Tag: keep moving forward

Art Update July 2023: Can’t Quite Hack It

Another Unexpected Turn of Events

Hey everyone!

It’s been a while but I’m back with a new update. I had a few neat things I was working on that I was excited to reveal and talk about. Unfortunately, the world had other plans and decided to throw yet another major curveball at me. I hinted at this in the title, but all puns aside, this isn’t really a joking matter. Simply put…

…My instagram account was hacked and hijacked from me.

Yes, I fell victim to the ever growing epidemic of scammers and hackers. Now normally I’m very good at weeding out a potential scammer/hacker, but this particular person hit me where I’m most empathetic. They posed as a fellow artist struggling to be seen and acknowledged. My red flags didn’t go up at first because this person communicated in such a way that felt like a real person with a genuine issue looking for fellow support in the community. As an artist currently in that place, I understand the pain and struggle to get out there and be truly appreciated.

So after a bit of back and forth chatting, they send me a link to an art contest asking if I can help them out and vote for their work. Right there the alarm bells should have been going off, but again, I was blinded by the empathy I felt having personally dealt with similar things. So I clicked on the link. As soon as I did though, I noticed the site was fishy. I used no names for anything, only referring to the artist by number and generic descriptions. Also, certain links and buttons that would work on legitimate sites were not here. So I left without entering any sort of information that would give them access to my account. But I guess these hackers are more cunning than I thought, because they must have had a way to get it regardless. Simply clicking the link was enough. I thought little of it at the time. However I woke up the next day to a notice that my email was changed and I couldn’t log in anymore. Followed by a series of “support” emails stating that if the account couldn’t be recovered then I’d need to pay $600 to get it back. At that point things were too far gone and I couldn’t get it back.

I lost all the progress and connections to fellow artists I made on that site. Gone in an instant. What stings more is that it should’ve been preventable, but the empathy clouded my judgement. So I had to live with the consequences here.

I had to start all over again. From the beginning with zero followers. Completely demoralized. Needless to say, I was feeling really down and unsure if I’d be able to recover. I say that because I started that account almost ten years ago and I had only connected with 360 people. So of course I’m thinking to myself that this will be difficult to come back from. I struggled immensely just to get to where I was at, and even then that’s not really a whole lot. Some people get that many followers in mere hours. That’s not how it has been for me. I’ve had to really work hard to connect with the 360 people I had. Now they’re gone and I have to try and work my way back. But I don’t have another ten years to get there. I can’t do that again. I had to try a different approach.

So I reached out to as many of my fellow artists as I could and explained my situation to them. What caught me by surprise was the overwhelming support they all gave me. Many of them were almost complete strangers to me, yet they helped me out and spread the word. I am incredibly grateful and humbled by that.
Since this event happened, I’m only a fraction closer to where I was, but I’ve made way more meaningful connections with artists now than I had before. So even though I’m still setback a lot, it feels like I have more. Perhaps by starting over, I’ve weeded out the “bots” and “ghosts” and instead found myself becoming closer with actual people with likeminded interests.

Maybe being hacked wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe it’s exactly what I needed. A fresh start.

So that’s where things stand now on that front. I’ve been focusing more on getting back the small audience I had over there. Some good news that hasn’t changed is I want to announce that I will have an artist table one again at Comicopolis at the White Oak Library in Lockport, IL on July 29th. I wanted to participate in many more conventions, but with being in the first year of a new full time job, I wasn’t able to stay on top of that for this year. I’m happy I was able to at least book this one and then after it I will keep an eye out for others to join for next year. I really enjoyed the convention scene and I want to get back into that soon.

Well if you made it this far, thank you for reading and hearing my troubles lately. My entire art career has been littered with struggles. Those close to me can attest to that. However, I’m learning quickly that no matter what happens you cannot give up when things like this happening. Not when it’s something that is important and you’re passionate about.

The comeback will be far greater than the setback!

Keep Moving Forward
by Categories: Deep Thoughts, UpdatesTags: , , , , , , , ,

Pivoting to new endeavors

Hey!

I’m back again but this time with a bit of a new approach. This is going to be an update on many of the art things I’m doing and working on. I’d like to do this type of thing every few months to keep you all in the know with whatever art related things I have in the pipeline. So let’s get into it!

The first thing, and you may have noticed this already, but I closed down commissions for the forseeable future. I did a handful of commissions here and there, but now I want to focus on other things that will take up more of my time and energy. So I simply won’t have the time to devote to it as before. So for that reason I’m closing the doors on it for now. Will I open them again? Possibly, but it’s really hard to say right now. I’ll certainly consider it down the road.

So what could I possibly be focusing all my attention on that would cause me to shut down commissions? Well, the answer is me. Quite simply, I want to start working more on the projects that I am truly passionate about. The ones that I decide are important. Now that could be seen as selfish and I guess it is a bit. But my whole life I have been doing work for others making their ideas and visions come to life. Well now I want to apply all my attention to making my ideas a reality. I’ve had so many ideas that I never followed through on for whatever reason. Life is short, so I’m deciding it’s time to work on my ideas before it becomes too late.

One of the things I’m doing is putting a big focus on my presence on creator supporting sites, specifically Ko-fi. I’ve had an account on that site for some time, but I never was consistent with with uploading content there and used it more of a tip jar if you will. Well now I went back and reworked my the whole thing and restructured it. I set it up so I know offer membership options on Ko-fi! I have three tier levels each with something unique and exclusive. I want to offer something special for those of you who support me and my crazy art journey. It’s already live too so please go check it out here https://ko-fi.com/dstankowiczart

The other thing is I want to focus on my original comic story I’ve had for many years. This comic stars my original characters Potato and Bimm, which you can see plus other character concepts for their world in my gallery. Anyway, I’ve completed a few pages but it has taken me far too long to still be so early on in the creation process. So I’m going to be putting an emphasis on finishing this thing real soon. I even plan to show off some of the behind the scenes look at the pages on Ko-fi. Every thing then will come full circle!

That’s about it for now. I really hope I can remain motivated to keep up with this plan, because it has the potential to be the most rewarding. The next thing is I’m looking into getting back into the convention scene and sign up for a few upcoming shows. I’m not sure which ones yet but I’ll be sure to keep you all updated again in the near future when I know.

So until the next update, keep moving forward!

by Categories: Deep Thoughts, Potato & Bimm, UpdatesTags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Fresh New Start

Another new year with another attempt at making change.
But will it work?

Well here we are again. The year is ending and it’s time to reflect on all the goals I had for myself. Let’s take a look and…oh…well, this is awkward.

All joking aside, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been here at all throughout the year. That is because I unfortunately dropped the ball. I could make excuses for “life happening” and what not, but I won’t. I know full well it is my own fault for not following through with what I set out to do a year ago in a similar post. That means many, if not all, of the things I wanted to change or accomplish never happened. While that is incredibly disappointing on my end, I can’t dwell on the past. It happened, and all I can do now is look forward.

That is exactly what I plan to do. Too often I’ve focused on what didn’t work or what went wrong to try and avoid the same mistakes. It hasn’t worked out too great for me. So I’ll acknowledge the failures but continue to move on. I know my track record is against me here, but something in me has changed. I feel more committed to my goals than I ever have and I need to strike while the iron is hot.

It happened, and all I can do now is look forward.

My plan for this website has changed a bit. The ultimate goal is to have this place be the one site to find everything related to my work. At this time that doesn’t seem possible yet. So for now I will use this blog as a way to update everyone in a more detailed manner on what I’m working on each month. Keep people informed on the projects in development, conventions I may be attending, and other art things. I’d also like to write some product review here once in a while. I will also try to update the artwork in my gallery to keep up with my ever evolving skills and style. Basically, I don’t want this website to be stagnant for too long. It needs to be a living and breathing place so all who come here can engage with the content.

The next change was a tough decision, but I’m closing down commissions. The ones I have done before were super fun, but the requests are not consistent enough to remain a top priority. I will still have all the information available on the site and you can always reach out to inquire about them. I just won’t be actively pursuing them like I was trying before. It may come off as selfish, but I want to focus more on the art that I am passionate about creating, like my original comic. More on that another time.

Which leads to the next thing. I’ve had a Ko-fi page for a while but I only updated it on occasion. I want to change that. I’ve decided to start offering memberships there for access to exclusive artwork and see other art related things before anywhere else. It will be the best way to support my creative endeavors outside of artist alley tables at conventions. It is way too expensive for me to run a server on this site to do what I can with Ko-fi, so I will used that in conjunction with my website to see and experience all there is with my work.

I want to focus more on the art that I am passionate about creating.

As for social media, I’m going to take a more relaxed approach to it. I’ve tried so hard to do the right things and follow all the tips and advice to reach more people there, but it just hasn’t worked. So I will still use my Instagram page but it will mostly be to preview what you can find here or on my Ko-fi page. Maybe that will allow me to be more personal there, which may end up being the thing I was missing. Funny if that ends up being the case. We’ll just have to wait and see.

So here we are on the dawn of a new year with familiar goals. But it’s time to pivot and adjust my approach. Will it work? I don’t know. What I do know is things weren’t working before so it is time to mix it up. If I want new and different things to happen then I have to start doing new and different things. Seems pretty simple when put that way. All I know is that no matter what happens, I have to…

Keep Moving Forward

Happy New Year!

by Categories: Deep ThoughtsTags: , , , , , , , ,

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!

by Categories: comics, Deep Thoughts, IllustrationTags: , , , , , , , , ,

A Time to be Thankful

As I sit here I find that many things have changed in the world. While those around me are improving, growing, and moving on with their lives, I see myself in the same place. A state of limbo I feel somewhat stuck in perpetually. However, despite that, I choose to be positive and grateful for what I have. It is incredibly easy to be cynical and bitter about the things we don’t have (I admittedly have done this), but it takes a stronger will to appreciate all that is right in front of you.

I know that while my family may get on my nerves quite often (and honestly, whose doesn’t?), they are always there for me and have my back no matter what. And my close circle of friends has been amazing. I am who I am because of all of them and I wouldn’t have that any other way.

There has been an unexpected surprise this year though. I’ve started building great rapport with a community of likeminded artists on Instagram. That is extremely unexpected considering my disdain for all social media. It’s a great feeling to be a part of a small group of artists who support each other. Their kindness and support has helped me keep up a positive mindset about the future. I am very thankful for them.

I’m not a writer, so many of these blog posts come as a struggle to me. But I felt the need show my appreciation for all the people and things in my life. I am grateful for all of them, no matter how small. So I hope you all enjoyed this Thanksgiving holiday weekend and ate boatloads of turkey and stuffing.

Thank you for all your support. Even if its just stopping by to give a look at some of the art and share it to someone else, it helps so much for an artist like me trying to get his feet off the ground.

In case you didn’t have enough, here is some left over turkey as a thank you.

Keep Moving Forward

by Categories: Deep Thoughts, IllustrationTags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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

by Categories: Artist Alley, Comic Con, comics, Fan Art, Potato & BimmTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Here is preview of one of the first pages of the comic that I’ve completed. Still debating if I should color it.

Keep Moving Forward

by Categories: comics, Potato & BimmTags: , , , , ,

Rolling with the Punches

I had other things planned, but sometimes you have to adapt on the fly.

Life is unpredictable. No matter how much you plan and prepare, you never know when a curveball will be thrown your way. My family was thrown a major curveball this week. I lost the time needed for my planned topic so I had to improvise. I thought about skipping this week, but I made a commitment to myself to keep this ongoing no matter what.

There was a time where such a thing would throw me off and I could not recover. But my experiences this last year have shown me what is important. I know now that when you hit a large bump in the road that you need to brace for impact and adjust speed. You don’t stop and turn around, you slow down and maybe change your approach. But you keep moving forward.

If there is one thing I know its that I can take a punch. I’ve been hit left and right many times and I’m still standing. I’ve been beaten and bruised but I keep fighting. There is too much at stake to lie down and take it. This post is short, but it needed to be given the circumstances. I’ll return to my original idea for next week. And if something else happens then I’ll adjust. I’ve been in this fight long enough that I know how to roll with the punches.

Never give up. Fight on!

by Categories: UncategorizedTags: , , , , ,