 Hello everybody and welcome back to The Average. I'm Steph, I'm The Average Artist in case you're new here. Hello, welcome. I am really looking forward to starting work on a new comic and I'm trying to think what it could be. I finished the last comic so now I'm trying to think of a new project that I can work on during, after work hours in YouTube and show you guys the process. So I've been really enjoying autobiographical comics. I mean I've always really enjoyed them. I think they speak well to like the human condition and they dive a little bit deeper than some comics may do. For instance we can hit like deep topics such as abuse as in blankets. Chronicles about living somewhere else such as in Jerusalem by Guy de Leslie. This comic is really cool. He just documents living his life with a doctors without borders is his wife so he lives with her and they travel the world and he kind of goes around making comics. Also Mouse which is about the holocaust and I think this one a Pulitzer Prize and it's like incredible. If you haven't read it I highly suggest reading it. It's heartbreaking but also it's it's like a magnificent piece of work. And then to other things that are a little bit lighter like Libby's Dad which is like obviously an indie comic and it's sort of about I think it's about the memory of this girl sleepover and they fought like the dad had a gun and they all talk about it. It's it's it's like a really quirky really highly illustrated with pencil. I really like this story it really stuck with me even though it's quite short. It just shows you like the power of a short comic and yeah so these books are all books that like hit me quite hard or I enjoyed a lot and I have been reading more autobiographical comics lately and I thought like maybe I could try and make one about my life as a kid in the army. So basically my dad was in the army and we traveled a lot around different countries and I thought it would be interesting to like detail or tell that story really of how it felt to be a child who didn't really have like a home or a stable place and we traveled up through Africa and different things occurred so it wouldn't be like such a hard-hitting thing as it what is but it would be maybe interesting and I don't know it's when you think of autobiography you often think of those celebrities you write an autobiography and you're like why do I care. So for me it's like with comics I think it's such a different experience and you can tell a really interesting story for it and I don't know if it would be fully like what happened or if it would be sort of picking on things that happened in my life and making a comic about it if that makes sense. So sort of just taking inspiration from that story and maybe making like different characters so it wouldn't be autobiographical but it would be something that I've experienced so I can speak on if that makes sense. So I want to do today is just like maybe do some inspirational stuff like draw out some stuff about these photos maybe or just try and like think of a style and I've got a new sketch and of course not a new sketch but what you do mind. And last night I did a stream where we reviewed the book A Wizard of Earthsea so I redrew this cover of that book and yeah so I just want to do some like sketching today or something really chill. I really like the idea of doing a full book of black and white maybe depends cos recently I read this book called skim and I literally cannot find it anywhere even though I've just finished it but it's super nice it has really great visuals I'll put some up on the screen now and I really like that style of drawing and of just like with an ink pen so I thought today what I would do is try to just draw with an ink pen freehand just go for it chat with you guys and I wonder if you would like that so let's get going. Definitely the examples of comics that I showed have like a literally a massively deep-rooted issue of trauma and a lot of them so mine isn't gonna be about trauma at all but it will have maybe if I tell the story correctly I still don't know it's still super early stages of thinking about this like it's still just a super early idea stage so I don't even know where it's gonna go but it probably will have like some dark themes I don't know because when we were young when we were young when I was young we moved to South Africa and it was very strange for a young person I think like it's a weird way to grow in like a completely different culture and then move because then we moved to Gibraltar when I was probably about eight nine so it's weird to like grow in a culture and then completely have like a culture shock as a child because it was I remember thinking like everyone's so different here like the the children were different like the energy was different the way that kids spoke to each other was really really different it was really strange for me so like stuff like that I don't know it could be interesting to read about it's not gonna be like oh a poor me like you know what I mean like kind of story but it would be interesting to go over it myself because it's just something that happened to me and I think it might be interesting to tell that story but let's see I don't know if you see the like the skim artwork I really fell in love with just that like loose pen style so I'm trying to like emulate that a little bit so I'm just gonna go over like some pictures of me as a child and maybe think about how I could interpret that into like a comic kind of style which would be easy to replicate and redraw again I'm just trying to think like where I could go with this so recently I wrote out like a list of how I think or how I approach creating comics I really want to turn it into like a sort of a list for people starting out and like it's just kind of my process it would be different to how other people do stuff but I think it would be interesting for people to know because maybe it would inspire them a little bit I'm definitely gonna put that over all my patreon when I finished it I haven't finished it yet but I think it would be really interesting to read or just to like because I think I would like to know people's processes as well and I guess that's what YouTube is for as well because like YouTube became a way for me to like show people my process and I think that really helped some people like to be inspired and stuff so I think that's like somewhere I want to keep heading down is like helping to inspire and or helping people to figure out that they want to make comics this is my idea guys and I hope that you like it I don't know I like the idea of doing an autobiographical comic I think it would be a little bit odd I I don't know if it will work I don't know if the ideas will be good also to tell the story correctly will be difficult because I was a child at the time I mean I want to do it when I definitely want to do the story of the time when I was kid so that's a difficult one because maybe the stories in our heads aren't really the same as what is reality if that makes sense because sometimes we remember things differently especially not being an adult so that would be like the tough thing so I think I would definitely have to like have conversations with my family about their experiences and like how they remember stuff this would be a really cool project to delve into especially to help me like kind of maybe understand myself a little bit I'm definitely enjoying this process anyway or thinking about it so with my little like process guide that I'm working on I think like at this point I follow what is exciting to me or I should follow what is exciting to me that's what I would suggest myself to do is like what excites me about this project is the idea of drawing in this style I like the idea of chatting with my family I like the idea of telling this story I think it will be interesting so I've got to follow those things that I want to do like that's the main focus because otherwise we will just give up on this idea and we don't want to do that we want to follow the enjoyment is like my catchphrase now so so I'm just trying to think like what kind of style this could be because I do really like this pen style I was thinking like maybe instead of if I was ever going to publish this is obviously super super early early early stages I think I would like maybe try and approach a publisher for this one just to have that experience because I've self-published a couple of comics now and I like the idea of trying to publish through publisher like obviously it sounds pretty pretty difficult thing to do but I think I want the experience of trying if that makes sense and seeing like and failing probably but it would be interesting to see how it would like the process and then I could also like tell you guys how it went and things like that this has massive so I'm think I'm just thinking I'm kind of like just expressing myself right now and like what my ideas could be I think I need to really evaluate what I want to do as well when it comes to comics because I really want to make comic so why wouldn't I try to do it like more professionally and like try to make my career like it my career if it's possible I don't know I am definitely just rambling now guys but let me know what you think of this idea I'd really enjoy hearing your input on what you think could work about this idea or maybe what wouldn't work I mean obviously you guys have limited information because you don't know the story so it's like saying oh this wouldn't work and it's like well you wouldn't know to be fair I don't know who would say that but like just in case I'm gonna like tell me your opinion but don't really like sugarcoating I don't read that at all I just like to hear you guys thoughts about maybe trying to publish with a publisher I'm really getting ahead with this idea aren't I but like I would really enjoy that experience I think of trying that out this photo finishes like here so I just want to kind of like trail it off rather than like cut it off completely if that makes sense I think this is in front of Victoria Falls this photo is taken I'm probably about 7 I'm just thinking out loud the process of writing this tale and how it would go what do you guys think I'm I'm thinking it will be a really fun project really interesting for me anyway maybe not interesting for other people but I would like to take you guys along for the journey and see how you feel about it and also what are you thinking about this style I really like it so far I don't know if I'm necessarily very skilled with an ink pen but definitely that would improve if I made a whole book out of it so let's see how I how I go I'm really into this idea so I have to like either fully commit or pull up like leave leave it behind so it's the difficult part do I like this idea enough to keep going with it because I've always had this idea to do something like this but I've always been like no I'm not skilled enough yet to like tell the story and I'm only now at this stage where I'm quite or more comfortable with my skill level enough that I could tell a story being a kid in the army or you know my adventures as a child so I think it would be quite fun to do I'm not sure what do you guys think obviously this is just like a rough drawing of the idea I think I'm gonna leave it there but I've had a really good chat with you guys even though you were completely quiet um I would love to know your thoughts on this idea I think I'm gonna continue the process I'm gonna try a few tests of ink and maybe color and then maybe pencils like different experiments but I'm really liking this idea of having like a really loose style comic with just inks and I just I've always liked that style so I think it would be a really cool thing to like work with and let me know what you think of this and I will chat with you guys next time but also thank you so much to my patrons you are number one in my heart and if you guys would like to get this month's patron award in August then sign up now thank you so much bye