Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dalton Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Dalton, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
So I hated high school. Not every aspect; I met some of my best friends there, and there were a handful of classes I truly enjoyed. But the education part wasn’t what I needed. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and I was actually on track to do something in STEM like mechanical engineering, but I didn’t have much of a plan. I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to college. But after some thinking and talking it over with friends and family, I decided to give it a shot, and I was lucky enough to attend the private college my mom worked at.
Well the summer between graduating high school and starting undergrad, I went on a roadtrip with two close friends to drop one of them off at college in Connecticut. Starting in Texas, we did a big hook, driving up north through Wyoming and the Dakotas, then east through Minnesota, Michigan and all that, dipped into Ontario, came out in New York and finally down to Connecticut.
While we were in New York, the other buddy who was along for the ride really loves comics, read them growing up, and wanted to introduce me to them as I didn’t grow up with them and he knew I enjoyed art. So I went to my first comic shop in the heart of New York City and bought my first comic book and I’ve been reading them ever since. I didn’t know it at the time but that was one of the biggest turning points for me and my eventual decision to take art and my pursuit of it seriously.
Going through undergrad was much smoother than high school and I was actually excited to go to class and learn, although I still hadn’t figured out what I wanted to get my degree in. But I just kept taking art classes for my electives because I enjoyed them so much, and I inevitably caved at the end of my junior year and accepted my fate as an art major.
As I finished the degree, I was living and breathing art and started considering furthering my education with graduate school. I talked to several professors, as well as my interior designer sister and learned about SCAD. With a masters program, I could hone my skills for “the real world” and I would be able to teach if I chose to do so down the line, so I felt like it was a necessary step for me and my goals. I did a lot of research and decided to apply and was accepted. I started in illustration but switched to sequential art to focus more specifically on comics because that’s more so how I want to tell stories.
I’m on my last quarter now, about to graduate, and my education here at SCAD has been the final nail in the coffin for me to believe that pursuing this career full time is viable and worthwhile. I’ve done a good amount of outside commission work, I’m participating in anthology projects with my peers, I’m finishing up some work I plan to self publish, and I attend every convention I can, and I know now that it’s real and it’s thriving and I fit right in (the market and industry of art and comics, that is).
Dalton, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name’s Dalton Smith, I’m an artist from Texas. I have a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Art from Texas Lutheran University, and I’m currently finishing up my Master’s of Fine Arts in Sequential Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design. And although it’s not as art-related, I earned my Eagle Scout rank and that taught me so much about communication, teamwork, initiative, and morals that I apply to nearly everything I do. I work in both traditional and digital mediums, and I’ve done work for children’s books, album covers, and other illustration commissions. But my true passion lies with comics and creator-owned and self publishing work. I enjoy creating wacky characters and fun stories, and I love making people laugh. I create a lot of cartoony sci-fi adventures and shorts that key in on the parts that make you feel like a kid. I will have two books out this year and lots of other things in between, so keep an eye out!
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
Using reference kind of sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s such a vital part of every project I work on, and every artist should be using it. No matter how stylized or imaginative the subject or your style is, there’s always things you can research and get references for to make a piece more convincing, accurate, or cohesive. Whether that’s reference for anatomy and perspective, how other artists approach a subject, shape language, and even color schemes, having a point of reference makes the process easier and allows you to focus more on the execution rather than the brainstorming. Drawing from life is an important facet of using reference. The more you draw real people and environments, the more comfortable you get doing it and the experience leads to knowledge, which you can then use to break the rules. If you have access to open model sessions, go to as many of those as possible. If not, go to parks and coffee shops. There’s also online resources like line-of-action.com. Lastly, read lots of comics and watch lots of movies/shows, always be thinking about how they tell stories and how they design props and characters to communicate things about their personalities and that sort of think. characterdesignreferences.com has a great archive of concept work for various animations and games.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
One thing I’ve noticed that’s hard to communicate is the process and time it takes to create something. I’ve heard from several professors that drawing is 90% thinking and 10% doing, and I think that’s very true. Throughout every artist’s life, they’ve accumulated all this knowledge from lessons and life and media, and every bit of it goes into what we make. When an artist is pricing a job, it’s not only based on time and labor, but also their experience and expertise, similar to doctors or lawyers. And every artist has learned everything they’ve learned in a different way, that’s why some artists may be better for one job but not another when compared to a different artist. There’s always a lot going on behind the scenes that can’t be shown even in thumbnails and sketches and studies. But that’s what it takes for great work to be made. Non-creatives – and actually creatives too – have to trust the process.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sites.google.com/view/daltonsmith/home
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daltonr.smith?igsh=MTdybGgya3FrMDBjMQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalton-smith-429331347?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Image Credits
Photographer Raymond Williams