Lora Innes comes to the ISC!
So Lora Innes came to the ISC this last Friday! She told us her dark and mysterious past of life as a CCAD graduate and the dreams of becoming a comic book superstar!
She talked about her mentor and great boss
Jim Theodore and her first real art job at
The Artifact Group
She also talked about the importance of having someone draw over your work to show where you can improve in something!
And the importance of learning the program Adobe Illustrator if you really want to get commercial work!
Lora also talked about the importance of budgeting your money if you are a freelance illustrator.
She regaled us with wondrous stories about meeting
Jeff Smith for the first time
And finding a life long friend and mentor in
Beau Smith
She talked about the importance of showing your portfolios to the right people, especially to the people who are doing what you want to do!
One of the places you can go if you are also interested in comics / web comics is
C2E2
There are many other conventions you can go to but you must learn to pick and choose the the shows that make the most sense for you, some of this will be trial an error.
Once you find these conventions that you best connect with there will be a basic timeline of how well you do if you should decide to have an art table
-First couple of years you will be in the red as you slowly build up your stock of items to sell, and find out what sells and what doesn't as well as getting a following of people that are interested in you.
- Then as you learn what works and what doesn't and have people that are excited to see you each year you will begin to break even.
- Next comes actually making a profit, as you have found a good niche hopefully for yourself and what others want, and you have loyal customers!
-finally and hopefully if you get enough people who love your work and what you do, some conventions might even invite you to come, which means they would pay for things like your hotel room, ticket to convention and table, and maybe even your travel cost.
To reach this final goal though you have to be doing the research and committing to being part of the community.
Here Lora met people like
Bob Shrek. When Bob was looking over her stuff he said:
You should be involved with the people you want to work with, give it time and you will get work in the field that you want.
Lora also gave the great advice of,
don't work for free!!!!
and, draw what you want and what you are passionate about because people will see the passion through the work!
She also went through a couple of webcomics she liked
Girl Genius
And before you start putting up a web comic you should make connections and try to build a fan base and advertising the comic to people you think would be interested in it.
You have to find out where your fans are and interact and socialize there if you want to build a loyal following
The top 2 most important details to making a successful web comic are
1. UPDATE ALL THE TIME, EVERYTIME!
---you cannot let your readers forget about you, it has to be a part of their everyday life to think about your webcomic, or it will be forgotten.
2. YOU CONTENT MUST BE ABLE TO STAND OUT
---there are so many people creating web comics now a days it is important that if you are going to add to the list that it be something worth exploring and something you are truly passionate about. You are not competing with just others like you, but also professionals and those who have been doing this for years. Be original, and don't just try to fit into a genre!
Here is a podcast about story topics and their importance!
and finally what ever you want to do in are go for it with everything you have, but don't be fooled that it's not hard.
Lora talked about the importance of updating when you said you would, and keeping that promise to your readers!
About how important the flow of lettering is on each page, and how she used a program called
Comic Life for her lettering in her own work!
Lora also talked about the tools she uses in her own process, which are
Sketchbook Pro for the drawings
and Adobe Photoshop for the colors.
For those of you interested in trying out Sketchbook pro here is a link where you can get a 2 years free use with your school email. Enjoy!!
Now that Lora updates her comic twice a week, she has hired on extra hands to help her with the comic, one being
For many of you out there who are interested in starting a webcomic, a good place to host it is
Comicpress which is hosted through
Wordpress
Important people to know in the comic world
Scott Peterson - worked on many Batman comics
David Mack - creator of
Kabuki
Chris Claremont - the man that made the X-men the X-men
Frank Miller - Writer and director. Worked on The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, 300.
Bill Wilingham - writers and creator of the comic Fables
Lora next went into how a web comic can be the stepping stone into publishing!
Lora brought here stats and views of her webcomic to the publishing company
IDW
And because they saw how many readers she had online they said yes because she had proven her comic and story were marketable!
If anyone is interested in looking into commercial illustration work there is a company called
Envisual
Lora also talked about the advantages of getting an art rep - as if you don't and you are working as a freelancer you will being doing two jobs instead of just one!
Those were all the major pointers now here are couple of photos of Lora being awesome at the ISC
Also
Paperwings Podcast - go there, learn things, do it now!
That's all for now -
P.S there will not be an official meeting of ISC next week as most of us will be out of town, but Colleen might have something special for all of you!
