Ask Loston (Dr. Stupid Jr)...

[DDeal12]

Someone might have already asked this but here goes...

When you first realized that you wanted to make art a career for yourself, what topics did you focus on first? Had you already learned to draw tons of different things or were you always drawing things that revolved around the same subject?

Thanks,
Daniel

[Bruce Lee]

Someone might have already asked this but here goes...

When you first realized that you wanted to make art a career for yourself, what topics did you focus on first? Had you already learned to draw tons of different things or were you always drawing things that revolved around the same subject?

Thanks,
Daniel

Daniel,

I was always drawing stuff, but naturally I mostly drew things I had an interest in. I loved cartoons, comic books, science fiction and monster movies so those are the kinds of things I drew as a kid. When I began taking art a little more seriously and thought I might make a go of it as a pro I started focusing on drawing people well. I began focusing on anatomy, proportion, likenesses, lighting, body language, foreshortening, etc--all at once. The Kubert School was a great help because we had life drawing class there. Drawing live models took me off the "comic book anatomy" path, and put me onto a path of drawing from life.

One of the best things that any artist can do is to get away from drawing only the things they enjoy, because the things you enjoy drawing are often fall under the category of comfort zone subject matter. Artists tend to already be pretty good at producing decent work within their comfort zones, but if you want to grow as an artist you have to start drawing things you're NOT comfortable with. Often those things involve things you don't have much interest in, or that you haven't much experience in drawing--at least not too often. For instance: if you're not good at drawing children, you need to draw children more often. If you suck at drawing horses, start learning to appreciate cowboy movies, and buy some books on horses. Start learning to draw past your weaknesses. If you want to be a well rounded artist, you can't cower from your weaknesses. You have to pin those down, and begin to transform your artistic shortcomings into artistic strengths. The only way to do that is through the experience ofdrawing and effort. Failure in artwork is often a very beneficial thing, providing you learn from how things went wrong. There's no shame in falling flat on your face in drawing if you walk away from the experience smarter and better prepared for next time. Failure is a great teacher. It can put you on the road to success, so don't be afraid of it.

[Bruce Lee]

i have a question... do you have any tips, advice, or lessons on drawing clouds in ink. i usually make mine look like scribbles and was wondering if there is a tutorial on drawing background clouds in ink. thank you for all your advice.

I might someday do a tutorial on drawing clouds, man. They're a lot tougher to draw than one might think. The best piece of advice I can give you is to keep the outlines as thin as possible, since clouds are supposed to be light and fluffy. Thicker outlines on heavy objects, thin outlines on light objects. Clouds being made up of water vapor means they should be be outlined with a thin, delicate line. Thinner lines on clouds also help to keep clouds from dominating a scene. Clouds that are overrended and outlined too thickly have a tendency to draw unwanted attention to themselves, thus stealing the show. Most of the time you want the clouds to stay in the background and be as unobtrusive as is possible.

Another thing to remember is that clouds come in a variety of sizes and all sorts of shapes. It wouldn't hurt to use reference images when drawing clouds, because doing that will help you to make them look more convincing.

A method that can work well is to fill the sky with a light halftone or color tone and then cutting out cloud shapes in white without using a black line to outline the clouds. This will produce a softer edge to the cloud and it will allow a cloud to stay ethereal and in the background. I did a similar technique to this on this sketch of Godzilla that was done on i-scribble:



With no visible black outline, the cloud automatically drops into the background without competing with too much with the subject matter for attention. I used to do this trick using zip-a-tone dot pattern films, cutting out the cloud shapes with an x-acto knife. It works pretty well, I think.

[Bruce Lee]

Next!

[Ace Corona]

Loston, how many hours a day and how many days a week should someone draw comics in order to get good enough to be a pro? What do you recommend as the minimum amount of time someone should spend drawing comics?

[The P.R. Man]

The industry standard is a page a day, some guys can do more, the quality of your work depends on however long it just takes to get good. Professionalism and ability to self promote has some bearing too id imagine.

[Ace Corona]

The industry standard is a page a day, some guys can do more, the quality of your work depends on however long it just takes to get good. Professionalism and ability to self promote has some bearing too id imagine.

Thanks P.R. Man, but that wasn't quite what I wanted to know. I wanted Loston's opinion on how many hours a day, and how many days a week an artist should draw if he wants to become a pro.

[Bruce Lee]

Loston, how many hours a day and how many days a week should someone draw comics in order to get good enough to be a pro? What do you recommend as the minimum amount of time someone should spend drawing comics?

There is no way to give you an answer like this because every artists is different. Some learn faster than others, and some are naturally better or more advanced than others. All I can offer you on a question like this is to say that the more your draw, the better you tend to good at it. Not everyone is cut out to draw comics, regardless. Only a few artists ever gain enough skills to turn pro, and become a pro requires skills and ability, a lot of willpower, moxie and determination, a little good luck and good timing. Etc. I am a fellow who believes that anything worth having is worth working hard for. If you want to be a comic book artist, work hard to become one. Draw as often as you can, pay attention to other artists and the world around you and strive to get better at both drawing and sequential storytelling. Keep in mind that CLARITY in your drawing and in your storytelling is essential for success. If a pro gives you some advice, pay attention. Most likely they've been around the track a few times, and they have garnered some experience. Be open to learning from that experience. Take advantage of such an opportunity. Do whatever you can to better yourself as an artist. Getting better might require you to take life drawing classes, to enroll in an art school, or to spend a lot of time figuring out how to do things better. Whatever the case, don't give up, and keep at it.

[Ace Corona]

Thanks for your advice, Loston. I'm taking a life drawing class next semester.

[Juggertha]

There are theories out there that say that I takes around 10,000 hours to master any given subject.

I'm not sure about being a master at that point, but sure as heck you'd better be decent after all that time.