Behind the Legends of Sam & Max Fanart – Part 3: Silly Stell
If you’ve been checking, you would have noticed my last 2 articles on art centered around the artists on the Telltale Games Forums, and this one is no different! Stell has contributed her… brain thoughts about art for me to share with you in this exclusive interview! So hold on, because her art certainly is, er… different?
CZ: What tools do you use to create your masterpieces?
SS: Mostly Photoshop CS2 and a small Bamboo Wacom tablet, seriously I use that thing so much the tip of the tablets pen is wearing down! Hope I can buy a new one some place… anyway, I also like to do traditional stuff as well, painting with acrylics mostly. I love the feel of acrylics on a fresh canvas, you get the indents of brush movement and your hands can follow them, I’ve always liked that for some weird reason. Not only that but it looks great, the colours can really stand out, they can be soft or as hard as the painter chooses, we can look at are dear friend Mr Purcell for proof of that.
CZ: How long does it take you, on average, to complete a work of art?
SS: I’m very quick when it comes to sketching characters and depending on the method I can colour them in quickly as well but when it comes to the backgrounds and environments in general I struggle and my brain seems to freeze horribly, sometimes I’ll cop out and just do simple splash of colour behind them but when I know that I can do better than that I will knuckle down and try to something detailed and interesting so it can at times take me about 3 to 5 hours. When I do comic books however they can take a few days of course depending on how many panels are in play.
CZ: Have you ever had a poster made of your art or considered making it into a poster?
SS: Oh I don’t know if I’m good enough for that really, maybe if I get better and if my comic book gets a little more popular and people want a poster then sure I’ll go for it but right now I feel like I got a long way to go.
CZ: Is it difficult to do Max’s head?
SS: Not really difficult but it did take a few doodles to get it right, I think mainly because I always draw big smiles and small eyes in my regular art, as for the body though I struggle a little more but I think that’s mostly my struggle to draw hands.
CZ: What about Sam’s body?
SS: Oooh boy now that is a task, I can barely draw the six foot dogs head but the body is a job in it’s self, his feet especially, but I usually just try to build his body up with many little and big circles but I hope in time I’ll get the two legged canines body just right.
CZ: How long does it take to think up a concept for an artwork?
SS: It’s weird because I never just think “I’m gunna draw Sam and Max today!” I’m usually just sitting around or something and then an idea kicks me in the head and I then I have the throw this idea on paper or draw it on Photoshop as fast as I can before I loose it, that goes for any drawing really not just fanart. Sometimes the picture seems die halfway through sketching and it’ll ether been thrown away or DELETED (haha I shouldn’t of written this after watching Strong Bad emails) but if the idea is really good it’ll end up completed.
CZ: Did you teach yourself to draw, or did you get taught, or both?
SS: I’m not sure… I think I mostly taught my self but then again when I first wanted to be good at drawing I went to the school library and got out books, those god awful “how to draw manga” things that to be honest didn’t look like manga and I wasn’t even much of a anime fan (not to say I hate it mind you). Also looking for tutorials on Deviantart like “How to draw wolves” or “How to draw Invader Zim” … My god I was really stupid kid! Oh well, we all go through phases when we’re kids, live and learn huh?
CZ: What is your honest personal opinion of most of your works?
SS: I don’t really know, sometimes I want to say “Hey I’m not doing to bad!” but other times I just seem to hate it, especially my old stuff, like I said I was a very stupid kid. But hopefully my work can only go up from here.
CZ: Do you prefer cake or pie, and why?
SS: Gimme cake! I love cakes, mostly sweet sugary cakes; I’m a very unhealthy person in that respect… Oh gee thanks! Now I want to go to the shop and buy some! Oh but I did go through a phase when I was eleven-ish where I would say “I like pie” a lot and to be honest I didn’t that much but I simply said it because I thought it was funny… yeah, stupid kid remember?
CZ: How old were you when you started drawing, and were these early “artworks” any good?
SS: Let’s see my first thing I submitted to Deviantart was December 24, 2005 (huh I don’t remember it being so close to Christmas) so I was 13 but I was drawing before then, I remember, so lets say 12 for safe measure. I started getting “serious” because of a website called Neopets, a website I now despise, because I saw people drawing their Neopets and it looked cool, I thought only professionals could use fancy drawing programs and when I saw average people using it I flipped out and wanted to draw awesome pictures of my pets on programs like Photoshop as well, of course now I know it’s not the program that makes a good drawing but back then I was dead set convinced. As for them being good… no they are and always will be terrible but we all start off bad.
CZ: Are you currently working on anything?
SS: I’m working on small projects all the time, most never get done, but I’m happy that my comic series is coming a long so well. I think why is because I’m just having fun with them and I haven’t given them a serious tone or a continues plot line. I get this sense of freedom and I can do whatever I want with them. I also would like to do another Sam and Max comic like my other one, I carry on the ending of the latest episode in a bizarre way, though to be honest all the episodes end in bizarre ways so how I can add to that I don’t know. I have to wait a while before I can make/post them though because of spoilers and what not. I’ve been chucking around a few ideas so I suppose I’ll just wait and see what happens.
CZ: You have very interesting styles, would you ever part in search of a new style?
SS: I’m always messing around with art styles and evolving old ones; it’s all a game of wait and see.
CZ: Finally, can you tell me what your favorite artwork of yours is?
SS: I’m not really sure, I suppose I like my comic books the most because their simple and yet very expressive and full of movement, I love drawing that sorta thing.
Sam and Max wise… erm, suppose my latest one where they are fishing, background could use a lot of work though but I suppose I just like the idea of them being casual, what they might do when their not freelance policing.
I really like this series – some of the stuff posted in the fanart thread is simply awesome!
I’m missing one question from this interview, though – why the curious screen name?
SillyStell cut short doesn’t make the most friendly looking screen name I’ll admit…. err… *cough*
Oh well can’t be helped XD