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Great advice from Samantha Mash.

Here is 10 things I tell my students on the first day of class about building yourself up into being a artist. This is starting point, not a all encompassing list. Hope you find it helpful!

1. Never stop experimenting. When you stop trying new things your style will get stagnant. Developing your style never has an stopping point, you’re going to continue learning and changing–that is a good thing.

2. Don’t draw to please a particular person or audience. It is tempting to draw something you think the person viewing it will like. It starts with drawing to please a friend/family member, then a teacher, and then a wider audience online or in person. However, consider drawing to please yourself first, an audience will follow in time and you will face a lot less burn out down the line. You’ll be hired for this, work you made out of something you liked crafting–not something you forced yourself to craft. Don’t make art that makes you miserable.

3. Learn the basics. Get good at anatomy (human and animal), perspective, creating depth, lighting, etc–then break the rules you’ve learned. Work, no matter how abstract, pushed, and pulled is always stronger when informed by a mastery of the basics.

4. Practice working in ways that do not hurt your hand. Learn to draw with a relaxed hand and draw in long strokes. Both of these methods help prevent issues with your hand, wrist, and arm. I’ve never gotten carpal tunnel, and I draw on a daily basis, because I have learned how to treat my hand well. Your hand is your tool, if you wear it out there isn’t a new one you can just pick up. The best treatment for any possible physical issues is prevention.

5. Learn how to draw without erasing. It is scary and it is tough no doubt! However the best way to become more confident is through not erasing. There is a medium for everyone to try this out, whether it is pen or non-erasing colored pencils. If you want to ease yourself into this method try out Pentel red lead, it erases a bit–but overall will always leave a mark with every stroke you make. The importance of this is learning to not be afraid of mistakes.

6. Draw from life, from reference photos, and from imagination. This trio is important, combining all three is usually how you build great drawing skills. Drawing from life gives you the ability to capture small details that you’ll remember to put in when drawing from a reference photo, drawing from refs will give you the practice you’ll need to handle whatever subject so that one day you can draw it from your own imagination–see how that works?

7. You’re art isn’t completely unique and that is okay. I can’t emphasis how many people I know who have gotten so hung up on being something totally unique that they burn out fast and never make work again. Now, considering how much art is in the world there is no way that what you create will be 100% unique to you. That is fine, your personality in your work is more of what makes something yours than a “style”.

8. Figure out your work’s personality. On that note finding the personality of your art is important as you go into trying to build your own place in the art world. The personality of a piece is a combination of style, subject, color, shapes, lines, and maybe most important themes (yes subject and themes are different). This combo is what makes your art special. At a loss for where to start figuring out your own personality? Compile a list of 10 artists you love. Why do you love them? Is it the shapes of one artist that speak to you, the line work of another is beautiful, the themes of a third make you feel inspired? Now take the 10 things you love about those 10 artists and start applying them to your own work. This isn’t about copying these artists, it is about the inspiration. That line work you love in another artist’s piece is gunna look different in yours for example. Those themes from another artist, well when you take them on your life might inform them in a opposite way. In time your inspired work will evolve into something that is your own.

9. Talent is nice, persistence is more important. Someone may be naturally talented in some areas of art, however someone who is persistent in their craft is so much more likely to succeed. Effort, continued growth, and practice will add up to so much more in the long run than just skating by on “talent”.

10. Be a good person. Treat others with respect, learn about social issues, don’t be a creep, and use your art to help people. And this might mean you craft a piece about an important issue that changes thousands of lives, or you might just be creating to help yourself get through the day. Both are important, after all you are a person too and you should always be trying to help and be kind to yourself.

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I added a bunch of mugs to my Society 6 store!! because mugs are good holiday presents and i like them!!

pls check them out!!

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This is so sweet and good.

My vision of an artist :)

For me, we are all a part of an amazing garden, each of us making a part of it And we are all a little seed falling on the ground of being an artist.

The flowers represent our passion and like in a garden, many types exists !

When we know what we love the adventure begins, we meet amazing artists that will inspire us to grow up !

Flowers need the rain to grow up, so your passion will need some difficulties to grow as well. Après la pluie vient le beau temps- After the rain comes the sun !

And then at your turn you will inspire the young and new flowers to grow as well ! 

For the talented artists I used the colors of the flowers to show the directions they chose, many went to lots of them while some artists prefer to only chose one (like the lion and the white flowers) since, the flower on the tail is red, that means that choosing one direction can lead you to another one in the futur, who know ? You don’t see it yet :)

I hope this little reminder will help you keeping going !! Always keep it up and KEEP GOING !!

Bonne chance :) that means Good luck in French ^^

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Resources!

Grants, Fellowships, and Residencies for Cartoonists!

Hey comic-makers!  Looking for funding or short/long term studio space to help you make your comics?  I put together a list of grants, fellowships, and residencies with an established, positive track record for accepting cartoonists!  (There are also many, many arts grants/etc. out there that have not accepted any cartoonists yet, and I absolutely encourage you to apply for those too!  But I’ll be limiting this list to ones that already have demonstrated interest in comics.)

I’m sure there are ones I’m missing, so feel free to drop me a line if you know one I should add!  I’ll keep updating the list periodically :)

GRANTS

Creators for Creators

Cupcake Award

The Dash

Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities  

PRISM Queer Press Grant

Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize

Society of Illustrators M Prize  

FELLOWSHIPS AND RESIDENCIES

Boston Public Library Writer-in-Residence

Catskill Center Artist in Residence

Comic Art Workshop

Donaldson Writer-in-Residence

Inbound and Outbound TRANSIT

Maison des Auteurs  

Sitka Artist Residency

Thurber House Graphic Novel Residency

Tulsa Artist Fellowship  

US National Parks Residencies  

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👏 👏 👏 

Stop doing spec pages: Why DC, Marvel, Boom etc. should pay you for your test pages.

(I figure this will get the appropriate people’s attention) 

A quick preface: Yesterday a friend of mine told me the story of how she was scouted by DC Comics to participate in their “talent” workshop. My colleague, who worked as a professional for 7 years and had books from Marvel under her belt, made time to meet up with a rookie editor only to subject herself to the editor’s rejection and novice opinion as to how my colleague may one day meet the standards of the DC talent workshop- some other time I’ll talk about how lame this DC Comics talent workshop is in how it is manufacturing the spectacle of demand for their brand by creators and using that to forego the cost and editorial aptitude it takes to curate and build a stable of … but they had the gaul to ask my colleague to do test pages, so here’s my opinion on that.

If you’re Marvel or DC or a company, like BOOM, that profits off large licenses, you should pay for samples from prospective contractors. The hours that an artist spends making a sample are bankable hours; it’s work. By not paying for that sample art, these corporations are offsetting the cost of their R&D on labor. Artists shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden of a corporation’s R&D. 

“But how do they know if the artist is appropriate for the book?” If you’re asking for a sample, you’re interested enough to pay for the sample. Should artists pay to waylay the risk that the editor or whomever solicits the sample isn’t qualified to shrewdly select prospective artists for a property? If you can’t afford for the samples, maybe drop one of the dozen batman books you’re putting out, and put that money towards R&D.

What’s more is that there’re few ways for the artist to recoup the cost of making the test pages that are the intellectual property of that corporation. 

I think in order for we artists to get treated more fairly, we are going to have to stick to standards of practice. Companies exploit the lack of communication and solidarity between artists. We can’t really trust corporations, ones with a history of exploiting labor, to have our best interests in mind so we are going to have to keep the lines of communication open and hold corporations to a standard. Hold the line!

…that said, I’ve done free samples for comics corporations before. And I regret it. I won’t do it again.

For many it’s exciting to have an opportunity to work for a large company or on a property or license that has pop culture currency and visibility. Large companies exploit this. It’s important, however, to consider the value of the labor that went into sustaining these brands. Brands that are big enough to garner enough capital to sustain a film production, let alone the occasional 300 dollar sample page from a cartoonist. 

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Gift sketch for @atishan of their GW2 character, Farnagh! First time testing out Medibang on my Cintiq - I’m not quite comfortable with the set up quite yet, but I think I just need to draw with it more.

Also, sorry for how neglected this blog is! Life has not been treating me super well lately, and of course, art is the first to suffer.

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Hey, check out this awesome comics grant!

Apply for the Creators for Creators Grant!

WHAT IS IT? Creators for Creators is an independent 501©(3) non-profit organization intended to encourage, support, and promote original works through grants and education.

The goal of the Creators for Creators grant is to help pave the way for the next generation of comics creators by supporting their work financially and through mentorship, as well as providing opportunities for their creations to reach a wide audience. We plan to give $30,000 to a single cartoonist or writer/artist duo in order to support the creation of a new and original work of a length between sixty-four and one hundred pages over the course of a single year. The recipient will be selected by committee according to rigorous criteria.

In addition to the monetary support, the recipient of the grant will have access to mentorship from the experienced creators involved with Creators for Creators. Mentorship will cover almost every aspect of the comic-creating experience. The goal is to give the recipient a firm foundation in the creative, business, legal, and financial areas of the comics business.

The recipient has total control over how and where they choose to publish their work once it is completed, whether they choose to submit it to a creator-owned publisher or release it themselves in any format. Iron Circus Comics and Image Comics have both pledged to support the recipient by publishing their work, if the recipient so chooses. No matter their choice, the recipient retains all rights to their work.

Finally, CreatorsforCreators.org will become a resource for the comics industry intended to educate creators by way of testimonials, advice, and more from established creators.

The Creators for Creators grant was founded by Charlie Adlard, Jordie Bellaire, David Brothers, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Nick Dragotta, Leila del Duca, Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen, Jonathan Hickman, Joe Keatinge, Robert Kirkman, Jamie McKelvie, Rick Remender, Declan Shalvey, Fiona Staples, Eric Stephenson, C. Spike Trotman, and Brian K. Vaughan.

CAN I APPLY? Applicants must either be a single creator or a writer-artist duo with joint ownership of the submitted work. Each applicant must be eighteen years old or older, and the work cannot have been submitted to a publishing company or similar entity within the past year. The Creators for Creators grant is international, so there are no geographic restrictions on applicants.

Applicants must have never had solo work published by a third-party publisher. Self-published work is acceptable, as is participation in anthologies, but any non-anthology industry publication is unacceptable.

HOW DO I APPLY? Visit CreatorsforCreators.org to view the submissions page. All applications must include a signed release agreement and bio for each applicant, a proposal of no more than two pages that roughly describes your story and its conclusion, and at least five pages of finished sequential art from your story in order to demonstrate your storytelling.

The submission period lasts from May 1st, 2016 to November 1, 2016, and the eventual recipient of the grant will be chosen by an anonymous selection committee.

CAN I HELP? If you are a creator or publisher who would like to donate to or assist Creators for Creators in other ways, please email info@creatorsforcreators.org. If you’d like to join our mailing list, visit our contact page.

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I’m sure I’m not the only one who had an earth-shaking epiphany when reading this. Well, maybe not so much an epiphany, but the feeling of finally being understood, of someone pinning down these ideas and giving a form to this beast that has choked out many a creative idea before it could even be born.

Now that it has a name, we can strike it down.

Sharing this article here in case it’s useful for aspiring authors and creators, and because I have a lot of these types of questions in my ask box: - When did you know you were ready to start making your comic? - How did you know when you were good enough to begin?   - How much research/writing/studying/practicing did you do before you started? …But I didn’t know, I’ve never experienced a feeling of good enough, I’m still learning new things about comic-making, and I’m still fleshing out the writing, revising and researching.   No one wants to dive into the deep end blind, but waiting for a moment when you suddenly realize you’re ready will tend to leave you in a rut of perpetual pre-production where, even though you may be toiling at something tangential to what you really want to do, your momentum and the prospect of truly beginning are fading. On past attempted projects, I’m quite guilty of this - having “binders full of lore and no book”, as the article states.   Instead, I’d recommend riding that wave of head-over-heels love and excitement about a burgeoning idea, and that sense of urgency about getting something underway into a place where really doing the work becomes the habit, or even the backbone of your daily life.  The bona fides, the confidence and knowledge all come with the doing, not with never-ending prep work.

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ARTISTS If you sold art at conventions in 2015 please fill out this ANONYMOUS survey! Data will be compiled & published! 

>> The 2015 Convention Artist survey closes Monday! 

You can see 2014′s results and analysis here. 2015′s survey is more comprehensive, so the more data we get, the better the analysis can be!

Notes: The survey is aimed primarily at artists and artisans who vend at anime conventions in the US and Canada; however, other types of shows (comic, furry, etc) are welcomed. The 2016 survey will begin accepting responses following the publication of 2015′s results.

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InksterInc is having a 25% off sale until Halloween! A great chance to snag Odaiba Pride shirts, hoodies, tanks, and bags for cheap! Enter the code “SPOOKY” when you check out to get the discount. Hope you have a very happy Halloween from glasswind!

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Hey, my sister and I will be at Rose City Comic Con 2015 this weekend from September 19-20! Look for us in the exhibitors hall under our real names, Lara Kim and Sara Lee at Table U12!

I’ll be selling prints, comics, zines, shirts, sketch commissions, and new handmade, hand-printed Steven Universe tote bags as well as a new limited edition screenprinted Mad Max shirt! My sister will also be selling copies of her DIY gardening zine.

If you’ll be at the show, please drop by! Hope to see you all there. *heart heart heart*

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How did I miss this??? Hooooooly smokes, you look UH-MAZE-ING! The goggles are an awesome touch.

Thanks for snapping this picture and posting it! Nothing makes an artist happier than to see their work on people.

Day made. Thank you kimurakoichi!!

So I caved in and bought myself one

It came really fast :)

glasswind

[glasswind]

Excuse me but when I was ordering a print from your shop I may have used stripe, and from what I've seen recently I shouldn't have done that, is there anyway to rectify this mistake?

No worries! As far as I know (though I may be wrong about this), both Paypal and Stripe charge similar processing fees so it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. But if you’ve heard otherwise and can send me a link to some information, I’d definitely like to know...

The more major one I do know of is Storenvy’s “Marketplace” (as opposed to the Storefront. Sales made through Storenvy’s MP have a 10% cut taken from the price, which can be pretty ouch.

(Anon, I’m pretty sure you ordered through the Storefront so you’re all good! And thanks.)

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I’m at the Portland Zine Symposium this weekend (July 18-19) at the Ambridge Event Center! The event is totally free to attend and totally amazing so far. Come stop by from 11-5 if you’re in Portland, OR!

My sister and I are at table 56A, next to the amazing Lily (56C, not pictured) and Lydia Fu (56B, pictured with donut). Couldn’t have asked for awesomer table mates.

#Table56

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My InksterInc shirts are in! I was curious about the quality and bought some for myself in Asphalt, and they’re great! Super soft, tagless, high quality, and the colors of the print are really vibrant while retaining that sort-of vintage print look.

Sizes run a bit larger than usual, I’m wearing a Small in the picture and I usually rock a Large, or sometimes Medium.

I highly recommend the Asphalt grey color I got, but I suspect they would also print well over Black and Royal Blue. Darker colors are the way to go with this print.

Pick one up at my InksterInc hub by clicking here! (And if you grab one, send me a picture so I can reblog it!)

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It’s been too long since I posted anything other than shirt stuff, so here are some really self-indulgent MM sketches!