Inker Acquired
Hello everyone,
Goodness I can not begin to cover or explain the amount of talent, good will, love, and ink that the people following us have demonstrated over the last week or two. When I mentioned that we were looking for an inker, I thought we might hear from a person or two but GOOD LORD! I heard from a lot of people.
And here’s the crazy thing. I (Jeremy) was acting as a filter to start with. Trying to see what people to send on to Jenn based on experience level and adaptability to her style and after a while I just gave up. You’re all amazing. So, honestly talking with Jenn it just came down to trying out the people she thought would best fit her style. We sent out a couple of sample pages to people we thought fit that bill. Should I show you a panel? Sure, I’ll show you literally the first panel of Dressed to Kill, which you will eventually see when you open the book:
Our heroine, Viviana “Viv” Hernandez, climbing into an air vent. Because you can’t have an action movie without someone climbing into an air vent. So above are Jenn’s original pencils for the panel. Notice the combo of bad ass jacket and thoughtfully designed dress? Guys, you’re going to see some amazing clothing in this book in the days to come. And thankfully, now it will be inked.
And it will be inked by the astonishing @meridart who sent us some awesome sequential ink samples that Jenn thought were a good match for what she wanted to do, then took a beautiful shot at inking the pages. I am so excited to be working with her!
So, if you sent us links, pages, messages, etc - I appreciate it so much. This is a dream book for both Jenn and I and we were so glad to have people respond with so much excitement to our call. You guys are the absolute best. The ultimate different was style and how well Ainhoa and Jenn matched and that’s not something you can necessarily teach.
But, i had a lot of people ask me questions about submitting stuff to us for this and I thought it might be worth the time to throw you all some best practices from some of our favorite folks:
1) The absolute most important thing is to have proof that you can do the job. You are all amazing illustrators, but frankly if you do not have sequential work on your portfolio/tumblr/DA whatever, I’m not going to consider you for a sequential job. Please don’t take this personally, but you wouldn’t hire someone to fix your jet who was the best lawnmower repair person. Sequential art is a different art form with different demands and, while they may not be the same as Liam Neeson’s, it does require a particular set of skills.
2) Provide a link the first time you message someone. I don’t want to seem petty but I know there are some people whose messages got washed away in the tide because they didn’t send me links when other people did.
3) If I don’t give you a deadline, tell me when you’ll have something: This is something Ainhoa (and other artists in the past) did that made an immediate difference in my view of her. When I sent sample pages, she said “I will have them to you by X”. That let me know that she knew what she was doing on the work and how long it would take. I really despise the feeling of chasing artists down for things and whether or not it’s terrible of me, I will do nearly anything to avoid it.
4) Ask Questions: It’s a little thing, but when we sent stuff out some people asked questions about what color a persons hair was or what the lighting was supposed to be like and more generally, what kind of feel we were looking for. That is a nice feeling.
So take that stuff for what it’s worth if you want it, if not, forget it!
But everybody welcome @meridart to Team Dressed to Kill!