Some old ideas, new again


I wrote this a few months ago in a notebook to help work out my own thought processes at the time. I later had it saved as a draft blog. I almost deleted it as I think I have absorbed most of this to be part of my natural process by now. Instead, I thought I'd published it here to better reflect on.




  1. Don't butter the butter: This is about removing as many barriers between me and the audience as possible. A no-frills attitude. There is no gloss or filter applied. The artwork is as close to the original as possible.
  2. Only compete with yourself: Try to be better than your previous self without needlessly comparing your work and achievements to others. This applies to the work itself and things like social media likes and numbers.
  3. Come as you are: Present yourself as you are. Knowing full well you are not perfect and contain blemishes and warts. These blemishes add to who you are and make you unique. Put your best foot forward, and be yourself, whoever that is. This is easy, as you don't need an angle or an image or imposed style to create who you are. Everything you need is already there.
  4. Always free: Always offer a free version of your work. It's ok to ask for money or offer a paid version, but there should always be an easily accessible free option. Keep overheads close to $0 to achieve this.

After rereading this in my drafts folder, it felt like it was written by someone else. There is an energy and drive to this that I would probably word differently now. But at the same time, I still believe in these principles. Point 4 about always offering a free version felt the most outdated to me at first, as I have been trying to give value to my work. However, upon further thought, I still agree with this one. What it means is not to offer everything for free, but to ensure that there is always a low entry point for your work. Always offer a way for the curious to taste/sample your work online for free. For example through, social media like Instagram, or offering the first issue for free, or a free comic for signing up to my mailing list.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading...

Comments are always welcome. To subscribe via RSS, click here or sign up for my new publications' newsletter.

Popular Posts

Creating Screen tone effect in Photoshop

Image
Also known as zipatone, Ben-Day dots, halftones etc For this tutorial a basic knowledge of Photoshop, colour modes, resolution, history and layers pallete, copy and paste functions will help. It is often desirable to achieve screen tones for artwork for either practicality or for effect. What ever you need it for I am going to show you the most effective way to achieve this using Photoshop. If you can master this, then there is no need to track down real zipatone and fiddle around with cutting it up. The middle section on ‘creating dot patterns’ is fixed although how you create your grey areas and how you use the dot pattern is up to you. Firstly this tutorial has nothing to do with the halftone pattern in the Filter menu. In my mind this filter gives a poor, hard to control, and fuzzy result. Which is not suitable when you need real screen tones for something like screen printing. Creating greys First open the artwork you want to add screen tones to; Be sure that this a
Read more

Making an ePub (Part One)

Around 2015 I started dabbling with making epubs. My interest was in making ebook comics and being able to distribute and sell them in bookstores around the worlds. After some initial trials I ended up publishing both George Bloop and Imagined Mysteries. It was a fun experience but I got busy with other projects and put it to the side.
Read more

Review of Sanford Prismacolour Non-photo blue pencils

Image
WARNING: Comic talk ahead! I wanted to write a short review of the 'non-photo' blue pencils I have been using lately. I'm doing this so that if you have to order these things through the mail or don't want to waste money trying and buying these things then hopefully this review will point you in the right direction. There are three pencils that I have come across. There are other types and brands, but these are the ones I have had experience with and I think may be the most commonly used in comics. 1-Sanford col-erase non-photo blue. (pictured) This pencil's lead is quite hard and hardly shows up on the paper. This is good if you only want faint marks as guidelines and not so much an actual finished drawing. There is an eraser on the end that actually works to a certain degree. Although it's really only for peace of mind as you don't need to erase the pencil after inking anyway. I found this pencil too light to do actual finished or rough outlined
Read more