Stephen Silver: The Passionate Opportunist

At September 30, 2011
By Laur
In updates
2

(Kim Possible cast by Stephen Silver)

I had the great fortune of listening to Stephen Silver speak Tuesday night in Burbank for Animation Nation. It’s always a fantastic experience to connect a real person with works of art that seem larger than life. In this case, Stephen was the character designer for iconic shows like Disney’s Kim Possible and Nickelodeon’s Danny Phantom.

He certainly came across as passionate! From the images he projected and just the way he carried himself (repeating the word ‘drawing’ as a life mantra!), he exuded an aura of infectious positive energy. He spoke about his background, work experience, self-publishing activities and urged his audience to fuel their enthusiasm for art by constantly drawing. Despite his lack of a traditional art education, he walked in to animation powerhouses like Disney, Warner Brothers and Nickelodeon.

I also came away with the distinct impression Stephen rarely said no to the opportunities life had tossed at him. By saying ‘Yes!’ to different kinds of challenges (backpacking in Europe! working for Seaworld!) and fearlessly presenting himself and his work out there (self-published art books! offering his art to local businesses!), not only did he keep himself busy and employed, he also banked on the connections and contacts he’s made throughout his career.

Seeing the sheer volume and variety of his work could easily be overwhelming but it was inspiring, too. To think that someone from such humble beginnings could rise to his prominence on sheer effort and will is encouraging. I admire his work ethic and appreciate the advice he dispensed related to art (which may have been directed at animation employees and students but felt applicable to visual artists like myself.)

“Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labor.” ~ Sir Joshua Reynolds

Stephen said he wrote the quote above in all of his sketchbooks. I agree with the sentiment because great work shouldn’t just be attributed to vague notions of talent or genius. Skilled artists work on their craft tirelessly and the effortless nature of their art always masks the years of experience and toil for it. What makes the Stephen so brilliant is his dedication to the basics of drawing, his undying curiosity for subjects and experimentation and finally, his good nature and willingness to connect with people. Success didn’t just happen to him; this guy made it happen all the way.

I hope you enjoyed this post! Feel free to comment below or share this with your friends by hitting any of the buttons above (Like on Facebook, +1 on Google+) or below.

All This Work is Not Useless!

At September 17, 2011
By Laur
In updates
0

Thumbnails for Polterguys Vol. 1

Apologies for the lack of weekly updates recently! I’ve been fairly heads down working on thumbnails from the latest draft of my story. Last week, I sent the completed set of rough thumbs to a few friends willing to read my semi-legible chicken scratches and I’m so grateful for all their fantastic feedback. (Take note, get patient friends if you want to write a comic!) For this second set, I managed to clock in at 6 chapters totaling about 160 pages (a fairly sizable chunk of work) which may not be necessarily used after all.

Come again?! (You might have just thought.)

What a waste! All that work for nothing! (Perhaps?)

Well, I like to think it wasn’t. (Well yeah, still trying to convince myself it wasn’t.*)

Especially since I was able to present the story in some visual form to my peers and this in turn helps them “see” the comic better than if I had given them a script. There are cues like setting, panel and page compositions, character expressions and gestures I wanted to include which I don’t bother putting in my scripts because I’m the only one that sees them.

Feedback for Polterguys Vol. 1 Draft

I found the feedback to be incredibly helpful and informative. It can be terrifying putting yourself out there and maybe even depressing to get a lot of notes, but one way to think about them is like a being given a roadmap, with points designated to help me get where I need to go. Reach out to those points and the story will get better.

There were a lot of similar comments (which tells me these are urgent elements I need to address) but also a good show of support for the premise (which fuels my desire to do it justice!) My friends who have been privileged enough to have read an earlier draft noted an overall improvement from the first set of thumbnails so it is (if nothing else) moving in the appropriate direction.

Yesterday was a particularly productive story session with my writing partner, Nathan because we were able to come up with something to infuse the story with a little more OOMPH (that it’s been lacking so far). And when I say productive, I mean after six hours of thinking about story issues, one of us finally managed to bring up something that could work. (Those Eureka moments are few and far in between but when you get them, they are a terribly wonderful!) Unfortunately, thanks to that Eureka idea, the set of thumbnails I worked on for the better part of the last two weeks no longer make sense.

So you see where I am now right?

I have so much respect for the people who do this work and do it fabulously and that admiration just grows everyday.

Until the next set, friends!

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*Step one was this blog entry.**

**Actually no, step one was a bunch of Dr. Who and Torchwood episodes. Step two was this blog entry.

Polterguys Update and Commissions OPEN

Sample Commission (See info below)

Polterguys rewrites are almost done

Polterguys is moving along at its glacial pace. Every time I feel like I’m not moving fast enough, I try to remember that this is my first time writing a major project like this. If a 34-page oneshot like Final Track was rewritten no less than three times, I need to cut myself some slack and give this the time it deserves. I’ve honestly lost track which draft I’m in at now. But I am taking heart that the people Nate and I have shown these to seem to think certain elements are improving.

I think it’s easy for beginning artists to see everyone else busting out comic pages week after week and forget that behind each fantastic update is a lot of preparation done beforehand. After all, a wonderful comic is 50% story and stories (the best of them anyway) don’t come to storytellers fully-formed and ready-to-go. I can only think of PIXAR and the amount of time they dedicate to developing their stories (4-6 years compared to the 2 years it takes them to produce the actual film.) Patience is the name of the game!

I try to stay positive despite the ever-present worry about not being quick enough for the rest of the world. But I do have my personal deadlines and I’m giving myself enough breathing room to do things thoroughly the first time through.

$20 Color Commissions are OPEN!

I’m opening up $20 quick color commissions again. Samples are above below. If you’re interested you can comment here, or drop me a line at laurchan[at]yahoo.com.

Sample Commission 2

State of Self-publishing: Manga

This video gives me so much hope! I can’t wait to be sharing my own work at TCAF or at any other comic convention again for that matter. I’ve attended Anime Expo and a few other conventions before. For the most part, my experience has always been positive. I make up the costs of attending through commissions and it’s wonderful to meet other artists and people who like my work face to face. But I’ve always felt woefully unprepared in more ways than one.

While I do enjoy creating fan art, I’d always feel like I didn’t quite belong as I exhibited my work next to other artists. I had an ache in my heart that couldn’t be satisfied by my provision of prints, commissions and bookmarks of other people’s characters. I felt like I was doing things backwards. I have nothing against my fellow Artist Alley attendees some of whom I have great fondness and admiration for, but what I longed for more than anything else was to have an original body of work on the table: A story to share. I felt incomplete without it. I wanted something to prop up with the full force of my passion and it had to be something I created.

Ofcourse, I really have no idea how I’ll be around this time next year. Signing up for all these conventions at this point feels premature somehow. Perhaps, I’ll wait another year before debut-ing my work in Canada!

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Links I’m sharing this week:
Jason Brubaker’s post Growing Your Audience is like Growing a Tree is a fantastic must-read for aspiring comic creators. Just like improving your craft, building an audience that appreciates it also takes time and effort. The most important thing to take away is PERSIST!

Meanwhile, Jake Parker’s story of three travelers as they traverse The Known World of Visual Storytelling is insightful as it is playful.

Polterguys update, Art & Webcomic Recommendation – The Fox Sister

Gryffindor Quidditch Victory

Polterguys update

I was wondering how I was going to approach this post because coming into this project, I knew I’d make the mistake of announcing something and was going to have to revise it. It makes me think I should set up some kind of rewards system every time I run into technical issues like this. (Oh, you guys are going to be so spoiled! XD) I’ll set up a new request post on DA and tumblr.

If you’ve been keeping up with me on Twitter and DA, you’re probably aware of the state Polterguys is in. I just completed the first draft of thumbnails for the book and showed them to my editor (i.e. Nathan) who says, they need work. Not just cleaning up work as thumbnails need but actual story-rehauling (this-isn’t-going-to-be-easy) work.

Completed thumbnails for Polterguys

Which puts me in a bind, you see, because I had previously announced this Polterguys entity to be an online series that would start in mid-July. I had originally envisioned completing a chapter each month and publishing them subsequently but I couldn’t get a grasp on the book as a whole, cohesive story. As they say, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry! I was advised to thumb the rest of the book and treat it like a standalone story. Admittedly, I’m sure not everyone else treats their comics in a similar way but I think it was a useful note for me personally because I’ve never been that strong of a writer.

So, that leaves me in the nebulous place of rewriting: a dark, lonely territory especially for a new writer. I venture forth somewhat reassured that the next state form Polterguys Vol. 1 becomes will be stronger and better than it’s previous incarnations. I thank you for your patience and hope you stick around to see how it comes along.

Art updates

In the meantime, I leave you with two recent pieces. A small tribute to the legacy of Harry Potter as you can see above and fanart of Tony Cliff’s delightful Delilah Dirk below.

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant

Webcomic Recc

Art by Jayd Aït-Kaci

I just started reading The Fox Sister, a new webcomic by Christina Strain and Jayd Aït-Kaci (AKA Chira) the same artist for Sfeer Theory. I’ve been a fan of Chira’s fluid and dynamic style since I first saw her Bleach fanart pieces on Deviantart. From there, I watched as her manic and often hilarious doodles and fancomics boosted her confidence as a fantastic character designer and brilliant storyteller. The Fox sister starts off with a dramatic bang and I can’t wait to see what the creators have in store for us.