Brian Despain

When I grew up, from architect to cartoonist, whatever it was that I wanted to be at the moment involved art. It wasn’t until college (pursuing an art degree, of course) that I finally realized what I really wanted to do was to be a professional illustrator.

So I changed my concentration, graduated from college, and headed out to put my mark on the world. I immediately got my first art job – as a clerk in an art store. Turns out, making a living as a working artist was a little harder than I’d imagined. However, it was while working there that my first REAL professional gig fell into my lap.

The owner of a small company that made cartoon maps of various towns and their businesses came in looking for someone to illustrate said maps. I jumped at the chance and that was the beginning of my thirty-year streak.

The map work was fun but didn’t pay very well. I kept working at the art store and did the maps and other freelance gigs on the side, mostly low paying-high volume jobs for small press companies producing and publishing role-playing game books until I finally was able to land a job doing graphic design and illustration for a hole-in-the-wall printing company.

It was here that I fell into digital painting, (looking for something to do between my assigned tasks) doing experiments with Photoshop until I’d developed a technique I could employ to create colorwork for my freelance career. I left the small printing company for another larger graphic design/ illustration house where I learned the finer points of color correction, and photo retouching as well as continuing with my illustration and digital painting. Stayed there a while until, as these things sometimes happen, the company ended in Chapter 11 and I was out of a job.

I tried for a good few months to find a similar gig in the area with no luck but, once again, fate stepped in and showed me the way. All the illustrations I’d done for the RPG publishers had garnered the attention of a video game developer out of Boston and, an interview and a job offer later, I was making games. Stayed in the games arena, jumping around to various companies for nearly a decade, adding 3D modeling and texturing, high poly modeling, and animation to my skill set while also continuing with illustration, doing both conceptual illustrations for games as well as finished illustration on the side for various clients.

Also picked up oil painting as a side project, eventually turning that into a small spate of gallery shows and private commissions. I think I would still be at games, had I not met my wife and dropped it all to follow her on a journey around the world. She had taken a naval scholarship to pay for medical school, so owed some time in the military. I quit my career; sold my house and attached my wagon to that star. I would occasionally pick up illustration gigs and even tried to continue with the gallery scene but more and more of my time was taken up with our kids and running the household.

And that’s where I am today. We’ve since left military life and settled down but my main job is raising the kids and taking care of the house. I still do a fair bit of freelance illustration but not like I used to in my heyday. These days I like to spend my spare art time doing all the things I dreamed about doing over the years. I’m learning how to write and illustrate comics(a project that I found was a lot more complicated than first blush)and even trying my hand at sculpting and casting bronze. We’ll see what the future holds.

Second, be fluid. Designs change; ideas change; schedules change. You are a gun for hire, so if the client wants changes to your art or your time, you do your best to accommodate.

Last, be firm. Things change but by no means should that burden be yours alone. If you allow a client to walk all over you, it compromises your ability to deliver the best possible product and that isn’t any good for anyone. By being up-front and firm in your needs and abilities and not simply agreeing to all that a client says, not only will your sanity stay intact but often the client will respect you more.

Traditional painting is also enjoyable. I mean, you get to create YOUR vision and bring it into the world, which is amazing no matter how you slice it. However, the process itself is quite labor-intensive; you don’t have the “out” an undo button gives you and, if you end up selling your work through a gallery, it’s pretty cut-throat.

A gallery typically takes a 50% commission on any work sold, meaning if you want to make any sort of living as a gallery artist, you have to do twice the work you think you have to – and that’s even if you end up selling EVERYTHING which is often not the case.

It wasn’t until I had some time on my hands that I decided to finally take the plunge to go whole cloth into writing, illustrating, and coloring my own story. I’d had some ideas throughout the years that “would make a good comic” but that was about as far as they ever went.

Now I’m in the thick of it learning panel layout, writing dialogue, understanding camera work, character interaction, simple fill color, and so on. All of it is a complex web of interconnected cogs that come together to create a seamless whole with me in the middle holding all the strings and, frankly, a little lost at times.

However, it’s been as much fun as it’s been challenging and I’ll continue with it, time willing. Ultimately, I’d love to have a finished product to share with the world. It won’t ever be as perfect as I want it to be but, hopefully, it’ll be good enough to tickle the fancy of a few people and that would make it all worthwhile.