Bookbinding + School

I've been wanting to do some bookbinding for a long time, because as an independent/self published comic artist, mini comics are a bit of a necessity.

A while back I even bought a cute little book at Opus called "Indy Publishing" because it had really clear and easy to follow how to instructions on a variety of different binding techniques.

Well, today, because of a contest Guruubii was doing for a

marker blog hop thingy, I had to bind a little book for the first time.

I just used a single *signature pamphlet style binding method described in my book.

What I made was a tiny little lineart comic, printed on marker paper stock, thats meant for people to colour. I even included blank pages in the back for people to draw and colour in, so it's a mini colouring book and sketchbook.

It was totally fun to do, I cant wait to do more with some sketches or just blank cute paper with hand drawn covers.

Well anyway, you will be able to find this book I bound at conventions I go to and on the shop.

*A signature is a bundle of pages, for thicker books you need to make several bundles and stitch them in individually.

Yesterday at school was the first day we actually got to sit and work on our projects.

It was funny, It was weird to get critiques and instruction from someone who doesn't belittle you and insult you as they do it.

Deviantart is hideous for that, people have no clue how to critique artwork, they're so arrogant and disgusting and just plain rude. You can barely see their point through the crap they are spewing... that is even if they have something to say, I find more often now, people critique in a nasty way just to get attention or cheap page-views. Thankfully, you can block that kind of troll now.

Not that thats news to me, it's been a long time since I actually sought out a critique on Deviantart, and theres not much chance of me ever requesting a critique on DA again because of that. The community is not what it was 3 years ago, thats for sure.

Anyway, I got lots of good advice on my thumbnails, but I wasn't really fully done my script so it made it a little weird. Script and Thumbnails are both due next class.

But it really opened my eyes to weaknesses I have and where i need to start concentrating more. Putting more thought into areas like moments and timing.

It also helped assure me that I am on the right track with some of the decisions I've made in my comics as well. It's nice to know my instincts on some things were quite good.

I'm working on a teaser that will be for my next graphic novel project, The Bachelors and the Python.

Also, I bought the book "Making Comics" by Scott Mcloud and it's awesome. If you haven't seen it, it's actually a graphic novel, which is rockin'. It has lots of good information and it is really good for reference.

What I REALLY like about it is the fact that he is not arrogant or self important at all. He's quite humble, acknowledges other artists strength and most importantly his own weaknesses. He doesn't claim to be the end all authority on comics, and he doesn't glorify himself in anyway.

It's totally refreshing!

It makes the book way more easy to read and makes the information he's giving not seem so overwhelming.

I totally would recommend that book to anyone interested in making comics...

or to anyone who thinks making comics is easy!

Anyway, fun timez :>

Comic Introduction Course with Steve Rolston

I started a comic course at Vanarts, taught by Steve Rolston, a sweet comic artist that knows his shit. SOME of you might be saying "Why the fuck would you pay for a course when you've been doing comics for so long?"

Well the answer is simple, I've only taught myself, through books, trial and error and tutorials, I've never been to art school at all. While thats fine, I have nothing against self aughtedness, but it's a lot slower a process and it's much more difficult.

I wanted formal training in something and a comic course seemed the best idea.

Daqueran is a big experiment for me, I wanted to see if I could actually keep up a comic and finish it all the way through, and actually see if comics were what I really wanted to do or if I wanted to stick to book illustration or something like that. Obviously, as the series isn't complete, it's an ongoing experiment thats not complete.

I did learn that YES, Comics is what I really want to do, so thats when i made the decision to do the comic course.

I eyed a couple, there was one at Emily Carr, that was much cheaper, but I am not a fan of Emily Carr. The one at Vanarts seemed much more intensive and thorough, so I chose.

I'm glad I did.

I've been having a good time there, and while for someone who's done comics for a while, it's moving a bit slow, the pace is starting to pick up and it's getting funner and more exciting now that we are scripting.

In the course you have to make a 4 page comic, so i decided to make the 4 page comic a kind of teaser for a type of comic I wanted to do for a long time.

So yeah. I think I'll use this blog to talk more about the course and my experiences in the comic world.