How do you balance your life in two realities? Artist Thom Pratt and Writer Kambrea Pratt introduce us to the world of Shadowbinders!
A hapless teenaged girl inherits a magic ring that transports her to another world. There, she runs across an arrogant, brash mage onboard his airship, The True North. Adventure, Fantasy... and a little romantic comedy... ensues.
2. What materials and/or software do you use?
I've been all over the place with it. I (Thom) started out drawing in pencil, then scanning it in and coloring in Photoshop. Then I started drawing it completely in Photoshop, first with a Bamboo (painful!) then a Lenovo Thinkpad. When the Lenovo died a horrific death over the summer, I bought a 19" Yiynova tablet to replace it. But guess what? Yiynova DOES NOT PLAY WELL with Photoshop. So I switched to Illustudio, which is a Japanese program that's made by the same people who make Manga Studio... but has much better coloring tools. Confused yet?
3. Are there any books, movies, toys, artists, or authors that have inspired or continue to inspire your comic?
So many... Last Exile, Inuyasha, Howl's Moving Castle, Stardust... anime in general. Star Wars, The Princess Bride... even Doctor Who. It's a mishmash of the things we like.
4. Are any of your characters based on real people in your life?
Yep. Inadvertently....Mia ended up being a lot like Kam and Rhen ended up acting like Thom was in high school. Some of the characters are named after family or friends -- but personality-wise, not so much.
5. Are there any actors you know you would want to play or voice certain characters in a movie of your comic?
That's hard. We've thought about this before. I (Thom) always pictured Rhen sounding like Carey Elwes. I think of Ellen Page for Mia. Winston would definitely be voiced by Rob Paulsen. Kam probably has other ideas.
6. What songs would you like in a soundtrack of your comic?
We're working on that right now, actually: http://bit.ly/SBMixtape
7. What is your overall goal for your comic?
Eventually we'd like to be able to do comics full-time, even if it's not 100% Shadowbinders.
8. How has managing a comic impacted your life?
What life? Seriously... the social life goes away. The video games go away. The TV watching goes away. That's the tradeoff.
9. What do you do to advertise your work?
What *don't* we do? We like to experiment and have tried some off-the-wall stuff. People point out the contests, etc. Really, we just see what we can get to stick. Everyone's mileage will vary.
10. Web comics can be very time consuming and sometimes expensive to keep up. Often there is little reward in regards to money and sometimes public attention. Why do you do it?
Because we feel that someday it will be bigger and justify the time and money invested. That, and we are masochists.
11. Got any other projects we should know about?
Yes, there are other comics projects in the works, as well as a novelization of Shadowbinders. Can't talk about it any more right now. Sorry. ;)
12. What advice would you give to aspiring creators?
Just do it. You can only plan so much, and so much will happen that's completely unplanned. You'll learn by doing.
No social life or TV i can agree with. But no video games is where I draw the line. :) Thanks so much for taking time out for our interview!
If you dig Shadowbinders you can show your love by up-voting the submission for this interview at Reddit Webcomics. Up-voting keeps Shadowbinders on the front page of the webcomic category longer which means more people get to see it!
Thanks again for reading. let us know how you feel with a comment below. Then wake up and find yourself at Shadowbinders!
-Mat
evanyeti.com
If you would like to be interviewed about your web-comic send an email to evanyeti@yahoo.com titled "interview" with a link to your comic.
Nice little read, cool comics too :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interview, Mat!
ReplyDelete