Make a Nerdy Living

by Alex Langley

  Pens: Digital allows you to make as many mistakes as you want and to change your mind later. Physical mediums like inking teach you to bring a decisiveness to your marks, which allows you to work faster, better, and more often. Legendary comic book artist Sergio Aragonés (Mad magazine, Groo the Wanderer) blitzed his way through countless sketches at lightning speed due to the boldness of his movements. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to attend the Quick Draw panel at San Diego Comic-Con, you’ve probably been witness to the speed and humor of his art, the way he could slice an image onto a page like an ink-drenched samurai master. This speed, this precision of conveyance, only comes from years of practice using a bold medium like ink. Art is at its best when it lacks self-consciousness. Tommy Wiseau may not be the world’s best actor, but, by Odin’s beard, is he fearless in his expression, and as a result we got the unique wonderfulness of his film The Room.

  Pencils: Graphite and colored pencils come in a variety of shades, hardness, and darkness. A small pack with a handful of gradients is probably all you need; having too many gradients can make you waste your time trying to figure out if a pencil is the “right” pencil.

  A sketch pad, preferably several: Keep a pocket-size sketch pad with you wherever you go and sketch when the impulse seizes you. At home, use a larger sketch pad to work on variations of the same concept on one page; it will be easier for you to make comparisons between them.

  A canvas, paint set, and brush set: Painting isn’t for everyone, as it takes a lot of prep and space and may not suit your style of art; that said, it forces you to work with impulsive decisions and hones your decisive element. Paintings also sell better than purely graphite pencil work.

  KNOW THYSELF’S BUDGET

  Art costs money to make. Digital art has a high up-front cost, with computers, tablets, and art programs being at a high price point but low maintenance cost once you’ve got what you need. Traditional media such as pencil, paint, and hedgehog excrement all have low costs of entry but continuous maintenance costs. Pencils break, paint dries, and hedgehogs aren’t always pooping, so expect frequent art supply runs in your future. Plus, while digital art mostly takes up hard drive space to make and store, physical art requires materials that take up physical space as you use them.

  Initially, it’s going to be difficult to figure out exactly how much your monthly budget will be (and how much of it will be eaten up by supplies). For the pricier parts of your artistic toolset, I’d recommend asking friends and family for them as birthday/holiday gifts to take some of the sting out of your wallet.

  CREATE A PRODUCTIVE WORKSPACE

  Where are you going to create your art? At your home office? At a coffeehouse, so you can sip caffeine and look pretentious? Hanging upside-down in a cavern in South America? Wherever your workspace is going to be, try to make it as free from bad distractions as possible. I’m not talking about music or podcasts, as those can be good distractions for many artists by allowing them to focus part of their mind on what they’re hearing and let their artistic side focus on the art itself. I’m talking about, say, random people walking by and talking to you, or YouTube/the Internet at large, both of which are distractions that require maintenance from you and pull you out of that delicious, ever-elusive flow (see page 10).

  PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, THEN PRACTICE SOME MORE, THEN KEEP PRACTICING, THEN ONCE YOU’RE DONE PRACTICING YOU KEEP PRACTICING BECAUSE YOU’RE NEVER DONE GETTING BETTER

  Every author with a published book has half a dozen more terrible books that will never see the light of day, and any artist creating gorgeous works of art will have a rogue’s gallery of terrible garbage they made while practicing and learning their trade. Art skills can be picked up with enough time, and the skills you learn while painting or inking or drawing with graphite or using a particular program will frequently translate to another medium or program. All practice is worth your time, even if it doesn’t result in a useable product in a medium you normally work with.

  DON’T WASTE TIME FIDDLING WITH KNOBS

  When I get a new game with character customization, I like to spend a lot of time tweaking the facial features, trying to see if my character will look cool in-game or like a troll doll with a flashlight stuffed under its chin. Sometimes this process takes so long I run out of time to actually play the game.

  The same issue can happen to artists. Fiddling with custom nibs and brushes and paint combinations can be a productive use of your time; it can also be a way of losing yourself in the minutiae and not getting anything productive accomplished. Getting the work done and spending time practicing is much more important than wasting endless hours calibrating your tools until they’re juuuuuuuuuust right. You’ll intuitively get a feel for what you need as you’re working.

  WORDS FROM WORKING NERDS

  Ronnie Filyaw, best known for writing and drawing the comic Whomp!

  About seven and a half years ago, I became frustrated with trying to find a job that suited me. So while I was unemployed, I began drawing different comics to be posted on the Internet. The first two titles I attempted left me unsatisfied, but upon reading KC Green’s Gunshow, I was inspired to try something new and absurd. I was happy with what I was creating, and it’s the primary reason I stuck with it.

  What is the process like for creating a webcomic?

  I would say no such “average workday” exists for me. I will wake up in the morning very grumpy; then as I watch streaming videos on the Internet, I will fret over what joke I’m writing next. Once I’ve managed to work out a joke I think is acceptable, I will pull out my lap table and digitizing tablet and draw it. Usually, I’m listening to a podcast or watching a television show that doesn’t require much of my attention while I work.

  What has been most surprising about doing webcomics?

  I believe I may be a special case, but I’ve been amazed at the niceness of my readers. Barring a minuscule percentage of outliers, I’ve received almost nothing but kind comments, e-mails, and tweets. My comics often joke about heavy topics like depression and suicide, but no one has ever said to me, “You shouldn’t joke about that.”

  What’s the hardest part of your job?

  The greatest obstacle has been complacency. It is very, extremely, unfathomably easy to simply say, “I will not write a comic today.” Today turns into tomorrow, and tomorrow becomes “ever again.” I’ve managed, thanks to both the support of wonderful fans and a livable income, to push through those boundaries. Whomp! is the only project I’ve ever stuck with to such a satisfying degree. I am still prone to allowing projects to immediately fall by the wayside, but Whomp! is eternal for me.

  What are the advantages and disadvantages of your medium?

  The primary advantage of webcomics is that your comic can enter pretty much every Internet-connected computer in the world at the moment it is posted. You have the ability to reach into the nooks and crannies of society and pluck out the people to whom your comic resonates on a personal level. This is opposed to print comics, which reach the dwindling audience of people who would pick up an English-language newspaper, assuming you could even convince them to run a comic about farts and crying!

  A disadvantage of working on the web is the gargantuan amount of competition. It is advantageous that anyone can make a webcomic, but that means everyone can make a webcomic. To defeat that disadvantage requires having not only a consistent schedule, but something special. You have to work thrice as hard as anyone else, and even then, you may not be able to create something to which people really respond.

  Any parting advice for hopeful webcomic creators?

  Don’t quit your day job. I cannot express how important it is to put everything in your life before your webcomic. Do not leave your job. Do not neglect your family. Do not cancel social events (unless you really don’t want to go). Some of the greatest authors wrote their books on the train to work. If your passion for the work is real, the time will find you. Now, with that bit of crushing discourageme
nt out of the way, the most important comic to make is one inspired by something you love. For me, I love picking fun at myself, so that’s what I do in my comics. Maybe someday I’ll write a comic about thought-provoking space journeys!

  THE NEXT STEP: NERDY ART

  Once you’ve gotten your feet wet in ink, you’re going to have a single, burning question on your mind, the same question artists have been asking of the world since the dawn of human civilization: How can I make some money so I can keep doing this?

  CROWDFUNDING IS YOUR FRIEND

  Crowdfunding platforms like Patreon and Gumroad enable artists to make steady income from their work. If you post regularly, particularly if you’re working in the field of webcomics, it’s a smart idea to quickly get on a crowdfunding platform. Sure, it’ll feel odd having a Patreon with zero patrons for a while. Don’t sweat it—you’re setting things up for later, for after you’ve started building up your following. Start promoting those crowdfunding pages early and frequently.

  STREAM YOUR ART

  Streaming your artistic process makes for a surprisingly good, surprisingly easy show. Play some gentle music and get to drawing. Interact with fans if you want. Or don’t. Talking about your process in real time is a good idea, as it’ll help both your audience and you learn from what you’re doing.

  SELL ART TUTORIALS

  Once you’re a bit more established (and halfway kinda know what you’re doing), try offering art tips. Working one-on-one with people is a more difficult proposition, as scheduling can be a pain and not everyone deals with criticism well. An easier route to go is to create prepackaged tutorials your subscribers/patrons can get regular access to. One week, offer an in-depth tutorial on how to draw hands, the next, how to draw hair, then tips on perspective, and so on. Make your tutorials friendly, informative, and, most importantly, easy to read. It sucks to get a great art tutorial you can’t read because the artist has the penmanship of a white walker.

  DIVERSIFY YOUR SKILLSET

  As with every other type of nerdy living I discuss in this book, I recommend you diversify your skillset as an artist. Don’t just bank on being successful through one type of art; you never know what will or won’t take off at any given moment. Plus, studying more than one form of art makes you a stronger artist overall, giving you insight and techniques you can take from one field and apply to another.

  TO CHEESECAKE, OR NOT TO CHEESECAKE?

  In the artistic world, “cheesecake” art refers to images of women flaunting their sexy stuff. Drawing cheesecake and beefcake* art can be fun and positive, not to mention lucrative, but it’s also a bit of a slippery slope. When it comes to erotic content, the Internet is a dang weird place. No matter what you draw, there will be people who demand you draw something more explicit and fetishy until you’re so far outside your comfort zone you have to create contingency plans about how to hide your embarrassingly weird art from your parents in case you die suddenly.

  Finding where you draw the line is important, as people who commission hyper-specific fetish art are often unreasonably demanding in their specificity (not to mention that their fetishes can be downright gross). Any artist would get exhausted from having to do fourteen versions of the same picture of Inspector Gadget being forcibly turned into a slice of deli cheese while wearing a diaper.

  So should the sexy art route be one you wish to take, find a line and find it early. Don’t take commissions for something you’re uncomfortable drawing. Also, if you’re going to focus on drawing sexy women, do it in a way that is more about celebrating the woman’s command of her own sexuality and not so much about objectifying her.

  BEING DEPENDABLE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING GOOD

  Comic book artist Rob Liefeld (Deadpool) isn’t the world’s greatest artist. In fact, a whole lot of people like to make fun of him for design quirks he can’t seem to stop doing, such as obscuring the feet of his characters, covering everyone in weird grimace lines, and adding way too many dang pouches. And yet in the nineties, when fax machines roamed wild across the plains of the Serengeti, he was one of the hottest artists in the comic book industry and still gets plenty of work to this day. Why? Because by all accounts he’s a professional, dependable guy.

  The takeaway here isn’t that you should lean into your artistic quirks, refuse to improve, and hope you end up marketable anyway; the takeaway is to be someone audiences and other content creators can depend on. An amazing artist who constantly turns things in late is not someone people will want to collaborate with again, and audiences aren’t likely to continue visiting your page if you allow it to lie fallow for weeks and months at a time. Meet your deadlines and keep on posting, even if it’s no more than sketches and works-in-progress.

  WORDS FROM WORKING NERDS

  HYUNSUNG “CREEES” LEE, comic artist/illustrator*

  I was always interested in drawing and did it as a hobby, but it was during junior year of high school when I decided to pursue art as a career. After graduating from SVA—the School of Visual Arts—I went straight into drawing comics and going to comic conventions.

  Describe an average workday for you.

  My average day consists mostly of me live-streaming my work on Twitch.tv. I usually do commissioned illustrations and comic work on there for about six hours. After that, I might spend a couple hours doing studies and other work-related things.

  What was your first paid, professionally nerdy project?

  Working for Sesame Workshop. During my short time there, I designed some characters and created storyboards for minor projects.

  What tool could you not do without in your job?

  The brush. I really fell in love with brush and ink in my senior year of college. Klaus Janson, a legendary inker at DC Comics (also my professor during my sophomore year at SVA), is the one who told me to try inking with a brush, and now I can’t draw without it.

  In addition to being a professional artist, you also stream your work. What do you feel are the advantages of pursuing your passions from more than one angle as opposed to putting all your efforts into a single avenue?

  Streaming and using social media has allowed me to reach many different types of viewers who I might not have been able to reach without these platforms. For anybody trying to pursue art, I think using social media is super important, [as well as] being consistent with posting.

  What tips might you have for newcomers to your field?

  I found that drawing popular things such as superheroes and staying on the hype of upcoming things helps people find your work more than just doing your own original work. Don’t give up, and work as hard as you can!

  SELLING ART IN PERSON: GALLERIES

  Presenting and selling your work through galleries and art shows is about as close to “typical” as an artist can have for their career; it’s a proud artistic tradition stretching back for centuries. You can make a nice living at it, but it’s something heavily limited by geographic availability. If you live in a rural area, odds are low that you’ll be able to sustain yourself through gallery sales.

  Even if you do live somewhere with some art galleries, making sales at such locations requires serious showmanship skills. A mediocre artist who knows how to monitor trends and sell themselves well will do significantly better than a great artist who ignores trends and is too shy or detached to market themselves. Presence in local galleries will also do little to help your online career, unless you present your online presence aggressively and flamboyantly.

  All in all, galleries are a bit of an old person’s game at the moment. Often they’re run by older folks and stocked with the sort of art that older, well-off people like to put in their homes—art that is rarely of the nerdy persuasion. Twenty, ten—hell, even five years from now, the gallery world may be completely different, so it’s worth keeping an eye on even if it’s not your main area of interest.

  SELLING ART IN PERSON: FAN CONVENTIONS

  Many nerdy artists find it easier to sell their work at
cons because they’re among their people. Trying to explain to a random retired couple from Ohio why they should spend $800 on your Mona Lisa–styled Cersei Lannister portrait is likely to be a losing battle from the start. At a fan convention, you won’t have to explain such awesomeness because your fellow nerds will know exactly why your art is awesome.

  In addition to heeding the convention tips covered in chapter four, as an artist you’ll need a means of transporting your goods. You’ll also need said goods. The cost of printing services to create copies of your art will add up quickly; buying a high-quality printer early on and printing your work yourself will save you beaucoup buckos in the long run.

  If you’re comfortable doing quick work at a convention, taking commissions there can net a strong influx of cash. Plan ahead to give yourself plenty of time to get finished, get paid up-front, and do not haggle or let your customers devalue your art (hard as that may be).