Artist Spotlight - Interview with Narwhal

I.C.U. had the chance to catch up with Narwhal for this Artist Spotlight.
Note: This Interview was originally published in ICU Issue #4

When did you start pursuing art seriously?
Senior year of high school I wrote three movie scripts and completed a full 30 page comic called World Record about a kid who breaks the world record for the 100 yard sprint by quite a bit and garners the attention of evil powers, etc. I printed them out as 11 by 17 sheet, unbound, in a baggy and sold them to my classmates. I also sold white shirts with sharpie drawings on them.  the thing was... I wasn't very good at that point. I was the best artist in my class, but in the larger internet or compared to professionals, I had a long way to go. Same with my writing, it was pretty immature.

What led you to Comic Books?
    I worked on my own comics here and there all through my twenties but my main interest was in screenwriting. I liked comics, though, because unlike movies, I could do them myself. I didn't need a team of twenty people and a million bucks or whatever. I read all the classics, Allan Moore, Frank Miller, even artsy ones like Maus and Black Hole, but I didn't read monthlies, only graphic novels. That said, I watched all the comic book tv cartoons religiously, X-Men, Batman, Justice League, Batman Beyond, Spiderman, all of them.

You have such a unique art style. What would you say are your artistic influences?
   I realized pretty quickly that I loved European comic art styles, specifically French comics. My favorite comic artist is Bengal. I also love the Italian artist LRNZ. I think they in turn are like a half and half influence between Manga and American comics, and that's what I am drawn too.                 Specifically, I love all the energy of manga, but I just draw the eyes smaller. However, one funny thing is that in my days applying for storyboarding gigs i would often get a note that my characters looked 'too Asian'. I couldn't see it but I think it's because of my manga influence, but manga isn't even 'Asian' per se, it's just bigger eyes etc, so I don't know what was going on exactly.

​What tools do you use to create your art?
    Control + Z is my number one tool, that means 'undo'. I don't really erase, just undo. I draw big strokes digitally multiple times until I get the energy right.  I do this all on my Wacom tablet. I draw way more digitally than traditionally these days. Traditional is mostly just little notes and doodles. I use an old version of photoshop, it has everything I need.

You had a successful Crowd Funding Campaign with Earthbound. How did that experience line up with your expectations for the campaign?
    So I launched a double issue 48 page campaign of Earthbound one year before Comicsgate really took off. Capn' Cummings helped me promote it! I'm not even sure Ethan was on YouTube at that point, if he was it was the very early days when he was doing the Brutally Honest Critiques. Anyways, that campaign didn't do well. Comicsgate just wasn't centralized enough yet to help burgeoning creators like me.

   Cut to one year later, and I launched the full first trade, 148 pages. That one did GREAT, with the help of Ethan. I was very grateful to get on Ethan's show and pitch my book to over 1000 viewers. He took notice of me because of a piece of Cyberfrog fanart that was making the rounds. One side funny Easter egg about that piece of fanart was in the bottom corner was a drawing of Tim Lim's Thump!  I had no idea that there was beef between those two.

What advice would you give to artists looking to improve their coloring techniques?
   What really helped me was a few vids on it on YouTube. Specifically I watched some by a creator called Sycra. I have videos on it as well on my YouTube channel Narwhal Books. There are some simple things that you can learn that will vastly improve your coloring and from there you can evolve it as you go.

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Follow Narwhal on Twitter: @Plaster_Harris

Related: Earthbound Video Review