Fun commission for a t-shirt design. Still love Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
art
A Pearl of Wisdom from Neil Gaiman
Make your writing time sacrosanct. Even if it’s only an hour a day. Either get up an hour earlier and write (Gene Wolfe wrote all his novels and short stories like this, until he was able to become a full-time writer) or take an hour in the evening, and head away from the world. But take the time, and make the time – the world won’t give it to you back unless you do something to reclaim it yourself.
(When I was a boy there was a man on the train I took to school who wrote detective thrillers. He wrote them on the train to London — an hour there, an hour home again at night — and took a pad of paper with him on his two hour commute. He wrote, and published, a book a year. That’s a lot of books.)
Scott Kurtz once gave similar advice to a young cartoonist in an episode of Webcomic Weekly. It also rhymes with what I talk about in an upcoming article for Webcomics.com (a great resource for aspiring cartoonists). You have to make time for what you love. That includes anything creative you wish to accomplish. I hope everyone who reads The Wizard of Quippley aspires to write or draw or make art of some kind. Be good to yourself and make time to do it.
Neil writes a great deal of similar advice on his tumblr blog.
Cowboy Algerbane!
Those of you who follow the comic’s twitter or Facebook page got a sneak peak to the following silliness. On a whim I decided to draw what I think Algerbane would look like had he lived in the Old West. I figured he’d be a sheriff, with a gun instead of a stave (since they all had guns, I suppose)–though I did sneak him a magic ring. Take a gander below (clicky for large):
Here’s a sketch of Al, sans hat, possibly at the ol’ saloon:
I really got a kick out of this lil’ diversion. I wish I could come up with a fun western comic, but I don’t think I know enough about the era to make it believable. Yes, I don’t really know enough about the middle ages to write The Wizard of Quippley, but with high fantasy, it’s easier to fake =P. I might add some color to the first sketch and put up on my deviantart page.
Really great tip from a master artist
I work really hard to improving my art. One of the ways I do that is by studying the artwork of cartoonist I’d admire and look up to. Frank Cho is one of those artists. In a recent blog post he recorded the progress of a project of his, giving this masterful advice:
One of the dangers of doing these long tedious, highly detailed illustration is rushing through it, especially when you’re more than halfway finished. This is when most of the mistakes are made. If you get the urge to rush it. It’s best to walk away and come back with a fresh eye and calm energy.
That’s a pro tip for ya! Those of you who are aspiring artists/cartoonists would do well to follow it.