finchfully

Hey guys, sorry for the long absence. I’m here to give dA another shot.

I’ll be doing so over at my new account – linterstellar . Hopefully I’ll stick to that one and we won’t have any crazy long disappearances for a while! But wait, before you click over there, I have some stuff I want to talk about. Explain myself a bit.

It’s been a long time. A lot of you have probably forgotten about me, haha, and that’s totally understandable. It’s been a few years! 

First of all, before I left, throughout the years I spent on dA, I met some people who became good and hugely influential friends, people who supported me and encouraged me throughout those early years of growing and developing as an artist. Can I just say to those people, thank you. I joined dA when I was 12! Throughout my time on this website my skills grew more than in any other period of my life (my hiatus included…). I can’t wait to reconnect with the people I left behind here – hopefully you’re all still around – and meet new people! That’s something I’ve really missed, and I think the lack of a support network around me has really made my art, and my motivation to make art, suffer horribly over the time I’ve been away. And that brings me to my next point…

People who followed me on tumblr back in the day would know that eventually I lost interest in dA and spent more time over there, still drawing a bit, thankfully. But then, of course, my interest in that platform ended too (I got sick of the culture, though I definitely learned a lot from that website and appreciate the time I spent there). Then Zip was gone – my internet presence under that pseudonym had ended, the only time I spent online became limited to mainstream social media, where obviously I use my real name. But to you guys, it looked like I just disappeared off the face of the earth, I guess! Sorry about that. 

Now here’s the really crap part. You’d think that over the time I’ve been absent I’ve still been busily drawing, improving and improving. Here’s the thing: I haven’t. My departure from the artistic spheres of the internet coincided with the huge increase in workload and study demands that entering into senior school – year 10, 11, and 12 – brought. I was just too busy. I still drew a little bit, mostly because I was taking art classes, but they did not push my skills or encourage me to develop the skills I was interested in. But in any case – I lost interest, I lost motivation. Other things took its place, I guess – I got into writing a bit, which was nice, but still, most of my time was spent either studying or at work. But once year 12 finished, I of course wanted to start drawing again…and this is where it got really difficult.

Over the three years I spent *not* drawing, my skills had obviously gotten really, really rusty. So every time I would go to draw something, it’d come out just terribly. I’d look at it and go, “my god, I’ve regressed”. And though I knew that the only way to get back to my previous skill level was just to practice, everything I did seemed to be shit. It was so discouraging. Nothing I drew made me happy or satisfied because it didn’t live up to my expectations. So, soon I was caught up in this dreadful cycle of wanting to practice to get better, but not being motivated to practice because everything I did just made me feel like a failure. It made me regret the years I spent studying and working – even though that time spent studying ensured that I would get the mark to get into university, which I did. More on that later. But I just felt so crap about myself. 

Now, his could easily become a rant about ohhh the education system kills creativity ooooh . And maybe it does, to a degree, but that’s not what happened here. This was my responsibility. I’m not going to point fingers and blame my damn school. This is on me. I could have just set aside a little time every day to draw, or in my downtime, took out my sketchbook rather than browse Facebook. There are a lot of things I could’ve done to maintain my skill level and ultimately my love of drawing – and I didn’t do any of those. 

It’s taken a long time, but I think I’ve gotten back to the skill level I was before I left – and god, this is embarrassing, to be working back toward where I was in *year 9*. Actually, I think I’m a little better, which is a relief haha. But yeah, it’s been a struggle breaking out of that loop. One thing that’s really helped has been taking a couple of art subjects as electives this semester at uni – one of the classes was focused on storyboarding, and in the first half of the semester we covered a lot of drawing fundamentals. Easy, basic things I already knew like rendering and figure drawing etc etc, basics. You know how they always make you draw some cubes and shade a sphere and stuff? That. It did solidify some old things that never quite crystallised in my head, or that I was too intimidated to really tackle, like perspective. But it was so, so helpful to just reconnect to those old skills and start from the ground up again, and having the support and encouragement and critique of my teacher and my classmates was monumentally encouraging. That way, I had other people’s voices instead of just my own! When it was just me, it was usually “this is shit” or “this isn’t good enough”. With other people, it’ll be a range of things. Fresh voices, fresh perspectives rather than the same old negative self talk. 

So since then I’ve been working, probably with more intensity and harder than ever before, to develop and improve my skills. It helps that I have goals to work toward now…I’ll tell you about those another day, haha, but let’s just say it’s a big project. As I’m sure you can guess, I don’t exactly have a big back-catalogue of art to show you, and the art I do have probably won’t be stunning. But look – I’m improving, and I will keep doing so, and I can’t wait. I’m excited about art again – and that’s why I’m here, so hopefully I’ll stick around. 

Going forward, if any of you guys do me the honour of following my new work, I’d love your feedback. I also really want critique, cause I just want to keep improving and get better and better. Tell me what I’m doing right, and tell me what I’m doing wrong!! Your feedback means more to me than ever before now as I try to keep climbing out of this deep, deep rut I found myself in. 

Otherwise, I’ve been doing pretty well. I’ve moved from my claustrophobic country town to the big ol city, where I’ve just finished my second year of a film degree! It’s been awesome so far. I’ve grown a lot as a person, met so many cool likeminded people, and had so many new experiences. Learnt heaps about film, about society, about people and cliche as it sounds, myself. And I can’t wait to hear how you guys have been doing. 

Last thing I want to talk about. Back in the day, since I was so young when I joined dA, my parents’ only real condition for me joining ~the internet~ was that I didn’t give out any identifying personal information, which is obviously why I used the name Zip. And it kind of went both ways – there was a very clear division between my life as an artist on the internet and as just a girl in a country town; I never showed anyone I knew in real life my artwork or my dA profile because I felt (and still, to a degree) weird about it, which is something I’m trying to confront. I want to break that barrier down now, and I’ve been doing so slowly. So basically, you can still call me Zip if you want and if it’s what you know me by, but I’m also happy to go by my real name – Lin. But if you’re gonna go with that, I’d probably prefer you use my initials, LK. But whatever, up to you.

Uh so yeah, if you’ve read this far, thanks so much. I know dA is a bit of a shithole, but it’s one that’s been good to me and I’m so excited to get going again. Hope to see you over on my new account : ) 

Okay sorry about the inactivity -- again -- well, I've been commenting and stuff periodically I suppose, but again. Art block. It camE IN LIKE A WREEEECKING BAAAAAL-nah, son, I just wanted to get that song stuck in your head.

lots of inactivity

Any comic-makers, I seriously suggest taking a look at what I have to say about Alien - I've learnt a lot from thinking about the techniques here and I want to share -
Although I do warn, SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE ALIEN.

Guys. It arrived!!!

You should all probably have realised by now that I'm a big fat alien fan. With a little bargain hunting I found a good place to buy this book along with the Prometheus artbook, cheaper than normal price!!! YEAH!!

The Alien comic has been for a little while a HUGE artistic inspiration! God, its so good and I'm not just Alien-biased..

The use of colour in this book is bloody fantastic. Check it -

These are my two favourite pages in any comic ever. Just look...a suspenseful and frightening moment in the film, translated effectively and beautifully into drawn images.
The use of a large panel in the first page is amazing. The Alien is so huge and frightening and absolutely COMMANDS your attention. And the use of the warm colours on the big chap in contrast to Brett's cool colours...its just so, so effective. And then! Then theres a smaller panel with a thin border, cropping off most of Brett's head and all of his body. We don't see much of his facial expression besides his eyes, but by the use of colour and strategic cropping we get so much menace and fear out of one panel. The use of blank space in between he and the Xenomorph creates the kind of tension that we see in the film.

As for the second page! Ah, this is probably my absolute favourite. Its a little gorey, yes, but just look at the sequences. The first panel is fantastic. We see Brett still hasn't moved, his feet are planted and probably in the same position as he's in the previous panel. Thats fear.
The Xeno's tail..you could associate it with something slithery and dangerous like a snake. I tip my hat to Giger - give that tail a sharp tip and a skeletal, plated surface, and you've got something ridiculously scary in a tail. Just a tail. And its under Brett. Slinking underneath him. Like shit, thats scary.

I love the next row of panels, they're just so ridiculously effective. I'm always a sucker for that kind of panelwork, I love when panels of the same size show a clear sequence. You can see Brett's back arch, you can see the tail delve in, his face changes and you can again see that fear. I think not being able to see most of the Xenomorph's body makes it even freakier - its suddenly become this even more distant, threatening creature which can kill you with just its tail. On top of that, see how the background colour changes!! Really adds to the whole mood of the page, I think.

The use of a big, close-up panel breaks the sequence and jumps out at you. It creates an interruption, breaking the flow and surprising you, much like a Xenomorph would do in any of the films -
Then, of course, we have the lettering. I really like how it is coloured in a gradient, starting with yellow, fading into red and being cut off with a splatter. I think that may be one of the best ways to portray death I have ever seen in a comic...its obvious, its explicit, threatening, but not overly graphic.

The last panel is harder to see in the photo, but Ripley and Parker are shown reacting to Brett's scream. It again acts as an interruption, and while its not as effective as the others, I feel that this panel is quite necessary to the flow of this page.

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Heres another cluster of panels that I like.
Check out that net. Look at how the floor is yellow, and the same colour is used as a border around Brett and Parker (obviously this is before the above two pages...) and the net. Look at how that border fades into a bolder, brighter, more attention-demanding colour - red - BREAKING a panel and ending in a burst. If thats not effective I don't know what is. Take a look at how the net and the gradient guide your eye, look at how they contrast against Ripley and the grey/black. That is good comic work.
I also always love when speech bubbles take away from the gutters. I love how the burst bubble cuts through the panel with the cat, and leads directly to Ripley - its not a classic speech bubble with a tail to the speaker, but it still is obvious who its coming from.
Also, I just love that headshot of Ripley, the cropping and facial expression is fantastic and just wow I love Ripley. She's my role model, not gonna lie.

I mean come on. She's great. Parker, I've got the toughest job on this ship. I have to listen to your bullshit. Love you Rip.


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Again!!! PANEL SEQUENCES!! Look at the top ones. Look at how the whole eaten by acid gets bigger and the colour changes to a more intense, vibrant shade. You can't see it much but the smoke actually joins with the panel border. Its great.
Now, I normally hate vertical panels, but take a look at this. We've got a panel with Brett's face, then directly underneath, we've got characters running. I think that normally I'd get really confused about this, but then I thought: what makes this work?
Simple answer: Its the speech bubble. When you see a circular white gap anywhere, your eye is drawn to it. You know you have to read whats in it!
Now notice how the bubble that reads "PARKER!" overlaps the panel with Brett's face. It then leads to another that reads "BRETT!" Your eye is already now in the panel, it has been guided by something as simple as speech bubbles.
Naturally you now go to the left. We have a long panel - but if you look at it, you'll see its not one long panel. Its three vertical panels, in one! Well, maybe not literally, but its easier to think of it in that way. You won't recognise it as three immediately, which is why your eye continues down the page rather than going left again.
These three panels show the acid burning through the levels. Our eye is guided downwards not just by speech, but by the ladder and the acid's path.
Naturally we now go upwards and left, as is normal. Theres nowhere else to go so we continue downwards.
This page is, honestly, the best execution of vertical flowing panels I have ever seen!!

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I love this too. I'm sure you can figure out why. Maybe take a look yourself, figure out whats effective about it?
Also, Kane, I love you. You're my second favourite though, sorry, you can't beat Ripley.

Anyway, I think that reading this comic (which you can do for free here) can be seriously beneficial to any comic maker. I've learnt a lot just from reading it and I find it really inspiring!! Even if you don't like sci-fi or Alien it is a seriously good comic from an artistic standpoint, even the use of narration is fantastic. Please take a look!!

TLDR; I want to be Walt Simonson when I grow up.

Cheers guys!! Was fun.

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