comics – The Art of David Stankowicz

A New Year and New Beginning

A fresh start to invigorate an artistic career

Hope you all are enjoying the new year!

Even though we are already just about a month in, I wanted to talk a bit about my game plan going forward with my artwork and this website. Much like every year, I have big plans and aspirations on what I want to accomplish. While I’ve fallen short in the past on many of those goals, I’m hopeful that this year I will change all that.

The year has already started off on a good note. At the beginning of the month, I began a new job as a full time Graphic Designer! I’ve been clamoring a good long while for a creative position like that, so those closest to me will know that a huge weight that I’ve been carrying has been lifted off my shoulders. I quite enjoy graphic design and I’m really liking the job so far, but if you’ve been following me for any amount of time then you’ll know that this isn’t the final destination for my career. My dream is to be able to make a living off my illustrations and character designs. This new job is a great leap in the right direction but I still hunger for that full time illustrator role.

That is one minor downside to this new job. Since it is full time, it has taken a lot of the time away from me working on new and current illustration projects. I’m now in a position where I have to use what ever time I have each day and week to work on artwork as best I can. That means that now there will probably be even longer periods of inactivity both here on my site and the few social media pages I use (which I still hate by the way). I am still drawing and creating whenever I can. If you don’t see or hear from me for a while, just know I’m working on things that are taking longer now that I have limited time throughout the week. The big takeaway here is that I will still be drawing and illustrating because I enjoy it too much and I still want to share my characters and stories with the world. Graphic design is nice, but I still want to be a full time illustrator, so I am continuing to reach for that.

I am still drawing and creating whenever I can

One of the things I hope will strengthen that effort is the way I intend to use this website. I may have stated this before, but I want this site to be the the central hub for all things related to my artwork. In the past I was only really using it as a portfolio site with galleries of some of my better original work and nothing more. Recently, though, I have begun to add other ways to broaden how you view and interact with the website. One of them is the inclusion of this blog, where you can hear news, info, and updates straight from the horses mouth with no limitations. That was a great idea as I now have a way to speak my mind and let you all know what is happening with my artwork in a more direct fashion. The other change I made even more recent is the ability to support my art by selling prints of illustrations, commissioned work, and individual donations. As a goal to make this a one stop shop for anything with my artwork, it just made sense to make these options available here versus using another site like Etsy, Redbubble, Ko-fi, and etc. There is another idea I have planned to try and I’ll be announcing what that is very soon. Stay tuned…

So that is where things are at right now. The year has just begun, and while there have been some big changes already, some things have stayed the same. My desire and passion to keep creating colorful and appealing characters/illustrations has and will never waver. I’m also continuing the development of my comic starring my characters Potato & Bimm so that I can finish it by the end of this year, which is very exciting! Many exciting possibilities that I am optimistic can become a reality. My time has become more scarce now, but all that means is that I need to become more focused than ever before. The visions and goals I’ve set for myself are right in front of me, and to reach them all I have to do is…

Keep Moving Forward!

January 27, 2022January 27, 2022 by DStankowicz Categories: comics, Deep Thoughts, IllustrationTags: 2022, art, DavidDraws, drawing, dstankowiczart, goals, illustration, keep moving forward, newyear, website

Tabling at Wizard World Chicago

Jumping back into the Convention Scene, and I Met Mario!

It’s been a while, but I’m back to talk about a major event I attended recently. A few weeks ago in mid October, I had a table in the artist alley of a convention for the first time in two years. It wasn’t any convention either. It was at Wizard World Chicago and it was the biggest convention I’ve been to and the last one to use the ‘Wizard World’ name (starting next year it will be FanExpo). I wanted to write about this sooner, but other things and life stuff got in the way. But I’m here now to tell you about my experience at the show.

Back in 2019 I did a few smaller conventions that were pretty fun, but this one was the biggest yet for me. There were tons of incredibly talented artists and authors everywhere you looked. As I was setting up, the imposter syndrome crept up big time. I couldn’t help but think that I was way out of my league here, and I probably was. But something I’ve learned from many people is you don’t know how prepared and ready you are for something until you do it. You can plan and ponder these things until you are blue in the face, but you’ll never know if you are truly ready and able until you jump into the water with both feet. So that’s what I did here.

I’m glad I did too. Overall, the show was great and quite successful. I had some new prints available and tried some different thing out at this one. What’s weird is that all these convention shows are super unpredictable. I thought many of the new things I brought this time would do really well and that didn’t seem to be the case. In fact, many of the older prints that didn’t garner much attention at other shows sold better here. Also, the day that was supposed to be the biggest day of the show turned out to be my slowest. I’ve learned now to expect the unexpected and nothing is predictable. I never know how these shows will play out, and while that is really terrifying as a selling artist, it’s also part of the appeal and enjoyment.

Let me get to what was easily he highlight of the weekend. As you may or may not know, these conventions usually have celebrity guest show up for all or a few of the days. This being a very big show meant that some big names showed up. People like Rob Paulsen (voice of Yakko from the the Animaniacs and many others), Paige O’Hara (voice of Belle from Beauty and the Beast, and William Shatner (no introduction necessary) all appeared. I usually don’t try to make time to visit any of these people because I’m usually busy trying to market my work and network with fellow creators. But there was one guest who I had to make and exception and meet…Charles Martinet was there! That’s right, the voice of Mario himself was signing and taking photos all weekend. Being that a huge part of my love and passion for video games, art, and animation came from Super Mario and hearing his voice, meeting Charles became a top priority. I have a bunch of Mario related fan art I’ve created over the years and I had to capitalize on the opportunity to have the voice of Mario sign one of my original Super Mario art prints.

I try not to show my face too much because I’d rather let my artwork take the spotlight, but I have to show off this picture to remind myself that this actually happened. I don’t get star struck, but this was certainly a surreal experience I’ll never forget. You can be sure that print is getting framed and hung on my wall. A massive thank you to Charles Martinet for this moment. He’ll probably never remember this, but for me it will forever be a highlight in my life. I only wish we didn’t have to be wearing masks, but it was a small price to pay for this priceless memory.

Before the show wrapped up, I made sure to go around the show and meet some of the fellow artists around me. Everyone had amazing work and were very kind and friendly. I stopped and chatted with many of them and made quite a few new art buddies. What I did notice is that many artist had their own published comics shown off at their tables. That reminded me how my own comic project has been put on the backburner for far too long. It’s long past time I dust it off and continue development on it. That will be a top priority going into the new year.

So that was my time at Wizard World Chicago. It was a fun and memorable weekend for sure. I learned some things and made some new friends. While I may never attend another convention the size and scale as this one again, I’m definitely going to look back and remember how fun it was as I continue my artistic journey at future conventions.

Keep Moving Forward

November 2, 2021 by DStankowicz Categories: Artist Alley, Comic Con, comics, Fan Art, Potato & BimmTags: art, Artist Alley, Charles Martinet, Comic Con, comicart, convention, DavidDraws, dstankowiczart, fanart, freelance, independentartist, indieart, keep moving forward, Potato & Bimm, Super Mario, Wizard World

How I decided to turn my idea into a Comic

It all starts with a concept.
Creating a comic is an approachable creative medium to make by yourself.

When I began taking art seriously as a career, I did not think being a comic artist would be in my future. I always envisioned I’d be an animator. I hardly ever even read comics growing up. It was just simply something I never grew attached to and put to the idea to the side. I always saw comics as something strictly for superheroes. I mean, when anyone mentions comics it’s usually their first thought. Color me surprised when I found out that comics can be so much more than that. Once I had that revelation, I saw that comics can be a really approachable way to bring a creative concept to life.

So I’ve had this idea concept in my head for quite a while. I think it’s been over ten years (yikes!). It revolved around my original characters I created named Potato and Bimm. Once I created these characters I knew I wanted to make something more with them. Being a game art major, I had plans to make a video game starring my characters. I was always a big fan of platforming games and drew lots of inspiration from games like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie. However, I had always been more interested in the creative artistic side of gaming and not so much the technical side. I didn’t know much about coding and learning it to the point I needed to achieve the level of gaming quality I envisioned seemed like it would take too long. I was also afraid that all that coding I would be doing would take a huge chunk of the fun away. I tried doing some simple coding in the past and it felt like a chore to me. I didn’t enjoy it so I tried to avoid it. I suppose if I was really serious about turning this idea into a working video game then I could’ve brought in a coder to help out. But I was being selfish with this project. I wanted it to be something I could be proud to say was all mine. It became my baby and I wanted to preserve the creative decisions I made.

I wanted it to be something I could be proud to say was all mine.

I took the idea of making this into a game and put it away to move on to a different medium that really excited me; Animation! Being incredibly influenced by all kinds of animated films and series, creating my own animation seemed to fit all to well. It was great timing too because by this point I had begun creating more characters and a whole world for them. But once again, I ran into a big problem when my dumb brain decided to be too ambitious for it’s own good. I wanted to make a Disney quality animated short film, and being that I was the only one working on it, the project would’ve taken me an eternity to complete. Again, I could have hired help to share in the workload, but I wanted to do all the work. For many years I’ve had people tell me what to do and I’ve helped others bring their ideas to life. This time I wanted my vision to become a reality on my terms. I NEEDED to do this myself.

Fast forward a bit more and I now have begun developing a story around these characters and world I made. Having put making a game to the side and determining that an animation would just be too much for me currently, I had to look to another medium to bring my idea to life. That’s when I arrived at comics. My narrow minded thinking still saw it as a place mainly for superhero stories. By doing just a little research, I learned that comics can me more than just superheroes. Then it clicked in my head. I could make a comic! Even though my heart has always been with animation, something about the concept of taking my idea and turning it into a comic made me even more excited than before. This felt like something I could do all myself within a realistic time. What made it even better was that making a comic is very similar to making storyboards for animation, which I’ve take a great interest in recently. I also learned my lesson and tempered my ambitious goals a bit. Instead of making a large graphic novel, I plan to make it more of a short form comic. But it won’t be too short; I plan to make it a two part comic with each one being twenty four pages or more! Hey, I said I would temper my ambitions, not get rid of them totally. Old habits die hard I guess.

So here we are now where I’ve committed to creating this comic. I’ve been sitting on all these characters in this world I’ve created and I really need to show it to the world. This creative itch in me needs to be scratched and making a comic has felt like the best way for me to tell the story of my characters right now. I still have great ambitions of making a video game and an animated short film. Those goals with never go away. Whether I adapt this concept into an animation and video game down the line remains to be unseen, but right now my focus is on making this comic a reality. I’ve had many ideas in the past and I have never followed through with any of them. This comic idea is the first one that feels like I have a real shot of bringing it to fruition. I’ve already taken it farther than any other of my ideas in the past. I can’t wait for the day when I can show it off. It may not be the best comic in the world, but I will be proud to call it mine. That is enough for me.