THE BEST TOOL IN YOUR BAG… FAILURE!
So today I want to talk about the importance of failure in one’s work. No one sits down and draws or writes a masterpiece the first time through. It’s important to know that you will fail and its important to know that and improve.
One of the biggest things I have heard in my years of drawing from people has been. “I cant draw….”
My answer is always the same. I couldn’t ether. To say that people are naturally talented and are born to do a great masterpiece is to lesson the hard work, sleepless nights and inner fighting over things in ones work that for the better part… don’t work. But its important to know where one fails and to work hard to improve that issue.
My best examples can actually be seen in older work for Demon Blade. This year (August 16th) will mark me developing and drawing Demon Blade. When I first designed it, I was the comics editor for the College Newspaper at VCU. With it I did political cartoons (till I got a visit personally from the Dean about my comic) and released two comics. The first was critical View, a gag comic and the second was the first version of Demon Blade. Given while I had digital development tools at my hands. The programs and tools where still a decade away from being really useful for comic art outside of coloring. So I did the comic by hand.
While rough I drew the hasty 4×4 inch panels then inked and lettered the comic all by myself in about two hours a page. While the characters of Mai, Ino, Tetsu, Yoku, and Kaji, all where parts of the story. The comic was a sloppy mess. Because while I was a classically trained artist with skills in animation, I failed to get the form right. But I pushed on.
In 2000 I started one of the first online magazines called, Anime In America. The page for about two years was a hit covering news and reviews. In the magazine I tried to continue the series Demon Blade in a newer more comic book format. And I failed again. This time because despite my college being one of the top art schools in the world… they didn’t teach comic art. (Heck if it wasn’t for my reports and discussions in my years many of the teaching staff would have still scoffed that anime was a legit art form to look at in a modern movement. Keep in mind the US anime really didn’t make a break through till 98 when the Pokemon craze was at its peak.) I fought for them to use a book by Scott McCloud called “Understanding Comics” which is now a staple book used at the college to help teach about comics and in many parts art itself. But still the only real books I had to help me develop my own skills was the classic “How to draw the Marvel way”which was hard to agree with since Marvel wasn’t really drawing that way in the 90’s. But still I tried.
By then I had a decent scanner and photoshop to do some improvements but still needed a lot of work… But I didn’t I stopped drawing for a while. Telling myself my art wasn’t good enough. I started to listen to the negative critics (the loudest of which was myself) and didn’t return to drawing comics for three years. And even then it was sloppy. I had to reteach my skills to be a better artist. By 2007 I reached a point where my art needed to go digital. (Mainly due to the poor drawings on paper filling my apartment at the time) So I jumped and started doing Critical View and then Sweet Dreams. Both would be sloppy messes that I was proud of at the time…. and now may still be a bit proud but also ashamed how much my artwork slipped.
(Sweet Dreams Hand Drawn Sketch vs Digital Drawn Page)
It would take time to retrain my hand to be decent to pick Demon Blade back up. And in 2013 after six years of training I tried just that…. And failed again. This time with Demon Blade #0
If you search the web you may come across reviews of Demon Blade #0 and even may come to its Comixology post. The comic isn’t too bad its got a score of a C+ in comic ratings which is pretty good considering I wrote, drew, and published the 16 page comic in one week. This was a challenge I gave myself to do a manga artist’s time to recreate Demon Blade in a new way. What I got was a good looking, and hyper stylized piece with horrible grammar (because I went to public schools… No really I just suck at grammar and need to hire an editor one day. When I can afford to.)
But despite the critics I pushed on and did a sloppy mess with the official 2013-2015 release of issues 1-24 of the series. Most of which is available now on Amazon for cheap. I got sloppy but kept up a monthly release for each issue for two years. (Its only reason it got lost to the web was the downfall of Inkblazers website where it was in the top 30 titles)
(New verses old of the same scene in Demon Blade #2)
When I got to the end of the first real arc of Demon Blade I noticed much of the audience I had gained was lost in the downfall. And many new fans wanted the earlier stories which I found had major flaws. So as I began to face homelessness I started working in 2015 on the current redesign of the series. I was determined to give the series a clean and at the same time unique look. Mixing my years of study into a much more professional looking and moving comic. And while I am proud of the comic…. I also know there will still be failures in it that I will ultimately want to fix… and fixing those mistakes is fine. As long as I learn from them and improve who I am as a artist and storyteller.
What do you think? Do you have your own opinion you want to share, or do you want to chime in on mine. Do you have a suggestion of a topic you want me to cover? Share it in the comments.
