Three Faces of Agnes
As an artist I try to do the best drawing possible when drawing the strip. Sometimes, I’m stressed for time and rush through creating the strip just so I can meet my own deadline. I am dreadfully aware of my own faults as an artist and am constantly trying to develop and improve my skill. Sometimes it seems like an uphill battle. One of the biggest challenges that I face is trying to keep the style of the characters consistent from week to week…even sometimes panel to panel. All my life, I’ve tried to overcome the ‘cartooniness’ of my style, never quite getting rid of it. When I started doing webcomics, I found that I had to embrace the same cartoony style that I felt was a weakness on my part. On one hand, I want to do beautifully renderd figures done in a realistic way and on the other hand I try to draw these comics in a humorous and engaging style that’s pleasing to fans of the genre. Both sides of me are at odds most of the time. In the coming weeks and months, I’m going to focus on developing a style that incorporates both mindsets and which will hopefully keep the look and feel of the strip and the characters more consistent. To begin with, I’m going to do something that I should have done from day one and create a character sheet for each member of the cast, kind of like what Bruce Timm did for The Animated Batman Adventures that will keep the look consistent throughout. Just as if I was handing the reins to another artist who has to retain the same look and feel of the original. I’m not sure how it will work or even if it WILL work, but I’ll give it a shot. But trust that I will keep all the Sonya goodness coming your way.
I’m excited and humbled to share my world and my passion with you and I want to say thanks to all for sticking with me and Agnes/Sonya during our first year as we stepped out on our own into the large and teeming world of webcomics. There will be some fantastic stuff coming up in the next year and some great projects in the works. So stay tuned!
Have a great week! – Jim
I can relate to the persistent cartooniness; I worked for a number of years as a freelance illustrator, working in various realistic-ish styles, but a certain cartoony feeling always kept seeping into my pieces. It was pretty deeply rooted – I had a period as a kid when I lost patience with doing proper human figures and made loads of action comics with soft rubbery stick figures. I think that’s when I really learned how to draw.
I eventually realized the more cartoony ones were not only more fun to make, they usually turned out more vivid and lively, so they really were my better ones… Later still I realized it was a lost cause from the start, for the artist I’d taken most of my inspiration from for my “real” art was Frazetta — and his works are cartoony as hell (in a good way) if you look closely. 🙂
I can’t say that I haven’t been influenced by Frazetta, just by growing up with his stuff and adoring everything that he did. It doesn’t show in my drawings, but I always have his work and John Buscema’s and many others in the back of my mind every time I sit down to do a drawing. I can see his influence on your work; in the resiliency and weight/buoyancy of your characters. Frazetta was a great caricaturist and both you and he have that in common.
I struggle with trying not to make my figures too stiff because I tend to overthink the drawing and lose the sense of improvisation that all good cartoonists have. My best drawings are the ones I just don’t give a damn about and they turn out the best because of the looseness or ‘rubberiness’ that you talked about. it didn’t help that I had a few years there that I didn’t draw at all and I had to relearn certain skills. The basic drawing instinct, talent, etc., never went away completely though.