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Name:Derek Hunter Birthdate: January, 4 1980 Location: Mapleton, Ut Occupation: Illustrator Clients: SLG Publishing, Disney Channel, Kidstuff, Minority Films
Commissioned work is always available upon request via Derek's e-mail: derek ( at ) pirateclub ( dot ) com for samples of dereks work, check out his gallery.
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MINI BIOGRAPHY....................................... I have been drawing comics for as long as I care to remember, folding 8"x11" paper in half and stapling the middle, making comics about all the characters that inhabited my brain. When I was in 5th grade, I got my hands on a pack of Marvel Universe Series 1 cards and, never having seen a comic before, went to the baseball card shop to get as many as I could. When that place was about to go out of business, I was told I could get more cards at the comic book store. "The Comic Book Store?!", from that moment on, I was hooked. I quickly made some more geek friends and started a comic book company, each of us drawing comics and having meetings during lunch to talk about all the stories we were gonna tell. By 10th grade, I had drawn over 30 comics, and self published a few to take to conventions and such. I loved making comics. When I was 22, I started making a comic about my group of friends and I, it was to be called Pirate Club. After spending 3 solid months working on it, the first issue was done and my friends and I took a road trip to Wondercon in San Francisco. There, I met with Dan Vado, President of Slave Labor Graphics, he picked up Pirate Club to be part of the SLG roster, and the rest is history. It's been over 15 years since I drew my first comic, and I hope to bring you more comics for a long time to come. |
TOOLS OF THE TRADE............................... Click an item to see where I got this crap.
1-Apple G4 15" powerbook, 2-Liquid Paper, 3-Lexar 1GB flash memory, 4-Mechanical Pencil w/ Red Lead (for perspective lines), 5-Faber Castell Pitt Brush Pen (Black Nib) , 6-Blue Drafting Pencil, 7- .05 Mechanical Pencil (H lead), 8- .01 , .03 & .05 Staedler Mars Pigment Liner, 9-Pentel Aquash Refillable Brush Pen (small), 10- Kneaded Eraser, 11-Wacom 4x6 Drawing Tablet, 12-Microsoft Optical Mouse. |
MAKING A MINI-COMIC............................... I get asked questions about how to get into the comic biz a lot, and every time my answer is the same, "Draw a lot and make some mini-comics." I've been making mini-comics since I was in elementary school, and once I got into Jr. High and High School I published some and sold em at local comic shops in addition to taking them to conventions to get critiques. Once I hit college, I made mini-comics and sent them to publishers and my favorite artists, hoping to get some feedback. Mini-comics have always been a favorite part of the whole comic scene, I always pick 'em up at cons and trade mine with other people...Mini-Comics are fun, and I'm gonna tell ya how to make 'em. It's easy. 1-Come up with an idea and write it down. Yeah, this sounds really easy, but it is a step that a lot of artists seem to skip. A story is essential, because without a good story, one where you have a set of characters with distinct personalities and motivations as well as a plot to send them through, you yourself will probably not have the motivation to draw it, much less get someone else interested long enough to finish reading it. Spend a good ammount of time brainstorming a plot and the characters, then lay out the script...it's fun! 2-Art Get your paper of choice ready, when I draw a mini-comic, I generally use 8"x10" bristol board, it is nice to draw on an area that is larger than your final output image will be. When you shrink down your art, it tends to look nicer, so work a little bit larger than print, folks! Once I have my script printed out, and have a page ready to draw on, I like to layout each page on the the coordinating script pages. I do a few thumbnails of each pages layout before getting to the final page. Doing quick layout thumbnails reduces the ammount of stray lines, erasing, and composition problems when you get to the penciling of the final page. Once I have a layout I am happy with, I draw the panel borders in pencil and get to work drawing the page. Once I get the pencils done, and am happy with them, I add the word balloons then get started on the inking. Once the inking is done, erase,erase,erase, and you're ready for the next page.
To be continued... |
