I woke up with the odd inclination the other day, to create an Influence Map for myself. I totally missed this meme when it first went around a couple years back, but I never forgot about it. It always seemed to be a good exercise in showcasing the artists and other media that influence one's work. I often find myself straying pretty far from what I think I really want to be doing, or comparing myself too much to any one particular artist, when the actuality is that there are at least a couple dozen artists whose work I continue to draw from, some more than others of course.
At any rate, here are the artists whose work has continued to inspire me throughout my life so far:
Click for a larger view!
I'd love to take a moment and talk about each of these artists individually, but that would take too long. I did do a write-up on Joseph Schindelman once, and might put together similar posts for each of these guys.
In the meantime, I think I'd like to do another one of these for the writers who've influenced me over the years...
Oh! And credit to fox-orian for the Influence Map template.
I'm not in the habit of showing my sketches, but I thought with the completion of my Hansel & Gretel piece for the Portland Opera that I'd take the opportunity to give people a peek behind the scenes.
These sketches were made during the performance with a simple ballpoint pen in a small digest-sized sketchbook I made for myself by stapling some copier paper together. Click the images to view them larger:
The first drawing of actual characters from the show, mostly just costume notes. Check out Hansel's crazy 'flailing arms' dance from the beginning of Act I!
I was really pleased and flattered to be invited to participate in the Portland Opera's "Comics Night at the Opera" this week. 20-or-so of Portland's best and brightest cartoonists were treated to a night of good food, good drink, a backstage tour and a free performance of the Portland Opera's productions of Pagliacci and Carmina Burana, which opens formally tonight. In exchange for this special viewing, we all agreed to simply sketch our impressions of the show and to share those drawings with the opera company, their patrons and their audience. The artwork will be shown during a slideshow at tonight's performance, and originals will be hung on a wire around the lobby for the audience to view up close.
The amount of press this little event has garnered is pretty significant! By tapping into this town's massive comics community, the Opera has nabbed a bunch of free publicity not normally granted to an opera opening around here. Twitter has been abuzz, and it even got a decent write-up from the local alt-weekly (a paper whose readership is not known to frequent the opera at all). I understand the local tv news stations will also be attending tonight in the hopes of talking to some of the participating artists.
I really hope that other media and arts organizations learn from this lesson: Comics as an art form can support and enhance just about any other form of art, especially performance! Comics and illustration can be used to capture aspects of a live performance to which still photos simply cannot do justice. I hope to see more integration and cross-pollination between the performing arts and the comics communities in the future. Not just in Portland, but everywhere! Based on the popular success of this experiment, I can't help but feel like we're on the verge of seeing a resurgence in the use of illustration as promotional work again.
Oh, and you can see my pieces hanging out over in my black-and-white portfolio!
So, the cat's officially been let out of the bag: After taking a break for a couple years so that I could pay more attention to my own creative work, I've jumped back into organizing the Stumptown Comics Fest! I started taking steps to move back into a directorship role just before the 2010 Fest, as I was helping with promotion and art direction. It was clear that Shannon Stewart, the current Director at that time, was ready to hand the reins over to someone with more time and attention than he could spare.
In taking the Fest back on, I realize that it will be dominating my attention again for the next few years, so I really want to make it worth the trouble. To me, that translates to making the Fest bigger and better than it's ever been before. To start with, the exhibition floor needed to expand - the show has had an ever-growing waiting list for spaces for the last four years - a need which necessitated the move to the larger Convention Center venue. I'm also going to be shifting the gaze of the Fest ever-so-gradually toward the more established, professional creators in the Portland area and beyond. For years Stumptown has been considered just another indie-show, like APE, SPX or MoCCA. And while it has catered predominantly to that stratum of creator, there's a lot more that a creator-focused show like Stumptown can offer. I've already reached out to a number of creators who might previously have felt like they wouldn't fit in at the Fest, and the response has been gratifyingly positive so far. We're also going to be expanding our workshop track to an additional room, allowing more flexibility in our curriculum and again, the ability to broaden our scope a bit to offer a range of classes for beginners and more advanced comics writers and artists, and even for those aspiring to self-publish and distribute their work.
So, that's the big news of the day. I hope you can join us at the Fest next year, and keep checking back at the site for additional updates over the coming months!
know it's already the end of January as I type this, but I wanted to get this spelled out while I'm thinking of it: 2010 is going to be a big year for me.
I've got big plans and big goals for the year, but they all share one common goal: to become completely self-sufficient on only illustration work. This means covering all of my expenses, my monthly bills, rent on my workspace, any new equipment, supplies, or software I need to purchase, while still being able to set money aside for taxes.
For too many years I've simply had ambitions to become a professional illustrator. I tried to do as much illustration as I could in whatever job I held, but until now the only really marketable skill I've been able to capitalize on is my familiarity and comfort with Flash programming (at least in ActionScript 2). Since I lost my job in 2008, the bulk of my income has been earned through Flash programming while picking up a few small illustration jobs here and there throughout the year. My number one goal for 2010 is to flip those percentages, and to end the year as a full-time illustrator.
To that end, I'm detailing my monthly plan:
2010 was a tough year for a lot of people, myself included. To thank everyone for your support, I'm knocking an additional 20% off everything in my store until Dec. 20! If you want want to make sure your order arrives in time for Christmas, please order before Dec. 10. And for an EXTRA BONUS savings, use the one-time coupon code THANKS2010 for $5 off any order of $10 or more (not including shipping cost).
UPDATE! I've decided to cut the sale a bit short, it will now end on Dec. 20 instead of the 24th, mostly because I don't want to be having to ship stuff so close to the holiday, when it won't get there in time anyway. I'll resume shipping orders after New Year's, so if you want your stuff now, order soon!
@indigo_k
Two things I do not like about Lion: Smaller window widgets, and angled finger cursor. Why mess with perfect?@billba What? You can do that? okay, that's pretty fantastic…Gotta get a notebook in my bedroom. Had a dream so crazy/great it woke me up, and I promptly forgot it.Tonight I'm throwing my computer to the Lions. We'll see how he fares…
