Thought Bubble - Sketching Spotlight

Sketching Spotlight

I visited the Sketching Spotlight Panel at Thought Bubble where 4 artists answered questions and talked about their creative processes while others had their drawings projected on the screen as they were drawing. The artists there were Ming Doyle, Fiona Staples and twins Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, all of whom work in comics/illustration.

I found it very interesting not only as a solo artist, but from a collaboration viewpoint. One of the ideas that came up a few times was that a collaboration, to many of them, was helping one another with ideas; it wasn't just a case on one person does one job and another person does theirs. They work better in a creative time where both know each others' styles, strengths and weaknesses in order to play off of them as best they can and keep improving each others' work.

Fiona Staples

Ming said that working in mainstream comics can feel a lot like drawing fanart at time, except that you are getting paid for it. Being able to draw other characters in your style is a very good skill to have which is shown greatly in the comics industry, but I think that does limit your opportunity to design big mainstream characters. Obviously you need at least a few as new and background characters in your comics - however the less mainstream comics, or non-superhero comics such as Saga drawn by Fiona Staples [left] are all original characters, with input from writers but creative freedom after that, which sounds like it would be a much more fun experience.

Ming Doyle

Fiona worked exclusively with digital media in her earlier career, with a Cintiq which didn't feel as different to traditional drawing as graphics tablets do. She now also uses a blue mechanical pencil to draw simpler shapes before inking. Ming Doyle also likes to use a lot of digital art in her sequential work just because of the time it saves her so that she can reach deadlines much easier. Both artists use MangaStudio for digital inking (recommended to them by Jamie McKelvie) with varying adjustment correction, and Ming works all at 25% for her drawings, which is a terrifying idea to me. She also does all of her midtones before the dark colors and then lays everything up. Fiona blows her thumbnails up, inks them in MangaStudio and then colors in Photoshop.

Some comments were made that some artists start of with comics etc to realise what they want to do art wise later and then realise that drawing comics is what they want to do, whereas some like Ming Doyle always wanted to draw to tell stories. They also talk about being invisible in their comics - that the art should flow so well that you don't even notice as you get carried away with the comic and the storytelling.

Gabriel Ba

Fabio Moon

Self-publishing is a good technique for starting out with a lot of first time stories being published through company 2000AD.  It was also said that a lot of the interesting comics come from people who don't actually make comics for a living - different experiences and ways of working works very well to create new and different stories.

Other advice was don't be afraid to learn on the job! "You're never really gonna be ready" was said which I think applies to a lot of different art form and fields. You need to build up a visual library which should not be limited to just things in comics/the style you want to work in.
 Gabriel Ba suggests to "hire a cute assistant to do your erasing" to avoid the pain of rubbing out so many lines.

Though most of the ideas came from two of the artists, it was really interesting to compare the way that some of them works, how they started in their pieces and their compositions. I definitely hope to go to this panel again next year, as some of the advice has been really helpful.

Annie Awards Winners

As expected, Frozen was the film that performed the best at this year's Annie awards, taking away 5 awards including Best Animated Feature. The Croods was then second highest with 3 awards including best Character Animation and best Character Design which is still a large victories considering what other films they were up against. Monsters University unfortunately only got 2 - for Storyboarding and for Editorial (and no Oscar nomination!). The Croods, Frozen, Despicable Me 2, the Wind Rises and Ernest & Celestine all got a nomination but Monsters University missed out, which fans and critics alike are displeased with. Despicable Me 2 only won Best Animated TV/Broadcast Commercial which to me does not suggest Oscar material, but that could just be me being Bitter. I feel that Monsters University made a bigger impact on more of it's audiences but I don't actually know the grounds on which these films are judged or how they are nominated, so that is a discussion for another time.

Understanding Copyright

Copyright is "the right for the owner/creator/publisher to control how their material can be used".

Copyright covers films, games, animation, music, computer acts, drawings/illustrations - anything that is the result of an independent intellectual effort or a collaborative effort.

Author can object if their work is mutilated, defamed or distorted in any way. Sometimes though, copyright rights go to the company or employer involved with the property in question.

Copyright can be transfererd or sold to another party. In the UK, copyright is automatic. Literary, dramatic, artistic and photographic works are copyrights for life + 70 years of the creator.

Sounds recordings and copyrighted for 70 years only. (Cliff Richard got this changed from 50 to 70 in 2011).

Getting permission to use properties - you can contact the owner/organisation/company representing them directly. Otherwise, they can object and possibly sue.

If the thing you want to use the property for is commercial, you must ask permission. Non-commercial, education, research of private study does not generally need you to ask permission, although you may need an agreement for multiple copies.

Claiming Copyright
- Watermark etc
- Leave it/deposit it with a bank or lawyer
- Post it to yourself sealed with a date stamp.

If someone is breaching your copyright, talk to them first!

Any legal action would take place in the country where the infringement happened. Social Networking can have complex terms and conditions and may claim your work as their own.

Copyleft is like the opposite; they are a novel use of existing copyright to ensure work remains freely available.

Creative Commons - non-profit, providing legal framework to let people share, remix and reuse legally. Simple, standardised and an alternative to the "all rights reserved" paradigm of traditional licensing, as long as you credit everything.

There are also alternative that:
- do anything commercially but again apply credit
- Redistribution, commercial and otherwise usage is fine as long as it is unchanged with credit to you
- Remixing, tweaking and building on for non-commercial use as long as they are credited and also licensed under the same terms.