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Just Make It episodes
- 024: Feel Like Quitting? Listen To This
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Disclaimer: Please be advised, some of the information, advice, and practices may be outdated and no longer be in use by Mayke Entertainment.
Inside Episode 024: We revisit this topic and go over how discovering your why helps you overcome the desire to quit.
Key Takeaways- You can’t be afraid to fail in life. You’re going to fail. Learn from it and move on.
- No matter what anyone else has told you, you do have a reason and purpose for being alive. You have to discover what that is and use it to its full potential.
- Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your project. You have to play the long game. You have to grow, cultivate, nurture and have the patience to tend the soil to reap a plentiful harvest.
- Your Why has to be bigger than you. It can’t come from a place of selfishness.
- When you’re down and out, when life gets really, really hard, and when all hope seems lost, your Why is one of the single most defining factors of making sure you get right back up.
1 hr 1 min - 023: Creating Character-Driven Stories (Part 3 of 3)
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Disclaimer: Please be advised, some of the information, advice, and practices may be outdated and no longer be in use by Mayke Entertainment.
Inside Episode 023: You want to have a name that really resonates with your character? Want to have powers that just make sense? Then this episode will help you get there.
Key Takeaways- For those who cannot draw, the physical description section is going to help you put one together to give to your artist.
- Your character should inform us of who and what they are before we get to that first line of text.
- Everything we’ve covered previously should inform your design decisions.
Don’t give your character a million powers.- The best powers are the ones that become an extraordinary extension of ordinary limitations.
- Do your research before naming a character. A lot of names are trademarked by Marvel and DC.
- Everything leading up to this last stage should inform the name. The name should mean something and resonate with the character.
31 min - 022: Creating Character-Driven Stories (Part 2 of 3)
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Inside Episode 022: We’re sharing what you need in order to create believable character motivations, flaws that challenge your character, and how to approach the origin story.
Key Takeaways- The key to creating storytelling powerhouses is giving those characters soul.
- Storytelling powerhouses are your Spider-Mans, Wonder-Womans, and Supermans. That very high-end level of character who’s stories have been around for generations.
- Your characters have to embody the human condition and element, and be reflections of humanity.
- When it comes to superheroes, we need a balance of the ordinary and the extraordinary.
- You need those ordinary moments and a backdrop or a world for your character to function in outside of the superhero persona.
- Character motivations give our characters something to do. If there’s nothing motivating them, how else is the story moving forward?
- Your character in action is what makes plot, and motivation creates action and individualizes the character.
- You have flaws and things you just aren’t quite good at with your character and the same reality needs applied to your character. Your fictional character.
- Origin stories have the potential to be magical. They show us the exact moment when this ordinary person became extraordinary, but there are three different kinds of origins superheroes undergo
48 min - 021: Creating Character-Driven Stories (Part 1 of 3)
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Inside Episode 021: Ed starts us off on a solo show and goes into how to unleash the soul of your character and get into the nuts-and-bolts of how you create a storytelling powerhouse out of that character.
Key Takeaways- The key to creating storytelling powerhouses is giving those characters soul.
- Storytelling powerhouses are your Spider-Mans, Wonder-Womans, and Supermans. That very high-end level of character who’s stories have been around for generations.
- Your characters have to embody the human condition and element and be reflections of humanity.
- When it comes to superheroes, we need a balance of the ordinary and the extraordinary.
- You need those ordinary moments and a backdrop or a world for your character to function outside of the superhero persona.
- You supercharge your reader’s care and desire to understand your characters and story by layering the complexity.
- As the creator, it is your responsibility to create the material necessary to tell your reader more from your backstory.
- We don’t give enough weight to the importance of core personality traits and habitual behaviors.
- Habitual behaviors add to the grander presence, brand, essence, and soul of major characters. You can do the same thing.
36 min - 020: Building An All-Star Team That Gets Ish Done
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Inside Episode 020: In this episode, Brent and I talk about how you should go about building an epic indie comic studio team that gets stuff done. Because if you aren’t getting stuff done, you aren’t going anywhere. And in order to get somewhere, you need all the right people in the right places to start.
Key Takeaways- If people are knocking down your door and asking you if they can join your studio or project, you need to pay attention
- You need people who are passionate, who are gifted, who are smarter than you, and with amazing attitudes.
- People respond to passion. It’s a driving force. Recognize it and if they’re the right fit, bring those people aboard.
- You have to have someone with vision otherwise, where are you going as a team.
Focus on what you’re good at, then bring someone in who’s good at the other stuff you can’t handle.- You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room just because you’re the leader.
- Build a team on the exchange of opportunity, not favor. When you ask someone to join your project, you’re requesting a favor. When they ask you, you’re giving them an opportunity.
55 min - 019: The Case For Caution With World Building
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Inside Episode 019: In this episode, we give you four strong cases with an additional four ways on how to approach world building that lets you have that fun and progress your comic at the same time.
Key Takeaways- Let the world you’re building serve the story, not the story serving the world.
- The story is going to control your comic universe and how much world-building needs to be developed.
- The only difference between you and someone else that made a comic is that they made a comic.
- Spiraling out of control with world-building keeps you from making a comic and being in the number that doesn’t produce comics.
- The story isn’t finished until it’s drawn, inked, colored, and fully lettered.
- World-building doesn’t move your product forward. The story does. No one is going to buy your world bible because nobody cares. Your story gives them a reason to care.
- Let your story set the limit to how much world-building you need to do.
- You have to work hard, then play hard. The work is your story, the play is world-building. Keep those balanced.
1 hr 12 min - 018: The Importance Of Your Brand Name
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Inside Episode 018: Ed dives into how to go about putting together a name for yourself, what should be given priority and weight, how Arclight found its name, and how you can set your name apart.
Key Takeaways- Put more weight and focus on what your name represents first, then draft a list of names that will reflect that meaning.
- Your brand name needs to represent something that matters to your audience
- It takes years for your name to stand on its own and still be associated with the thing that you do. “Apple” use to be “Apple Computers” for example
10 min - 017: Inside Our Character Design Process
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Inside Episode 017: In this episode, Ed shares the Arclight character design process in detail, going over the three major phases—Concept, Story, and Design—and some of the steps in each, including The Rapid-Pitch Method, Building the Visual Mood Board, and Making Yourself Vulnerable to the Character.
Key Takeaways- Marvel and DC Comics are marketing and branding machines. They put their characters everywhere. In order to do the same, you have to learn how to get your characters to the point where they can be broken down to their simplest forms. If not, you don’t get to do any of this.
- There are three major phases to our character design process: Concept, Story, and Design.
- The Concept Phase gives you the opportunity to start at what’s called a baseline concept and rapidly build it up to a point where you have the opportunity to make a specific archetype uniquely your own.
- The Story Phase gives you the opportunity to create a unique balance of ordinary and extraordinary moments for your character. This was one of our findings when we researched Marvel and DC. Your characters can’t fight all the time. You have to have ordinary moments between the extraordinary ones.
- The Design Phase breaks down our study of Marvel and DC characters and highlights the importance of silhouette, iconography, and color theory.
1 hr 25 min - 016: Invest In Your Team
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Inside Episode 016: When you invest, develop, and support good people, they will invest, develop, and create good ideas in return.
Key Takeaways- Find, develop, and support good people, and they, in turn, will find, develop, and own good ideas.
- Life and death are the power held in our tongues. You can choose to speak life into your people or kill their enthusiasm and passion for your project. It’s your choice.
- This is building infrastructure again. Don’t wait to start investing in your people when you have a million-dollar budget. Start now.
- Investing in your people right now doesn’t have to be financial. Be creative and find ways to start doing this today.
- You don’t invest in everyone. Everyone isn’t always going to be an asset or a huge value to the project and business—and that’s simply because not everyone sticks around for the long haul. But for the ones that do, grow them, challenge them, and give them the necessary experience and independence to have a sense of ownership with the project.
40 min - 015: Failing Forward (Finding Lessons and Inspiration In Mistakes)
Before Mayke Entertainment, we were Arclight Comics! Tune into the re-release of The Arclight Podcast and get insightful tips, info, and advice on how we make comics. We shared everything we learned from 2009 to 2016. Learn how we branded our company, handled legal issues, character design, story development, and more!
Inside Episode 015: Failure is our teacher, not our undertaker. And we have to learn how to re-purpose the negative connotations and flip them to positive associations. Failures and mistakes can be used as learning tools.
Key Takeaways- You are not the sum of your failures and mistakes. Pick yourself up and learn from them.
- Embrace the concept of failing early—the earlier you fail, the faster you learn and grow.
- Failure and mistakes are learning tools. Don’t associate them with negative connotations.
- Failing gives you an opportunity to find a different way to do something. Don’t quit after the first try. Something didn’t work. Figure out what that is and do it.
- Establish a culture of failing early. This allows your volunteers or employees to embrace failure. You’re running a business, not a regime.
- Change your mindset about failure. It’s psychological. The fear of it may not ever exist in your reality.
59 min
About Just Make It
From the publisher's feed
A team of storytellers and creators strap up their boots and hike the journey of making their own comic studio, universe, and characters. Get storytelling, character development, and more insights…
into the comic-making process!