William Marchant

"Crap for the Crapper" - New Free Web Comic!

Crap for the Crapper is now a free web comic!  Well, that is if you think it should be free.  You can still "pay what you want" at the bottom right of the site...if you think I deserve a cut.  But if you think it should be free, then it is!  Hardcopies and ePubs are still available, and new ones will be published as hardcopies in the future.  But, under the new setup, I will be posting two brand new comic spreads each week.  Right now, The WG Part One is on its fourth installment.  Next up will be the premiere of the much anticipated Hammer'd.  

So please go check it out now and be sure to sign up for the mailing list and get new comics straight to your email inbox.  I promise I won't flood your inbox will crappy spam...just 1 or 2 comic spreads a week!

GO TO CRAP NOW!

 

LOOKS GREAT! is the New William Marchant Illustration & Design

It became apparent to me that this site, WilliamMarchant.com, may seem a bit jumbled.  There's a lot that I do so there is a lot going on on my website.

In an effort to make things simple, straight forward, and clean, I am launching a re-branding of myself under the model www.LooksGreat.biz!  Looks Great (LLC pending) will serve as my main portfolio/resume website and WilliamMarchant.com will be converted to my blog.  While I do like this site, I really beleive that in the long run, Looks Great will be easier for new visitors to understand and navigate.

A link to my blog will be added to the new site soon, but I am still figuring out the best way to link the two sites...so I am just keeping them separate for the time being.

So go check out my new site and let me know what you think by voting for your favorite on Facebook!

The Best Mistake I Made Learning to Screen Print

Up until last week, I had been using 3M Injet Transparency Film on my Brother MFC-5890cn to print transparencies for my screen printing process. I had been quadrupling them up to get darker black areas.

In an effort to cut some costs, I found a much cheaper injet transparency film made by Apollo.  My costs for transparencies were substantially cut!  $50 for a 50 pack of the 3M stuff went to $14 for a 50 pack of the Apollo stuff!

So the new transparencies arrived and I ripped open the package...only to look at the specifications and find that they were not compatible with my Brother printer.  Tiss tiss for not looking into that before I ordered, right?  But, I tried printing a few anyway...only so my Brother could completely eat each page.

I sat there for a few minutes letting set in the fact that I was stuck with 200 transparencies that I couldn't use.  And a thought came to me!  They were compatible with HP printers and I had an old HP printer collecting dust next to my desk! 

DECEMBER UPDATE: W Marchant Ilustration & Design

My blog hasn't been updated for a while so I figured it a good idea just to explain why.  Why is because I've been busy as EVER!  While I've gotten only rejection letters back from a few of my picture book submissions...the design side of things has been great!

One thing I've been busy with is a lot of renderings and other design for a company in New York called Populate: Drawing People In.  I can't really talk about the projects I did for them because each involves 2011 ad campaigns for some major companies.  But I will say that a major soft drink company, a leader in dress pants, and a technological giant have some really cool campaigns coming soon and I am glad to have had a hand in pitching them! 

Other projects that I can only "mention" are the work I did for the CDC (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention)...but there is some neat stuff going on there too!

Some stuff that I can actually talk about, for one, is all the stuff I've been doing for MSI (Motor Service, Inc.).  I've been handling a rebranding of their company since early this year, which has included everything from new business cards, to truck decals, to merchandising items, to carbonless forms.  It has been a well-rounded project to say the least.

With all this design work, I feel lucky to get away from the computer screen every now & then...and some recent t-shirt screen printing orders I've gotten have helped that! 

Also, in whatever spare time I get, I have been developing a mini-comic or zine that is nearing completion (that's the cover above).  I will be targeting some underground comic stores and indie bookstores to sell some of these things so look for them soon!  If you want to pre-order a copy just shoot me an email.

And the last thing is always my side project RockScratch...I'm always adding new stuff there so check it out.  I'm running a 20% OFF Holiday Sale...so now's a good time to take a look!

Well, I think that covers most of what I've been doing lately...I'm going to get back to it, but have a happy Christmas season!

Bis dann!

Is the App the Future of the Picture Book?

When it comes to the children's book market, trying to get published the old fashioned way is tough.  Especially nowadays.  I know that I am stating the obvious, but ambitious authors/illustrators, such as myself, need to hear that as much as possible.  Personally, I like hearing it because it makes me try harder.  Also, it forces me to accept the possibility (rather likelihood) that I will never be published the old fashioned way.  So, I am compelled to consider other options such as self-publishing. 

But wait...isn't self-publishing just a lower form of "doing it the old fashioned way"?

If I'm going to self-publish, why not be cutting edge, ahead of the times...a pioneer!  I'm talking about going electronic.  GASP...is he really talking about ignoring the tradition, the beauty, the personal experience of print media!?!

Fraternity T-Shirt Designs

My college fraternity hired me to design all of their fall semester t-shirts...the shirts are being printed by a third party company...I just did the designs. I wanted to post a few that I was happy with...

LIMITED EDITION Kings of Leon PIGEONGATE Tees!

Check out RockScratch.com for more info on ordering yours today!

 

 

Recent Commission Work

Here are some commissions that I have been working on the past week or so.  An abstract landscape, a dual portrait of John Bell and Dave Schools done on scratchboard, two rather large scale close up portraits of Jerry Garcia and Jimi Hendrix, and a cartoonish painting of some ducks.

Drop me a line and let me know what I can do for you!

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium

Well, my design software is finally updated after having purchased the latest version of the Adobe Creative Suite (CS5)!  I bought my copy off eBay and saved about 500 bucks!  I went with the Design Premium package because it has all the essentials that I need to do the projects that I do (Learn about the different packages here).

I am truly amazed and über-excited about the updated features of each program such as the multiple pages feature of Illustrator and the 3D features of Photoshop.  I was working with an old version of Ps CS3 for a long time.  So, obviously Ps CS5 is like an entirely new program!  Many of the road blocks I kept hitting with my designs are now completely alleviated...allowing me limitless possibilities.

I've never really gotten into Flash, Dreamweaver, or InDesign before, as I didn't have the programs to experiment with...so I can't speak to their advancement.  But, as soon as I get some free time to play around with them, I'll be showing off my new "chops"! 

You can definitely expect some changes to this site in the near future!

An Illustration Makeover:Reworking "That One Big One"

In the past year, I've gone through several stages with the children's book that I've been working on called That One Big One.  Every time I had a critique or discovered something new, it changed.  The rhyme wasn't working so I made the rhyme tighter.  Then I decided to drop the rhyme all together and tell the story straight.

Well, now I am in the process of reworking the illustrations.  As painful as it was to admit to myself that the illustrations weren't working (because it was also admitting that I had wasted 3 months illustrating the entire thing), it had to be done.  So now I have come up with a style that is much more "me".  With my first illos, I refused to use the computer (Photoshop) as much as possible.  I went for a more "hand crafted" look, which I still like, but I don't think I mastered it in this particular project.  So for the reworks, I am using the computer a lot more...something that I have come to embrace as the medium of my era.  Lane Smith, my idol, embraced the digital medium...so why wouldn't I!

As you see in the page spread above, I am trying to keep the characters looking very much the same, only more clean and finished.  Also, based on a SCBWI critique, I am adding more perspectives in each illustration...whereas in my previous illustrations, I simply showed each scene/character "straight on."

I plan on doing 5 or 6 page spreads before putting together more submission packages.  So check back soon for my progress!