» Interview: FilthHigh

FilthHigh: Well, I have two types of drawing styles; my slightly chibied and more cartoon-like style, and my manga style. I think both these styles I can describe as 'identifiably manga, by with a slight westernized take.' I'd hate to be labeled a 'cookie-cutter manga artist,' so I try quite hard to make my manga style original and different.

F: My artistic influences list is extremely long… I've been a member of DeviantArt for about three years, and I've met a lot of great artists and friends. There aren't many 'professional' artists that I really look up to. I tend to be influenced more by my peers, not professionals. But still, I'd say my single most influential artist is (http://pu-sama.deviantart.com) Mallory Dyer. I just simply adore her macabre anime style, and her skill with traditional medium (such as Copics) is unbelievable. I've always strived to possibly one day equal her in skill, but I'm still a LONG way off. My very close companion Victor Araujo, whom I'm even lucky enough to share an art site with, has also been a huge influence - both in art and comedy (and life). I sometimes find myself trying to mimic particular aspects of his art. And finally, another good friend of mine, Jade Delamare has been a huge impact comedic-wise. Again, I couldn't list them all, but pretty much all of my online friends have influenced me in one way or another.

F: Oh, of course! I have done some crossover comics with different anime, and I do draw fanart occasionally. But I actually draw more fanart of my friends' characters if anything else! I do sometimes do some crossovers of my 14thNB character with my friend Poink's Pfeffer (http://www.lolerkraut.com/pfeffer/) characters a lot. But besides from that, I do a lot of stand-alone fanart of my friends' characters just because I genuinely like giving something back to them for putting up with me, ha! I also do occasionally draw some art just for the sole purpose of giving to my close real-life friends, and they always really appreciate it which makes me happy. My partner-in-crime on 14thNB, James Savill, probably has a nice collection of my art hanging in his room somewhere by now I'm sure, ha ha!

F: I've done some online-based commission work, as well as real-life-based mural-painting for money. I find that for commissioned work, I tend to be a lot harsher on myself, and it's very rare that I actually LIKE the final product, unfortunately. But all the clients I've served have all told me they were very satisfied though, so I guess it mustn't be so bad then.

F: I don't mind sharing my work, but only my best. I hate leaving my work up for too long. I admit, I've improved so very much in the last three years art-wise, that looking back at my old, pathetic excuse for art now pains me. So I only showcase my newest, and usually best, art. I have two art archives; (http://liquordoll.deviantart.com) my DeviantArt account, and on my shared art site FrogLizard.

F: Besides comic work and anime art, I have done wall mural paintings. Mostly for friends' kid's bedrooms. Mostly it's to just liven up their room, and it also gets me a bit of cash. For the occasional gift I've done pencil realistic portraits of people and such, but very rarely now. Ever since I finished school, I have really steered away from traditional art forms like painting and landscapes and pottery. I've never liked doing any of those, which lead me to loathe art taught at school. Now I'm out, I avoid it when possible.

F: To say that "I spent my whole childhood drawing comics and blah blah blah" would be a lie. I'm essentially a total newbie when it comes to comics. I only started drawing/writing short gag-strip comics about two years ago. These were just short-and-sweet cartoon strips usually featuring my friends, just for a laugh between ourselves. Little did we know at that time, that a little over a year later we would be posting such comics on the internet for the world to see! So, I've only been posting web comics for a year. 14th Nervous Breakdown is my first one. I did start another project on SmackJeeves a while back at the same time as 14thNB, but I was still a fresh newbie and didn't know what I was doing, so I quickly scrapped it. The comic was originally hosted on Geocities in January 24th 2006, but come February I neglected it for some time before I relocated it to SmackJeeves on March the 15th 2006. So it will have been on SmackJeeves for a year shortly.

F: 14th Nervous Breakdown is a comedic weekly web comic with a mix of gaming and real-life humor. It sometimes follows short story plotlines, but for the most the comics are usually short gag comics or satirizing/commenting on the latest video games or anime, starring a group of uniquely personalized characters. There is actually a back-story to where they live and what they really 'are,' but that has yet to be fully revealed…

F: I'd say Jimmy and Carly are my two main characters - I tend to feature them most in the comics. They're very mismatched friends - a typical odd couple (but not in the 'messy' vs. 'neat' way.) Jimmy is most often described as 'cute yet dirty.' He acts rather naïve and almost cute, but he really knows exactly what he's saying/doing. He's probably most famous for his inappropriate remarks and sexual innuendos/insinuations. Carly, on the other hand, is a lazy procrastinating downright bitch. She's very cynical and seems to be the only one accustomed to Jimmy's antics. I have a LOT of supporting characters, so the audience is BOUND to like at least one of them. Just quickly, a few of my favorites are Billy the Badger - a neurotic and psychotic mushroom-dependant badger; Bob and Olber - two muppet characters that only speak bad Spanish gibberish and bad German gibberish; Stevey the Stingray - pretty self-explanatory; and Morton - the kleptomaniac. Keep in mind that a lot of these characters are based off friends or people I know.

F: I first sketch out the comic in pencil on paper. I usually don't draw the panels up, I just draw a mass of floating characters which I can cut, crop and re-arrange later. I then ink it all my hand too - mostly with Artline pens, but sometimes with black ink. I scan it and use Photoshop 6 to re-arrange the characters, draw the panels up, add text to it, and generally turn it into what you see as the finished product. When I do use color in my work, I always use traditional medium, especially Copic markers. No digital coloring for me! XD

F: I have a certain layout in the sense of paneling that I almost always try to use. I panel vertically, instead of adding panels horizontally. I like this, as the readers can't 'accidentally' brush their eyes over the next panel and ruin what happens - instead they have to scroll down to see each panel. Also, because I usually don't have background to my comics (short gag comics usually don't anyway), I counter the over-excess of white by having black word balloons, to help balance out the black and the white. It also makes the colored dialogue stand out more, I believe. I color-code the main characters' dialogue to help the readers begin to identify with each character more (since I do have a lot of characters and I don't want them to get too confused) and to make it instantly identifiable who said what.

F: I'm actually a hardcore PNG addict. It doesn't loose any quality, and even makes it harder for art thieves to save. Though, before I got a Donator status, most of the comics had to be saved as JPEG to fit the file size regulations.

F: I work with my real-life buddy James Savill (or Errosannin as he is called on SJ). I do all the art myself, but James really helps in brainstorming and generally coming up with ideas. I'm actually glad I'm not the only writer though, because with two writers, it's great to be able to bounce around ideas - so what's funny and what's not. If I was doing it just by myself I don't think the web comic would be very funny. Sometimes we don't exactly see eye-to-eye on comic ideas either. I might have an idea that I think is hilarious, but he won't think so, or vise versa. But I think that's good, because if we both agree on something being funny, then chances are other people will find it funny too.

F: VGCats - great gaming web comic. And even if you don't get the joke, it still has wonderful art to look at.
Pfeffer - my friend Jade's web comic, it's awesome! Shame she doesn't update as much anymore. There's even two 14thNB guest appearances on there!
RPG-TV - another great gaming web comic. It's British, and very funny. I occasionally stalk the forums there.
Value=Dead - a girl gamer web comic. I don't read it as often as the others, but when I do it always gives me a laugh or two.
Cheap Shots - I love Gibson's cynical sense of humor.

F: Perhaps Hokori, just because in my opinion it is the most brilliantly illustrated anime web comic on SJ at the moment. It hasn't been updated since December, but still worth a real read.