Eisner Award Winning Team Dustin Nguyen and Jeff Lemire turn Zup To release their latest project, The art of falling!
Led by Dustin Nguyen with a foreword by Jeff Lemire, the book includes a cover, select artwork, process and preliminary illustrations, and is published by Image Comics. Behind-the-scenes footage from the series.
The Beat reached out to Nguyen via email to interview them about this new project and the process required to launch it!
Diego Higuera: The Art of Descending features your work throughout the series. How did your artistic approach or style evolve from the beginning to the end of the series?
Nguyen Dust: I definitely learned a lot over the course of the series, or at least got better at pretending I knew what I was doing. Overall, my choices in storytelling and color theory changed a lot from the first issue of Descender to the last issue of Ascender. If anything, I was more adventurous in the beginning, which sometimes helped push me to learn new things, and sometimes it created obstacles that drained our already tight schedule. Overall I wouldn’t have done it any other way, the end result of our book was as satisfying as the journey and I loved it.
Fig tree: Can you talk about the technology and medium you used to bring the world of Descendants to life? Were there any specific inspirations for the visual design of the characters and environments?
Ruan: Throughout our series (Descending and Ascending) I painted using traditional watercolors – the only difference is that for Descending I used 300 lb soft press watercolor paper material and for Ascending , I used the 300 lb heat pressed version. For anyone wondering, hot press is a smoother watercolor paper and soft press is a paper with more teeth/texture on the surface (it’s the roughness between hot press and cold press, I just See this paper through the Italian brand Fabriano Artistico). I chose it because Ascender is more fantasy and I wanted to work more smoothly? I honestly can’t remember what my reasoning was at the time, but it was also a way that I felt could help differentiate between the two series if I were arguing with myself along the way about which page of original art belonged to which series.
I picture myself in my 90s, barely able to sit at my desk, adjusting my bifocals, holding the pages of a book and saying “ah.. based on the texture.. the toothiness of the paper and how the paint here is on the paper “Rough” group…I would say this falls under…our run on “The Descender,” Jeff. “Then I would turn to a sealed acrylic jar with a floating brain attached to wires and a wireless speaker next to the table, and I would hear Jeff’s response, ‘…Huh…? What… ?” Then I had to adjust some settings so he could hear it better, and eventually he would say “Ah! Yes, Minor Arcana is a great series, Justin!
As far as visual inspiration goes, I grew up on a balanced diet of G1 Transformers, Robotics Corporationas well as comics and manga from the 80s/90s such as 2001 Nights and heavy metal Magazine. Hopefully readers will notice some inspiration in this book.
Higuera: The book includes behind-the-scenes material and preliminary illustrations. Can you share a bit about your creative process when developing new characters or settings for the series?
Ruan: Jeff and I collaborated on the overall feel of the series, its planets, and the world our characters lived in from the beginning. We start by figuring out what the character’s surroundings are like, how they live, the role they play in society, and how they interact with other people around them. Once we got it down it became a little easier to figure out how they might/could look and from there you just have to make them look cool haha. At least for me, it also had to be a design that I would enjoy drawing every day and not get bored or annoyed (or be too complicated to finish on time)
Higuera: How did your collaboration with Jeff Lemire influence your work on Descendants? Were there any moments in his writing that prompted you to explore new artistic territory?
Ruan: I feel like every script takes me further, which makes The Descendants such an important book for my career. I feel like if I had never been with Jeff, if we had never created Descendants together, if Graphics (the comics) had never given us the freedom to do what we wanted to do – I would never be where I am today. artist.
Higuera: Is there a specific passage or scene in the book that has special meaning to you? What makes it stand out?
Ruan: I honestly can’t really pick one. There are lots of scenes, pages, and covers that I’ll think about for weeks or even months, and then I’ll get excited to meet a deadline or story so I can finally draw them. So I thought maybe that’s the meaning of each piece I chose for this collection.
Higuera: Your painting style is unique and widely recognized. How do you balance maintaining your signature look while adapting to the different tones and themes in Descender?
Ruan: I think no matter what style I adopt, no matter what type of medium I use, the way I draw characters and tell stories is still always going to be my own. I assume the writer’s brand/writing style is the same whether it’s sci-fi/horror/superhero? Either that, or something we always joked about when I was working at Wildstorm Studios, which all comic book artists probably have…we were drawing two different faces in different costumes all the time.
Higuera: Is there anything you would like to say to your fans and supporters?
Ruan: I would definitely like to thank you all for your support over the years on all of our projects. Thank you for reading, spreading the word, and sharing your love of our stories with your friends and family. Your support of projects like this allows creators like me to financially continue to realize our dreams and continue to create the best work we can. We express gratitude from the bottom of our hearts to the deepest reaches of space and beyond.
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