We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joseph Faustino a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Joseph, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I imagine most creatives realize they want to pursue the arts professionally when they’re pretty young, for me it was in middle school. In hindsight it kind of makes sense I ended up pursuing a creative path, I was always coming up with some ideas for a project or something; when I got a hold of powerpoint as a kid I would use it to make little slideshow stories and when my siblings and I had access to video editing software we started making little videos for ourselves.
It wasn’t until middle school though when I got into drawing and cartooning specifically and, thanks to the encouragement of some of my friends, realized that it might be something I can do for a living. Having supportive friends and family really encouraged me to start creating and putting my work online. It was then that I began conceptualizing my first webcomic “Wing Dingz” which I began posting online once I went to high school and continued making it weekly until halfway through college.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
For anyone who hasn’t heard of me, my name is Joseph Faustino. I work primarily as a cartoonist, storyboard artist, comic artist and graphic designer but I also do some song writing and composing on the side. I’ve been creating webcomics on a pretty consistent weekly basis since I was a freshman in high school and I have no plans to slow down any time soon. My current comic that I post weekly is called “Huemates” a comedy/slice of life comic strip about the life of two anthropomorphic colors; Orange and Blue, and they’re daily life and friends. I think the best way I could describe the tone of the comic would be; if classic cartoon characters (like the looney tunes) lived in an apartment complex and payed rent. My other big projects at the moment are a Sci-Fi/Adventure comic called “Space Pirate Zero” and my alt rock music project called “Arcade_Junkie” (I like to keep busy haha) so if any of those things sound interesting to you do feel free to check them out!
I think what sets me apart as a creative is just how motivated I am to work on these projects and see them through. One of my favorite artists working in animation, Ian Jones-Quartey, once said “If you have an idea, just do your idea. Don’t wait for someone to give you permission to make it.” and I’m a big subscriber of that mindset. I’m always trying to encourage my friends and peers, whenever they have an idea, to just make it! I think there’s a lot of value in being able to come up with ideas but those things aren’t ever gonna reach people if they don’t become real. I learned a lot about drawing, writing, and songwriting early on just by deciding to sit down and work on all of these projects and I find being able to work on these things very rewarding.
I think what I’m most proud of though, when it comes to the things I’ve created, is being able to see how me and my work effects and inspires others, specifically with Huemates. Huemates is my project that has had the most feedback from its audience. There’s been many people creating fan art and animations and their own original characters and there’s something so cool about knowing that my silly little webcomic is inspiring other young artists in that way, I super encourage it and would love to see more. Huemates is also the comic that put me in contact with Alberto Garcia who was interviewed here not too long ago! He reached out to me about dubbing some of the comics and now him and the rest of the voice crew help provide the characters voices for some of the bigger Huemates projects which has been super cool! I’m super grateful for all of those guys!
I find it incredible rewarding to be able to work with other creatives, I’m always trying to rope my friends into my projects. So knowing that one of my projects resonates with people in such a way that they feel inclined to contribute back to it like that has been awesome! My one big hope for Huemates, and all my projects for that matter, is that it can continue to reach an audience like that and create a creatively driven community.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
I think today there’s so many resources for young artist that just didn’t exist before. There’s so many working professionals you can find online that can provide provide you with their insight and experience. A good resource I have is the podcast “Creative Block” which focuses around interviewing professionals in animation (and sometimes other creative industries).
For me specifically though, I wish I took more traditional drawing classes in high school. While I definitely learned a lot just by creating on my own, sometimes by ignoring the basics you create some gaps in your knowledge. A more academic setting for your art can really help you develop your technical skills by giving you assignments you otherwise wouldn’t be doing on your own.
While I don’t regret any of my decisions (everybody has to make mistakes to learn) I do think that having taken more drawing focused classes in high school would have saved me a lot of catch up time in college.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I can’t really say that there is one specific goal or objective that’s really driving me as a creative. I feel like having just a single all encompassing goal would just result in someone losing that drive once they reach it. For me, a lot of the fun and fulfillment of creative work comes from the process of creating it, sure I can take pride in something I’ve made once I finish it but the real fun of it is the process of creating.
I guess on a more practical level there is the goal of just being able to make ends meet with your craft, which is a lot easier said than done, but beyond that I really just want keep doing what I do for as long as possible.
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