AP 240820: Phased Goes International; New Story Update

Hi friends,

Good news and an update in today’s Arrow’s Progress:

• Phased Is Now Part of the UK’s National Art Library’s Collection

• New Story Update: Working On Character Design

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Phased Is Now Part of the UK’s National Art Library’s Collection

So this is exciting: the UK’s National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum purchased a copy of Phased for their comics collection!

Here’s the entry in their catalogue.

If you’re in the UK and would like to see the print edition of Phased, you can see it at the National Art Library (or order a copy online)!

New Story Update: Working On Character Design

I mentioned that I’m aiming to be serializing pages of my next story by the time Short Run Comix Festival comes around in November.

I’m currently working on character designs for the story. In my process for creating graphic stories, character design is the newest to me as an artist, since I haven’t done it before in my arts education and practice. This means it’s hard for me! And takes time. But it’s something I want to get better at, so this is good for me to get more practice doing. There’s a big difference between creating images sticking close to references versus very stylized work that strays from/without references.¹

With comics and animation, too, you end up having to draw a character from so many different angles and expressions that you need to define rather comprehensively their look. This is also why artists end up developing a style since it helps you to improvise in your illustrations/comes about in the process of improvising.² Whereas with single paintings or, say, magazine cover illustrations, anything where you only need to work out what a figure looks like once, you can just get as much reference as you need to figure out that one image and it doesn’t matter what they look like from a different angle, with a different expression.

Here’s a peek at what I’m working on! In the process of working out what the characters will look like.

1. In an interview at the Reuben Awards last year, famous cartoonist Sarah Andersen noted that when she started Sarah’s Scribbles, people didn’t believe that she’d gone to arts school because of how rough the drawings looked. She said it took her years to develop her style and confidence of lines (she’s been doing Sarah’s Scribbles for 10+ years now).

2. There’s an analog here with improvisational dance and music, too.