Welcome to my Blog, How to Draw Comics. My name is Clayton Barton. Before I talk anymore about what you can expect to find here, I'd like to tell you a little more about myself.
I am at the very core of my being an artist. Being able to manifest and create purely from imagination has always been something I have considered to be one of my greatest gifts. From the moment I could hold a pencil I began sending my creativity out into the world. It was a bulging creativity, that didn't need a lot to set it off into an inspirational frenzy, and drawing was all I knew to do in order to release it.
I often wonder, what I might have become if not an artist. In what other way could have I expressed myself? Maybe as a film director, a rock or movie star? From that early age I continued to draw, and didn't look back. It fulfilled me. And it soon became crystal clear that this was the passion I wanted to pursue in life.There was no other option or alternative, to create was something I'd been blessed with and I wasn't going to let it slip away. To do so would be to neglect a great part of who I was becoming.
I caught the comic bug early on thanks to the comic book legends we all know and love, Todd McFarlane, Greg Capullo, Mark Silvestri, David Finch and Jim Lee just to name a few. It was these artists and their journey's to greatness that gave me the boundless energy which kept me up every night, working well into the early hours of the morning as I studied consistently to develop and refine my own artistic skill. Opening the shoe boxes I'd filled with drawing after drawing, I could literally see the distance I'd come in my work, and it was undeniably obvious that those hours of practice and study had paid off.
Eventually, this journey lead to me becoming a digital painter and I landed myself a dream job in the games industry as a character and environment designer. Being able to see my ideas brought to life in a simulated, interactive world was one of the most rewarding things to experience as a visual creator, and I was incredibly thankful for the opportunities my hard work had afforded me.
In 2009 I began teaching at Victoria University in the same field, where I helped build the artistic abilities of my students from the ground up year after year. This was when I realized how much I valued passing the knowledge I'd worked so hard to get for myself onto other people. To see them progress at such a rapid rate over the course of a few months was incredibly rewarding and I soon found that I had become just as passionate about teaching the art as the art itself. What I had to offer others was incredibly valuable and the effect it had on the evolution of these aspiring artists made my own efforts in learning all the more worth while.
Despite the joy I found working in the video games industry as a concept artist, my passion for comics still lingered, firmly planting itself in the back of my mind. In fact it haunted me.
Which brings me to the purpose of this Blog and what I hope to share with you. My journey as an artist has been an epic adventure with many obstacles along the path that I had to learn my way through. That's how I know I can relate to the rest of my fellow aspiring comic artists out there, truly understanding the difficulties they face and will face in this continued pursuit to ever greater heights. Taking the knowledge I have garnered over the years through my own self taught learning, this Blog is going to serve as the go to place for those eager to learn, not only how to draw comics, but super heroes, heroins, and villains. I'm going to cover the basics such as anatomy, perspective, composition and color theory. In fact I want to take you step by step through the entire process, from the first initial sketch all the way through to your own completed, inked and colored piece of shiny new comic book art. I will present to you my personal techniques and philosophies on how to first develop and then project your creative ideas out onto paper.
And the best part about this for you guys is I'm going to provide most, if not all of this information completely free. Because in all honesty there's not a lot of comic book artist resources out there for those who want to learn. Sure there's a few gems scattered across the net and in book stores, but they are few and far between in terms of real knowledge that not only teaches you the technical aspects, but also the nuts and bolts behind your own personal creativity.
This blog will be consistently updated with new content every few weeks. So weather you simply want to learn how to gain a more creative imagination, or you want to start, maybe even advance your journey as an artist this blog is going to be a valuable resource for you. But for those out there who are also haunted by the unrelenting urge to become a comic book legend like the industry gods we admire, this blog is going to be something special that I am confident you will treasure for a long time to come.
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