Anybody know a bored artist?

[PhantomFox]

So I have this project that I want to get off the ground that I need an artist for. I'd do it myself, but my own art is lacking in a couple of key areas in addition to having trouble cleaning up my sketches to make them web-presentable. Now, I know that any artist worth his salt has their own projects they want to work on, but I figure I'd give this longshot a try, and hope it works.

I'm hoping to start up a comic, and I've bounced the setting and opening arcs off a few people, and have gotten a positive response. I know I could work in a novel format, but I feel that'd lack the graphical punch I'm looking for. If anyone can help point me at someone receptive I could pitch my idea to, I'd greatly appreciate it. I figure I have nothing to lose by asking.

Thanks!

[Berserk Monk]

Bored artist? That's me. If you need my skills to make a comic that'd be great. Part of my New Year's Resolution is to produce one comic a month. At the moment I'm still thinking up plots and characters, but if I do one for someone else, that would be easier. PM me if you want to take up my offer.

[Lissou]

Since I've been there before, I suggest you work on the storyboard first, with the layout of each page, the size of each pannel, the angle the characters are in, their dialogue and so on, and create at least a strong buffer of that.

Not only will it make easier to recruit artists by showing you're motivated and they're not losing their time, but in my experience most artists will ask you to do that part anyway, and it takes so long when you're not graphically oriented and have no idea what should go where, that they get annoyed if it's not done by the next day or so and leave the project.

Plus, it helps you know what to expect, how many pages and so on.

Also, no matter how sucky your art is, doing sketches of your characters is almost compulsory, unless you manage to describe them in a very graphical way. Most artist I've known will feel free to re-interpret the drawings in their own way, but they prefer having something to work with since it's not their story, they're only rendering it (unless you want an artist who would take part in the writing process but your post sounds like you don't).

Here is an example from years ago of my scribbling and what the artist made out of it. Sorry, the text parts are in French but I'll translate them for you if you're interested.

(Click the thumbnails for bigger pictures)

Character 1: Eliam
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6075/eliamsuggfc2.th.png (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eliamsuggfc2.png) http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/7433/eliamnv3.th.jpg (http://img255.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eliamnv3.jpg)
^ suggestions / character concept from the artist

Character 2: Molfo
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/4535/molfosuggfp9.th.png (http://img520.imageshack.us/my.php?image=molfosuggfp9.png) http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/1148/molfoop3.th.jpg (http://img78.imageshack.us/my.php?image=molfoop3.jpg)

That project ended up not turning out... And that's my second "advice"... More of a piece of wisdom, really. It's art for stuff to work out. our artist was very motivated, but after 4 years and only 10 pages we just dropped it altogether. A lot of it was due to miscommunication, causing him to have a redo some pages, or not do them until we clarified things. But really, a lot of it was due to distance. Had we been in the same room talking or even on the phone, it would have worked much better.

I haven't dropped the project though, hopefully it will show up as a webcomic soon enough :P

EDIT: I almost forgot... If you can try practicing your skills on the side as a backup plan, it's probably not a bad idea. Often the only way to find a reliable artist that sees things the same way is to become that artist.

[PhantomFox]

Since I've been there before, I suggest you work on the storyboard first, with the layout of each page, the size of each pannel, the angle the characters are in, their dialogue and so on, and create at least a strong buffer of that.

Not only will it make easier to recruit artists by showing you're motivated and they're not losing their time, but in my experience most artists will ask you to do that part anyway, and it takes so long when you're not graphically oriented and have no idea what should go where, that they get annoyed if it's not done by the next day or so and leave the project.

Plus, it helps you know what to expect, how many pages and so on.

Also, no matter how sucky your art is, doing sketches of your characters is almost compulsory, unless you manage to describe them in a very graphical way. Most artist I've known will feel free to re-interpret the drawings in their own way, but they prefer having something to work with since it's not their story, they're only rendering it (unless you want an artist who would take part in the writing process but your post sounds like you don't).


NOT a problem whatsoever! I've been sketching my characters for years. My main faults are in backgrounds and coloring. And since I'm planning on setting this mostly in a FOREST, that's been giving me problems. I've got the whole initial arc worked out plot-wise, and several hooks for where to go from there banging around in my head. I'm willing to do concept sketches to help out, since really, the art is the harder of the two tasks IMO.

[Lissou]

NOT a problem whatsoever! I've been sketching my characters for years. My main faults are in backgrounds and coloring. And since I'm planning on setting this mostly in a FOREST, that's been giving me problems. I've got the whole initial arc worked out plot-wise, and several hooks for where to go from there banging around in my head. I'm willing to do concept sketches to help out, since really, the art is the harder of the two tasks IMO.

Well, I guess the harder task is always the one you have the most trouble with :P

As far as I'm concerned, the harder part is the storyboarding and layout. Deciding how many panels for each page, how many pages for the whole story, what happens in each panel, the angle of the "camera", how much dialogue per panel, how many panel for a given action and so on.
The thing is, that part isn't as "set" as to who does it. In professional graphic novels here in Europe, it's not that rare to have a person especially for that (just like there can be one just for colouring, one just for lettering and so on). When there isn't, it's either the writer or the artist who takes care of it.

But it's my experience that non-professionals and beginners will usually expect the other person to do it. So, I'm just saying, you need to be clear about that.

Now I do everything for start to finish, but looking back I think the writer probably needs to give the artist something more specific than just a panel-per-panel storyboard. Deciding already how many panels in a page, and what their importance should be, for instance, would be a good idea.

Of course for a webcomic it's "backwards", if I may say. You do one page at a time, while graphic novels usually start by deciding how many pages the full story will take (or the first novel, if there are more than one), then what goes on each page and so on.