Latest / Coconut Justice / CJP 89: Rodgon The Artist
Transcript
- Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey, what's good? Rodgon the artist is exactly that. An artist. He's a super talented illustrator, character designer, and teacher. I started following his work in the early 2010s, and when I bumped into him at a creative conference, I was pleasantly surprised that he's a cool and generous guy. This is my conversation with Rodgon the Artist. Before we get into it, Remember to go to coconutjustice dot com to get you some clothes that I think would look good on you. Let's go. As promised, everyone, here he is, Rodgon the artist. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah, Princess Web. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I was telling you right before we hit record, dude, you are always drawing. You are always working. You are always teaching. You're always you're like one of the most motivated artists like ever. Like Rodgon The Artist: See, see the funny thing is, the funny thing is, right? People see me online a lot, but Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I don't have a normal nine to five job. So if I replaced all that nine to five-ness with drawing and networking and building. So at one point in my career, I told like because I worked for other people for like 20 years. And I was a badass employee. You know, I was always that guy that just got everything done, overworked himself, made sure that the boss knew I was the one doing the work. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: And then I was always the one overlooked for promotions because they couldn't lose me in those positions. I was always Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yep. Rodgon The Artist: the one overlooked for management because they needed me in production, you know, and then eventually you start feeling like, I'm just not valued. So Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: once you start doing it on your own and you see how much you can get done for yourself in a simple eight hours in a day, you start going like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then after doing production for so many years for other people, you know how much you can get done. Even on lazy mode, you're normally producing a ridiculous amount of art between t-shirts or stickers or even ma manufacturing brochures and pamphlets for people. That's still time and effort that you can put to yourself. You are learning through other people's jobs how to be able to function as an artist yourself. The art that you are creating is valuable. They're already paying you for that. Learn how to make money from it through your own means. But learn. Learning and then doing it for yourself. You know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. 'Cause there's there is art and there's like the business to art. Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. yeah. No, no. A starving artist is only the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I think that's what you're you're getting to. Rodgon The Artist: one that thinks it's only art that he needs. Right? Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: if if you only think art is required, you're gonna be very sorely mistaken. Yes, you can have a lot of love for art. And just like you can love someone intensely, but just know you cannot make it work. It's the same concept if you do not know how to make financial decisions. And your art and learning how to tie that together because that is going to be your source of income if you're Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: doing it solely for art. At one point you have to realize the art is the product. It's you. You are the product. And you're generating that like illusion that people should come to you because you're the shit, or you have a really cool style, or you're in the know-how, or your character designs are so off the chain. But all that stuff needs to come from a level of understanding so that you can be able to benefit the most from it. Because if you don't if you're just kind of guessing at things, it it's not controllable. It's not replicatable. You know, so even if you come up with a really cool idea, how do you come up with twenty more? The goal is to understand so that you can have your creativity fully unlocked. And I discovered that you do that through the very basics that everybody skips. Circles, little snowmen, little little simple stick figures. You Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: have no idea how easy it can be to teach someone how to make like a nice cool superhero head by learning how to draw a stick figure. You know, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And that's what that like I want folks Rodgon The Artist: Or just learning how to draw little tiny things. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and I want folks to understand that like when you see Rodgon doing his thing, like teaching, like you're an incredible teacher because you simplify it like that. Like the the the relationship between Rodgon The Artist: I do believe that you have to show people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): the relationship between the circle that your neck makes when it meets your your your shoulders. Rodgun will show you how to do a head and a stick figure and turn that shit into like a torso, like the chest and the and the ribs and shit like that. Like you simplify Rodgon The Artist: Yeah, so Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): it to the point where, like, I'm looking at all these other books. I'm like, all these dudes are wordy as shit. Just put Rodgon The Artist: Ha ha ha. I I do fascinate myself with the ability to simplify even the most complicated terms in less than five minutes. I I like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: to think that I can teach people perspective, foreshortening, anatomy, like any single part of the body can teach you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: how to draw it in five minutes with me and you'd Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: be like, give me a give Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: me an hour. Give me give me a couple hours and you're you're hooked. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I'm telling you. I started watching you like when was it that we met? We met at C T N in real life. That was sixty yeah. Yeah, yeah, Rodgon The Artist: That was a while ago. See I I s twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, something like that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): something crazy. And it like Rodgon The Artist: Yeah, like eleven years ago. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So for for for artists or just people in general that don't realize the benefit of going to like a CTN creative talent network or a light box or anything like that, just the networking alone, the being able to meet different like minded people. And for me, I went to one of these classes and I sat down and I looked to the side and there was there's Fraud Gun right there, and I was like, bro. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I love you, dude Rodgon The Artist: And I was there with my buddy too. So he's like, look, man, look, and you didn't want to come. And you didn't want to come. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Because I I have terrible social anxiety. So being around in public and competing, like I was in a competition, speed drawing competition in front of hundreds of people there. And I was like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's right. Rodgon The Artist: In I'm a very, very me person. You know, like like I have all my cool Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: stuff in my apartment. I Uber eats all my groceries. Like like if Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I go out, it's because I have to go pay a bill. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: You know, like and that's it. Other than that, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: solitary confinement for me, please. Thank you. you know, just give me good internet and I'm good. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We got drawings to get to. That sounds like me. Rodgon The Artist: Than being in a convention where people are constantly like, because people were recognizing me a lot. And that was ten years Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: ago. That was before like I got that little tiny boom like with TikTok. Like that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: got me to like half a million people quick. And then like people like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's wild. Rodgon The Artist: at con Comic Con and stuff like that or me j they recognized me on a bus in Scotland. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What? Rodgon The Artist: This girl that was taking a bus, a random bus taiku, because I just wanted to see a little town that was called something funny. And I was like, that's cute. So I just took a bus one day there. And this girl that's like sitting behind with her sketchbook, I was like, someone draws. She looks at me and she's like, And I'm like, okay. She just creeps up, she's like, Excuse me, are you this guy? And I'm like, Yeah. Why? It's like, my god, I like drawing too. Can you see my drawings? And I was like, cool. And we had like 30 minutes to like get to the place. So I was like, yeah, sit down, give her some tips, showed her like some things Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's awesome. Rodgon The Artist: that I've done, and she was like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's awesome. Rodgon The Artist: But that that was to me that was like the most like genuinely like situation ever for me. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha ha Rodgon The Artist: knowing that someone in the country that you've never been in going to a random Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: town in the middle of nowhere really is just recognizing you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Like Rodgon The Artist: because you draw in your sketchbook. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it's it's it's fun for me to I I equate it that way t 'cause I talk to a lot of musicians too, and musicians always talk about like that mind blowing s situation where they go somewhere and there's a whole group of people singing their song word for word. Rodgon The Artist: That must be that must be interesting for sure. Yeah. That must be fascinating. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. So it's gotta be it's gotta be similar because you're drawing and then this person's like, my god, I love all your work, da da da It's gotta be something somewhat similar to that. Rodgon The Artist: Like the funny thing is, right? whenever I'm streaming on TikTok tonight and I'm just singing to music on YouTube and just doodling, I normally get audiences of upwards of like thirty, forty thousand people that come in, you know, over the span of like an hour. So Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's wild. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: but but whenever you're doing it, you don't have anyone there. So, unless you are a person that is okay doing it with the cameras off, it would be very difficult to be able to do that ever in front of other people Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: or with you know. So you have to be a little bit more extroverted, even though if you're an introvert, yes, I get it. Most of us are introverts. But if you are introverted, you need to find that like little persona like me. I'm Rodgone. But Me, I'm Rodrigo Gonzalez. That's the shy Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: guy in the background, just taking care of business, you know. He's the one that sets the bank accounts and shit. And then Ragan Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rodgun is the mask that yeah. Rodgon The Artist: comes out to talk on, you know, like Salmon Noirs competitions and all that stuff. You know, so I have to set like a little different persona in me. That's still me, not changing anything about who I am, but allowing that confidence side of me to come out. And even if it is just through a camera, and I maybe never act like this in person, even though I still do. You know, like the cockiness comes through regardless. Just once Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: you know you're kinda good at something, the cockiness comes out naturally, mostly because Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: that's how you kinda works in society. You're a really good athlete, odds are you're gonna be a little cocky. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Cockiness and confidence cock cockiness and confidence they have to be Rodgon The Artist: The C C baby. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): twin they have to be twin brothers because there's a very thin line between the two. Rodgon The Artist: Look, I've actually had a really, really interesting conversation with people. At what point does ego become a bad thing? When it comes down Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: to being an artist, a designer, a creating, a person that just creates things, why is ego seen as a negative? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: Why is you seeing yourself as something more than just normal seen as a negative sometimes? They you think they're the grand shit. my god, look at this person. They're pretending to be a grand fashion designer. Yeah. Then I I I always got told dress for the job you want to be. Right? Like that was something that was like back in the day. That was the thing, you draw a suit. You want to be a listener and this wear a suit. Well, I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: am adopting the personality of the person that I want to. And I want to be a person that's confident and even almost slightly arrogant about his skills. Because that means that I actually achieved something. And if I'm able Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: to back that up, that just enhances that even more, allowing that confidence to be seen by clients, by any observer. And even though you do get called an arrogant asshole sometimes, it's mostly from people that have absolutely no relevance to what you want to create or want to push. You know, anyone that's talking down about you is not someone that's gonna uplift you. So does it matter? You know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Rodgon The Artist: If a winer whines in the forest, does the wine actually matter? I don't know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Trees don't give a fuck. Shut up. Go Rodgon The Artist: Exactly, right? So you're Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): draw stupid. Rodgon The Artist: So I think a little bit of ego needs to be set aside for more people than not lately, especially since Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: you are in an era where you're gonna be competing with thousands and thousands Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So many people. Rodgon The Artist: trying to be original with the least amount of work. Right? AI is gonna facilitate it. It's gonna facilitate it a lot. So if if you don't learn the basic skills, you're gonna get absorbed into that whole crowd of like, well, I just use AI for this. I only use AI for my basic concepts. I clean up my artwork myself. I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: only use AI for my backgrounds because I can't draw perspective. You know, like all my textures or my colors. I do I just use AI for this. That's gonna be like the most common thing. Like, well, I'm a real artist, but I only use AI for like the rendering. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: You know, the more that that happens, it might not happen immediately, it might not happen right away as AI starts taking over the creative fields, but it's going to come down to the factor of who retains those skills and they're gonna be the most coveted people. There's gonna be a very smaller niche, it's not gonna be as widely presented by everyone. Not everyone's gonna follow that path because it's gonna be harder. It's gonna be more difficult to make an achievable lifestyle with it. But those that do push for that are gonna have a higher standard than others, like a fine artist versus what they consider a cartoonist. You know, not necessarily any different, right? But one is seen as, high class. So that's what's gonna happen. You're gonna Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. One is exalted. Rodgon The Artist: have everyone that has access to creative needs, create, I can make a whole movie in a minute. Perfect. But this person can make it from. There's gonna be a balance point where this stops being convenient because everybody does this, and then anyone that stays on the creative side and is able to do it, train themselves to retain that with maybe the assistance of it if needed, but still be able to create yourself. Right? Never use full AI for music, never use it completely for anything. Like stop using it as a tool to create, but to enhance, maybe. Maybe, I don't Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: know. I still think that it's like a huge like mmm gray area for people. You know, like and at one point we're gonna have to make a decision. And unfortunately I don't think it's gonna go our way. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I don't I don't either. I talk to some folks that work in Silicon Valley, Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and the way that they describe it is well, we're building the video games, we're building the environment, we're building everything. So for us it's a natural thing that we just start building our own art because we just that's what programmers do. They program Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and they make things and they and they think that, you know, this is their way of expressing themselves is through this. Rodgon The Artist: So it's interesting. They they see their coding in the way that they are representing that like compilation of worldwide collections of art into micro fractures and compiling it itself as an art. Right? So they're seeing the process of creating AI art, not the result of it, but the actual process of it as the art form. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: That's interesting. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They they it's just like it's just like Rodgon The Artist: That's interesting. That's a very interesting way of seeing it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, because they're they're programmers and they said that like we made this and I'm like, Yeah, but like you're training off of other people's shit. And they're like, Yeah, well, you know, no one went to jail. It it wasn't like it wasn't outright stealing, you know what I mean? Rodgon The Artist: Yeah. And like I've heard all the arguments towards it, right? Like, well what's the difference between you doing that and you trying to reference from Pinterest? And you looking at this image, or you copying this, or you copying that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I think it's the effort. I think at one point it's th there has to be some sort of human effort in the the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: process and not just typing or saying a prompt. I think that would Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: be the conducive like value towards it. If if even a human I'm even okay with the people that have like the ability to just draw like a little stick figure in a mountain and then it represents a variation of that that has already been made. Perfect. Awesome. That's great. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I kinda enjoy that because then I can give a little kid be like, you want to draw a mountain? There you go, draw some zigzags. It can eventually get there. Right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: And just teach them this is something that's the basics and that's the end. Now you just need to fill all the in-between with knowledge so you can get there. Learning, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: learning, right? Like by giving them Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's Rodgon The Artist: an actual reason to be excited. Like, my God, if I do this enough, I can do that? Fuck yeah. Instead of saying like all you need to do is this. And that's it. If you say it like that, like they're never gonna push for any more. They're not gonna push to be able to do it themselves. They're gonna just be like, I just need to draw a circle. I just need to draw that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And that's and that's a dilemma that people have to come to grips with. Yeah, you can use AI to create r for me it's a lot like cooking, right? You can go to a you can go to a a cooking class and you can learn how to make whatever your favorite food is and all this other stuff, or you can throw some f frozen shit in the microwave. Rodgon The Artist: They're both gonna get the job done. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): There you're you're you're gonna eat. But at the end of the day, like if you learn how to cook, you don't have to wait for the microwave. You could just cook and the food is better. Same way, same way, like I follow so many 2D animation accounts on Instagram. And it doesn't matter, it doesn't it doesn't matter how cool the the AI is that 2D animated thing that's bouncing j for some reason just hits different. And I j I just like it. Me personally, I like it better. And it has nothing to do with there was a machine that made that one and a person made that one. Rodgon The Artist: I don't like perfection. Like perfection looks robotic. Perfection Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: looks terrible. Like, like, for example, symmetry, perfect symmetry and anything, like drawings and stuff, looks so boring. Absolutely Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: boring. Like change an eyebrow, do like a weird face thing or something. Like, stop drawing everyone. Like Zoolander looking Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: at the cam. You know, it's like Have some personality. Look at yourself in the mirror. Look at the angles of your eyebrows, your mouth, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: everything that already has a line, especially if you're old like me. Like this is perfect reference Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: for me. I see shapes. I see like a little teardrop or the diamond. I see like a big like Batman like a mask. So I'm just like, I just draw those patterns and eventually you come up to the conclusion those patterns lead to bone structures. And those bone structures separate the points of your face. And little by little, tiny by little, without like much work, you can learn a lot. But like mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's got personality to it. It's not like you said, it's not perfect. Art's not supposed to be perfect. It's supposed to be handmade. It's supposed to be Rodgon The Artist: Can you name one piece of art that is? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Me? No, just kidding. No, y you can't. Rodgon The Artist: Outside of you. There is absolutely none. So anybody that's aiming for perfect art, they're just setting themselves for failure. There's no perfect art. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: your perfect piece, maybe that you think is perfect in your own special way, still perfection doesn't exist. You can draw and redraw something over and over. You're always gonna find something that's wrong, even at higher levels, even when you're perfect. Right, even when you're like, I'm I'm fucking Michelangelo, you're still gonna be like, you know what, that femur didn't look right. That Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah. Rodgon The Artist: intravenous vein that I drew inside of the forearm, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: you think it should be purple or blue? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: You know what? I'm just gonna scrap the whole sculpture. Like, you're never gonna be satisfied. And you gotta be okay with that. Because the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Right. Rodgon The Artist: moment that you are, that's your peak. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Right, that's your natural peak. The moment that you're happy, like, okay, I can draw like this forever, that's your peak. Push past that. Push, push. And that's the point where Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: you start crushing the goddamn wall. You're like, no, not yet. And then you learn Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Challenge yourself, yeah. Rodgon The Artist: to actually like break through that. You start learning to learn when you don't need to learn. You need to you need to up you learn to observe when you don't have to observe. And then you become like Sherlock Combs. You're like start looking at people and you're like, see a skinny person, you'll see like their jaws like it's a 45 degree angle from the ear. my god, it's a 45 degree Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: angle. And then you go home and you draw that a million times. You're like, that looks all good. how did I never see that? Because you didn't start thinking about that until you get it mentioned, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Rodgon The Artist: or somebody like kind of like a little like matrix thing. Like the moment someone's like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: start looking at things for how you need to use them. If I look Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: at a bottle, if I look at this, I don't look at a cup. I like this a lot because it has the blue and the and the white and the black. So I can create cool effects and be like, I can draw the inside and the outside with two colors. Cool. The Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: things that I have around me are just meant to keep me in that state of mind of seeing shapes, cylinders, cones. All my plates and cups have lines in them so that whenever I'm drinking, I'm seeing those shapes in space. I thought about putting those tattoos on my fingers and my hand. Just making Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Duh. Rodgon The Artist: really thin lines going around so that whenever I needed a pose I can just look at it. But I also remembered, hey, I'm Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That would be crazy, yeah. Rodgon The Artist: not crazy. You know? But it was a really, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha ha. Rodgon The Artist: really, really, really strong thought for a while. I like, why not? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. That would be yeah, that would be wild. That would be cru it'd Rodgon The Artist: Maybe a glove would be enough. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): be cool. Yeah. Get a pinstripe glove. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah, something like that. Just have people draw their like little guidelines however they want, so they can see how their lines look in space. Like you have to be Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: your own reference. Like for I like working out because I get to understand my muscles. Because I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: need to know anatomy. So I don't work out because I want to look all sexy. No, I work out and I try to get thin and like lean so that I can see the muscles on myself. So that I don't Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: have to pay a person to get naked and go draw them. You know? So I don't have to go look at the the chubby dude at the life drawing class next to the kid that didn't shower. You know, so I'm like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's a and it's always a chubby dude that wants to spread his legs and shit. Like, hey, relax, tubby. Rodgon The Artist: They do throw the s the coolest poses though because of the flaps that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They go for it, yeah. Yeah, they go for it. Rodgon The Artist: It's awesome. Like that between that and like super skinny people that are so skinny that you see everything. Everything. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Rodgon The Artist: I'm like, like super old people are really cool because their skin is almost melting over their bones. So you're like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: it's so cool. You could see all the definitions and stuff and like everything. So instead of having to do that, I'm just getting old and wrinkly so that I can do it on myself. I just have to work on Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's true though. Rodgon The Artist: maybe getting wigs so that I can have different references for hair. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. This is and this it this is the kind of breakdown that Rodgon does when he's streaming you guys. Like he he'll show you the two the two circles with the eye drop in the middle. Or the with the water drop in the middle. Rodgon The Artist: The the basic premise that I have for all my lessons, and whenever I teach, even on streams or for free, or even in my academy with the paid stuff, you have to not assume that somebody knows anything. Nothing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I can be teaching you the most complex thing like perspective. And I have to know how to explain it to you without any prior knowledge. Right? But I also have to make it fun. I have to make it Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: interesting enough that you don't look at me like for five minutes and go like It's it's not even a word, it's not it's the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Or have to go back in the video for reference. Rodgon The Artist: it's the eye roll with the the soul escaping you. That that's that's what I try to avoid. Right? I I try Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: to make it so that like and I've gone through all my classes, they go through my nieces and nephews. Right? So so if I lose their attention, I know that I didn't do it fast enough, I didn't explain it fast enough, I lost track of something because they have the attention can Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Damn, that's a good point. Rodgon The Artist: of hamsters. Right. So if I lose their attention span, I have no c no chance in keeping the attention span of an ADHD artist. I just don't. So Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): For real. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: my classes go through a little bit of revision through attention span retainers. And they tend to do really well, especially for people that have never drawn, or the people that have done it for like twenty something years, and then they Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: just don't know how to get better. Like if you just don't know how to push to the next level, you don't know how to get that level of detail, that cool manga style, illustration style or whatever. Let me open that eyes. Let me let me take those blinders up. That's what I'd be well, that's what I'm trying at least every day. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What do you say to people that are like, I'm trying to find my style? Rodgon The Artist: Well, most people that say that don't understand what their style is. Their sty your style is broken down into three parts inside of you. One, obvious imagination, right? You need to be able to imagine things. You need to be able to like recall experiences. And all that stuff is built through living your life. You have to go live your life. You have to do fun shit. You have to go watch cool movies. You gotta read books. You have to do a Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): it's mandatory. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: lot of cool, cool stuff. You are an amplifier. Like you're like a magnifying glass. You can give an experience and then it shoots out a fucking galaxy worth of ideas. A Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: single thing that inspires you can create billions of storylines throughout the entire humankind, right? You can see a flower and then all of a sudden that's fool like whole species from a world far, far away. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. All good. Rodgon The Artist: But that you're an amplifier, so you need to live life in order to be able to create more things with it. But and if you don't do that, you don't get to. So we do this several ways. We go out into the world and we live it too. We can experience it through other people's experiences, travel videos, watching other people's documentaries, other films, movies, music, anything can really inspire you. But then being able to Jesus Christ, I'm getting called like spam bots are crazy today. But yeah, being able to do that is what enhances your imagination. If you don't know how to draw from imagination, you just haven't lived experiences enough. And it doesn't mean that you have to go spend money. Go to the park. Go look at some squirrels. Draw them. Right? Go look at the clouds Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: today. Do they look different than yesterday? Make a note of it. The way that I like to think about it the easiest, the easiest and the the hack that I tell everybody. Imagine yourself like if you're Charles Darwin and you have never seen the things in front of you. Ever, but you're trying to record them in your sketchbook. So what would this be? How would you explain that to someone? Right? You've never seen any before. that's a wild cup. you know, like there's a phone. How do you explain a phone to someone? Right? How do you draw it? Like doing your best to try to analyze the things around you is the best thing you can do because then it makes you observant. And that's when all those things like cylinders and boxes and cubes, all that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: shit comes into play then because then you start seeing the similarities between things. Yes, I can tell you all day long, like, ugh, a cup is a cylinder, but until you start doing over and over and over different cups that have the same cylindrical shape, just different heights, different widths. You're like, that's what they mean. Same thing with legs and patterns for arms, fingers, hands, heads. If you don't understand it, it's always going to be confusing. If you don't understand how it connects, how it goes, how it grows, how it can get bigger, smaller. That's that's what you can need to learn. Not how to draw muscles, not how to draw shadows, not how to draw details, but learning all that core stuff, like it's if you were sculpting it like with clay. Like taking a sphere and being like, I squish it a little, we stretch it a little bit, we get a torso, blah blah blah. And then little by little, with little different rules and logic and math, believe it or not, math is all you really need. But it takes a discerning eye to be able to explain that to someone, and luckily, that's what I do. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And you're you got a gift 'cause you're you are just as talented as at drawing, or let me say it the other way around. You are just as talented at teaching as you are at drawing. Rodgon The Artist: thank you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You're and I'm I'm saying that like with like nothing but respect for everything that you do. You're entertaining to watch and and even when someone you know, 'cause you you we get some delinquents that come and and they they start saying dumb shit while you're trying to teach and you you shut that shit down. Like you're you're you're no nonsense. But But your personality is so friendly and and you know, it's a teacher's personality. You're a giver. You you're you're just constantly trying to make people's art better and you're constantly trying to make your art better. So even when there's a dickhead that shows Rodgon The Artist: I find that when the goal is not to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): up, you're like, Hey, no, shut that shit down. Rodgon The Artist: I find that that when the goal is not to make myself stand out. I'm because I'm not trying to showcase myself whenever I'm doing these things. I'm not like, look at me, look at me, look at me, I'm cool, look, look, look the thing that I'm drawing, look at how cool that is. Yeah, yeah, look. I'm not doing that. Like what Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: 99% of people that are streaming are doing. I go, look at this. You could do that. You can do that now. Just just just l sit down and draw for 10 minutes with me. And you'll be a little bit better. It it changes the perspective of the viewer a lot. They're like, wait, what is he selling me? I'm not selling you nothing. Nothing at all. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I can do that. I'm not selling you anything. Rodgon The Artist: You're gonna come to me if you want to buy something from me. Because you're gonna Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: be so happy learning. And I'm confident. I've lived my life for the last five years like that. Like I don't sell anything, I don't really push Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: anything. I just allow the knowledge and the education that I have to be sought after. And then people always once they learn, once they see how I teach, even through a little basic stream, like I learned more in ten minutes than I did in three years. And I'm Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): For real. Rodgon The Artist: like, hee hee hee hee hee hee hee. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. There's been there's been other classes and other things that I've participated in or bought or whatever, and you're right. Like It's it's almost like feeding it there's artists that have that ego thing. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: They g they're giving you an incomplete amount of knowledge so that you want to go more and learn more, as opposed to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: just feeding you knowledge so you're proud, then you're like, Fuck I wanna learn from this guy, he just made me feel good about myself. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. But no, there's some dudes that some dudes that have classes or they done live stream and they're like, just take a look and they're like drawing this super elaborate, fantastical thing and the art is wonderful, but they're missing the step of not everybody is at that level. Rodgon The Artist: They're at a point where like, look at me, look at me, I want opportunities. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. Rodgon The Artist: I want someone to come, hey, I want to get this from you. I here's the comic book deal. yeah, praise me, praise me, I'm awesome. essentially what they're going in there for, you know? Like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: as opposed to me, I'm going there to make you proud. I'm Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: not going there to make you be like, look at him, he's so cool. I'm like, shit, he made me cool. The fuck? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: He made me what? Fuck, I can do this now. And like I should Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha ha. Rodgon The Artist: like show you some of the messages that people send, like, but I've been drawing for 50 years and never understood shit. And I sat down at one of your live streams and now I have like this reinvigorated feeling of going back into I'm like I'm like be careful you need retirement. You need to make sure that you can feed yourself. So it's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: again balance. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Bounds. But if you're good with money, yes, dive into it heavily because you know, why not? It Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's gonna be worth it. Rodgon The Artist: doesn't matter if you start at 60, you start at 20, or you start at 10. Most of the time people don't start learning how to actually make art until after they're 20. Like because when you're 16 Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. When did you start? Rodgon The Artist: or so I started when I was 18. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Eighteen? Rodgon The Artist: And that was barely like the very first notebook that I ever picked up. It was just like a little ruled notebook. And I got gifted Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: these really dried out markers from a thrift shop that my mom found, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: And with that, I was like super happy as a clan, right? Like, yay! Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: It wasn't until I started comparing myself to others in art school and seeing how other people drew, and I was like, my God, they're so much better. I that's when a lot of art started becoming stressful, right? It stopped being happy. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Like in almost instantly, the moment that somebody's like, let me see your sketchbook. I was like, Why? I just want to see Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Why? Rodgon The Artist: how good you are. Well, I didn't know I was being judged. Like and I was I'm a very shy person. So I was like, fuck you. Just running out of the rooms Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: and stuff. Like, don't look at my little duckies. Like I I used to just draw ducks. It was weird. I was a little weird kid. I like ducks because I like the form that you you get with the visor and like you know like the the the beak has a little weird curve. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: a little Well, I drew learned how to do that simple. Like When I was starting and I was so proud of learning to draw that fucking shape that everything had a hat and everything had a beak. Because I was Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: like, Yeah, I'm I'm the best at drawing ducks. Yeah, I'm the best at drawing hats now. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'm a beak drawing son of a Rodgon The Artist: Just because it's the same shape, right? So Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: everything was a duck and a hat. Everything. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I drew ravers, I drew everything. Once I learned like, you know, to start comparing myself to others. Which wasn't way until way later, I started actually enjoying art again. Enjoying drawing Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: in my book, meaning like, well, I don't have to be as good as him. I just have to be happy with what I'm doing. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: in order to get good, I need to learn a few things. And once I learned those things, I realized that you don't want to stop learning. Once you start Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: once you start on the right path and you're doing it for the right reasons, and you actually understand how to facilitate knowledge into your brain. Well, that's still the path, you know, like you have to learn to teach yourself. Because at one point someone nobody's nobody supports you after a certain amount of time. And this is like the sad reality of truth, right? as Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): One hundred percent. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: a as a young adult male, you start losing the my god, he's gonna be the next big thing. Once you don't make it in the twenties, once you start getting your Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: thirties, you haven't really achieved it. You keep telling people you want to be an artist, they look at you like they they go like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then you start building a family, been whipping your ass, and you don't draw as much. Rodgon The Artist: Well, maybe you should start thinking of something else. Maybe but you'll never have a family if you do. Yes. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: everyone, even the closest around you, will tend to be in in their own way trying to protect you, but at the same time Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: destroying and demoralizing you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Right? By doing so. So we have to learn to be able to get our spirits up ourselves. You have to be your own fan, your own biggest fan. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Have to be. Rodgon The Artist: Like there is no ifs or buts or coconut, okay, Mr. Gomez. No. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. It's true. Rodgon The Artist: if you are not, if you hate what you do, if you do not like what your path is, you're guess what? Mm most people aren't either. So you're always gonna be fighting an uphill battle. You need to be okay and happy with you, what you're doing, how long it's gonna take you, your learning curve, and everything about you. You are literally like your own little cheerleader behind you, pushing Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: you, even if when the whole world is pushing against you, like, you're gonna be behind going like you got this. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: You have to. Like it's it almost Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You have to. Rodgon The Artist: has to be almost irrational. Right? Like you have to believe in yourself so much that other people might be like, Well, I don't fucking see it, but all right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: You're like, yes, trust I achieved. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's like me and my T shirts. I I'll wear T shirts that I design. People like, Why are you always wearing the T shirts? Your T shirts? I like, Who else is gonna wear? Why haven't you bought a T shirt? You know? Like you have Rodgon The Artist: Exactly. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): to be your I talked to this artist. he's he's in the library of interviews. His name is Pugs Adams, and Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): he's from Chicago. And he talks about this very same thing. He said, If I don't make it, who else is gonna make it? If I don't watch it, who else is gonna watch it? If I don't wear it, who else is gonna wear it? You have to be your own biggest fan. You don't have to be a dick about it. You could just I just I just wear my T shirts and every once in a while people are like, Ooh, what are those characters? this is a thing from a Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): animation that I made. you're an animator? yeah. And then we off. Rodgon The Artist: Y it's kinda like the whole saying, like do whatever the fuck you want and less you start hurting other people. Right? Like if Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. If you start hurting other people then you're just an asshole. Rodgon The Artist: it hurts other people, then you're in the wrong path. but until then, just do your own thing. Like you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: if you don't believe so strongly in your art yet, I would suggest that you just go around gifting people drawings. Just go Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: and seeing how people light up with just the most basic shit. Take a pad Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: of notepads like from a post-its. Go to the mall one day. One day that you just want to feel uplifted and feel like your skills actually matter. Take a pad Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: of sticky notes, a ballpoint pen, and go to the mall where the food court is and draw people before they finish their food and just give them the note back and walk away. Do not do anything else. Just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Don't do anything else. Rodgon The Artist: give it to them. Run back, draw another, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: another, another, another. Two things happen. One, you are stopped being afraid of showing people your art. Regardless of the drawing, if it's shitty, if it's a stick figure, give it to them. Doesn't matter. It's teaching you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: Rejection sensitivity, eliminate it. You're not gonna feel fear of rejection. You're just gonna see the reaction. They're gonna be like, either, like, what the fuck is this? Or they'll look at it and be like, It's me and then they'll lose their fucking mind. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Either way you wanna be gone 'cause if they throw it away it's gonna hurt your feelings and if they're overreacting like that, my god, you Rodgon The Artist: Not even not even then. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): could Rodgon The Artist: a certain thing happens. When someone doesn't like it, you like that the the whole act of them getting upset is also powerful. Because Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: you know that you can make someone angry. You you can control their emotions. So when when I can take someone by if I choose to draw them ugly as hell, right? Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I can take the most beautiful human being and draw them ugly. Right, and then give it to them. And then I have control over either making them happy, making them angry, making them sad, or any in between by how I decide to draw lines on a piece of paper. So Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: not like a poet, not like a poem, not like anything like that, but it's just another way to be able to control emotions. And it's super, super interesting to be able to see that with caricatures and just really simple drawings that you do for people. You can make Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: someone's base so much better and so much happier, or you can make them just crumble through their insecurities. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): How you handle how do you handle drawing a caricature of someone who is just naturally ugly? Rodgon The Artist: Just strong uglier. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Draw them even uglier? Rodgon The Artist: So so you're gonna have this scale, right? So when people are pretty, you draw them extra pretty because the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: caricature is an enhanced version them, right? But in the act of drawing them prettier, they get a lot more boring. So Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: it's like the concept is if you're more symmetrical, you have less anything, you're just like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: exactly the same. So it's gonna be boring as fight. But that's pretty. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: That is what people consider pretty. Perfect symmetry spacing. I prefer drawing ugly people. Go give me a mole, give me like a missing tooth, give me something to play with. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. I found that I found that out about myself too. Like I like people that don't that are a little a little different, a little strange. It's easier to draw, it's Rodgon The Artist: Yeah, like that makes you an individual. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): easier to bring character into those drawings. Rodgon The Artist: It makes you an individual. It makes you away from just another little pawn or little like generic character. Because when you draw a really pretty person, it just looks like a generic person. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: It doesn't look like a very cool like model like character when you draw them. When you draw a perfectly symmetrical model person, they just look boring. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: That's why you have to give them like swirly hair and different colors and cool accessories and stuff, because otherwise they look boring as hell. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. If they have a nice mustache, you like beef up that mustache. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah. Ha ha ha. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): The selfies that you draw of yourself, dude. Like Rodgon The Artist: yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I know I keep gushing over your artwork, but god damn it. Like I am a huge fan. and I like when you used to have the little handlebar mustache, like your Rodgon The Artist: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): all your drawings were so fucking cool, dude. Rodgon The Artist: At one point I try to leave the whole beer thing and then I realized that like I have a big red next dash where it won't grow like right here. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Everything else except this big block right here. So I was gonna I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: drew it in with ball plane pen. Just to fill it in. It took people a second to get like to actually be like, that's not your real hair. okay. I was like I was like, Yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, but look at the texture of how I drew Rodgon The Artist: Look at the glimmer that I put in there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That is hilarious. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah, so I don't know, like art in general is such a crucial part about like staying happy. And we were talking about like imagination and the things, right? Like the other things that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, for real. Rodgon The Artist: you need is dexterity. You need to be able to actually hold the utensil to be able to draw with, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Uh-huh. Rodgon The Artist: You need to be able to like use a tool. So if you use pencil, what can you do with the pencil? If you use pen, what can you do with a pen? Brushes, markers, digital stuff. Like the same thing thing applies. Like if You can draw circles, lines, shapes, boxes, cubes, cylinders with a digital thing. You can do it with your pencil. It really is just a matter of getting used to the tool. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And look at this. Look at this. This is it's it's really hard for people to understand this, but this is one of those putty erasers, right? Rodgon The Artist: huh. The net of erases. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): This is your undo button. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): If you put a if you put a line down, it doesn't have to be it. You can move it. Rodgon The Artist: That's true. that is very true. Unless you draw with ballpoint pens strictly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And then I mean that's that's yeah, that's when you go that's when you go like hard mode. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: See, I I think that's the different levels of progressive like learning though. Like you learn with pencil so that you have the ability to refine and correct mistakes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: When you get to the point where you are drawing everything really nice with pencil, you transition to just ballpoint pen so that you go and you start refining your line work. Because ballpoint pen will teach you where you are over sketching, where you're refining, where you have to erase too many times. You eliminate the erasing and then your line work skyrockets. Like it Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: goes fucking through the roof. Like the first little like a month or two, you're gonna be drawing really messy. But once your brain adjusts to that, you're like, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: You just see like your level of line work, your quality, and it when you go back to pencil, it feels almost like cheating. You know, it it I don't like drawing with pencil anymore. Because I'll be like, I can erase that. I don't need to anymore. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): make up your mind, Puto, put it down. Rodgon The Artist: I'd rather just go in and like instead of having to ink my drawing after that again, just go in Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: with the ballpoint pen and then just maybe clean up the levels and the computer so that it's nice and clean or cleaner. So I just refine a little bit, clean minuscule amounts with the computer when I scan it or when I take a picture of it. And that's it. And it's off all the inked with the sketch lines that I like, with like without losing the soul of it, which happens a lot when you clean up artwork. Yeah, because people don't understand the concept. All the little sketch lines you do, like little minuscule things, minuscule ones that you draw outside that kind of cross-hatch outside when you're sketching it. When you erase them, you're killing your drawing. You're just killing. You're like cutting off little tiny parts of it that give it depth. And when people eliminate all their lines and they just look super tacky and no depth and everything, I'm like, you destroy that. Rest in peace, Alright. Like you spent all that time sketching it with Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sorry, paper, you Rodgon The Artist: all those cool lines and then you just spend another couple hours removing them. Like it makes no sense to It it's always confused me, like, I cleaned up my artwork. Well it looks worse. Yeah, but it's cleaned up. Just do your comic messy, it's fine, it'll be fine, save you a c a Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, for real. Rodgon The Artist: quadrillion hours. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, what's his name? Scotty Rodgon The Artist: Sky Yum. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Scotty Young. Yeah, he's he's out there close to Chicago. I don't know if he's all the way in Chicago, but he's he's a really good example of of that. Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He just he just throws down. Rodgon The Artist: Scotty, Scotty's pretty cool. I I would say it's a toss-up for me between character designers, between a couple different people. Like if I had to choose like people that like if I could just look at them draw and I'd be like, yes, just keep going. It'd be the I don't know if they're still together as a studio, but the two dudes from Creature Box. I don't know if you remember this Creature Box. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): how yeah. Rodgon The Artist: those two dudes, Greg and Forget the other guy's name. I was always the biggest fan of Greg. But like those two dudes, amazing. Amazing. Like seeing them draw was such a privilege. Seeing them in like a live drawing competition with Brett Bean, I was like, they were smoking Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah yeah yeah. Rodgon The Artist: bread bean, they were just making, they were drawing circles around him. And I was like, I want to be. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, and bread is a beast. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah. I was like, I I'm going to be at that level one day. I'm gonna blast you guys. I think I could easily compete with anyone at that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: anyone at that level. Like if I ever start going back into competitions just for shits and giggles, like it's super fun to see what I can do in five minutes. It's like I tie myself all the time and it's like Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and just to let people know, like when we first met, what he's talking about this drawing competition, what it was, it was a timed thing, and they would call two artists up to the stage, and then they would do a random thing, and they would say, I don't know, a platypus in a submarine and something, something, something. Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Go. And then you guys would just like hammer out some beast mode drawings and it was great. Rodgon The Artist: I Kim Young how Mr. King like what's his full name? I don't wanna see the dictator's name by accident. I come Kim Youngus? he's like a really, really good brush pen guy. Unfortunately he passed away a couple of years ago. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. no. Rodgon The Artist: his his apprentice is the one that beat us that day. That dude okay, that dude's level of perspective at that point, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Damn damn yeah. Rodgon The Artist: like I was just like, how did he do that? How did he how does Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: he have that mapped out so well? I learned. I learned. It's a lot easier than people think, but but you have to have a lot of control over line work and anatomy. Like those are the two things that you if you have a lot of control of your thick and thin lines, anatomy, all that stuff becomes incredibly easier. But it's hard to explain to people like, well yeah, you don't need to know all of anatomy. You just need to know the things that can seen. Like and if I do this, I don't need to learn how to draw my forearm or my bicep. It's not seen. I just need to learn to place Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's true. Rodgon The Artist: this shape in front of the other. Cylinder boxes. Ta-da. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: When things start clicking, making sense. But so many people skip those foundation classes. Like fundamentals like line work, shapes, overlaps, flow in general, like out of your shapes, and just very basic anatomy, like not like muscles, but how the body connects. Like not just a flat shape, not just circles, but learning to extrude the body parts in the right directions. That changes everything. Like and that's stuff that you can learn in like a week. But most people skip that stuff to go look and I wanna draw like anime characters. Give it time, you will. Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And then all their stuff looks alike. They y I've seen that. I've seen people get comfortable drawing a character and then everything they draw is that character. Rodgon The Artist: And you know what? That is such a strong thing that they don't know how to control yet. So if you learn how to draw at the same character over and over and it's consistent, that is so Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, for real. Rodgon The Artist: strong. Because all you need to do is make variations. Controlled variations, make them a little taller. You have an older brother, make them a little shorter. You have a little brother, make them a little wider. You have a fat guy, make them a little skinnier. Little variations, but with control. would create an entire set of characters for them in the same style range. Right? But people are afraid that they're afraid of taking notes, just drawing a character and being like, what would happen if it was a little fat? Just draw the lines around it. They don't do that. They don't sit there and analyze their drawings. They just look at them and they're like, it's good. it's bad. why can't I draw hands? Instead of sitting there taking notes like, well, I drew the finger going this way and then the other one going this way. So that probably why Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: it doesn't look right. Hmm, how can I fix that? Let's look up some anatomy paintings or drawings. the finger does this, this, this, and this. Let me try again. miraculously, probably looks better. And then you just do that with every page of your sketchbook. Every page, a plus one. Every page should teach you something new. And that's how you use your sketchbook as a learning tool. Instead of just an exercise thing or just a gallery of really pretty drawings, if you set every page to be like, I want to learn something new about fingers, I want to learn something new about platypuses, I want to learn something new about cars, I want to learn something new about how to draw tires. Set something at the top and be like, I will learn to draw something new within this page. Maybe you don't finish it in the day, maybe you don't finish it in the week. Maybe you have to go back to it later because just don't feel like drawing a tire that day. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: But that page is dedicated to learning something new about that. And if every page teaches you something new, the sketchbook has what, 80 pages, 100 pages, a hundred new things you learned within that page. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Have that mentality. Like stop being so precious about this sketchbook. It's a sketchbook. Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. It's like it's not a gallery book. And you know, using all your expensive materials that are meant for more like finished renderings, you know, like using Copics to just sketch out like practice ideas, that's so silly to me. Because they're so expensive. You know, instead of use watercolors. Watercolors are cheap, reusable a million times, like quadrillion times. You won't never ever kill a set of watercolors, probably without losing them. Before like forgetting them somewhere in a backpack or something. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): For real, yeah. Rodgon The Artist: So get a set at target for two dollars, learn to mix colors so you can improve your color theory. And then you have access to all the colors for a fraction of the cost and a lot easier 'cause you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And all that stuff all that stuff in the manual world translates to the digital world. They're Rodgon The Artist: Yep. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): doing a really good job. Adobe Fresco is crazy. Rodgon The Artist: I haven't tried Fresco yet. Like I it I was always in Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's crazy. Rodgon The Artist: between of me using either Eclipse Studio for drawing things. I haven't used Fresco on the computer yet. Like is it worth trying? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's worth trying on the iPad. I don't think Rodgon The Artist: On the iPad. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah, I don't think they have a desktop version of that. But like Rodgon The Artist: Does it have a does it have a vector brush? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's got it's got it's got three different brushes. It's got Rodgon The Artist: By the way, that's what I like about clips video. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): pixel brushes, it's got vector brushes, and it's called live brushes, and that's where the oil and the watercolors are in. And the way that the and Rodgon The Artist: they act like they're actually plumbing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): the it's it's black magic what they did, dude. It's black magic. They used to have it, I don't I don't know if I don't know if it still does it, it might, but they used to have it to where if you're doing watercolor you can adjust how much water and if it has a lot Rodgon The Artist: nice. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): of water, the shit would keep spilling. It would keep going. You're like, bro, chill, like what are you doing? Rodgon The Artist: That's funny. I I'm gonna have to try fresco then. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then you have to hit the little fan to dry it, you know? It's pretty crazy. It's my favorite it's my fa it's Rodgon The Artist: I'll have to try it. Like I I'm normally you're stuck with procreate, but Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): my favorite pencil. It's my favorite drawing app for the pencil. The pencil is outrageous. Rodgon The Artist: okay. How would you how would you compare that versus procreate then? What would you use each one for? For drawing you would use Fresco and then maybe take it into procreate for something else, or you would just eliminate Procreate completely because of the use of Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I would almost you can almost just eliminate Procreate. Yeah. Yeah. Like I Rodgon The Artist: Really? No, said. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): would use Procreate. Procreate. I love Procreate. Procreate is like, so when I'm drawing, my number one pick, my no I go to, well, I go to paper and pencil. But if I'm on digital, I go to fresco first and selection one B would be procreate. Because I do love Procreate. But what Adobe did, I'm telling you, Adobe made a deal with Satan or whatever the fuck they did. But that fresco is legitimate. It's a little, I Rodgon The Artist: It actually feels like a pencil. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): like, I like the way Procreate handles the brush management. Like it's way easier. The Adobe fresco, the way that they do brush stuff is kind of weird, the way they handle it. It's kind of weird, but yeah. The watercolor is outrageous. The oil colors and even the acrylics, like the way that they blend the colors. But I don't think that I don't think that anyone yet has taken like if you take a blob of yellow and a blob of blue and you mix it between the two, I don't think anyone has nailed that yet. Not that I've seen. Like if you're looking for a proper color green. Rodgon The Artist: I I don't think I'd play enough with colors to be able to do it. I know that the blend tools in Photoshop will do that relatively simple, but it's not an actual tool itself. Like it's not like the like brush and then you do it, you have to set the colors and then you have to grab the blend tool and then blend it. Right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: But again, I'm also a dinosaur when it comes down to a lot of that like processes. I still use the same process for coloring that I did back in like two thousand two. Yeah, like lasso tool, expand, color, layer, control, blah blah blah. Like it's the easiest Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rodgon The Artist: for if I wanna sit there and just be like like more Zen like and actually enjoy the process. I just go in and color it like if it was a color like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: you know like those number things. You know, just go Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: in and just every section just spend a little bit of time. Don't think about Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: it as something you have to rush, but just do it right the first time, you don't have to worry about it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, right. That's how I see it too. Coloring, painting and shit like that. If if I find coloring something by hand, even if it's digital, just coloring it by hand, whatever, if that turns into a pain in the ass, then w then why are you doing art? Like that's part of it. Rodgon The Artist: Stop that you're doing give that to somebody else to do for you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: For sure. a lot of the reasons that I don't like that my line work got so good is because I hate doing shadows. Not because I don't like drawing them. I just don't like the look of drawing heavy shadows for like, you know, like depth. So I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: learned how to create incredibly meticulously deep drawings with simplicity and just overlapping lines. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: it's such a subtle thing that you need to learn to play with that it's so fun Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: to just be like Like super sudden, like, that's an eye. my god, that's so pretty. You're like, Yeah, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha ha ha. Rodgon The Artist: it took me twenty years to be able to do that. Why why can't I do it? I'm like, well you'll be able to do it in twenty years of practicing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You're not yeah, you're not addicted yet. Yeah, 'cause you're not addicted yet. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah, but the goal too, like whatever I teach a lot is showing people they can do it. Right? Like not a pre-recorded video, not something that is like, well here, let me speed up my drawing so you can see how I created my beautiful dragon piece that took 17 Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: hours and only 30 seconds. Ha ha ha No, like, okay, sit down, draw a circle. Draw a circle. Okay, cool. Now do this, this, this, dragon! Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And that's just it, you guys. If you start watching his classes, dude, he'll go from like rough shapes, and then he's like, just do a line like this, do a line like this, and like three lines later, it's like this elaborate dragon. You're like, What the hell just happened? But but if you're following along You're gonna have a badass dragon too. I can show you some of the stuff in my sketchbook wherever that is. it's in here. I'll I'll like if I want to if I have some quiet time and I want to draw, I will put on your channel and I'll just sit there drawing with you. And like I I just I always get better. I always let me say like this. I always get more confident with my art. Rodgon The Artist: Yes. Mm-hmm. You get a little bit of Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure I'm drawing your stuff. Rodgon The Artist: a you get a little bit of a kick of inspiration. Like not because Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: of what I said, but what what you see that is actually happening with what you're trying. Like you're Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: seeing results as you're practicing with me, instead of like going like, well, okay, now go look at my class on this on VTube. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. I'm like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: no, just teach me now. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: here, like I love the act of teaching impromptu. Like and that's why when I go on streams and TikTok and stuff, like I I I'm still waiting I'm waiting for a question that stumps me. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): The first question is always the first question is the question is always, so what do you want to do draw today? I'm like this dude everything everything has to be a put me on the spot. Let's see what happens. And people are like, draw something like you're like, All right, cool, boom. Rodgon The Artist: Bah. They're like, okay. that thought that was hard. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That just happened. That just happened. Rodgon The Artist: Ooh, the full human body. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He started with a smiley face and a stick man now. Rodgon The Artist: And people try to stomp me and be girl, draw a whole human body. Okay, now a girl. Thirty seconds, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, but Rodgon The Artist: I'm like, alright, okay, and fully explained and everything then. Aw, shit. Enemy Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. I always know I always know those people don't probably don't follow you on Instagram or anything or they haven't followed you for longer than a half hour. Cause you got you Rodgon The Artist: Ha ha ha. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you draw every day and every day is something different and your portfolio of art out there is ridiculous. Rodgon The Artist: I don't even know what I would show people as a portfolio. I like I do not know. Like there's entire books of collections of my art. Entire books. I don't know. Like, would I just send like a person at DC a book? Like, here we go. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I just made a book on superheroes, I guess. Just spend I spend a whole month Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Send them a link to your classes. Rodgon The Artist: just doing superheroes and then just send them and then be like, you can learn from me. I'll teach your artists. I'll be the in-house mentor. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And that was one thing. Rodgon The Artist: That'd be pretty cool. An in-house drawing mentor? Like just walk around. Like I can get my mustache to look all Zen like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, get you a nice little robe. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah, see there you go, like a little like a little kimono just walk around. You're like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: you need hand help. Hmm, come here, my son. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Just go off to the next test. That would be amazing. That would be a pretty cool job. I don't think Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: anyone's done that, so it would be kinda cool to like pave Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That would be badass. Rodgon The Artist: that way. And then every studio Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That was a Rodgon The Artist: has their art mentor. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That was one of the things that you had said and this was a while ago. Like you said, I'm teaching people how to draw because I'm tired of art schools ripping you off. Rodgon The Artist: No, that that's the reason I started the whole channel. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I saw two of my friends. One of my friends went bankrupt and then he Well, it's something they can't really mention on the the videos, right? and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No. Rodgon The Artist: it was all because of the debt from art school. Right? He he got so in financial issues because the school and the loans and everything got so much and he was not able to translate anything that they taught him into a career and they never taught him how to survive. He also didn't Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Ugh. Rodgon The Artist: have the, you know, like a lot of pe like people to help him around and then one day they I just heard a notification, maybe like two years after he died and It like, why? You know, like nobody really and that's why I make it such a big thing that you have to be like consistently like also getting in touch with people. And even if you're a very extroverted person, you need to have somebody check in on you constantly. Because Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: people that are in this realm, like I, for example, if I didn't go out purposely on purpose, I could be in my house all month long without Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: leaving my house one single time, and I'd be perfectly happy. So I know that if anything happened to me and nobody checked in on me, I could go months before anybody was even like, So being able to I don't know, like I I try to encourage people to to to not stay in as much, even though I don't do it as much. You know, like it's a do as I say, not as I do type of situation more than anything. I'm scared of the world. People are scary. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For real. Rodgon The Artist: But yeah, like teaching people how to survive is different than teaching people how to be employed. Art schools teach you how to be employed. That's it. They're not there to help you understand how to navigate financial situations where you are not an employee. They're not there to teach you how to get freelance work. They're not there to teach you how to contract works. They might teach you some classes on that because you have to read contracts before you go go work with anyone. But you're not gonna get It from the perspective of someone that needs to build a business in art, that tries Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: to make a living with art. And when you end up in a situation where you do not have that, you don't have the ability to make money outside of maybe a gig, a contract, you end up getting taken advantage of. You end up getting ripped off. You end up not being able to charge what you're supposed to, because you don't know. You don't know any of that. And on top of that, art school teaches you a lot of useless crap that I'll never need. To learn literature going into yes, it's cool to be able to know it, but I don't need it to make a living with art. So Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I don't need to take like a lot of heavy math classes or literature or even sociology classes. So a lot of the same credentials that you need to get a certified certification from the things to graduate, half of those classes are fucking worth it. And because they're being taught by people that are not supposed to be teaching that. They're getting taught by the art teachers. And you're like, you know what Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: it's like to get taught literature by a person that barely reads themselves? No, it's terrible. Like, go read 10 books before the end of the week. Like, dude, what? Have you haven't even Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Write a report. Rodgon The Artist: read a book? You know how long it takes? Even audiobooks, there's no way. It's like, if you want to pass the class, fuck you, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: drop the class. You know, it's like art school is there to teach you how to get employed. If you do not want to be employed and you never wanted to be employed, it's fucking pointless. Like learn all the stuff that you need to, paying a fraction, a fraction of the amount of money through courses like that you find on 21Draw is a good resource, right? As well. It's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: like has a bunch of different teachers, so it has a subscription thing, just go and bounce around the classes, learn a bunch from the Do that. When you want to draw more specific and you want to get more into specific niches, then you have things like imaginism schools and you have things like my academy. I would say my imaginism is more for like visual development, and I'd say more for people that want to just learn character design and anatomy. You come to people like me. But other than that, don't spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on people telling you you're doing things wrong. Because the other thing that art school does is put you in a box. A magical little box. If you're not an animation, what are you? Graphic design, right? Box. or fashion design. Box. When you graduate, your brain is not, I can do all those things. It's no, I can only do graphic design because I went to school for graphic design. there's no graphic design jobs, but there's marketing. damn, what am I gonna do? I'm not a marketer. Box. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Box. Rodgon The Artist: They don't exist. If you want to call yourself something, go for it. Apply Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Do that thing. Rodgon The Artist: it. Just do it. Like I'm a person. I'm an animator by degree, right? Guess what? I'm a graphic designer by trade, by job. I got a job doing. my god, I have that title. I'm a visual development guy. I'm a digital artist, traditional artist. You can put yourself in as many labels as you want. Just be a creative person. Just be a creator. You're not Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: not a creator and like the influencer type of type, but you create things. If someone gave Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Make things. Rodgon The Artist: you a piece of clay, I bet you'd be able to draw some or create something with it. If they Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: give you a piece of wood and a knife, you'd be able to cut something out that looks pretty cool. Doesn't matter the medium, just not used to it. But once you know how to visualize something in your head and bring it out, that's it. Then it's just the tools that you choose. Can be your hands, could be pencils, could be digital, whatever it is that you decide. But you're all creators. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'm assuming you're way more analog than you are digital. Rodgon The Artist: you'd be surprised. You'd be surprised. The reason that I force myself to draw in my sketchbooks is because other than that, I don't really get to draw in my traditional mediums. So like force myself to draw in sketchbooks and fill sketchbooks out. But as I'm putting together things for my book and like how to draw books and stuff like that, I need to draw digital because otherwise I have to take whatever I draw, scan it, and then clean it up again. It's double the work for no reason. So I've been enjoying doing that and then putting together a little ebooks for the like my members and my social media. Like whenever anybody like joins on the membership, I never knew what to give people. Like I was always like opposed to like launch memberships. five dollars a month. I'm like, what do Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: I get? Yeah, you get to make me happy. Fuck that. No, and like what? No, you need to get something in return. So when I found out that the first month that I was doing just pure digital, I I did the equivalent of 160 pages in one month. So the file itself had 160 layers that we went and revised over and over and over and over. So it was like gigantic ebook. All right. And I was like, huh, that's kind of cool. Put it together, called it Brainfarts, and then we just gave it away to the members that had something like only like 20 people were like memberships. And then the next month, like we doubled it. They're like, shit, people actually enjoyed it. So we're on volume three right now, and it's gonna be a guy and again like a hundred pages this month. Just drawing digital. It's about the same as I would filling up a sketchbook, but now I am creating content that I can use and take little things apart, create exercise books, I can create drill books, I can generate more with what I've been doing. And even Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: though I'm not drawing on my sketchbook as much. I'm not feeling much of a difference because of when you play with the settings and you learn what you're doing with your pen tools and your brushes. I just made this to be exactly like a ballpoint pen. It's just my god ballpoint pen because it allows me to change colors, erase, and everything, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: And as you can see, the port pen has seen better days. The Waycom needs to build them a little bit stronger. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's mileage. Rodgon The Artist: But the tablet it's I I miss the big old pens from Wacon. I miss these. The big ones. The big chunky ones. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah. I got that too. Look. Rodgon The Artist: Give me this tip, but give me this body. Okay? And then if they did that, that'd be amazing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And you know what? That's that's a really good point for people, whether you're digital or analog, like this is part of your journey. Like you said, Rodgon 20 years ago, he found a system that works and he focused and he did the line work and now he doesn't need to create shadows or have a whole different layer for shadows. That's part of the process too, not just drawing circles, it's like finding out what pencil you prefer, what eraser you prefer. Rodgon The Artist: No. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And and and the more you do it, these are all like the little shortcuts that get you into that flow state. Right? Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. But you know what the most important thing of all of it is? Out of everything that you will ever learn, do you know what the most important thing is? And most people lose it so quick, is actually having fun with it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah. Rodgon The Artist: If I you can sit down, most artists, and even those of you guys that are watching right now, I want you to ask yourself this. When was the last time you genuinely sat there and were so fascinated by what you were doing, putting images from your head onto a paper? And you were like, just yeah, dude, it's so cool with no purpose, other than just doing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Think of when was the last time you did that? A lot of people can't. And If and that's why you went into this, right? Like we went into this career not necessarily because of the money. You don't go into this for the money. If you wanted to make money, you go into a bunch of other fields, right? You don't go Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Way more. Rodgon The Artist: into this sort of stuff. But we go into this for glory. And we all go into it for glory. Like everyone that's going into art wants to be seen. Even if you're shy, you want you you want to be recognized for an individuality Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: that you have come up with yourself. Be it through music, singing, acting, art, sculpting, whatever it is, those everyone that does anything like that wants to be seen. Right? And we are so eager to be able to get to that like viewpoint, like, look, I'm grand, I'm grand, look at me, look at me, look at me. That we forget that we need to set down those foundations in whatever it is that we do. Like if we don't set the foundations down at first, the first few years that we start to do it, be like, all right, what is it gonna take me to get there? It's not just gonna be jumping and getting there right away. There's no shortcuts to this. There's no shortcuts. That's one big part of life, too. No shortcuts. There's always a cost for cutting a path. Always a cost. Right? And when you're shortcutting in the form of creative means, like if you're putting AI, you're coming with references with other people, or you're taking other people's poses, or anything like that. That is a shortcut. You don't know how to do it yet. So therefore, you're using somebody else's artwork to facilitate that. Perfectly acceptable, perfectly fine, but eventually you're gonna want to be able to do it on your own. The way that you do that is through those stupid first foundational classes. The ones that are boring, the ones not boring, more like people don't not know how to find joy in practicing. And unfortunately, it's things that you need to practice to perfection. It's kind of like a Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Rodgon The Artist: pitcher. Imagine imagine if you're a pitcher and you don't practice throwing the ball to the catcher. The first time you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: go out to the mount, even if you have the strength to throw it, you're gonna be Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You might yeah. Rodgon The Artist: right. You're not gonna have the control because you don't have the foundations. So you might Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: have all the technique, you might have all the strength, you might have all the equipment, you might have everything. But if you don't have those foundations, it's all gonna be misguided. You're never gonna know Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: how to actually do that. Right? And if you feel like there's something missing, it's that. It's that. Like I promise you, it just opens up your brain. You're like, I missed that for 20 years? A fucking circle and a line? Like it's that frustrating sometimes. You're like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's true, said Rodgon The Artist: like I've been trying to draw bodies for ages and then you this motherfucker just dead is in like two seconds and it looks good. Fuck. Like that you get that reaction a lot. And it's always positive Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: regardless of like the the negative connotations. But it's super fun, like it's super fun. And it's not a path that was given to me. That's it's not a path that I even knew I was gonna end in. I just ended up starting to teach a couple of days and then on YouTube and going online and doing a lesson or two and then it became two, three, four, and then fourteen years later. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Now you now. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's it's been fun. It's been fun Rodgon The Artist: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): watch and I know you've had your ups and downs and all that shit, but it's it's excellent. It's excellent to see you maneuver it and come out it seems like you got a really good rhythm going. It looks like, you know. Rodgon The Artist: Number one fan. As my number one fan, I cannot let myself not do things. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Right? As of if if the person that was the most supportive to me came to me, what would they say? I say that to me all the time. If if the person that was the most supportive to me came up to me in my worst moment, if I can get myself in that state of mind, like what would that person say to me? And that's you telling yourself exactly what you need to tell yourself. Right? So if you're a person like me that needs to be snapped out of the moment, b even by just a little tiny separation of like, you know, two personalities in your head, if you can, you know, even if you act it out, you're gonna find yourself be like, okay, they will tell me to calm down, they will tell me that it's okay, they will tell me to be patient, they will tell me to do this. And if you can just repeat those words to yourself in a way that you're listening. It it it's world changing. Because a lot of insecurities like, what if people don't like my work? What would my first fan say? Like fuck yeah, don't like my work. Post that shit. Yeah, like I would Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: never if I was my biggest fan, I would never allow myself not to post something. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Please promote it. Please tell the world that you're awesome because I think you're awesome. So that's what I do. If I feel confident one, they'll be like, dude, I'm fucking amazing. I'm feeling great. And I think people relate to that too, because whenever I'm feeling like shit, I'm like, I don't feel like it, guys. Like life is just terrible right now. Fuck this. You know, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: and it's ups and downs happen. Like in if you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: just demonstrate that life is all hoity doity and fucking dandy, you know, people don't people see through that illusion. People Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: see through that because not it's not life's not like that. Especially for creative like we we Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And especi Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: have imagination and imagination. Is creative and happy and joyful and memories and shit, but on the other side, it's anxiety, jealousy, overthinking, all depression, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Depression. Yep. Rodgon The Artist: all that stuff. So it's two sides of the coin, and we tend to not understand this side, but we focus heavily on that it's just this side. So anyone Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: that can do this tends to suffer from all this shit. Somebody that's able to create more, create worlds, create anything. They still have to feel all the emotions that go through those worlds. So you have to understand sadness, you need to understand rage, you need to understand anger, depression. And a lot of the times that's overwhelming. If you're really into your own stories, you can make yourself really depressed by thinking that your characters are going through some shit, even though they don't exist. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 'Cause your brain doesn't know the difference. Rodgon The Artist: Because your brain is like, No, this is real. You made it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): This is someone is going through this. Holy shit. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Mm-hmm. And again, it goes down to your emotions. You can control your own emotions. And if you learn to manage your own emotions with your art, You now you can control other people and you can control yourself. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And the and the cool thing about being an artist and when you do find yourself in those situations, 'cause it's gonna happen. It happens to me, it happens at Rodgon, where you're like, what the fuck am I doing? I'm only wasting my time. It's one drawing or maybe even just one day of of your hand doesn't wanna work the way that it usually does. All you have to do is go back and to either go back into your sketchbook and go look at the drawings that are bomb or go to your YouTube channel and go back into your library and see all the cool shit that you've made. Like everyone Rodgon The Artist: I like to call that the billionaire's dilemma. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): huh. Rodgon The Artist: You know why? I like to call it the billionaire's dilemma. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Tell me why. Rodgon The Artist: Cause let's say that a billionaire goes and it's like, my god, I just lost ninety nine million dollars. Right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: You're still rich. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You're still rich. Rodgon The Artist: If you're drawing and one drawing comes out bad, ten drawings come out bad, you have so many drawings left in that reservoir in your brain that two is insignificant. Right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: And you're doing something that I I'm not sure about statistics, but it has to be pretty fucking high up there. Like most of the population can't do. Not accurately, at least. You know? So Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: if you can even remotely draw, even remotely, even a little bit more than just shapes. You have a skill Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): If you can spell. Rodgon The Artist: that most people wish they had. Like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: so instead of being like, this is not great, you're like, holy shit, I can do that. And it Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: can only get better. If you learn something new, a new technique, a new skill, you're like, I just leveled up. shit, it's like so leveling in this bitch. You know, and there's an endless ceiling. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We're back, son. Rodgon The Artist: There's an endless ceiling. You can just learn more Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: and therefore you can do more. Kind of like an RPG tree. You expand one skill and then 10 more open up. But until you open that, you can't access them properly. You can't really control them. So if you think about it like that, you're like a little RPG character. You're just spanning in different tree branches. And if you learn to connect what you learn to different things, you just expand your ranges, more abilities, more skills, more power ups. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And one thing, this is specifically for the younger artists, you're gonna be impatient. You're gonna sit on one drawing and you're gonna do some shit and it's not gonna look right. Put that drawing away. Come back tomorrow. You can keep drawing something else. Come back to that drawing tomorrow. That one. And I promise you it's if you take your time, this is my thing. And especially with social media made made this phenomenon even worse in my head. Like I'm competing with all these other artists. And because I'm looking at one device, it feels like All these million millions of artists are making all this art and I'm looking and I'm like, I gotta keep up. I gotta keep up. Take your time. Take your time with the drawing. Go over it. Put it away. Come back to it. If it takes three days, it takes three days. Stop trying to do shit in a half an hour just to put it on Instagram to have people shit on it anyway. Rodgon The Artist: Yeah. Well well, I mean, I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Take your time. Rodgon The Artist: I'd like to think that most people that do have an art account, they don't tend to get bombarded with such negativity unless you go on places like YouTube and then you try to show off your cockiness. Like, I I learned that really, really fast one day. Like I just did a stream and I was just like feeling extra arrogant that day, right? I was like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: extra cocky. And then I was like, look at me, yeah, I'm amazing. Very quickly people humble you if they don't feel like they they share the same notion as you. So but Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: when it comes down to places like Instagram, I don't think people are as me. I think people they you get the Karen's, you get the occasional asshole that just goes in and like the troll. But in general I think Instagram is much more like nice about posting. So it's kinda like a journal more than anything. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: People's lives. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: So when people see that drawing, they don't assume like, this person's trying to be the best drawing in the world. In my opinion, when I see drawings on Instagram, like, it's either a work in progress or it's something that, you know, they're really, really proud of. One of the two. And, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: you know, like very rarely I do see negative posts coming sometimes, but people focus on like if they have one negative comment and they have ten positive ones, they'll focus on that one negative one. Like they'll forget that ten Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): percent. Rodgon The Artist: other people are like. clamoring them and pushing them, cheering them on, and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: one person's like, Well, I don't like her nose. It looks like a stick. And you're like, thanks. Like, I'm not gonna draw a stick anymore. I'm not gonna draw anymore because this person Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Then you focus on that one, like maybe maybe the nose it Rodgon The Artist: said this, yeah. Like you get people that get like that. It's it's kinda crazy. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: Navigating the whole social media spectrum is is it's a it's kinda weird, man. Like and as a person that has like I combined within the accounts, I have over a million people now. It's kinda like it's it's kinda nutty. Like if I don't turn off notifications on my phone, like endless. I I had Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: to get a social media manager. I ha I had like I never thought I'd have to do that. Like Because I got so many messages that I was just like being overwhelmed like half the day, like, sorry I didn't get back to you a week ago. you can draw an hour and better by going to this video. And then I'd be like hours and hours and hours just trying my hardest to help people, you know, because Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: a lot of people reach out to you and you're like, fuck but then I couldn't do anything else. So I had to hire a social media manager just to be like to point them to the right videos and like give them like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: little basic answers of the things that are Like I already know, you know, or there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's pretty cool though. Rodgon The Artist: I've always been a one-man army. Like it this is the first time I ever have to employ someone and it feels weird. It feels Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: weird being like, well, we want to have six posts about this, six posts about this, then we make our quotas. I'm like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: who are you? Who are you? Like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Someone who's trying to eat. Rodgon The Artist: true, true, but in my head, I'm like, my god, God, I'm just one of those again. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. But again, that's one of those things. Rodgon The Artist: And as things get bigger, it's just gonna mean more. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's one of those things. Like if you're an independent artist, whether you know, whether you're an illustrator drawing kinda, or if you're a musician, whatever, independent means you have to do it all. Until further notice, you have to do it all. All of it. I worked with a dude Rodgon The Artist: You have to do the finances, you gotta track the taxes, you have Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: to promote yourself, you have to do the websites, gotta the bills. If you have to hire someone to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You have to hire a mo social media manager. Rodgon The Artist: help you because you can't manage everything, you have to see how you can afford that. I never thought I could afford to hire someone. I really didn't, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Rodgon The Artist: but I was able to find someone within a range that I could afford. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah. Rodgon The Artist: You can write it off in taxes as well, you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure. Rodgon The Artist: know. So you you need to understand that so that you can get the most out of what you can benefit from. If you don't hire someone, I learned that last year when I went to do my taxes. They're like, you could have hired someone for like $10,000 last year to help you, and it would have done exactly the same. Like you would have reduced that amount, but then you wouldn't have paid this much. You would have actually came out higher on top if you would have done that. I'm like, keep talking me. I like this. And she was like, Yeah, like you are if you file taxes on your own, it's your own company, sole proprietor and stuff like that, you can write off a lot of things. And those things that you require to be creative are included. So when you travel somewhere because you have to go, you know, explore something, that technically, if you have some business when you travel, your business is that of creating, inspiring yourself. So you going on a hike. Going to a museum that cancels it. So you can actually have a lot of really cool deductions and that help you be able to maximize what you make every year. But that is also something you have to pay every three or four months, like quarterly. And people don't remember that, and then they get to hit with fees at the end of the year, and then they end up losing all that benefit money that they could have made. They just lose it in the fees. So it's not about just start. If you want to be a person that does art for a living and you don't want to be employed by someone else, it takes a lot. And learning earlier is better. Learning how business work, how to set up how to get paid, setting Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Learning to learning to be comfortable charging people for your time creating these things. That's so big. Yeah. And it's okay. Especially like when I was a kid, when I was on my come-up, we didn't have we didn't even have fucking internet, dude. So So Rodgers got back to me. the power went out. He lives in Mexico and the power went out. so I wanted to finish my thought. I was talking about not having internet or anything like that. When I was younger, we didn't have internet. And the the excuse for getting free work, business owners would come to us and say things like, do it for exposure. Do we for draw something for exposure? Do this logo for exposure. And it, you know, it they had an argument because if you are a creative person, you need to build up a portfolio. And there's nothing better than having live projects out there for, you know, for All these clients and customers and stuff like that. So you build up your portfolio that way. These days we don't need to be the creative folks don't need to do anything about exposure. There's Instagram, there's TikTok, there's Facebook, there's live streaming and Twitch and all the things. So you don't need to do that anymore. My suggestion to you guys is having projects that you can create by yourself. Come up with a company, whatever it is, or even if you want to do some outreach, like helping small companies out there, go to your neighborhood restaurant and say, Lane, let me let me redesign this menu for you. And maybe they'll, you know, you work for food. Do that, build up a portfolio that way, or just come up with different make-believe companies and you create branding off of that. I've even seen people taking established corporations and redoing that stuff. So the question about exposure is just not a thing anymore. As a creative, you bring so much value to any conversation that you're in, especially if it has anything to do with corporations and and companies and and branding and all that stuff. All that stuff is super, super important. So Because you're bringing your expertise, I don't care how much experience you have, you're bringing expertise, you're bringing software, you're bringing hardware, you're bringing understanding, you're doing all these things. So you should get paid for it. If you're not getting paid You need to make accommodations some way. I'm not saying that you need to get paid cash, but like our earlier ex example, work for food. I've worked for food, I've worked for percentage of a company. I don't need cash, but I do need something of value because I'm bringing something of value to you. So that's it. I love Rodgon, by the way. I I make it's not it's not hard to guess. Everything his talents, his skills, the way he teaches, how he gives, he's constantly giving free lessons. And then he's got the paid stuff too. I'm gonna put all the links to all his stuff in the description of this video. But yeah, you guys should follow up with him. Especially if you or anyone you know is looking to get into animation, cartooning, drawing, stuff like that, character development. He's just he's just there. He's just out there, constantly out there pushing. So thank you. Special shout out to Rodgon for coming on. he's always been cool with me. Like I'm telling you, I started following his artwork or his art path back in the twenty tens, like right in there, 2010, 11, 12, right in there. And then we bumped into each other at CTN because Creative Talent Network. I don't even know if they're around anymore. And he was cool. And then he came on my podcast, Sketch Zone Podcast back in the day, the art related podcast. He came on there a few times and he's just always, he's just, he's just such a cool, friendly guy. I want you guys to check him out. And again, if you're learning drawing and stuff like that, go over to him and support him and do all the things. So again, special shout out to Rodgon. Thank you. You're you're a You're a bad dude. and with that, we're out.