tropes which appeal to me (such as fairy tales and ghost stories), so I am probably not trying hard enough.

6) In your opinion, how important are art journals/sketch books and documentation of your creative process?

Very- I wouldn’t know what to do without my sketchbook. Being constantly plagued with mad ideas is one problem, but it is a far worse one to try and remember the really good idea that you had this morning but neglected to write down and have consequently forgotten. Making notes, even esoteric and badly scribbled ones that nobody else can understand, is a vital practice for any artist and I heartily endorse it as a habit even if it results in you writing on your hand/arm/leg in dire circumstances.

7) What is the biggest change you have noticed in your development as an artist?

Learning that you cannot please everyone, and accepting that you are just as important as everyone else. I had a very unfortunate few years in university and became clinically depressed, and one of the causes of this was my attempting to please all the teachers, while neglecting myself and my stories. I have since come to terms with the fact that, not only can other people be wrong (an unusual circumstance at the best of times, a common one at the worst), but that you are allowed to make work for yourself. You are allowed to listen to yourself. Not to say that you should ignore critique or throw away advice, you must be able to see all sides of an argument; but you must remember that you have the impetus to create within you and to stifle that is very dangerous indeed. Rather like jamming up the end of a rifle before firing a bullet; you are much more likely to injure yourself than the target. It was very hard to learn this obvious lesson for me, but I hope it comes to you more quickly and less painfully.

8) What is your creative process like? How similar are final works to your original ideas and sketches?

It differs with each project, to be honest. Some come complete, some have a beginning and an end but no middle, and some stories come one word at a time, and it is only when I’ve finished that I see what the story was. Drawings are more controlled- I work from thumbnail sketches, jotting down tiny pictures and trying different angles until I hit the right feeling, then progress to sketch, line and colour. I almost always begin my art on paper, but I often scan it into photoshop and finish it there.

9) Detailed and imaginative landscapes are a big part of The Property of Hate. Where do you find inspiration for these settings?

Living in Cheshire near to Great Manchester I am blessed with equal parts town, country and city in my daily life. Out of these the places that have always appealed to me the most have been the comfortable hedges and compacted forests that crowd around the semi-suburban roads I live on, but there is also a great draw for me in wild open landscapes with very little in the way of manmade structure. I go to the seaside as much as I can and most of my favourite holidays have been on country terrain in the North of England, with the exception of the time I spent a month in Costa Rica in the rainforests. I am a creature of comfort so I certainly like to stay indoors and read books, but for an adventure there is nothing better than having little to no idea where you are and a certain sense of excitement which might equally be foreboding.

10) To what extent are your characters based on yourself or the people around you? Where do you draw inspiration for character design?

Funnily enough one of my most popular characters- RGB- is based off my worst qualities. I decided to make a sort of monster based off all the insecurities I have, about myself and how I portray myself to the world, and the result was such a character that he ended up creating his own story. Several of my characters have traits taken from myself or people I love, and sometimes I only realise that long after they’ve been created. I think it’s impossible not to put a bit of yourself in what you create, not if you want to fully understand and empathise with it. As for design, I try and push the silhouette of characters, so that even if they are totally blacked out you can still tell who it is; think of Mickey Mouse and Tintin- you would recognize them from their shadow. Otherwise I try not to create too many rules. I play with ideas and let things happen freely just as much as I plan things: anything from a stuffed toy to a rocking chair can be a character when you’re a child, so why say “no, that’s not possible” when you’re an adult?*

11) How did you come up with the ideas for your narrative works such as The Property of Hate and Skip/CLIP? How did you develop these ideas into the final product?

TPoH was one of those wild rides where the whole thing wrote itself in my mind over the course of a week and I am now a slave to it and must try my best to finish making it before I die or something equally unfortunate occurs. SKIP was much more conventional; I accidentally came up with an idea for a full feature film (as you do) while I was at school at VFS. Clearly I couldn’t make it, so I extracted the key details and two main characters and condensed it into a three minute short. I still have the feature in my head and would love to make it some day. CLIP was another accident, and I am still figuring out the details even as I write it (which is partly why it is on a long break…), but The Princess and the Jester was something I wrote over a weekend and while I had to stop drawing it due to tendonitis I can happily say I am working on it again, and hope to finish it before the year is out.

12) I’m interested in the designs of the 'monsters’ and various creatures that feature in The Property of Hate. What ideas and responses do you aim to evoke with your characters, and how do you reflect this in their designs?

A few too many secrets to divulge a full answer for this one, but the designs of the monsters are directly linked to the characters and their 'selves’, and particularly what they love and what they hate. They are also, obviously, abstract representations of various media. Melody and Julienne are the most obvious, being music and dance, whereas TOby is the embodiment of the (somewhat less obvious) craft of toys. Madras is a unique 'monster’, however, having been invented by a good friend of mine (aka EGGS who is rad and this is their tumblr go checkit) who had the supreme kindness of allowing me to use her in the story, and this aspect of her creation actually affects her role.

13) Do you believe the ideas or narrative are more important than aesthetic quality in art practice?

Yes and no. It all depends on context; a good story can be told with very minimal or even (conventionally) 'bad’ artwork. I have read incredibly compelling stories with stick figure characters, and equally I have read very dull and hard-to-connect-to stories with beautiful artwork. Having said that, there is a certain limit, and if you are speaking in terms of comics you have to be aware that the visual aspect of the story will, to some degree, attract or repel the audience. It is a sad fact, but people do judge books by their covers. You can use this to your advantage, of course, and create an art-style that purposefully jars with the story, to make your readers uneasy or surprise them with where the story goes, but you have to be happy with the work yourself. I have met people who have given up on their stories because they did not enjoy drawing, and visa-versa; if this happens it is not impossible to find someone to help and there are many successful partnerships between artists and writers in the comic world. It helps to be a Jack-of-all-trades, but it is not absolutely necessary.

14) You produce a lot of work very fast! How much time is spent on your art, and how many projects do you tend to work on at once?

I wish I could agree, but I always feel that I am going very slowly! Especially with having suffered a near six-month case of tendonitis. At present I am still recovering, and so while I am 'between contracts’ (a professional way of saying 'unemployed’ in the media circuit), I am free to work on my work in the meantime, provided I don’t overdo it. I am also nearly fully ambidextrous, having started to learn to draw left handed when I injured my right, so while I can only safely draw for about half an hour I can switch between hands to keep working for longer. As for the number of projects I tend to take on too much at once, but I have found that if I don’t start working at least a little on what my brain is telling me to do then everything fizzles out and I grind to a halt. My mind rebels at stagnation and I often find that a change is as good as a rest. I am not sure whether or not to recommend this fashion of working, but it is what I do.

15) Where do you see your art going from here? Any new projects on the horizon?

I am currently focusing on getting back to the pace that I had before I injured myself, and having recently been diagnosed with EDS I am more aware than ever before that I must finish the comic, so I am making that my priority. Alas, a lot of my time is being spent sending my portfolio and comic to publishers, as the task of packaging and posting the comics I sell is taking up more time and strength than I can spare. Consequently life is a little dull and administrative at present, but these are tasks that you can’t shirk if you want to make a break for it, and I do! So I will try, and keep trying for as long as I can. I think that’s all anyone can do, in the grand scheme of things, so even if it is frustrating I don’t feel it is a bad use of my time.

*Disclaimer: I have never nor will ever claim to be a grown up, adult or person of inherent responsibility but I accept that I am, on occasion, mistaken for one and will continue to be as I continue to age. Unfortunately.

05/28/15