Quoteskine

Thanks very much. I’m alright I guess. I do enjoy a nice pint now and again too.

I do ship to the Netherlands from my shop if you do ever decide to grab a copy of the book, and I think Amazon probably do as well.

I actually have a friend who lives in the Netherlands who I’m hopefully visiting very soon. I can’t remember exactly where she lives now, it used to be Gorinchem, but I have a feeling she moved. I’m looking forward to it either way, I’ve been to Rotterdam and Amsterdam before, at very different ages. So obviously they were both awesome for very different reasons.

I find this hard to answer because having a “style” still troubles me. I don’t really think I have one either, so your question definitely makes sense.

My plan is just to keep producing things. I don’t think it matters if it’s all different, in fact it probably helps. Try as many styles and techniques as you can and you’ll naturally start to favour certain methods and mediums. From that a style will hopefully start to fall into place.

Also, I just looked at your stuff. I would definitely not worry about it. You can draw really well! Just keep messing around as much as you can and I’m sure you’ll eek out a style you’re happy with.

No they haven’t!

I would find it interesting too. I was originally going to set up a tumblr for them. But I didn’t get round to it, and if the URL wasn’t in the book I figured there was no point.

I want Quoteskine Volume 2 to have more interactive bits in. And I’m working on a different book that is ONLY interactive. So I’d be really interested to see how people reacted to those pages.

Fill them in and send them to me you guyyyyyssss!

Not really, I’ve seen that people have done it in the past and labelled it “fan art” or something. That’s actually pretty awesome.

I’m sure a lot creative people will want to stab out my eyes for saying it, but I think there’s a place for copying. I think if you’re copying something to practice it can really help you develop your skills and ideas.

One of my favourite authors was Hunter S Thompson, and before he was a successful writer he typed out the whole of The Great Gatsby several times so he could feel what it was like to write a masterpiece.

I think most artists will have copied at some point (even though they will probably all deny it now). That’s how you learn.

Think about musicians, EVERY musician learned by first playing covers. It’s just natural. You copy what you love over and over to learn how it’s done. Eventually you will KNOW how it’s done and you’ll feel confident making something of your own.

I think “do not claim them as their own” is the key part of your question. If someone played a song by a famous musician in front of people and said that they wrote it everyone would call them a dick, and rightly so. But if they said hey listen to this cover, people would take it as it is.

I think art is a bit different, mainly because a lot of artists are arseholes. They tend to forget that when they were starting out they copied people too, I’m sure most artists used to draw Mickey Mouse or some other character over and over when they were a kid. A lot of artists also live in the misguided belief that they’re producing original groundbreaking work, when if they just used Google once in a while they’d find out their ideas had been done to death.

There’s a great quote by Banksy about that…

“Every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well, only twenty years earlier.”

So in short go for it, if it’s just to practice and learn then copy all my stuff if you want. Hopefully it’ll help you develop your own style and one day someone will be asking you the same question.

Most of the time I just work straight into a sketchbook in ink. Sometimes I pencil it out in there first if it’s more of a complex idea. 

I do occasionally sketch out ideas that I want to do in the future. I very rarely ever work any of the sketches up though. I like having an idea and getting it out quickly, the longer I have to think about an idea the more I become convinced that it’s crap.

Thank you. I do try to be an alright person.

I gave up on trying to matter when I found out how big space was. So it’s nice to know I matter to someone.

These Anon messages are getting almost too nice, I’m starting to freak out. I’m sure I’ll get a bunch of “you suck” messages next week to even everything out nicely.

Thanks so much! Messages like this really help when I’m feeling creatively blocked. So thanks again, this came at the perfect time.

OK. I can’t wait for our happily ever after to begin.

I was going to make a “thanks mom” joke.

But this was the nicest Anon message I’ve received.

I don’t know who you are, but I’m sure I must miss you too.

Thanks, I’m always interested in new quotes. That one’s similar to the boy scout motto.

I don’t use Moleskines anymore actually, the last couple I bought were awful quality, which is reason enough to stop using them. But the price is also insane, I used to get them from Amazon which sold them kind of reasonably. But the price has jumped almost 100% this year.

For me they’re the perfect example of a company letting their “coolness” turn into greed, which then leads to reduction in quality of the product that made them cool in the first place. I’ll probably never buy another Moleskine product, unless they start taking quality seriously again. I’ve tried to contact Moleskine a few times about it to check if I had books from a faulty batch or something. But it seems they care about customer care as much as making quality sketchbooks.

As for sizes I started off using the tiny pocket ones, but now I use an A5 sized sketchbook.

I’m 31 now (no old jokes) and I was 27/28 when I went travelling.

I went with someone else, but I spent a couple of months in Australia (and a little bit in Thailand/Malaysia) on my own. At first I thought travelling on your own would be a bit scary or daunting, but I met a ton of people travelling alone. I’d love to get out there and go travelling on my own sometime. You’re also never really alone, there are always other people travelling in the same place as you, and it’s easy to meet other people to hang out with when you need to.

It is much better seeing amazing things with other people though. In the Himalayas I woke up at 4am to trek to the top of a place called Poon Hill to see the sunrise, and my friend decided to stay in bed.

It was a pretty amazing sight. But it was a few hour hike to the top, in the FREEZING cold, and I’d only slept about an hour beforehand.

So basically the whole time I was just thinking “that bitch is in bed and I’m doing this to see the sunrise. I’VE SEEN A SUNRISE.”

Haha.

A load of my travelling pictures are on flickr if you fancy a look…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lee20sk/sets/

I should add the rest of them sometime.

Haha, yeah it’s hilarious.

There’s a nice quote about that whole thing on my haters page from the guy who “made it”. He has “interesting” views. 

When I first started putting my work on the internet it really bugged me. But now I just think so what, it’s actually kind of funny. If people directly copy my work with the aim of making money then it’s a different story. Then I get pissed off.

But if it’s just some dumb kid who posts one of my drawings as if it’s their own with the hope of winning at tumblr, then good luck to them. I’d hate to be someone like that who’s life is ruled by the amount of likes and reblogs they get. I’d hate it even more if I was the sort of person who didn’t even produce anything original to try and get all those likes and reblogs.

But sadly the fact that everything is made into some sort of competition these days means that’s always going to happen. There are people who follow Quoteskine on tumblr, but go to my flickr page to post drawings from there so it looks like they “found it” or whatever. It’s a bizarre world.

I’ve also seen loads of instances where people use my ideas but adapt them so they are something new. That’s actually kind of flattering and cool, and it’s pretty much what I do myself with any drawings influenced by movies, music or books. Sometimes they are a little too close for comfort and are actually just copies, but yeah, as long as people aren’t trying to sell my work as theirs it’s all good.

I think everything good that’s happened because I put my work on the internet MASSIVELY outweighs the fact that a few kids try to claim my stuff as their own. You’ve just messaged me to ask about my views on it for one thing, no one gave a shit about my views a few years ago. Haha.

If you’re worried about putting your work on the net you could look at things like putting a little watermark on there, or working a url/signature into each design somehow. But in the end, if people want to copy something you’ve done they will do, you just have to take a step back and realise that the internet is not a “real” place, and it’s full of idiots. If you’ve got talent and ideas that’s always going to mean you win against the people who are winning at tumblr.

There was a great quote on Kickstarter the other day by R Stevens that pretty much sums up my feelings on being scared about putting your work online in case people steal it…

“The only copy protection I need is the fact that tomorrow’s comic doesn’t exist yet and my brain’s the only place that bakes that cookie.”

I don’t really have a passion, so hopefully it’s ok not to have one.

I don’t know. Maybe I do, but I just don’t call it a passion. There are a few things I like a lot, but passion is too strong a word for me to use to describe anything that I like.

I think like Louis CK says, people go to the “top shelf” way too often with words these days.

People say things like drawing is their “passion” when really they just mean they like to draw. I’ve never been able to say it without feeling like a fraud. I always wonder if other people are faking it too, or if I just don’t feel things in the same way as normal people.

I never really get excited for example. Well, I do. But I’d never feel excited about something enough to say anything like “OMG I am SOOOOOO excited about this”.

I’ll never understand how anyone does either. It’s pretty much the same with any feeling. I wish there was a way to feel how other people felt even for just a little while. So I could check if I’m feeling the same as most people, but just not expressing it in the same way. Or if I’m missing out on all these wonderful vivid emotions.

Anyyyyyyyway, I guess the short answers to your questions are 1: I don’t think so. - 2: No. - 3: Hopefully.

:)

I bought 3 of the little pocket ones to take travelling with me.

I planned on using them as journals/sketchbooks, and I bought them mainly because they felt nice and looked pretty tough. Since they were going to be in a skanky back pack for a year that seemed important.

As it happens I didn’t use them once while I was away, so had 3 empty notebooks when I came home. And that’s when I started Quoteskine.

I think that’s fate, or something.

I’m a night Eagle.

But with an owl’s ability to rotate my head 360 degrees.

I haven’t found anything yet. I’ve bought a few similar style sketchbooks, but most seem to have slightly textured paper. The thing used to love about Moleskines was how smooth the paper was. So if anyone knows of any hard back sketchbook brands that have smooth paper let me know.

Your question is really tough and those aliens sound like dicks.

These aliens seems like they’re instigating this rule because there’s only one colour they want everything to be. Which makes me think if you don’t pick the colour they want you will be murdered or have something stuck up your bum. So, I would quickly try and gauge which is the “correct” colour based on what the aliens look like and use that. 

Pray that I pick right!

I get asked this question more than any other these days, and the honest answer is I have no idea. I was approached about publishing my book and I guess normally it’s the other way round.

But, if I was trying to get Quoteskine published I think what I’d do is:

• Get the book (or at least a very good portion of it) ready.
• Write a kind of sales pitch for it, adding in anything relevant that proves to publishers it would sell.
• Send it to various publishers who’s books I like.

I don’t think there’s too much else you can do. At the end of the day it’ll be down to the taste of whoever reads it first at the publisher, and whether they think there’s a market for it.

I think then it’s about not being disheartened. If that round of mailing returns nothing, then try some smaller publishers. I think if you have a good book then hopefully someone will eventually see it for what it is.

Or, if you have a good fan/follower base, you could look into self publishing.

“This is so crap compared to what I had in my head” happens A LOT. I’m also sure it happens or happened to most of your (and my) favourite artists a lot too. It’s inevitable really, it’s extremely hard to execute something that’s as perfect as an idea.

And the answer to that kind of flows into the answer to your first question. Because it’s important not to let that feeling stop you from producing. It’s important to just get things out, and if they don’t work out or people think they suck what’s the worst that’s going to happen? Whatever you can think of to answer that isn’t that bad, and the reality of what will happen is a million times less bad.

But I know how hard it is to overcome. I am still really bad at the courage/confidence side of things. My best friend said just the other day that the only thing holding me back is me. That’s really true, I have loads of ideas for projects and work that I’ve gone nowhere near yet, because I’m scared it’ll suck or people will hate it. But I’m slowly getting better, the more you just do the things that terrify you, the more you’ll see that it’s not that bad.

There’s a great scene in a film called See No Evil, Hear No Evil. I just tried to find it on YouTube but couldn’t, so it goes something like..

Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are sitting on a bench in a busy park eating ice cream. Richard asks Gene what he’s afraid of in life, what’s holding him back. Gene says he’s afraid of looking like an idiot. Richard says I can solve all of your problems in 10 seconds if you trust me, he asks Gene if he trusts him, to which he says yes. Then Richard just dumps his ice cream on top of Gene’s head.

Its hard to explain that in writing and get the point across. But if you watch the movie that scene will answer your questions.

There was a dream I used to have regularly in high school that remains unfulfilled.

It was actually a dream about school too.

Every morning when we went into school we were given a small sniper rifle in a brief case.

We had to assemble our gun and go and sit on the grassy hill that lead down to the playing field.

We sat there all day shooting at the herd of bright yellow rhinoceroses that were for some reason trying to constantly charge up the hill.

I’m not sure what happened to the rhinoceroses when we went home for the day.