Art by Analise Black
Anthony Wheeler joins Jake Parker and Will Terry to discuss risk in your art career, finding concepts worth illustrating, and whether or not wordless graphic novels are a good idea.
ASK A QUESTION
JOIN US ON PATREON
Note: We’ve done our best to provide relevant links to products mentioned in this podcast. Qualifying purchases support SVSLearn and the 3 Point Perspective podcast. Thank you for your patronage!
SHOW LINKS
Anthony Wheeler
Chaotic Draw-Along Kickstarter
Jed Henry
Botany Kickstarter
KEY TAKEAWAYS
If you want to make good art, you have to feed your imagination good art. Train your taste with Pinterest boards and art history.
It won’t be a good final piece if it's not a good sketch.
QUESTIONS
Kayleen asks, “How do you know if you have an idea worth illustrating?”
This is subjective, but it’s important to have a solid story before you attempt to illustrate. Everyone’s taste is different, but the more you create, the more easily you can identify a good concept at a gut level. Study the work of J.C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell. These 20th-century illustrators were masters at condensing a story into a single image. (Check out this example from Rockwell and note that you understand the entire plot without any additional information.) Practice their punchiness and experiment with implying more than you depict.
At the end of the day, draw what you love. Dive into your concepts at a micro-level, experimenting with thumbnails and brainstorming before moving on to the final piece. The more you do this, the easier it will be to identify ideas worth pursuing.
Sarah asks, “What are your thoughts on wordless graphic novels?”
If you love the idea, create it!
Yes, this may reach a smaller market than its wordy counterparts, but there are also plenty of text-heavy graphic novels that remain niche. You can’t guarantee sales simply by doing what everyone else is doing, so you might as well do what you love. Work that comes from the heart tends to be of higher quality than work made only for financial gain, anyway.
If you want to test out the concept, start small: create a five-page wordless comic and post it online. If the reception is good, make a ten- and then a fifteen-pager. When you have a few of these under your belt, compile them into a PDF and sell it online for a few dollars. If people buy it, you have hard proof that there’s a market for what you’re offering (and that’s very attractive to potential publishers!). At that point, you can move forward with your full-length graphic novel confidently, knowing your audience will be thrilled to get more of what they’ve been seeing from you.
LINKS
Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44
Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt
Lee White: leewhiteillustration.com. Instagram: @leewhiteillo
Daniel Tu: danieltu.co.
Lily Camille Howell: lilycamille.com
If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and let us know your thoughts or if you learned something new!
If you want to be a part of the discussion and have your voice heard, join us at forum.svslearn.com.