Here's how Daniel's journey into the comic world started. "I just loved reading comics since I was a kid. And I have been drawing on and off for a long time. I used to post comics and only share with friends, but during the pandemic, I started sharing on social media. With some feedback and practice, they slowly got better. My main inspiration would be comic artists Bill Watterson and Kris Straub. The goal of the comic is to make beautiful comics that make people happy."
"It all started with my first Wacom over ten years ago. Now I just do everything on a humble little Surface Tablet. In the past, I’ve tried my hand at other traditional forms of art such as painting, but I keep on coming back to comics. I have a lot of respect for other artists who can pull so much out of a single image."
Any artist can attest to this, getting inspiration never comes easy. "It can take some time just deciding what comic to make next, because I have maybe too many ideas, and they’re definitely not all good. I usually sketch it out, and show my wife for her approval. Then it might take me three to ten hours to finish the comic. I usually try to keep them simple, but they can get pretty intense art-wise.
Generally, I just wait until I find a humorous situation, or observation, and then I try and build on top of that. For example in my comic with the people needing a unicorn’s healing tears, I just ask, what if the unicorn had trouble crying? What would happen then? You take this to its eventual conclusion and try to stick the landing. I usually like it when comics go in a direction you’re not expecting."
And like with every artist, Daniel has the good times and the bad times. "Sometimes it’s hard when you spend a lot of time on a comic, and it doesn’t turn out well. It’s frustrating, and it’s easy to take it personally. Creating art is also challenging because you’re constantly pushed to put out more and more by your own desire to meet expectations. Sometimes I do have to take a step back and just spend some time on myself. I’ve only been doing this consistently for about a year, so I haven’t experienced anything like what some other creators have dealt with."
"Definitely the art. I wanted my comic to feature humans in a more realistic depiction, even though it’s a challenge to draw. I love it when you can get the picture in your head onto the screen. I would say that’s where I’m the happiest. And sometimes the backgrounds end up too fancy because I just enjoy painting them. With digital art, you have a lot of wiggle room to make that effort to get the work where you want it to be. At the same time, keeping a schedule has given me a healthy amount of acceptance when things aren’t entirely perfect. You have to let it go and move onto the next comic."
As for his audience, he hopes that the reception is positive. "I’ve gotten a fair share of nice comments from people on the internet. I really appreciate those. Sometimes I get rude comments, but the healthiest thing is to just ignore them. I’ve also seen a handful of memes and amusing alterations of my art. You never know what’s gonna happen when you put out stuff like that."
"Actually, at first I didn’t like Instagram, because you couldn’t really browse without an account. But then I saw that it really is a great place for artists to showcase their work. Twitter’s image restrictions are kind of hard to work around, but Instagram basically acts like a little gallery. Since joining, I’ve also enjoyed communicating with other comic artists, that’s been a big plus."
