Flat artists are amazing. Just the best~ When I wanted to wrap up the colors of Chapter 1 as fast as possible for a print deadline, I hired two flat artists: Randi and Annette. Unfortunately, for Chapter 2 I wasn't ahead of inked pages enough to hire flat art help, but I plan to do so again with Chapter 3!

Anyway, here's my blog post on Annette, my second flat artist!

Annette is an old friend and colleague of mine. We've been working together in the game industry since... 2010 I think? Or maybe even longer!

Anyway, at my first game dev job me and Annette, along with three other cool artists and writers, were assigned to work on a webcomic for the game we made. It was a bit of a side project from the usual game dev tasks we had. We had a lot of fun working on the comic and Annette did an amazing job with colors. So naturally, in 2013, I decided to ask her for some flat help!

Since I talked about my coloring and flat process back in the blog post about Randi, I'm just going to post a few examples of how me and Annette work specifically.

Just like Randi, Annette let's me know if I forgot anything in the line art or if anything looks wonky. Which is super helpful.

John with half a mustache. That's weird!

Me and Annette also have a habit of adding tons of weird stuff (mostly pixel:y blood) in eachother's work when we make paintovers or feedback. We do this at our day job too. You may call it childish, but it actually lightens up the mood a bit when you're stressed about deadlines! Here's a few of my favorites that Annette made on The Din pages. (Warning! Blood!)

There were already blood in this scene, so let's add some hearts, right?

 

Yes, we do have a sick sense of humor.

(It did get a bit out of hand at our old job though, since the comic we made were for a younger audience. There's always a risk that the feedback layer, that is not supposed to show up in the final product, might show up anyway! :S Never happened, but... in hindsight, it was a bit risky.)

If you are curious to see what comic me and Annette worked on back in the day, you can follow this link. It looked like this:

Annette has currently been doing flats on a total of 7 pages of The Din!

These specifically: 

Prologue 10
Chapter1 21
Chapter1 23
Chapter1 24
Chapter1 53 
Chapter1 54 
Chapter1 57

If you want to find Annette, this is her portfolio. She's also on Twitter and Tumblr. She is pretty awesome, one of the most awesome people I know of. She can do anything between art, design, crafts and programming + is a really quick learner. I am always blown away by the work she does.

And did you know? She's got a BAFTA! That's pretty amazing in my book.

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K: How long have you been working as a flat artist?

A: On and off to help out friends.

 

K: And how long as a game artist?

A: About 6 years now.

 

K: What kind of music do you listen to when you work?

A: A bit of everything, but mostly pop.

 

K: What is your weirdest/coolest experience as a flat/comic artist or game artist?

A: One of the funniest things is when Karin draws small easter eggs in hidden layers, and I often do the same.

 

K: Any advice to aspiring flat artists or game artists?

A: Learn a bit of every step of the process, even if you just wish to focus on a specific part. It's surprisingly helpful!

 

K: What was your favorite part to flat of The Din?

A: The burning building. ;_; (I liked the color scheme!)

 

K: Do you like butter?

A: YES!

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