Anime Central 2006 logo' class="alignright" />I know it’s a little late to still be writing about panels from Anime Central, but I really wanted to write about the Studio Tavicat panel we all attended on Saturday at the con. Studio Tavicat consists of Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons and Rikki Simons, two fabulous comic/manga artists.
I don’t know how many people are familiar with Rikki Simons;he did the coloring on all of Jhonen Vasquez’s colored pieces and he was the colorist for Invader Zim on Nickelodeon (may they rot in hell for canceling Zim!!) . Rikki was also the voice of Gir; Zim’s stupid and not quite right robotic sidekick on Invader Zim.
I was totally unacquainted with Tavisha’s art, but she quickly described her work when the panel began. Tavisha is a shoujo manga artist who has done such comics as Super Information Hijinks: Reality Check!, Ranklechick and His Three-legged Cat, and freelance work for Tokyo Pop. Right now she’s in the process of publishing a new comic called Shutterbox. If it hadn’t been for Rikki and Tavisha’s mutual friend J. Vasquez losing multiple pages of Shutterbox on Tavisha’s Macintosh computer, it probably would already be published by now. She’s not bitter though.
To those who are fans of Reality Check and miss it being in comic book stores you’ll need to go online to get it. Studio Tavicat is no longer publishing Reality Check since they were having a hard time selling it to publishers. Publishers didn’t want to touch it since RC isn’t a prose book nor is it fully a comic book, but a hybrid of the two. Instead they are pod-publishing it on their website along with selections from the up and coming Shutterbox comic.
Tavisha and Rikki once had an ongoing contract with TokyoPop to publish their work but since TP under-published the in-demand Reality Check, effectively losing readership, they dropped the contract and are working with TokyoPop on a freelance basis only.
The duo are currently revamping their website, so don’t be alarmed if you go there looking for the pod-casts and it’s not up to par yet; it will be up by August of this year. Just in time for the podcasts!
After Tavisha and Rikki’s intro, I asked Rikki where he came up with his wonderful and effective color palette. He replied that he uses theatrical colors and that he, “looks at color from a natural point of viewâ€. He avoids the popular way of coloring animation, instead he likes to “do stuff Hanna Barbara would hate.†He likes to use pastels and keeps the brown, blacks, and grays out of the palette, stating that too much of these colors make it look like you spilled coffee on the page. Rikki sets limits on himself when he’s working on colors; he only uses the CYMK palette when he’s working in Photoshop.
He offered advice for budding colorists: If choosing colors from the color wheel, always choose colors closest to their contrasting colors. For example, when choosing a blue, choose a blue that lies closest to orange.
Use Pantone colors if you’re using the computer to color.
- “Stay away from saturated colors; they make the page look dull.”
- “If at all possible, avoid black unless you’re going for it. Use indigo or dark green.”
The next question we posed Rikki was how long it takes him to color a page. Rikki said that it usually takes him a day or two per page but when he was working on Zim he would crank out 5 to 20 pages per day. Tavisha has also helped out on Zim by working on the episode called “Dib’s Wonderful Life of Doom.â€
When asked if he would ever like to work on another television show, Rikki replied “I would love to.†And in fact the Fox network offered to buy Reality Check from Tavisha and Rikki for $10,000. Only $10,000? Whaaaat? Yeah, Rikki’s not planning on selling his and Tavisha’s brainchild for a pittance, sorry Fox.
Rikki works primarily on a Mac 120 MH using Photoshop; the best (in my op) paint program out there yet. He’s also used colored pencils and oils in tangent with the digital tools, but he doesn’t use them as much any more since he’s developed a strange phobia of paper (seriously). Tavisha, on the other hand, loves paper. She likes to work in water colors and markers, but she still uses Photoshop from time to time.
Tavisha got her break in manga working on RoboTech, which she and Rikki worked on together over their honeymoon. They say they work well together (they’ve been married 12 years) and they both have the same interests, which seems to help their creative relationship flourish as well as their private.
After the panel we got our pics taken with Rikki and Tavisha and got their autographs, etc. We caught up with the two later at their booth in the vendor area. I’d never seen Tavisha’s work before and I was impressed with her style. Tavisha does really good inks and she has great colors.
Dave had a point that it’s really nice to actually look the artist in the eye when viewing their work and to encourage them to keep making more great art.
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