Month: October 2019

Bonjour! As stated in my previous post, since Inkotber is coming to an end, I am going to talk more about my other projects. And the main project right now is my comic Radiant. I want to take you with me on I prepared and I am making a comic for Webtoon and digital formats.

What is Webtoon?

You might have heard me talking about it already. Webtoon is an online platform that allows you to post and share you comic for free. You can check out my short comics here and my old comic Day Dream that are already available to read there. There is other platforms like that and another one I use is Tapastic. It is quite the same as Webtoon except Webtoon is Korean and Tapastic is American. But ont the way they work it’s basically the same.

Mockup psd created by rawpixel.com – www.freepik.com

How to start a comic?

What a difficult question! And it will actually be really hard to answer. So I will only talk about my experience and the one I have with Radiant.

Radiant has been in the making for a very long time. The early writings of it are from 2011, but I think I really started writing it it around 2014~2015. Writing is my first step, I like to take my time in writing the story and scenario.

Finding the comic’s story.

The base of Radiant was a collection of dreams I had made around 2011 (do you write your dreams? because I do it’s an amazing source of inspiration!). I arranged two or three dreams to make a full story. Then I first started by making a list of events and writing the beginning and the ending. I like to write the ending very early on so I can know where to go.

The rest is a mix of developing the story and knowing my characters. Knowing your characters better helps to know how they would react to such situations. Scenes are depending on the character reactions. This development part takes the most time and some event from the list can change place or just be deleted. It really depends on what you want.

For Radiant I did get spend a lot of time in writing. I feel like this preparation even before doing the comic is essential. I did drew a few sketches while writing because I already had an idea of what the characters looked like. The proper character design was not made until the story was almost done.

Finding the characters

Since Radiant story originated from dreams. I had a very good idea of what the character looked like, since I had already seen them. And I didn’t spend much time on designing them. Also I had a wish for Radiant to have this simple, clean look. It is something I also tried to think about while creating the landscape, buildings and even the overall style and color.

I have recently done again the character sheets for the comic. Since there is a 2 years gap between the original pages and the new one I am working on these days. I feel like it is quite important to have such kind of character sheet so you can know exactly how the character look. You can go back to it often and be sure that you are drawing the character correctly.

To resume how to start a comic for Webtoon:

• Find your story.
• Write the main plot point.
• Develop your story.
• Create your character.
• Create your universe style.

I will talk another time about creating an actual comic page and the steps of creation. For now it should already be food for thoughts.

I hope you enjoyed this little insight and that you are ready for more comic content. This weekend is the 25 hour of comic challenge! And I of course will be doing that. I’ll talk about it in a future article if I survive the challenge.

Have the best weekend ever! (or at least a decent cosy one)

Bonjour ! I think now that Inktober is well on it’s way, it’s time to think about what I will plan for the future and projects after that.

It’s a very personal subject that I guess everyone needs to answer to sometimes. I’m inviting you right now to see my video on the subject, I talk while showing you the process of three of the Inktober illustrations featured at the end of the article.

What do you want to do next ?

I have in fact decided on what to do a while ago, but It is time to tell talk about it to you!

You may already have a hint if you’ve come to this blog, I am obviously talking about Radiant. If you don’t know, Radiant is a comic I started around two years ago. I published it on various free comic platform like Webtoon and Tapas. I had to stop because I didn’t have enough time with my client projects.

In the meantime I started to publish Day Dream, an old comic of mine and Carole Ballereau. An episode is out every Sunday on Webtoon and Tapas, and the series will still be going for a while as there is much episodes !

So my close plans for the future and projects are all about Radiant. That comic I am writing and illustrating by myself. And since it’s so personal, it’s very close to my heart and I am very excited to share it again on the wide web! The first time it came out the public had a very good response to it so I’m super glad to publish it again.

I am currently working on new pages and I’m very motivated to finish it whatever happens !

I hope you will follow me in this endeavor! For now you can read the first pages by checking out the yellow boxes all around this article (in case you missed it!).

You can also read more pages on my Patreon for 2$. I post 2 pages a month until the official release the 4th of December. I will also post it in French here on the website.

I wish to talk about this project much and bring you along with me on the journey.

Yes what other plans or the future?

Tons, always tons of projects! A reason why I want Radiant to be out there, is also because I want to have other comics out. I have stories pilling up, and I need to get these out into the world. I will talk more and more about comic in this blog. But I will also talk about product creation. Since I love real things, in the sense of, I love digital medias but I love above all actual real things like books or enamel pins !

You know I’ve started my Kickstarter project for enamel pins. It’s really part of the wish I have to create real tangible things I can hold in my hands. I believe I’ve already talked about it in my article about the Kickstarter but pins are collectible works of art and I love that about it. I with to talk about all these kind of creation in the future. And of course I will talk about how I created these pins in more details in the future.

Do you have plans for the future like this ? Answer in the comments !

I’d love to see what you have in your mind! will you follow my adventures?

And to finish let me show you the inktobers so far :

Bonjour ! As stated in the title, I’m about to create my first enamel pins and launch it on Kickstarter !

EDIT (14th of November 2019) : The kickstarter was a success I will do posts about the pins creation in the future!

Enamel pins are collectible work of art. Pin’s are making a come back in the best way possible. It’s a new way of displaying beautiful art on a nice object, and it’s also a fashion statement. I’ve always enjoyed seeing them done by other but I’ve decided to try and make my own. The initial cost being a little expensive, I’ve decided to fund the first pins through Kickstarter.

The campaign start in two days but in the meantime you can go have a look :

Here on Kickstarter to see the pin’s !

If you don’t know the principle of Kickstarter it’s very simple. You choose pledge and rewards, for exemple the “2 pin’s” set and you pay for your buy. Kickstarter keeps the money, if the campaign is successful you are charged, and the money is sent to me to produce the goods, package, and ship it to you.

If the campaign fails, and I really hope it won’t to see these pretty pins come true, so if it fails, the money is send back to you fully.

It’s quite safe for both parties and it’s why I like it.

The Kickstarter will have a few added rewards like prints and stickers and also extended goals for special enamel pins.

Some pledge are quite exclusive and in very limited number.

You can right now asked to be notified of the beginning of the kickstarter on this link here.

So if like me you are quite excited by the creation of these enamel pins ! Go on Kickstarter, the Kickstarter starts the 15th of October until the 14th of November ! Don’t miss it (but I’m sure I will talk about it more in future posts, maybe you could be interested in enamel pin creation process ?)

Bonjour, today I want to talk to you about a rather serious subject: chronic wrist pains as an artist. As you may know from my previous posts I am doing Inktober this year. Which means I am drawing a lot everyday, hours after hours.

Isn’t it your work all about drawing ? Well the work of a freelance illustrator includes a lot of things like answering to mails, doing quotes, doing finances stuffs and advertising as well as drawing.

And Inktober is rather drawing intensive and I have a history of having wrist pain. To be true I hurt all the time but I learned how to manage it so I can work without being too bothered.

How did the wrist pain started ?

You will allow me a bit of story time today.

I have always drawn a lot, even when I wasn’t allowed to in high school. Then when I went to art school, the amount of drawing involved in my day to day life increase, and increased and increased. At such a level that in 4th year (out of five) I started feeling an acute pains in my right wrist. The pain didn’t stop there and went to my elbow and after that to my shoulders. It was terrible.

Some times I couldn’t even close or open my hand correctly.

The summer break arrived and I was rested and ready for the 5th and last year of my school years. The last year involved making a short movie. Animation require of course a lot of drawings, 13 drawing per second, just imagine the amount of work, you need to add to that the concepts, the landscapes and all kind of artworks.

My wrist started hurting earlier in the year this time.

I wend to see various specialists, physiotherapists, osteopath and even an acupuncturist. The acupuncturist ended up really helping me in a way maybe more than the other because he managed to relax me.

Because I wasn’t only hurt I was also depressed, would I hurt forever on when I would be drawing? Could I keep drawing as a profession? Could my arm be cured?

It was scary !

I finished my year, I finished my project in the utmost pain but I finished.

Oh if you’re curious I’m putting it here, it’s kind of old but I guess it’s worth the watch :

You are going to ask me where is the silver lining here? It’s getting pretty depressing. And yes it was, I was depressed for a while. I stopped drawing for a while too.

After a while I came to the conclusion that :

1. I needed to stop doing animated film
2. I had to work differently
3. I had to find a new life hygiene

All the three answers where not easy to accept.

Because work can be found more easily in the animation industry than as a starting freelance artist. Animation is hard work but it’s well paid. I found very hard to reduce my workflow because I’ve always been a workaholic. I never stop drawing if I am not stranded (but honestly I was). But I had not choice and I started my path.

Changing your life hygiene to live with the wrist pains.

What does that even mean?

What to do when you have wrist pains?

I discovered that at some point the pain never stop, I went and read articles about the cause, like this one it helped me understand .But in the en I managed it by… Be ready, it’s the big answer : doing sport !

The osteopath often told me, go swimming it’s the best way to muscle your shoulders. But it is not easy to have a good swimming pool around my home, and I never had the opportunity to do that. But I managed to find a routine that I want to explain to you:

1* Muscle your wrist ! Get it stronger

This is actually the best advice I ever got. It is basically this video here that helped me the most : See it here.

And doing these exercises at least 3 times a week help strengthen my arm and my wrist really efficiently. It greatly reduced the heavy pains. And after a while of exercising my wrist the pains would be low enough for me to do art everyday.

2* Take breaks!

Yes don’t push yourself! This one was particularly hard, but I know now, that if one day I feel like my hand can’t make it, it’s ok, I can stop now. You don’t have to listen to the guilt. Then I will do something else, like writing a blog post (yes today I am totally hurting and I missed an Inktober day, but it doesn’t matter, health first and it allow me to share this story with you!). I won’t say it enough, just be nice to yourself.

3* Relax

Maybe this one is just for me, I’m a stressed one, and my pain also comes from the fact that I crisp my hand on my pencil. I am often tense. This tension is really bad and increase the workload on the hand.

How to relax ?

I’ll let you find your way, for me it’s to take walks, go biking, being in the nature is the most efficient way for me. I try to have a breather for 30 minutes at least every day. Talking to someone about my troubles, or just taking a deep breath.

Is being an artist possible with chronic wrist pains?

Yes of course! It is very possible, but always remember that health comes first. And there is a good reason for that, if you overwork yourself you will pay the price the next day, so it’s not really efficient in the end.

Have some tea!

Ok I hope I helped you in some way! I am of course no doctor and am just giving advice from my own experience.

Tell me in the comment if you are in a similar situation. Do you have wrist pains? How do you manage it?

Bonjour ! Inktober has been starting for almost a week already and I must say I’m quite confortable with my time at this point of the challenge. But it’s only the beginning, let me show you how I planned my time for Inktober drawing to finish the challenge.

More than just sharing my art from this week, I wanted to help you with what I do that I hope will help me finish Inktober in time and not stressed out.

Start by deciding what you will plan on drawing.

Before Inktober I have decided what I will be doing, or at least a good part of it. I know I will be drawing women, medieval women and some from pop culture. And I also know I will be trying to follow the prompt. But to be honest I find it harder and harder. It doesn’t matter, I’m still doing a drawing a day !

I have already talked about my theme in this post, go check it out.

Sketch your Inktober in advance.

It is a very good idea to draw some of the sketches in advance. I have done few sketches even before October has started. Last week, when I had a bit of time after inking my illustration of the day I would spend it on the sketch of the next day.

This should be visible in future illustrations. In that I mean that I’ve drawn some sketches for various days of Inktober. But in the more recent sketches I have done, I’ve decided stylise more my illustrations. I want to have more strong shapes and more defined look.

When it comes to finding your style, Inktober is actually pretty good for that. Since you will be doing a lot of illustrations in a short time.

Fix yourself a time everyday to draw.

If you plan on finishing Inktober to the end. The best is to create a habit. Try fining time every day to draw. The thing with inktober is that you doesn’t need to spend too much time on each drawing. For exemple I’ve decided to do A4 and A5 illustrations. It means that I would have less work on some days. And these days I will use it to do my sketches for the next day or the days I know I haven’t planned a sketch yet.

And to be honest, the other day I had more time for the challenge and I also did the Inktober for the next day ! It just mean I will be able to have one day off ! This day off is actually today, and I’m taking it to write in the blog, because I also much enjoy doing the blog, it’s a new habit I have now.

I hope these small tips will help you to plan your time for Inktober and finish the challenge. Don’t forget to rest, if you’re feeling tired one day it’s ok to either do a very minimal drawing or just skip a day.

Have a good Sunday and I’m leaving you with the Inktober illustration of the week :

If you want to see my inktober day after day I post it everyday on my instagram @isaarne.art but I will of course keep you updated next week on what I will have worked on.

Ok bye for now !