Matthew Dow Smith

Thanks, my friend!

The October Girl Book One is a fun coming of age story with mystery, mythical/fantasy elements & good messaging. @matthewdowsmith.bsky.social Congrats on the Finalist Award Nom! Looking forward to reading Book Two set to release soon! @maverickogn.bsky.social
-A little animation I made based on cv

There needs to be a class at every art school called "The Horrors 101" and it's just all the stuff you need to know so you can at least plan for it.

I'm always a little surprised to hear they don't talk about that stuff in art school.

This is STUNNING! The style, the backgrounds, the body language! So GOOD!

Paul is one of the only people I get legitimately tongue-tied around. I'm just such a huge fan of his. And he's always been very gracious about me going all fanboy on him.

Dialogue from Destiny Walker: Character 1: That huge book was in your bag?! Destiny: It's a magic bag. It's bigger on the inside.

No matter what kind of books I'm making, and for what audience, I can never quite hide that I'm a lifelong Doctor Who fan.

Not that I have ever tried.

#DestinyWalker
#LibraryOfDoooom
#MakingComics

Also, I got really tired of people arguing with me about things that were quantifiably true. It always made me feel like I was losing my mind.

One of the reasons I stopped giving quite so much advice about comics in public is that to be as accurate as possible, you had to throw in so many caveats. We all have such wildly different experiences and paths. And all the caveats get sooooo annoying.

"Matthew Dow Smith absolutely knocks it out of the park again with another supernatural cozy read... - Kara S., Librarlan; on AMELIA SHADOWS AND, THE NEW HEAD GHOST "AMELIA SHADOWS AND THE NEW HEAD GHOST is the perfect middle-grade graphic novel." - Isla J., Librarian, on AMELIA SHADOWS AND THE NEW HEAD GHOST "A perfectly decent young comic...". - John, a guy on NetGalley, on AMELIA SHADOWS AND THE NEW HEAD GHOST

New banner --

#AmeliaShadows
#ComingSoon
#RaveReviews
#WellRaveish

That's about right.

I'm very lucky I work very, very fast.

An adorable little purple monster with big yellow eyes saying 'meep'

I can't believe it took me so long to start making kids comics, but I'm so happy I did.

I'm having an absurd amount of fun with this stuff.

The thing I've always said as that the things about our wiring that make it possible for us to make the things we do also make us very bad at doing "normal" kinds of jobs. Which is very not helpful.

It's a really, really not fun thing to realize. At least we are all talking about it more than we used to. I never want to discourage anyone, but people do need to know what they're getting into and plan for it.

The trick I'll tell you is to find a brush size that looks good to you and lock it. No matter how much you zoom in, it has to stay the same size. So you don't go insane with detail that no one will ever see when it's printed.

It's really tricky, though. Especially working digitally. Even the brush size number gives you very different results depending on the size of your canvas and the resolution.

For the record, I work print size at 600 DPI and my brushes tend to be set between 1 and 1.5.

WHICH MEANS NOTHING.

What Ale said. I second that.

This is the BEST FREAKING INTERVIEW EVERRRR!!!!

(It gets a little more complicated if you're just writing OR drawing a graphic novel. A team gets paid better combined than a single writer/artist on their own. No, I don't know why. But either way, it ain't that much. People in comics make a LOT less money than many people assume.)

This goes for American comics, too. Take what you think they make, halve it, then halve it again. And if they aren't working for the Big Two, halve it again. And to be brutally honest, if they're writing and drawing graphic novels, halve it yet again.

Do you see this design? It's so cute. What are you waiting for?

New Yeti merch!
We have this incredible new Artist Series design from @matthewdowsmith.bsky.social up in the shop. All the profits go towards commissioning the next one to support working indie comics artists.
comicbookyeti.threadless.com/designs/arti...

Wooooo!

Happy Birthday!

Thank youuuu! I have so much fun with the Amelia stories.

The cover of AMELIA SHADOWS AND THE NEW HEAD GHOST

Page 1 of AMELIA SHADOWS AND THE NEW HEAD GHOST

Page 2 of AMELIA SHADOWS AND THE NEW HEAD GHOST

Page 3 of AMELIA SHADOWS AND THE NEW HEAD GHOST

Coming April 7th, from me and @papercutzgn.bsky.social --

AMELIA SHADOWS AND THE NEW HEAD GHOST!!!

Thanks, Megan!

Layouts

Roughs

Inks

Colors/Final

Making Comics Monday: Step-by-step process for a page from last week’s Destiny Walker chapter, now up on my Patreon — www.patreon.com/matthewdowsmith

Layouts
Roughs
Inks
Colors

#DestinyWalker
#LibraryOfDoooom
#PatreonComics
#KidsComics

Happy Birthday!!!

I need every single male artist that follows me to read this. It's not very long. You need to bear witness to this shit. You have to see it with your own eyes because you never will in your everyday life.

I'm serious, read it all please