With over 132 posts on Instagram already, the artist has racked up an applaudable number of followers, over 71k, to be exact. MadeByTio told us how it all began: “One day, I created a Facebook page and an Instagram account and started publishing my comics on them. That was the beginning.” And while it's up to you to agree with this statement or not, we believe that If you’d like to see more of his takes on dark and unexpected humor for yourself, you need to scroll down even further!
MadeByTio mentioned that some of his comics actually describe real-life situations. Especially the ones that are from the mini-series 'How Your Brain Works.’ With all of that being said, it sure seems like the artist has the noble mission to cheer people up and make them laugh using his talent and creativity. Because who doesn't love some quirky and funny comics at the end of the day?
Once again Bored Panda reached out to MadeByTio but this time with even more questions! First, we asked the artist if he had any major influences in his life that might've helped him to develop and refine his style.
"As a child, I always looked up to my older brothers and my father who were, and still are, crazy talented at drawing/sketching. That’s when I started to draw, mostly stuff I saw on TV like Dragon Ball characters (I was absolutely crazy about Dragon Ball when I was a young lad) or Batman (the animated series).
Nowadays I look up to Mr. Lovenstein, Murrzstudio, Xibang, Sarah Anderson, and Shencomix. Love their work! Check them out."
Art, in any kind of form, takes a lot of time not only to practice but also to produce, therefore we asked Tio how long it takes him to fully finish his comics.
"It takes 6-8 hours to finish a comic. It depends on the number of characters, the background, and the details. Colouring, adding shadows and highlights take up most of the time. So if you are thinking about drawing comics – DO NOT use colors! Just draw in black and white and thank me later haha."
Being an artist is not easy, one can easily encounter a lack of inspiration, burnout, etc, so we wanted to ask the artist about his ideas for the comics.
"Most of the time while doing something completely different than thinking about ideas. They just pop up. While driving a car, watching shows, playing games, or right before falling asleep. Occasionally my friends or people on social media share their ideas with me and I turn them into comics."
As we mentioned before, sometimes creative work can cause quite a burnout, therefore we asked the artist if he had dealt with it as well.
"Not really to be honest. I post just once a week so I am not on a tight schedule if it comes to drawing and posting webcomics. I would love to post twice a week but work and real-life make it almost impossible."
We also asked Tio about how people reacted to his work.
"My friends and family enjoy my stupid comics and I am really glad they do. Because at the beginning that was the only feedback I'd get and real friends are brutally honest Also I absolutely love reading comments and any feedback on my posts and I try to respond to all of them. That is a huge motivation boost for me."
The creative process is not easy, but there are always some enjoyable parts to it.
"The rough sketching part. The first part of bringing your idea to paper. Love it, you don’t need to draw clean lines or be accurate. Just go nuts. And I absolutely hate drawing speech bubbles and adding text or letters. Horrible!"
We also asked about the inspiration behind the artist's Instagram account.
"I was a lurker on Imgur and 9GAG for some years. Always watching and upvoting but never commenting or posting anything. My favorite posts were webcomics. And I thought, hey why not? Why shouldn’t I take a shot? Let me share with you what keeps me up at night."
Artists tend to get motivated by a lot of things such as curiosity, the search for beauty, or even meaning. Therefore, we asked Tio about that too.
"I grabbed a sketchbook and started writing down ideas for webcomics and experimenting with different drawing styles. I did this for roughly 3-4 months. Then I bought a cheap drawing tablet and started drawing on my sh*tty computer. The results were horrible! Drawing on paper and drawing digitally are two completely different things. It took me weeks to get used to it. But then finally, I drew my first two comics, posted them… and they bombed haha."
