Artist Interview

 

Today I’m interviewing James Coats, the Artist and creative Visual Architect of Dino Beasts. So, let’s get to it!

 

1. What made you want to work on a project like Dino Beasts? And what do you like the most about this story?

When the idea to collaborate on a comic book came about we really discussed several different ideas.  A story based in fantasy and adventure seemed to be the common theme in most of our early ideas, and then it became more about what our interests were and what would we want to read.  We started looking at some of the stories and properties that have heavily influenced us creatively since we were kids, things like He-Man, Dino-Riders, Ninja Turtles, and a slew of other 80’s cartoons and toys.  Dinosaur characters is something that just kept popping up in our discussions.  It seemed like that is the one type of story we kept talking about wanting to read but couldn’t because no one was making good comics with dinosaur characters in them.  There was also a real energy and excitement anytime we started talking about a world with dinosaur people, so it came about naturally when we settled on the Dino Beasts project.

The story makes me reminisce about those things I loved as a kid, and that is what has been really great about it.  I don’t remember exact moments from shows like Dinosaucers or the Tiger Sharks, or any number of those cartoons, but I do remember that excitement and wow factor when you saw them.  The crazy colorful characters and the action scenes really produce a visual feast for a young kid’s brain to try and process, and that is what still resonates with me today.  As the comic has gone on I find myself tapping more and more into those old feelings and it has made it a real blast to work on.

2. Kumoto’s design is very striking with his lambeosaur-inspired head crest. How did that design come about?

I started by looking at a lot of crested dinosaurs, but I didn’t want a straight emulation for the main character.  I wanted something more pronounced and tall for Kumoto, something that would give him an interesting look in profile.  While sketching, the idea of him hunting down an enemy in a field, where the only thing you see above the tall grass is his head crest, sort of like a shark, came to me.  I took that idea and ran with it.  There is also the challenge of how dinosaur do you make him and other characters.  If he looks exactly like a lambeosaur then you won’t get much emotion and acting across his face and then it defeats the purpose of making a comic in the first place.  I had to find a happy medium that blended the idea of him being a species evolved from a dinosaur and not a historical representation of one.

3. What’s it been like adapting dinosaur anatomies into more human-like forms?

The most important aspect is getting the faces to work.  Being able to get a reptile to display human emotions is tricky especially if you don’t adjust parts of their anatomy, like making Kumoto’s snout shorter and wider than a normal lambeosaur.  When it came to Borvo, I decided to keep him much closer to a straight brachiosaurus but I made his entire jaw area more flexible in a sense.  If I keep his silhouette and the structure of the top of his head more “real”, then I can play around with some pretty extreme emotions with the rest of his face.  For the characters’ bodies, it was about exaggerating certain aspects to get a fun design.  Kumoto is a pretty standard barbarian body type and we wanted him that way so he could be a strong lead character.  Borvo and the later characters get more exaggerated so they provide a nice contrast next to Kumoto.  I think the best character interactions come out when your characters have strong design differences, as it allows you to push perspectives and camera angles in more interesting ways.  Dinosaurs come in so many shapes and sizes that it really is a cartoonist’s dream for reference material.

4. You ink all your own work by hand with a brush. Why? What do you like about hand inking?

           That’s a pretty big question, but the short answer is that my comic book heroes and the guys I come back to most often for inspiration all ink by hand using a brush.  I know it is becoming somewhat of a lost art form because it takes a long time to master and it is a difficult tool to use.  My theory on inking is that it is the most important part of the work.  I don’t think inks should be put on a page to just enhance the pencil work.  It’s really the other way around, the pencils are there to act as a skeleton for the finished art which is the inked line.  Pencils should be laid down to get your pacing and character placement adjusted inside the world and story you are telling.  After that comes the process of creating real art with the inks.  When I am inking I no longer think about the actual storytelling ideas because I figured that out with the pencils. Instead, it is all about art and the unique beauty of cartooning and the ink medium.  It is like the scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt is in the passenger seat and he is yelling at Edward Norton to “just let go” of the steering wheel.  Trust the brush and just it let go.  Inking is an art form so embrace it.  This is obviously also a stylistic preference for when I’m creating my own work.  I do like artists who use pens and nibs to ink and even guys who just color over their pencils.  For me, I find a peaceful interaction in the art of brush inking.

5. In terms of your visual storytelling style, who or what comics have influenced you the most?

There are so many good artists that I find inspire me but the key guys always stay at the top of my list.  Paul Pope, Jeff Smith, Bill Watterson, Jack Kirby, Kyle Baker, and the great Jean Giraud (Moebius) are artists that I constantly study for inspiration.  These guys produce artwork that seems to jump off the page with energy and emotion.  One of my all-time favorite artists is Doug Wildey.  He is probably most associated with being the creator of Jonny Quest but Doug was an amazing comic book artist as well.  He has a unique artistic style and has a fantastic sense of spotting black shapes and how to adjust his brush line work to suit what the page needs.  His western masterpiece Rio sits next to my drawing table with the 4 great issues of Jonny Quest that he also produced.  He created a lot of comic stories other than those, but it’s hard to find his stuff unless you are doing some serious back issue diving.  He is one artist that I think many new guys don’t know about because you don’t hear his name that much, which is a shame.  Earl Norem also holds a special place in my heart.  I’m not sure how many hours I have spent in my life staring at his amazing Masters of The Universe paintings and box art. Probably too many.

6. Much of the first Dino Beasts book was made while you were serving in the Air Force. You worked on pages and then would have lapses where you couldn’t work on it for months, and then you would have a little time and you would jump back in. What was it like working like that? Was it hard to get back into comic-making after periods where you couldn’t draw?

             A lot of cartoonist have other jobs but the military is its own unique beast.  From deployments, 12-hour shifts, and a constantly changing schedule, active duty military is like nothing else out there.  It was frustrating to say the least.  I would find that my style and basic drawing skills would change slightly after every long break.  Sometimes it would take weeks or months to get back into a rhythm where I felt like I was producing decent work again.  While I couldn’t produce art work during those lapses I was still studying other artists work and thinking about their processes and motivations.  As an artist, you never stop learning and evolving so I tried to use those breaks to enhance my knowledge about the art form as a whole.  We also changed the overall story part way through book 1, so you can see some of the stylistic shifts in the art work in the book if you look closely.  It is very evident to me since I’m the artists and I am really critical looking at my own work, but it still feels like a connected world so I’m happy about that.  I would say the long lapses helped keep my motivation up in a strange way.  Looking at other people making good art while I couldn’t made me angry and fueled my motivation (laughs).  Now that I am a civilian again I have a regular schedule and I can see a more constant quality level and a steadier progression in the art.

7. What’s your working style like on Dino Beasts? Script, thumbnails, final pencils? Does it vary based on the scene?

             I keep the process as simple as possible.  My brother has worked out the entire story plot and we sat down and went over it, so I already know where this whole crazy adventure is going.  That allows me to think, big picture, how much to ramp up or down some things that are happening early in the story.  But I get scripts from John, usually in chunks of like 10-20 pages at a time.  He will have ideas written out for panels and what is happening but I have complete freedom to change things up which has been nice.  I can make scenes longer and add pages to parts of the story or subtract them.  As we have gotten farther into the project he has given me less and less guidance and sometimes I will just get pages showing the dialog or rough idea of what Kumoto is doing during the scene.  The panel layout and action is completely up to me then.  I will take whatever script I get and do small loose thumbnails.  Most of the time they are little better than stick figures.  Then I go right to final pencils.  I don’t see the point in all the other steps I see some people doing.  I think I get more energy in my work by just going right to final pencils from thumbnails.  Of course, pencils are just there as a frame work as I said earlier, so I don’t get that worked up about them if a hand or some plants don’t look quite right.  I know the inks are the real final work so I just adjust it in the inking phase.  I read an interview with Paul Pope about how he works on a chunk of pages at a time and hangs them on the wall.  I think that is also the best way to work, that I have found.  I will work on 5-6 pages at a time and take them all the way to finished inks.  I hang them up so I can switch between them however I feel based on my mood.  I think this keeps your energy levels up and lets you get through pages faster than going one page at a time.  And I always go through and ink all the faces first, because that is where all the important acting is done.  That is my process, I keep it as simple and old school as possible.  Making comics is hard work but it should be fun, it shouldn’t feel like a terrible grind you have to fight through every day.