9 Things I've Learned About No

My newest painting, "Eyes of the Underdark", based on applying some of what I learned from an important critique

I recently had the opportunity to get an in-depth portfolio review from Jon Schindehette, and I jumped at the chance, because my life-long dream is to be among the artists who inspired me to become one. That is to say, I want to be an artist for Dungeons and Dragons. The review was honest. Brutally honest at times. He pointed to enough flaws to rival even my own harsh inner critic. It's not easy to be told to study the masters when you've been out of art school for 10 years. His 2-page e-mail ended with "Got any specific questions for me?"

Well, I did have some questions, but there was one question that stood out among the others. It was a question with a seemingly obvious answer, but nevertheless I felt compelled to ask it: "Is there any project now or in the near future that we can work on together?"

I'll stop the story there, and jump to what I want to talk about, and that is the word "No." Specifically, I want to talk about the various things I've learned from various people and experience over the last few years.

1. Stop Avoiding No

Often, in order to avoid the No, we simply don't ask. We play out the scenario in our heads like a nightmare, and wake ourselves up just before the potential client says no. The problem with that is, of course, that even though it stamps out any possibility of a No, it also stamps out any possibility of a Yes.

2. There's a Bright Side to No.

A No usually comes with reasons. These reasons are a sign post. They are a gift. Essentially the client is telling you what exactly you need to do to get a Yes. Where before you were operating on limited information, now you're hearing from the horse's mouth what you need to do. All that is left now is for you to do it.

3. No Sets the Price of Carrying On.

Sometimes you realize that the things you have to do to get a Yes aren't worth it to you. This is when you know it's time to quit, or to pursue a different avenue, or do something completely different. This is perfectly OK. There are those who would make you feel ashamed of this, but that's about them and nothing to do with you.

4. No is temporary.

No means not yet, or not right now. You might even say that No means "yes, but later". This is not to say you should harass a client until they say yes, but use this opportunity to construct a map to where you need to go. Study the masters. Get feedback on those thumbnail sketches. Focus on anatomy.

5. No is not about you. 

No is not saying you're a bad artist, or a bad person. Don't get defensive. No is about the person who is saying no. If I asked you for a thousand bucks right now, would you say no? Would it be because I'm not worthy of your money? Or would you be more concerned with your rent, your bills, that Chinese back scratcher you wanted to buy? By the way, if you want to give me a thousand bucks, I'd greatly appreciate it.

6. Dare yourself to ask.

You can turn your fear of rejection into an adrenaline rush. I've done it. It's addicting. You didn't sit on the sidelines like you always do. You went for it!

7. Love the No, Expect a Yes.

Sometimes you feel like you deserved a Yes. There are a lot of people who always feel this way. They are called by many different names but what really matters is that they get more Yesses than you. They get more Nos than you, too. Which leads me to...

8. Yes=1, No=0. 

This means that if you ask 1000 people, and 975 of them say no, you still have 25 yesses. If you ask 20 people, and 100% of them say yes, that's still fewer yesses. For many of us, though, we overvalue the No so it counts as -1. Move past this notion.

9. Use the No as Fuel. 

Wear that No with pride. In the last few years, I've been rejected too many times to count. I use this as motivation. I no longer ever say to myself, "maybe you're not working hard enough." When I do get a yes, it always feels well deserved. I have a mountain of skulls beneath me, each skull representing a rejection, that prove how hard and high I've climbed.

I don't mean to come off as preachy, but I see the fear of No affecting a lot of incredible artists. It's those people that I hope these observations will help, because the world will be a better place if the good artists step forward to rival the ambitious artists.

Seven Ravens Redux

One of my earliest digital paintings was of a scene from The Seven Ravens, by the Grimm brothers. It was done for an Art Order challenge, and at the time I was really proud of it. In the 2 years since, my priorities in illustrating have shifted from "stark and symbolic" to "evocative and emotional". The failings of the old version come from mainly being unable to focus on what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. I just had a vision of the main character, surrounded by her transformed brothers. In the story, they aren't described as being giant, but I thought it would add some menace to the piece. In hindsight, maybe it just reminds me too much of Big Bird? Marc Scheff, in a critique, nailed it by saying that it was riding the line between wanting to be an editorial illustration and a fantasy illustration. There were, however, aspects of the the picture that I loved and wanted to keep -- Mainly the way I painted the birds. So, 2 years later, I wanted to fix this picture but the only way to do it was to start over.

In the revisited version of the picture, The elements are similar but the setting has changed. The harsh sunrise wakes her up and sheds light on the looming tree. In the story, her meeting with the birds actually happens in a castle (where she must chop off her finger to get inside. yech.) but I wanted to push the idea of the girl being alone, away from home, and anguished from the guilt of her consequences of her childishness. The story is kind of harsh toward kids, especially in this day and age. But I can relate, because I often felt a lot of shame when I was a kid. I wanted to push the picture away from being too baroque and gory, toward conveying the more subtle internal dialogue of the main character. I hope I succeeded.

Great Strides Painting completed!

I posted about a drawing giveaway a few weeks ago. I'm happy to say that the painting is finally dry enough to scan! Congratulations to the winner of this skull painting! Thank you so much to everyone who contributed. I made a total of $230!

5 Paintings That Suck: Getting Over Creative Block

Last month I hit a wall. It's a wall that every creative person bumps up against from time to time. Before that, things were going great. I was churning out painting after painting, and each one, I felt, was better than the last. It felt like it would be a matter of months before I was finally at the level that I always wanted to be. The only thing I was worried about was that I'd get so good that I'd run out of things to learn.

This one could have used more thumbnailing and more cohesive reference.

Please stop laughing.

I actually really like this self-portrait. I guess I can use it as an avatar?

Well of course, when you learn a lot at once, something happens. Flaws that you never noticed suddenly become glaring and unavoidable. You start seeing better, which means you start seeing how great your paintings aren't. This is what's happening to me right now. It's hard to explain unless you're going through it or just recently went through it. I think that's why a lot of students get so frustrated and give up.

All of my best sources and instincts tell me that I have to work through it, and that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to get myself excited that this is the precursor to a big boost in my ability. But for the time being, I'm just making stuff. I won't explain why, but the truth is that none of these pieces are portfolio-worthy, but they're each a step out of this rut.

Great Strides Drawing Giveaway!

Hey folks, This is my last week of raising money for Great Strides Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I'm walking on Saturday, and I'm really far from hitting my goal! So I'm offering a free drawing painting to one of my donors. For every $10 you donate, You'll get a chance to win a drawing painting done by me, for free! and if I make more than $200, it'll be a painting!  Update: We hit $200! (note: It won't be the painting shown here). 

The more you donate, the more chances you have to win. Also, that same $10 will enter you into a drawing for 2 free disneyland tickets?!?!?!?! that's crazy. Click here to enter: http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/LevonJihanian7040.

DEADLINE: Friday 26th, 2013, 3pm PST

Some info on Cystic Fibrosis:  Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-threatening genetic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system. Just two generations ago, most children didn’t live long enough to attend elementary school. Today, nearly half of people with CF are age 18 or older. Impressive progress has been made, but so much more needs to be done, as we continue to lose precious lives to this disease every day.

Process: The Coil Tightens

A couple of weeks ago I posted this variant cover for Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever #2. I thought I'd go over my process for it, including the back and forth between me and the editor/publisher/art director for the book, Tom Neely.

My initial instructions were to depict Henry and Glenn as warriors fighting something. This was both vague and right up my alley! I quickly drew up a couple of thumbnails:

The one on the left was a standard contemporary book cover composition, which is deceptively simple, but hard to pull off. The thumbnail on the right was collaged together. I liked the idea of painting a horse, and it was more action packed. We decided to go with the horse, so I shot some quick reference and began the line drawing:

We work with what we've got.

I was getting close to finishing a tighter line drawing when Tom asked if it was possible to have them fighting a big monster. The giant snake is a great allusion to Conan, so I agreed. It also allowed for a more flexible composition. It was a bummer, however, to not get to paint a cool rearing black stallion. I'll have to save that for another painting.

I really liked the physical story I was able to tell in the snake version. Henry and Glenn are simultaneously saving each other's lives, with Henry holding back the snake's jaws, and Glenn preparing to cut off its tongue. Originally, the plan was to have a textured white background, but Tom wanted something a bit more pulpy and less contemporary, with the characters in genre-specific clothing. I was happy to oblige and, being a child of the 80's, added a Masters of the Universe-esque background and some barbarian/knight attire.

I brought my black and white roughs into color, got the go-ahead to dive in, and started painting in photoshop! Click here to see an animated gif showing the process. With the painting done, all that was left was to add some weathered paperback texture and create a title treatment.

Final, with distress and lettering.

This painting took me a longer time to finish than usual. It took a lot of iterations to nail down some of Henry's key features. One interesting thing about this piece is that it was entirely created digitally, including the sketches and thumbnails. Also, over the course of the last few paintings I've worked on, I've surprised myself at how much I now enjoy drawing and painting things that used to fill me with terror: namely, hands and rocks.

Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever #2 Cover

Hey folks, I'm going to start blogging here a bit more often now, mostly with process & technique posts. I've spent the last few months re-vamping my portfolio and focusing in more on painting and fantasy illustration.

That said, here's a cover that I finished a couple of weeks ago for the next issue of Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever!

Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever #2 variant cover

I hope you like it! I'm working on a process post for this painting and it will be posted up very soon! Below is the official promo for it, including the awesome official cover by Tom Neely.

Update on Things

If I haven't updated in a while it's because I've been extremely busy! For 1 thing, My daughter Olympia Laurel was born in the Christmas time. She came in at a mere 5 lbs. 12 ounces and 19 inches long. Her screams and cries, however, are immense.

Meanwhile, my other, slightly less attractive baby, Danger Country, is being serialized on the Studygroup Comics site. If you haven't read it yet, this is a good opportunity to catch it in full color. 

And while you're on that site, you can check out the blog entry I made there about coloring comics. If you ever wanted to know about my process, that is a good start. I'll be making some process blog posts on a new blog for my upcoming kickstarter subscribers. That's right, I'm working on a kickstarter. More details on that soon! 

And finally, if you've visited my site before you've obviously noticed that I redesigned it...At least most of it. I hope you enjoy this new design. I'd welcome your feedback.

Oh, one more thing. It looks like I'm currently out of the first printing of Danger Country. I want to thank Tim aka Teenage Dinosaur for having faith in me and publishing my first serialized comic. It's been a great experience to work with such a passionate and genuine person. However, due to purely logistical reasons, the rest of Danger Country will be published by I Will Destroy You, run by my friend Tom Neely (also very passionate and genuine). It's the first time he's publishing a single artist that's not himself, so I hope it goes well. We'll be starting with a re-printed chapter 1 and 2, combined in a single book we're calling Volume 1. We'll be publishing chapters 3 and 4 together as Volume 2 later this year, and when all the chapters are done, the entire series will be collected in full color! See you on the flip side.

Danger Country reviewed on The Comics Journal

I'm thrilled to receive this mostly positive review of Danger Country #1. I've started on #3 and hope it will be out in time for SPX next year. I also have some other Danger Country related things going on which I hope to announce next month.

A Princess of Mars

Just did an illustration of A Princess of Mars for the latest Art Order. Trying to get my sci-fi/fantasy skills up.

APE 2011

Hey guys! Just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be at APE, and there's a few details you should know.

1. I have a table this year! I'm sharing table #255 with my publisher Tim Goodyear/Teenage Dinosaur. He'll have a bunch of awesome books, including...

2. Danger Country #2!!!! It will debut at APE. Danger Country #1 got nominated for 2 Ignatz awards. Can #2 possibly live up to its predecessor? The answer is.... Yes. Yes, it can.

3. I'll also have a RANGER STEEL mini-comic, compiling the first 10 Ranger Steel web strips in a format deadly to trees. I'll also have some old books and zines including DANGER COUNTRY #1, FORK FRENZY #1, ORDINARY FIELDBOOK, and THE ONLY ONE THERE COULD EVER BE which is an illustrated book of extremely personal poems based on the Highlander movies.

4. I'll also have some posters!

5. And on Saturday, I'll be on the Comics Claptrap Live! Panel. That's at 2:00 PM.

A Fan

Last week I got this e-mail and attached picture from Eli Bishop of Global Hobo:

hi Levon,
Thought you'd like to know that this elderly lady walked into SF Zine Fest randomly having no idea what it was, went to the Global Hobo table and read Danger Country #1 intently from cover to cover, laughed gleefully, said "I love this kind of writing!", put it down and moved on without buying anything.
best,
Eli

I love stories like this as long as I'm not there to witness it.

Dylan Williams

That's him, second from the left. This is the only picture with both me and Dylan that I could find. ©David King.

Yesterday afternoon my friend Dylan Williams passed away after a long fight with cancer. He was the cartoonist behind Reporter and was the publisher of Sparkplug Comic Books. I really can't say much about him that hasn't been already said better elsewhere. I just wanted to share some of my Dylan observations from over the years. 

I can't remember the first time I met Dylan. I almost always saw him in the context of a comic convention. He'd share a table with Tom Neely, and Tom would let me have a spot at his table, so we'd spend most of the weekend together. Comics folks, no matter how well adjusted they are at home around their friends, become socially awkward and dysfunctional when they are in the same room together. It happens to me, still, and it's hard to not blame myself for not being congenial enough or saying the wrong thing. Dylan didn't seem to have this problem, but he was really good at spotting it. He had this particular sidle he'd do, that always made me secretly smile. If you ever saw Dylan at a convention you'd know what I'm talking about. He'd spot you having an awkward moment with another comics person, or with a customer, and he'd sidle over and interrupt, and make a recommendation or compliment one of the people or jokingly insult one of the people or just say whatever needed to be said, and everyone would be at ease.

When we visited portland years ago, Lila and I stayed with a friend who didn't have a car so we walked everywhere, and even though we didn't plan on it, we kept running into Dylan all over the city. Any time he saw us walking around, he'd make a crazy U-turn and drove us to wherever we were headed even though he didn't know me that well at that point. 

He encouraged me to make comics, and said nicer things to me than I ever felt I deserved. As a publisher his attitude seemed so insane to me at times. He built the careers of so many great cartoonists, but never strived to make a name for himself off of their efforts. He just loved the work. 

His absence at San Diego Comic-con this year was really felt hard by me. In all that insanity, he was a center of gravity. Without him, it was just too crazy. I won't be going to Comic-con next year. Goodbye Dylan, I love you.

Danger Country #2 Preview

I thought I'd post a couple of preview pages from Danger Country #2. It's at the printers and should be out in time for APE, on October 1 and 2. I'll be exhibiting there with my publisher, Teenage Dinosaur. at booth #255. More on that later.

If you're at SPX this weekend please vote for Danger Country #1 for outstanding comic or outstanding mini-comic! Tom Neely will be selling copies at the I Will Destroy You booth.

Danger Country 1 nominated for 2 Ignatz awards!

I just wanted to quickly congratulate myself on getting nominated for 2 Ignatz awards! One for Outstanding Comic and another one for Outstanding Mini-comic. I'm standing side by side with some big league names, there. Pretty impressive!

If you end up going to SPX, please please give me a little vote or two! I'm going to go ahead and be honest with you and tell you that Danger Country is the best work I've ever done. It really deserves to win and if you read it you will agree. If you haven't read it yet, give a little click on the big graphic on the right side of the screen and buy it from the Fork Frenzy shop. Anyone who knows me will be surprised by my outspken self-confidence, but I'm damn proud of myself and I'm proud of myself for being proud of myself.

In other news, I'm now selling PDF eBooks on the ForkFrenzy shop. Right now we have 3 new David King titles for sale, for super cheap. Please buy!

color study

Did I ever post this? It's a color study I did off of a film still. It's supposed to be Deborah Kerr but I think it looks more like my mom. Anyway, I was most interested in the surprisingly subtle Technicolor tones on her face. kind of a warm green?

Danger Country 1 and San Diego Comic-Con

At long last, Danger Country #1, the definitive larger version published by Teenage Dinosaur, is in my hands and ready for sale! You can buy it at the Fork Frenzy store, or you can buy it at San diego Comic Con, at the Revival House/Koyama booth in the alternative comics gulag! booth Q-12. I'm going to try to hook up a gps thingie so that you can find me at the convention at any given time, and if you're lucky, maybe you'll find out my secret comic-con restroom. Anyway, up there is the new cover with finished logo, and below is the back cover, and a sneak peak of the cover for #2!!! What????!!!! Yes!!!! It should be available at APE.

Silverlake Jubilee

I'll be doing a comics reading this Saturday at the Silverlake Jubilee next to some pretty amazing cartoonists.

more commissions

Here are a couple of more commissions I worked on recently:

This one is of Tyrion Lannister, a character from the Song of Ice and Fire books, or better known as the TV adaptation, Game of Thrones, Sundays 9/8c only on HBO.

This one here was for a "hot asian nurse holding an alien baby." This was a hard one for me.

And finally this one is of a "zombie wombat attacking a pack of dingos." People are weird.

Little Commissions

Here's some little commissions I did to raise funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I still have a few more of these to do. I'll post them when they're done.