Kill Your Darlings

When I'm not waging a one man war against the criminal underworld, writing and doodling or eating raw onions by the sack load I work a fairly humdrum job at one of the UK's big six energy suppliers. As far as jobs go, it's okay, not exactly taxing or in any way fulfilling, but it keeps a roof over my head and the fridge stocked with onions. A couple of weeks ago the department I work in ran a competition to design a mascot for an ideas box, with a small cash prize thrown in to sweeten the deal. The above is my effort, who I christened Bright Spark for reasons that are so obvious it would only demean us both if I were to explain them. To my never ending surprise I actually won the thing, which was nice. By my count this marks the third time that I've actually been paid for any sort of artistic endeavour - the second being when I got a cash in hand job designing chalk advertisement boards for a Cairn's travel agent and the first when I got a £5 gift voucher for creating a comic based on the wacky shenanigans of Saint Cuthbert. My point being that in terms of writing and drawing I'm very much in the amateur bracket and any sort of recognisable success is a nice little ego boost.

However, it should be noted that I only submitted the above line art. I only added the colour after I'd been told I'd won and the entry was returned to me. The actual colour job on the official design was done by somebody else and was sent to me the other day.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The fact that the colour scheme's completely different is neither here nor there. If anything they're broadly similar as we've both taken the fairly obvious option of basing it off the company livery. What doesn't sit quite right is that, rather than colouring beneath the line art as I did with the first image they've apparently used it as a template which they've subsequently painted over. This - in my opinion - rather arse face first way of going about things means that they've then had to redo the line work. Given that the line work is all that I submitted there's essentially very little of mine left, despite the fact that it's my name attached to it. Most of the changes are small and, I suspect, almost none (bar the distinct hairline and clip art light bulb) deliberate, but there's a lot of them and it these small things - the position, curve and weight of a line - that I work at and try to get right.

Meh. I'm getting paid, regardless, so there's no point being too much of a prima donna about it, plus I'd be lying if I said I poured my heart and my soul into it. But it irritates me slightly and if I owned a cat I would kick it*.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton


*For the benefit of me mate's mam, who occassionally reads this, this is written entirely in jest. I in no way practice or endorse cruelty to animals, especially kitty cats, each one of which is a little furry blessing