Posted: July 3rd, 2010 | Author: sean azzopardi | Filed under: News | Tags: 2010, Artist, Azzopardi, studio | No Comments »
I love working here. I do miss having people around and being inspired by that kind of energy. But it’s a good time, no complaints.
Posted: February 10th, 2009 | Author: sean azzopardi | Filed under: Artists Corner | Tags: 2009, Artist, corner, Oli, Smith, studio | 1 Comment »
Oli Smith is a London based self publisher who’s work include titles such as Hazy Thursday, Summer Ball and Weekend friends. He has also written for Dr Who, and illustrates and paints the odd canvass. I thought it would be fun to ask him about his choice of materials, but also, his approaches to laying out his comics. Well Oli, you seem to use a range of styles in your comic work, from sharp line to abstract areas of wash. Firstly what is your choice of pens or brushes, and what type of paper do you like to work on?
Haha I’m sure that’s one of those questions to which the answer is ‘whatever is needed for the comic at the time’ although that’s not the real answer. I was initially (and still am to some extent) restricted by budget as art materials ain’t cheap… Initially I started with a very nice watercolour set I had from my GCSE art days where I would block in the colours and outline in biro- which is stil something I like to do. But then I decided that I couldn’t afford to print in colour and so switched to non waterproof indian ink which worked pretty much the same, but in black and white- I outlined detail with a dip pen, the differences in style in my early days were mostly due to me experimenting with different dip pens eventually simply using washes to draw the shading out of the dip pen marks, all my early comic were done in that way. For weekend friends I used a similar technique but with gel pens, but I drew all the pages in my sketchbook which led to a more causal approach to the art rather than the formal nature of watercolour paper. Nowadays I have got back into acrylics but am still working on how to convey that texture effectively in a printed comic. 
How do approach making a comic? Do you full script, thumbnail, or go straight to paper and improvise?
I will spend days refining the story in my head and jot down occasional snippets of dialogue. I will then number the pages and write the dialogue that accompanies each page, which results in about two sides of dialogue. The art will be improvised based around the information I need to convey on each page, which hinders me in some way as my pacing is hard to pin down when working only from dialogue. Once that is done though I will then proceed to go through the original script and remove about eighty percent of the dialogue which I feel is unnecessary, ad then letter that onto the work.
To my eye, you seem to prefer a text and illustration approach to comic making. Is this because you see your work as book material rather than comics. Or are you making a bolder statement? Do you feel that the panel and speech balloon approach restrictive?
No I see my work as comics, I think it would be snobby to call it otherwise, it’s still a combination of words and pictures. But i like the non use of speech bubbles as I usually aim for a rather dream like approach to the comics, in my head the words are all voiceovers to the action, and I hope that the writing is strong enough to allow people to differentiate between characters rather than pointing it out. Also I’m terrible at drawing decent speech bubbles and initially just prit sticked printed out sheets of dialogue onto the originals. With Summer Ball I wanted the speech to be very vague as if the reader was simply following me through the party overhearing what was said. I do like panels but tend to keep them as regular grids as I like how grids pace the comic naturally rather than stressing different events, a technique I nicked from Chris reynolds which very clearly illustrates how fast a comic should be read. 
The actual craft of drawing, you seem to have a very instinctive approach. Once an image is on the paper, that’s it, no reworking, no correction. Why do you prefer this approach, what do feel is the plus side, rather than the traditional work it all out in pencil then ink.
That’s because the most important aspect of my comics in my mind is the atmosphere, creating an identifiable mood and instilling it in the reader. I find that the best way to convey that is to get in the mood myself and work as quickly as I can to capture that, and the moment it’s captured I leave it. I used to rework things a lot and I found the art ended up soulless. Something particularly obvious in my early canvases as there was no story or dialogue to try and pull it back to that mood.
Finally, how do you see your comics developing. Are they just a vehicle for trying ideas, a valid reason in itself, or is there some real need to grow through the medium, using it as a form of expression for your main work, building over the years, the decades ?
I don’t really know to be honest, I have come to the stage where at the moment I am enjoying trying out new ideas, and if some ideas happen to seem as if they could be conveyed well through a comic then I do a comic. Although I have been holding off the comics at the moment until I have a great story in my head as the experimental issues aren’t particularly well received, but its nice to accept that I am going through a new learning process and when I finally get to a stage where it all works together then I will be able to create something far removed from my early stuff, and hopefully much better. I don’t see comics as an end in themselves personally but more as one of many devices that could be used to convey an idea. In the same way as one off illustrations or prose work will do similar things in their own ways. 
And , in the world of Oli, what would be the ideal set up In a few years time . What would be the dream work space?
I want a big white attic studio apartment with a grid of canvases on my wall, each being the panel to a giant comic. I’d like to have somewhere to display my work as it is much easier to judge the quality of a piece in an exhibition format than squinting at it from on top of my wardrobe. To me art has always been about communicating with people and without that interaction then I see little point to doing it, so it would be good to be able to have somewhere to really look at the work objectively.
Oli Smith, thank you very much!
Oli’s website can be found here.
Posted: April 21st, 2008 | Author: sean azzopardi | Filed under: Artists Corner | Tags: 2008, April, Artist, Azzopardi, corner, Oliver.lamden, process, Sean, talks, with | 3 Comments »
Laurence may give me some sort of panel layout or have specific ideas for actual panels but otherwise I do most of my working out on the page. Which is bad really because I end up turning the paper to shit from all the rubbing out I do. I try and use sketchbooks to work out panels and things but then I just get frustrated because I can’t get the same result down on the actual page. A lot of times I end up drawing a good panel on another bit of paper and cutting and gluing it onto the real page.
I get bored easily so I may start a page, pencil and ink bits of it and then move onto another. I usually leave tricky panels behind as well so by the time I get to the last page I end up going back and doing a sweep of all the pages, finishing bits off, adding and tweaking here and there. There may be particular pages or sequences that I’ve been dying to get to and I know exactly how they’ll look in my head so they get done quickest. On the whole though, most panels get inked soon after being pencilled. Inkings my favorite bit.
Basically a bunch of Pilot ball pens, a super-thin one which I end up having to replace every few weeks cos I’m too violent with it, some black markers and cheap pencils. That’s about it. I’ve started using grey Letraset markers which are fun too and I seem to work faster with them which is always good. Need to keep trying new things though, have never used a brush or dip pen or anything, probably about time I did. Biro’s are great as well, they’re like inky pencils. I’m one of those people who believes you can use use anything from a stick with mud on the end to a string of snot to get a good effect. You should never be held down to what some people regard as ”professional tools”. Balls to that. I don’t use a light-box either, I ink straight on top of the pencils and then rub ‘em out (often too soon, smudging the ink). There’s a certain energy you lose I think, when simply tracing on top of the original pencils.
It just adds something a little different I reckon. I usually shade using crosshatching which I’m not very good at really and it is time consuming. I’m using the usual TFTF crosshatching style on the first issue of The Dan Lester Mysteries but reckon I’ll change to grey tones with the second issue, simply because it’s faster and it distinguishes it from Tales From The Flat a bit more. With Bloc, which is so different from anything I’ve done, I just had to use the grey-scale to make it work, to add a bit of depth. Hopefully with Bloc, people who are familiar with TFTF will look at it and not even realise it was me who drew it.
I’d love to see a full colour TFTF comic sometime down the line, it’s just so damn expensive. There’s a reason one doesn’t see many, if any small press titles in full colour. But we will get around to it sometime. When we have had stuff in colour and when I’ve been the one colouring it I just use Letraset markers (they’d best see this and all the advertising I’m giving em and send me free pens), you can build up layers of colour with them and once they dry they look a little like watercolours. I’m still figuring them out really. We did a full colour two page comic for Volume Magazine which was coloured on Photoshop by our now resident colourist, Jake Harold and that looked great. I’m not a big fan of computer colouring as it is a little soulless but if done right it can look good. I just like my comics to look a little more organic. That’s why we rarely use computer lettering as well.
Well I’m useless with Photoshop so I don’t use it directly for anything. But once every-thing’s scanned in, Laurence or Jake will rectify mistakes or paste in new panels if I’ve not done it myself by hand. With TFTF#7 we started putting all the lettering on with Photoshop. I still lettered it all by hand, we just had it on there as a different layer. I’m crap at placing lettering and Laurence always shouts at me so using Photoshop to do it just gives you more options and freedom.
Y’know, thinking about it, it would be nice to work in a sort of a studio environment with other artists and writers. I’m usually at my best alone in my room at 3am but I also work well if someone’s in the room with me doing something vaguely creative. Even if they’re just playing computer games
actually. I think it’s possible to kind of feed of each other’s creative energy and create a great working space. So yea, a studio type situation where a bunch of people just knuckle down for hours on end and listen to good music would be great. No bloody TV’s. I never have the TV on while working, music only. Computer games are an exception for some reason. The sound of gunfire sustains me.
Posted: January 13th, 2008 | Author: sean azzopardi | Filed under: Twelve Hour Shift | Tags: Artist, Azzopardi, book, Comic, graphic, Hour, London, Novel, Publisher, Sean, Self, Shift, Twelve | No Comments »
Twelve Hour Shift is now available for sale.
Posted: September 28th, 2007 | Author: sean azzopardi | Filed under: Twelve Hour Shift | Tags: Artist, Azzopardi, book, Comic, graphic, Hour, London, Novel, Publisher, Sean, Self, Shift, Twelve | No Comments »
I’m unsure of the cover, so i am trying something else.
Posted: September 23rd, 2007 | Author: sean azzopardi | Filed under: Twelve Hour Shift | Tags: Artist, Azzopardi, book, Comic, graphic, Hour, London, Novel, Publisher, Sean, Self, Shift, Twelve | No Comments »
Posted: September 19th, 2007 | Author: sean azzopardi | Filed under: Twelve Hour Shift | Tags: Artist, Azzopardi, book, Comic, graphic, Hour, London, Novel, Publisher, Sean, Self, Shift, Twelve | No Comments »
Here is the image for the back cover. When i publish my mini comics, the back cover would have a photo relating to the interior content. Maybe this is a hair wish fulfillment pic.
Posted: September 19th, 2007 | Author: sean azzopardi | Filed under: Twelve Hour Shift | Tags: Artist, Azzopardi, book, Comic, graphic, Hour, London, Novel, Publisher, Sean, Self, Shift, Twelve | No Comments »
Here is a second colour version of the cover. It’s getting closer to what i have in mind, less clutter.
Posted: September 16th, 2007 | Author: sean azzopardi | Filed under: Twelve Hour Shift | Tags: Artist, Azzopardi, book, Comic, graphic, Hour, London, Novel, Publisher, Sean, Self, Shift, Twelve | No Comments »
