Behind the Scenes

Drawing Blind: Aphantasia, part 1

For years, I never understood the idea that people could draw what they see in their mind. I thought it was a figure of speech, and possibly, was tied to having developed a great observational eye that allowed them to remember vast amounts of information about things they saw.

I spent decades trying to accumulate a mental library of visual elements based on observation. No luck. I’ve never been able to recall visual details of any piece of art by memory—not even favorite pictures by favorite artists. Drawing a loved one’s face by memory? Not a chance.

This inability to develop a skill that I heard others talk about really played into my imposter syndrome, and has dogged me throughout my career.

I first heard the term aphantasia in 2019, when I came across an article on Disney animator Glen Keane, who has it. Aphantasia is described as one’s “mind eye being blind.”

Adam Zeman, professor of cognitive and behavioural neurology at the University of Exeter describes it, “People with aphantasia can think about an apple, or a front door or a loved one perfectly well, but they just can’t bring to mind the visual image of that thing or person.”

Mind blown.

Reading that first article was a highly emotional experience for me. For years—decades, even—my inability to retain visual information and recall it when drawing was something I always viewed as a personal failing. To learn that it was something that couldn’t be fixed with hard work and hustle was a relief.

As a child, I loved to draw. It wasn’t an intellectual exercise or about trying to improve my craft. Through repetition, I got better, but it wasn’t a conscious effort. It was just a kid having fun.

The older I got, the more that improvement became my goal. Somewhere in middle school, I learned about blocking in—the process of lightly laying out a composition without detail. When I’d block-in, my drawings would be filled with light scribbles, in an effort to “find” the right lines and shapes. I’d eventually develop a composition out of the chaos, and that composition would lead to a pretty good drawing. That was my process for years.

My first indication that there was something missing came at a comic book convention when I watched artist Steve Rude doing character sketches for fans. I idolized Rude and stood in line, waiting for my turn to have him sign comics and to commission a sketch from him. Watching him, I was mesmerized by his decisiveness and efficiency. There was no wasted motion, no struggling to find a line or define a form. Instead, Rude’s process of blocking in a figure was executed with surgical precision. I was hypnotized.

That became my goal. I wanted that kind of observational eye, that kind of mental library where I could access that knowledge and apply it as precisely.

In the ensuing years, I was crushed over and over by my inability to retain observational details. No matter how I tried, I was never able to break free from having to sketch, scribble, and scrawl my way through a layout. It never got easier, and it felt like I never got any better at it.

And thumbnail layouts are just as bad. I marvel at artists who are able to create 2” x 3” layouts indicating decent anatomy, staging, and environments. For me, it’s always a wall of scribbles that ends up with some mildly discernible figures on top of it.

As I mentioned, this fed my imposter syndrome. I’d find workarounds (photo reference, drawing and refining on multiple sheets of vellum to create a more refined or confident underdrawing, working on a lightbox, etc), but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I really was just a fake.

Learning about aphantasia was incredibly liberating. I’m still trying to understand more about it, but for now, I’m just relieved to know why I never got any better at retaining imagery.

This is an ongoing exploration for me. I’ll probably write more about it in the future.

Extra! Extra!

I’ve recently finished writing Afterwords to two trade paperback collections of my creator-owned work. Both of these essays covered the history of the project—including stops-and-starts, previous iterations, and even missteps.

While writing these, I asked myself why it’s so important to me to document all this stuff. Is it an exercise in self-indulgence? Is it that I’m actually pretentious and feel that the minutia of what I do needs to be shared with everyone? Or is it something else?

I realized that, as with many aspects of my creative approach, it comes down to Rush.

I’ve written before about how the Canadian rock trio has influenced me as a creative, and I’ll probably do so again in the future.

The first page of Neil Peart’s liner notes from the 1985 tour book for Rush’s *Power Windows*. My hefty 12×18 scanner managed to get most of this 12×12 book in frame.

My love of documentation for a project can be traced directly to the tour books that Rush produced during my formative years. Created as 12” x 12” 32-page glossy books, the tour books kicked off with an essay by drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, offering insights into the writing and recording process. Equipment lists by all three band members (Peart, bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson) followed. The books were capped off by a series of concert photos.

Another page from the *Power Windows* tour book, Geddy Lee’s equipment list. Over time, these equipment lists still contained info about the equipment used, but also developed into short essays highlighting the band members’ quirks and sense of humor.

The tour book cover design replicated the corresponding album cover art, and, at the same size as the 12” vinyl albums they discussed, these volumes shared space with each record in my collection. They were, in a sense, an Afterword for each album.

When seeing other bands in concert, I was disappointed to learn that this kind of tour book was an anomaly.

I’ve carried this love of insight into the creative process with me for over thirty years. In fact, one of the motivators behind me buying a laserdisc player (back in the day) was the additional audio track where directors, cast, and screenwriters discussed the behind-the-scenes process of the movie. When those commentary tracks became standard with the advent of DVDs and Blu-rays, I was in heaven!

Art books that detail an artist’s process are among my favorites, too. Step-by-step in-progress images, photo reference used, thumbnail sketches, alternate versions, color studies, value studies…any and all of it is exciting to explore. And the more of it, the better!

And that brings me around to comics.

I’ve always been a mediocre collector, at best. Bagging and boarding comics was never my favorite part of the hobby. I latched onto trade paperback (and later, hardcover) collections early on. My favorites were—you guessed it—the ones that provided additional information on how these stories were created.

I never tire of this. Learning more about how art I love is created is endlessly fascinating to me. It certainly carries over to the books I’m making these days. I think about what I would like—as a fan—in the work of creatives I love, and try to make something that matches my expectations.

Done is Better than Perfect

Years ago, I tried my hand at music. I made friends with a couple of brothers who had a band. Each of them, independently of one another, asked if I wrote any original songs, instead of just playing cover versions of songs. When I said that I had some bits and pieces of songs laying around, each of them—independently again—said “Those bits aren’t gonna finish themselves.”

Such a simple thought, but that’s some of the best creative advice I ever received. Just like giving yourself permission to fail, and building a daily creative habit, learning how to finish your work is another important step toward making comics.

DC won’t let you take over Batman on the strength of the two pages you’ve written. Marvel won’t give you an exclusive contract because your partially penciled page looks great—no matter how amazing those two panels are—even without backgrounds! And Scholastic won’t make you the next Raina Telgemier or Jeff Smith on the strength of an unfinished outline and character sketches for your YA masterpiece.

None of that will happen until you start finishing stuff.

There’s a saying, “Done is better than perfect.” I’ve heard it used in relation to Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, who claimed they had it painted on the walls of their offices.

Before we talk about what this means, lets talk about what it doesn’tmean. It doesn’t mean that you should hack out a bunch of mediocre stuff.

Remember that.

So what does “Done is better than perfect” mean, then? It’s meant to remind us that the pursuit of perfection can lead to paralysis. It’s meant to remind us that building a body of work involves creating a body of work, not just one perfect piece. It’s meant to remind us that we have permission to fail if we’re going to grow creatively—you’ll learn more from making a finished failure than you will from an incomplete masterpiece.

Since we’re talking about creating comics, here are a couple of comics legends on perfection.

Jack Kirby said “Damn perfection,” and John Buscema famously said “Throw your eraser away.”

So go and finish something this weekend!

The Daily Habit

Inspiration:that intangible, ephemeral, fleeting thing that galvanizes the soul of every artist. It’s that cathartic flash of creativity that jolts ideas into art. It’s rare, and magical, and impossible to quantify. It’s the engine that drives artists and creatives to make magic.

You know what else it is?

It’s a load of crap.

Don’t get me wrong. Everyone has those flashes of brilliance, when an idea explodes in your brain. That’s great. It’s awesome when it happens. But that level of creative fire is unsustainable. If you only create when you’re inspired, you’re not gonna create much.

Author Octavia Butler says it best, “Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable.”

No one expects you to just sit down and start logging 8-hour days immediately. Everyone’s schedule is different, and you may be juggling a job, school, family, or any combination of those things. But if you can start small and begin to build your creative habit, you’ll be able to flip the switch easier, and maximize your windows of opportunity.

It’s easy to get started. It is. Trust me. And all it takes is 2 minutes.

Set aside 2 minutes a day for the next week. It can be in the morning, or after work, whatever works for you. But try to do it at about the same time every day, preferably in the same place every day.

What you’re going to do is take this 2 minute block every day and work on something. Writers: it can be journaling, it can be working on a comic script, a screenplay, or a novel. Artists: you can do gesture drawing, work on a comic page, paint a still life…whatever.

There are a few rules:

1) Work at approximately the same time every day

2) 2 minute minimum. You can work longer, if you like, but you should log at least 2 minutes every day.

3) Stick to the same general thing every day. Don’t journal one day, and write a comic script the next. Artists, don’t do a comic panel one day, and start a painting the next. Try to focus on the building block approach with your habits for now.

It’s easy to get lost in this. When establishing a habit, that’s the fun part! Every time I set aside 2 minutes, I end up going 5-10—or more!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step—or 2 minutes of creative time! Take that step!

Permission to Fail

One of my favorite questions I’ve seen asked on social media is “What advice do you have for someone starting out?” or “What’s the one piece of advice you wish you’d know when you were starting out?”

It’s simple. You will never feel ready.

I wasted years waiting until I felt like I was good enough to draw comics. I worked in the roleplaying game industry for about a decade, and the whole time, I thought I was warming up to draw comics. But you know what I never did during that warm-up period?

I didn’t draw a single comic page.

The whole time, I kept thinking that when I was “ready,” I’d start on comic samples. But I never felt ready. My level of craft improved, for sure. But I never had that epiphany where the heavens parted, I was bathed in sunlight, and a cherub appeared to me and welcomed me into comics.

How it really worked out was that one day I realized that I wasn’t waiting until I was ready, I was afraid of failing. I was afraid that instead of bursting out, fully-formed, with amazing, world-altering stuff, I’d create a mediocre page—or a terrible one.

But I also realized that nothing was going to happen until I started making comics, regardless of if I felt ready. So I started drawing samples. And they weren’t great.. But the more I did it, the better they got.

You’d think that this simple revelation would have clicked for me across multiple aspects of making comics, right? It didn’t. It took me another few years before I started writing. Same feelings and worry. Same “What is I fail?” BS.

So don’t wait until you feel ready. Give yourself permission to fail, permission to create garbage, permission to learn on the job. Diving into the process will help you develop your skills.

I’ll leave you with a quote from poet Samuel Beckett: “Try again, fail again. Fail better.”

I’ve included some work from this period (1997–1999): a couple of RPG illos (for Traveller and Shadowrun) and one of my first comic sample pages (a generic romance sample page). Be gentle when checking this stuff out!