Droakir's Lair

Some people have asked me if I have had any formal education with regards to illustration. Hopefully this post will explain a bit about my art background.

When I was very young, I wanted to be a cartoonist. Unfortunately, my drawing skills were incredibly lacking (especially when it came to illustrating people). I began doing a strip known as “Joe the Alligator.” Unfortunately, my lack of being able to illustrate anything other than the character Joe and simple geometric objects caused me great despair. I finally gave up on drawing altogether, and realized that I would never be able to draw, ever.

And thus I gave up drawing.

Still reading? Great! I’ve found that we all go through phases where we’re discouraged. In my case, it took me several years before I even attempted to draw something after that moment. I started doodling again during high school, with one of my first “real” sketches being a doodle on some notebook paper during my English Literature class.

My first “formal” art education came in the form of a photography course that I took for my fine arts credit. There was very little drawing in that class and a whole lot of chemicals (some of which I dread to this day). But the concept of framing and balance stuck with me. Following that course, I took two semesters of fine metalworking (Jewelry). It was in this class that I truly began to draw.

Our instructor insisted that we come up with five to ten new jewelry designs each week based off of different themes. Many of these we ended up having to translate into actual pieces. I started out with my trusty mechanical pencil, smudging the shading with my finger and hoping for the best. Later on the the instructor pulled me aside and she gave me some advice.

“Nathan,” she said, “If you’re going to shade, it shows a lot more talent if you make an effort at getting those tones with your pencil, and not smudging.”

That stuck with me, and I began working on refining my doodles as per her advice. I noticed the significant change in the way my doodles looked, and suddenly I started to find myself drawing more (as my confidence built).

It wasn’t long before I got a tablet for my computer and I started to sketch using that. I became more interested in illustration. I still didn’t consider myself an artist though I entered the local Metro Art Competition with a pen and ink illustration and a silver bracelet.

I placed in the top three in both the Jewelry and Drawing categories.

It was at this point that I realized that I might actually be able to draw (I had also been illustrating my first daily strip, D7, for about five months at the time).

When I started college, I took a course in color theory.

Other than that, all of my artistic ability has been completely and utterly self-taught, with some well-placed critiques by other artists that have helped steer me away from common mistakes. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the online art community for this reason.

And guess what? I’m taking my first class in drawing this upcoming fall!

I had some free time last week and I’ve been wanting to put one of these together for a while. It’s a free mini comic book template. What’s so great about mini comic books? Well, this type of mini comic fits on one side of a Letter (8.5" x 11") sheet of paper and when cut and folded, creates a booklet that consists of a cover and six interior pages. It is easily photocopied for distribution, and requires no staples (just a pair of scissors).

I originally got the idea from the book "So, You Wanna Be a Comic Book Artist?" by Philip Amara. It was a novel idea that I have actually used more than once. Go ahead and download, print it out, and try making your own mini comic books! Just make sure to print without rescaling the page, otherwise you might have to trim edges off the paper.

By free I mean absolutely free. Please go ahead and copy, save, distribute, use in commercial products, whatever. Just make sure to link back to me so that people know where you got it!

I have prepped several formats for the template page. The PDF contains both the instructions for assembly as well as the template page.

So download, enjoy, and have fun making mini comics!

Download PDF with Instructions
Download PSD Template (Photoshop Document)
Download AIT Template (Adobe Illustrator)
Download SVG Template (Scalable Vector Graphic)

I need to blog more. I really do. But I figured that in order to make up for my recent lack of posting, I’ll post this tasty little tidbit: The many faces of Sharky!

This summer I’m planning on putting together an entire schmorgasboard of character emotion charts for consistency (and because it’s fun to do).

Let me know what you think!

I used ArtRage3 Pro to do this illustration.

Cheers!

-N

Many people may not be aware of this, but I am actually a merit badge counselor for the Boy Scouts of America. As such, I teach real-world skills to young men.

What am I a counselor of, you might ask? Well, Art, Computers, Photography, and, of course, Cinematography.

I was recently asked to teach Cinematography to a rather large group of scouts (two patrols of six), and as this is my first venture in teaching a large group like this (previously my badges have been taught one-on-one) I have been doing quite a bit of prep work.

Among preparation are several short films that I am making as examples. I will post some soon, when it is not 1 in the morning!

Cheers!

-N

An Introduction

Good evening! (Or morning, depending upon when you read this). I am Nathan Rackley. Some people call me Nathan, some people Nate. And some people skip those altogether and simply call me Rackley. But online, I’m known as Droakir. I am a professional computer programmer, as well as an accomplished artisan and cartoonist.

Don’t let the screen name scare you – Droakir is simply the name of one of the characters from my cartoon strip that I started using because “Nathan” ended up always being taken for some reason. Nevertheless, I’m pleased to meet you!

Programmer by Day, Cartoonist by Night

That’s the story of my life. All day I slave away in front of a computer. Then I go home, and all night I slave away in front of a computer. What a joy it is, however, to have the security in knowing that all of that sitting, typing, and the unrelenting torture of burning eyes and painful wrists results in something – money.

Getting paid to do computer programming was one of my dreams ever since I wrote my first BASIC program that printed “Hello, World!” in white, vibrant letters on my old MS-DOS computer. Luckily, not too long after that I was hired to do a little bit of freelance, and then landed myself a decent job at a local corporation… where I’ve been ever since.

I suppose that life might be where I drew a bit of the inspiration for my cartoon strip, Lakewood. John, the main character, slaves away all day at work, school, and home. I must have some sick desire to see my characters work more than I do, I suppose, because it always appears that John’s only respite is to visit his favorite little coffee shop, Sam’s. There, he walks in, picks his nice comfortable little seat by the window, and orders a large mug of hot chocolate. And once he’s finished, it’s back to slaving away again.

I’ve had many questions from readers and friends over the years, and I’d like to address them here, so that you can all get to know me just a little bit better.

When did you start drawing?

I started illustrating short cartoon strips back in the mid to late 1990s, however I wasn’t really good at illustrating back then. As a result, my first cartoon strip, JOE, lasted only around thirty strips before it died because I couldn’t draw any more of a human being than a shoe. I think that was when I gave up drawing for good.

Or so I thought.

I started to get back into drawing once I was a sophomore in high school. I have yet to take any formal drawing courses, though I have been formally educated in photography, jewelry, and abstract color theory. But at least I began drawing again!

When did you start doing Lakewood?

This one is a tad sticky. You see – Lakewood started originally as a cartoon strip known as Designation Se7en. I know it’s a mouthful, but it ended up getting shortened to D7. The strip started randomly when I was sitting in an early morning class and doodled a cartoon strip making fun of the Nintendo DS. Later that evening I re-drew that strip, as well as a few others on my computer and posted them on my internet gallery. And thus my comic was born!

D7 lasted for more than a year and a half as a daily cartoon strip, and then for another two years as a weekly/monthly comic strip while I was living in Mexico. While I was out of the US, I refined my character drawing techniques, and I drew several mini comic books, called “The Adventures of Sharky”. Later on, Sharky, as well as the other characters from D7, found their way into one single strip: Lakewood.

Lakewood was officially launched on October 31, 2008. It ran as a weekly/monthly strip until March 1, 2009, where it became a daily. It has been a daily ever since.

Do you get paid to do Lakewood?

As a matter of fact, I do. And it’s a recent achievement.

Lakewood is printed in a local newspaper, and I make enough off of my small amount of royalties to be able to support these web sites as well as continued comic illustration. Of course, it’s not enough to live off of – hence the slaving away all day in front of the computer as a programmer thing.

What else do you do?

Well, as I said, I’m a programmer. And I like video games, table-top games, and technology. Because of this, I am a co-founder and co-host on the GEEK Talk Radio podcast. Other things I do are concept art and illustration, technical writing, and music.

A brief conclusion.

Anyways, that’s me in a nutshell. Thank you for letting me introduce myself! If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line at nprackley <at> gmail <dot> com, or on my Twitter account at @droakir.

Take care!

-N. Rackley

The future home of the creative works of N. P. Rackley.