IntroducingEmy has been doing some cool tutorial videos recently, including this redline video. It’s really useful stuff, y’all should check it out. You can submit your work to her to get a redline crit! Normally you have to pay professional artists hefty sums for this.
Here’s her Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/IntroducingEmy
desertvictories asked you:Hey Yamino! I was wondering if you’d ever seen the movie Sister Act? Because, the character Sister Mary Robert (Wendy Makenna) reminds me of Sister Claire! I was absolutely shocked when I thought about how perfect she is as a real life Sister Claire.
I was recently interviewed by my young cousin for a school project. Since these are questions I am asked pretty often, I thought I’d post them here for y’all.
When did you know you wanted to be an artist? I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be one! Since I could hold a pen, I was drawing. But it wasn’t until I had to start thinking about which college to go to that I committed to pursue art as my full-time career, and went to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). There I learned all the basics, anatomy, graphic design, etc, but I knew I specifically wanted to study comics. So I chose Sequential Art as my major, which not only covered comics, but also storyboarding, character design, and scriptwriting.
Were your artistic interests encouraged during your childhood? Yes, I was very fortunate to have parents who both had an artistic side themselves, and they were very supportive of me whenever I expressed interest in learning anything creative. I took a few different art courses, such as oil painting, clay, singing, and saxophone/percussion. I’m very grateful that my parents fostered my creativity so much when I was younger. Without my parent’s support, it would have been much harder to be where I am today.
What led you to make art your lifework? I was always happiest when creating art, as far as I can remember, and I have always had a real fondness for creating my own stories. I was always very interested in animation and comics, and paid particular attention to those mediums. I was also really attentive to how character design and voice acting was used in my favorite series. It was a leap of faith for me to choose art as a career, especially in the currently unstable economy, but I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. (Well, I can, but I wouldn’t be nearly as happy.)
How did you get into the professional practice of art? At SCAD I took several courses in making webcomics, where I came up with the concept for my current ongoing series, “Sister Claire.” (www.sisterclaire.com) I continued the comic after the courses were over, and have been regularly updating it for the last 3 years. I have learned a lot since then, and gotten involved in a lot of fan communities via my additional fanwork. Through both my original work and my fanart, I made contacts with people in the industry, and I’m currently looking into having my comic published in the mainstream. However, even if this doesn’t pan out, I am happy to self-publish my work. (As many webcomic artists do.) I have also gotten offers for mainstream comic jobs, such as doing official “Adventure Time” comic covers after the editor saw my fanart and offered me the job. I also received an unexpected promotion from Lady Gaga when she tweeted a poster I had drawn of her, which resulted in several celebrity commissions for various blogs. The comics industry is very fickle- you have to get used to being turned down most of the time, and can’t wait for opportunities to find you, you have to make yourself as accessible as possible.
As an artist, what education or training do you have? I graduated from SCAD with a major in Sequential Art, and I’m currently doing a Master’s called “Entrepreneurship for Creative Practices.” I’m also currently taking two first year courses: one in game narrative, and a Flash course for games. My main skills are character design and making comics (from scripting, to layouts, to inking, to coloring). I am also trained in making storyboards, and have taken beginner courses in voice work.
Describe your art form and your own artistic style. I draw all my comics and fanart 100% digitally using a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet, and the programs Photosho and Illustrator. (Cs5) I can imitate many cartoon styles, but my main style (used in “Sister Claire”) is a mishmash of all my favorite elements from Japanese, American, and European cartoons/comics. The heaviest influences were Junko Mizuno and “the Powerpuff Girls.” Superficially, It’s very cutesy, but there’s a darker and more serious undercurrent to the artwork and story.
How does the creative process work for you? Where do you get your ideas? Against my better judgement, I don’t plan very much. Most of my inspiration comes in unexpected flashes, and I like to work on the fly and keep my comic scripts vague so that I can change them once I get to that point in the story. I’ve found that when I tried to script my comics too much, I always changed them anyway.
My characters in “SIster Claire” work is very inspired by my favorite characters from other stories, as well as taking influence from different myths and world religions. I get my ideas from everything- the people I interact with, things I stumble across on the internet, nostalgic memories… there’s no telling what will spark an idea, so I try to keep my eyes and my mind open.
Do you make a living at your art? How do you promote your work? Currently, I don’t make a living off of my artwork, but I’m working on it. I have recently found a partner who is helping me manage my finances and figure out ways to earn money from my work, which I do largely for free. Drawing fanart is not only a lot of fun, but an excellent way to promote my art. If you post fanart in the right places (such as Tumblr and Deviantart) and remember to tag it so it’s easily searchable, fans will come to you. And once they’re looking at your work, chances are they’ll see your original stuff, and hopefully stick around. Doing artwork for celebrities I admired also had unexpected benefits when they would promote the fanwork I made for them. (Besides Lady Gaga’s promotion on Twitter, I was also thrilled to be promoted by Janelle Monáe’s creative team on Twitter, and then give her my fanwork in person.)
What advice do you have for an aspiring artist?
Photoshop Animation Tutorial by *KokueiYaki
I think a lot of people will find this useful. =)
oAo I never realised that such a font was so looked down upon. Or that they’re so important. I suppose you learn something new every day, thank you so much for explaining it to me! I’ve been so confused for awhile now because of all the jokes coming up recently on this font!
I guess i’ll just look a little harder into this sort of thing, specially since I wish to start my own vision web comic in the near future…
Some people do take it to a whole new level of elitism which is just ridiculous. I’m not going to go and say someone is a terrible person for using a common font, but it does carry a certain stigma in the indie comic community(which at times takes itself MUCH too seriously), so it’s good to be aware.
I actually find it really fun to look up fonts for various logos and new projects. (But then again, I am a huge research nerd.) It’s good to find a font that really fits with the feel of your comic.
For example, for Sister Claire, I use “Sunday Comics BB” (a free font from Blambot.) I picked it because it had the right amount of cuteness and naivete of without being TOO cutesy. It’s a very friendly-looking and readable font. Also, the name itself sounds a bit religious/church-y. I tested it on a couple pages, and it meshed perfectly with the artwork.
For “Nightingale”, I’m still looking. Unlike Sister Claire, which is very much American cartoon/Manga influenced, “Nightingale” a more Euro style comic, and the font will reflect that. Also unlike “Sister Claire,” to match the Euro look (and make it more readable), “Nightngale” will be in all caps. Not only that, but I am planning to release the comic in French (and hopefully many more European languages) so I needed a font that had all the accents.
Here was an early dialogue test(pls excuse the ugly art ;-;) I did with a font called “Lavi.” (Free from dafont.com)
However, now I’m looking into some other options, after comparing these tests to some newer French comics I really admire. I’ve got time to shop around. ;D
That’s not even covering the different fonts for special occasions, like sound effects or zombie-dialogue or whatever. (Although for sound effects, I’d recommend doing them by hand.)
In summary, fonts are a very important part of your comic, so don’t just pick the first one you find! It really adds a lot to the feel of the dialogue and your story in general.
If you want to read my quick little Powerpoint presentation on Marketing and Self Promotion, I uploaded it here!
It’s pretty basic, but if you have any questions on specifics, feel free to ask them here. =)
