Interviewing the Flock, featuring: Riggy
Zach: What would you like me to call you?
Riggy: Riggy's fine
Zach: What are your thoughts on our Discord?
Riggy: The Discord's absolutely amazing and I'm grateful for joining it every day. I really didn't expect for it to become such a great place for emotional support, or that I would get as involved with it as I did. I haven't been in a community before where everyone is so relentlessly loving and knowing that this community is here has sometimes been the only thing keeping me going while dealing with the all nonsense with school/work/people and such. I really love the people on here, as well as being able to share what I do with everyone, and share in the love we all have for the comic itself and how it's unified everyone here.
Zach: Alright so well done on answering that, I was going to start with a quick easy response question but you handled that like a champion counselor before a Senate hearing.
Riggy: Ahh thank you, I have a lot to say about how great it is that the masses must hear haha.
Zach: They deserve a moving orator, and you have answered the summons.
Zach: So I hear you're studying Communication Design with a concentration in Illustration.
What does that mean (in non-selling-the-major-like-a-college-used-car-salesman fashion)?
Riggy: The easiest way to describe it is that I'm a graphic design major with a strong emphasis on branding and marketing, while the illustration concentration aspect of it is me taking classes that help me get better at the techniques used for illustrating, such as the life drawing class helping me get better at drawing from observation as well as learning to draw the human form and having the fundamental understanding of that.
It's also learning to use the programs that are industry-standard, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and such
Zach: A lot of "Here's how to use what you're interested in outside of more artwork, now please go out and be successful and not starve" then?
Or am I way off?
Riggy: Well, the graphic design industry is incredibly lucrative, every single company needs designers to market them, create an image to sell. Think of every professional marketing campaign you've seen, there's an entire team of people working on it. Absolut Vodka is a really good example of strong design in advertising. It's a far different beast than being, say, a studio artist trying not to starve. What I'm learning to do isn't very interpretive or abstract, it needs to be effective to get the point across and still be aesthetically appealing. It's a lot of "here are the tools, we're going to teach you how to use the tools, but you need to grow and learn to use them effectively."
There's a lot of nuance to it that you wouldn't expect, it's definitely a skillset that takes a long time to build.
Zach: You just explained in the kindest, most informative and followable way possible that I was, in fact, way off.
Zach: How do you feel you're doing?
This semester is over and you have the time to catch your breath, pad your portfolio and gauge the new year's possibilities.
Does that come with trepidation, nervous excitement, fear of the unknown, fear of the certainly known professor you're absolutely going to have in a class, or more of the same you've been feeling since you started?
Riggy: I'm doing really, really well, I don't think I could've picked a better major/career path for myself. Sometimes it takes a bit but I've really clicked with most of my classes and (fingers crossed) I'm pretty sure I got all A's again this semester. The actual grades aren't the most important, though I do need to keep scholarships, but it also means that I've gotten really good feedback and my professors have really liked my work and can see that I've been improving.
Zach: Excellent!
Riggy: For next semester, I'm a nervous person in general but in terms of schoolwork I feel completely fine, it's mostly dealing with people/other obligations I'm not excited about.
Right now I just want to work on personal projects I haven't had time for.
Zach: Lets focus in on that for the next question.
What project are you looking forward to, for example?
Riggy: Flockbook, definitely. Whether that's the guest artist submission or not, I don't know yet, but I do want to get back on it. I also have a couple animatics in the works and a poster design I want to get to. And commission work if the good people will have me haha
Zach: You like to keep a full plate, I take it?
Riggy: I get antsy if I don't have anything to do but I'm still trying to find the balance of how much I can healthily take on. Working on stuff over break is fine, my issue is balancing things during the school year because of all the obligations I need to incorporate.
Zach: That's fair.
Zach: What do you feel is the dumbest thing you've ever done?
Riggy: Well.
It was the end of a really, really long day and I was dead tired, I was changing out of my clothes to go shower, and in taking off my bra my hands fumbled with the elastic straps and I ended up accidentally slingshot-punching myself in the face. Not..my finest moment.
Zach: And what did you learn?
Riggy: 1. Get more sleep and 2. Maybe next time just unhook it.
Zach: Solid advice.
Zach: So now for a question I don't have written down to ask. Instead, I'd like to choose from a book based upon a random number.
Would you be willing to become extremely ugly physically if it meant you would live for 1,000 years at any physical age you choose?
Riggy: I wouldn't want to live for a thousand years, so I would refuse whatever power/entity's offering this tradeoff.
Zach: There's a good answer!
Zach: Who, among the Flock, would be your one phone call?
Riggy: What... kind of phone call? Death bed? Phone a friend? Or just general "I want to talk to this person for a bit."
Zach: You're in a cell. You get one phone call.
Riggy: Ohhh jail.
I know Geoff in real life, and he'd probably bail me out.
Zach: Probably closer, too.
Riggy: Yeah if we're not in school together, we're about a couple hours away.
Zach: What piece do you feel the most accomplishment over in your portfolio?
Riggy: I think the flower ladies portrait series I did for my history class, or the book cover series. The portraits I had a lot of fun actually illustrating but the book covers are more in line with what I'll probably be doing as a career and they were very well-received so I like both of them.
Zach: What would you like to go forth and do with your degree, if you could choose who would hire you and for what cause or medium?
Riggy: My ideal job is actually children's book writing and illustration, I'm very passionate about diversity, empowerment, and creating media that have strong LGBT+ characters and I would love to incorporate that into books and stories so that positive and uplifting ideas can spread more easily.
Zach: That... is really heartwarming and awesome.
Riggy: I'd also really like working as a book cover/poster designer, or for a branding company but the children's book thing is the goal.
Zach: I don't have a funny quip or anything to tie this off with, that's just a really wholesome and soothing career goal.
I hope you reach it.
Riggy: Ahhh thank you I'll keep you updated!