Behind the Comics IX - Akvilė Misevičiūtė

Last week we released four new mini kuš! One of them was "The Flames" by Akvilė Misevičiūtė. Now she gives us an insight on how she created this comics!

But as usual first we would like to introduce her:

Akvilė Misevičiūtė // *1987, Lithuania. Akvilė graduated with a degree in printmaking from Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, now she lives and works in Spain and imaginary spaces where she makes street art and illustrations. She loves other people's trash and positive things in life. Her shorter comics have previously also appeared in š! #9 and #10 and other international anthologies.

So here is what she tells about the process of making her comics: 

My comics begin here: in this tiny drawing room.

In the beginning of creating a comic I try to visualize the story with all the scenes. In my stories there is always some truth–that could be personal experiences, people I met, or an atmosphere I felt. I imagine the characters and their personalities. I visualize what happens and what the emotions of the characters are.

I write down everything and distribute through the number of pages I want to create. In this case the creation of a story for mini kuš! was based on real stories about oil mining industries, I added some surreal magic and somehow I always had a dream to burn machines. 

I draw using pencil and a lot of rubber, no sketches.  Creating „The Flames“ for mini kuš! I couldn‘t decide which technique to use:  digital drawing, pencil or pen?  I experimented a lot and finally decided to draw with black pen.

Usually I make many mistakes writing, so sometimes I have to repeat writing the text. I am a bit distracted.

The second important thing is that the hairy monster would make a magic dance on the drawings.

Thirdly, the colouring part, which is tricky. I made some spots by hand on transparent paper, then scanned and converted to monotone colours with Photoshop. I guess it‘s influenced by silkscreen making – the idea is similar, just the digital way. 

 

Then I chose the colours which I wanted to use in all comic. 

And then little by little I create many layers for each colour spot.  

And that's it, I have no more secrets!

Thanks a lot to Akvilė for sharing her secrets with us, we probably should also get some hairy monsters... Now you should visit her website, where you can see more of her work and read some comics online. In our webshop you can see some preview pages of her mini kuš! and get yourself a copy. The previous Behind The Comics features you find here, more to follow soon!