How to Draw Month: Ian McGinty
Jan 10, 2017
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For How to Draw month, PREVIEWSworld talks with artist Ian McGinty! Ian created the comic and animated series Welcome to Showside (FEB161983) and has worked on Bravest Warriors, Steven Universe, Bee & Puppycat, and more. He is currently the main series artist for the BOOM! Studios Adventure Time comics.
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PREVIEWSworld: Who were your favorite artists growing up?
Ian McGinty: I was definitely a newspaper funnies kid. Bill Watterson, Gary Larson, Charles Schulz, these were the artists I admired, traced over, copied, all that. I don’t think I even set foot inside an actual comic shop until I was 19 or 20 years old and superheroes weren’t really a big thing in my family, except for the occasional comic I’d borrow from a friend or read on the racks at a drugstore. Batman was considered too violent, but Ninja Turtles wasn’t for whatever reason. I wasn’t allowed to watch The Simpsons on television, but I was allowed to buy the comics at Rite-Aid. Basically what I’m getting at is buying a comic wasn’t a simple thing for me, but newspapers were always around, and aunt/uncles would always get me a Garfield collection or something similar around the holidays, so it was the weekly warriors who became my favorite. ‘Course then I found an issue of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac in the woods one day and it all changed.
PREVIEWSworld: Were you self-taught, formally educated, or a combination of both?
Ian McGinty: A combination. I was self taught up until college (Savannah College of Art and Design), where I learned mostly how to ink and set up comic pages, hone my style and adapt to stressful work situations/deadlines. Before then I did comics for my middle school and high school papers. Side note, I got kicked off the paper when I drew Pikachu being murdered by Elmer Fudd for a piece someone wrote about “Anime versus Western Animation”. Ugh. I cringe thinking about it now, but it happened and there’s nothing I can do about it. I thought I was so cool.
PREVIEWSworld: Talk about your studio environment. Do you watch or listen to anything while you draw?
Ian McGinty: I’m lucky enough to have my own studio room and it’s awesome. Mostly I watch bad television if I want to actually get work done, good television if I sort of want to get stuff finished, and movies if I know I won’t complete anything at all. Music distracts me too much and stresses me out when I can’t decide what to listen to, but I enjoy listening to other artists’ Spotify playlists occasionally.
PREVIEWSworld: What tools do you prefer while drawing? Pencils, pens, art boards, etc.?
Ian McGinty: I use everything I can, really. At the moment, I work mostly digitally with a Wacom Cintiq and Photoshop. This is more of a speed thing for me, but when I want to sell originals I’ll work traditionally with Japanese brush pens and usually a Manga style paper set. I use JetPens.com pretty much exclusively when I need to get new art supplies and they didn’t even pay me to say that.
PREVIEWSworld: Are there any books you would recommend to help with art?
Ian McGinty: There are some pretty good educational books out there, but I’ve found more success in just buying comics and books from artists you really like and learning that way, studying the way they draw themselves and, a new thing, now with Twitter and social media you can sometimes actually contact artists you like for direct help (as long as you aren’t annoying about it and they make it clear it’s okay). Some artists also put their process directly online to check out too, so go to their website and look around. It’s more common than you think.
PREVIEWSworld: Do you prefer drawing by hand, digitally, or both?
Ian McGinty: I definitely prefer drawing by hand, but I function in life by having lots of projects going at once so the digital work in Photoshop makes things easier when books need to be juggled around and finished quickly. Basically, I switch back and forth depending on my final plans for the completed pages of work. So both.
PREVIEWSworld: How long does it normally take to draw a page?
Ian McGinty: I’m bashing out two fully-inked pages a day right now and I’ve calculated it thusly: If I get two pages pencilled by 3 pm, that leaves me a half hour for lunch and one episode of The Office. If it’s a Jim/Pam heavy episode I’m usually back to work by 3:15 but if it’s a Michael/Jan episode 3:30. From there, I’ve got two finished and inked pages, depending on how complicated, anywhere between 6 pm and 8 pm. I generally don’t color my own work so I can foist those pages onto someone else and start playing video games as soon as possible.
PREVIEWSworld: What’s your favorite thing to draw?
Ian McGinty: Monsters, robots and evil kids. This is also pretty much every log-line for every pitch I’ve ever submitted.
PREVIEWSworld: What's the most unique thing you've been asked to draw at a convention?
Ian McGinty: Because of my work on Adventure Time, Bravest Warriors, Bee & Puppycat, and Steven Universe, I get mostly requests for art of those characters, which I love doing anyways so it works out great. Been getting a LOT of Rick and Morty requests lately. Hm. But the most unique was meeting this dude in Calgary who had a GIANT sketchbook completely filled with drawings of this character Super-Turtle, literally a turtle with a cape who was in one-page DC comics during the Silver Age. I loved that, it was pretty cool. And he had BIG names in there, so I liked to imagine that the artists were probably pretty pumped to get to draw just like a cute turtle in a cape instead of Venom punching the face off Carnage or something.
PREVIEWSworld: Finally, what’s the best advice you have for beginning artists?
Ian McGinty: The best advice I have is to TRY and not get discouraged about your art. I say this, but you will anyway. I do. We all do. The best artist you know gets down on their own work, and if they don’t stay far away. Essentially, beginning a career in art is about being cool to people, not talking smack about your colleagues and working really hard. Don’t worry about your “style,” focus on telling good stories and realize there’s always gonna be someone better than you or more successful than you, but guess what? That really doesn’t matter at all in the long haul! Go for it!
Make comics! Draw em, write em, whatever, just do it.
