Just Make It

Just Make It

By Mayke StudiosEducationHow To
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Just Make It episodes

  • 014: The Foundations of Building a Comic Brand (Branding 101) (Part 2 of 2)

    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 014: Branding is not so much the look of it, but the “feel” of it. It’s more than logos and colors. Branding is an opportunity to create strong, positive associations and affiliations with your business that keep people coming back for more, and in order to start building a brand like that, you need to have a solid grasp on the fundamentals.


    Key Takeaways
    • Find ways to innovate. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, but you need to be different. If your competition zigs, you need to zag. We started this podcast as a new way to market our books.
    • Bring value to your audience.
    • When you innovate, that innovation is valued and your brand can leverage that value.
    • Validation means bringing your audience into the creative process. This is what our mini issues are for. We’re publicly testing, gathering data and information based on these issues.
    • Validation helps you build something your audience wants versus something they don’t want. It’s the difference between selling to 2 people and selling to thousands.
    • Validation allows you to tweak your product and brand accordingly and fix what isn’t working.
    • Cultivating your brand means you’re influencing the character of your brand.
    • Building a brand comes with consistency and developing a pattern of behavior.
      • 27 min
    • 013: The Foundations of Building a Comic Brand (Branding 101) (Part 1 of 2)

      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 013: To influence and command an audience into buying from you, a brand must be established, maintained and be consistent. But you can only start doing that if you have an understanding of what branding is.


      Key Takeaways
      • A brand is not a logo, colors, fonts, a website, business cards, etc.
      • A brand is a collection of thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, and experiences a person associates with your brand.
      • A brand is someone’s gut feeling about you. It’s intangible. It takes no physical form.
      • Your logo, colors, fonts, etc. are what’s called your brand identity. Those make your brand tangible and communicate who and what your brand is.
      • One of the biggest tools you can start using now to build your brand is consistency.Your audience wants you to be consistent.
      • To have a consistent output, you need content to maintain at least a weekly output. Don’t get on social media just yet until you have content to share.
        • 1 hr 9 min
      • 012: Friendship vs. Business: When to Separate the Two to Protect Your Project

        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 012: We cover one of the most important, fundamental steps to protect your comic project and to present your business’ infrastructure: contracts and agreements.


        Key Takeaways
        • Value your business/project/company and also the friendship enough to protect them.
        • Established good communication with others, what their roles are, and their responsibilities to the company by using agreements.
        • Use contracts – it will save you time, money, energy and most importantly it will save the relationship (friendships).
        • Learn to have integrity, transparency, and humanity when running your business/company/project.
        • Do not use contracts to hold onto other’s ideas as hostage. Learn how to do more of what works without the ideas you have under a Work-For-Hire agreement. As the visionary, you need to come up with your own ideas no matter what the agreement/contract says you have a right to use.
        • Be a machine of ideas and get into the habit of creating more of what works.
        • Remember, the Google search engine is your friend. Use it. Do your research on contracts and agreements. Nobody can be a professional in everything; however, there is no excuse why you cannot try to research something to better your business and project.
          • 1 hr 14 min
        • 011: Story Is King (Part 6 of 6): The 3 Act Structure

          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 011: We talk about the very well-known 3 Act Structure and how to approach it with your own story.


          Key Takeaways
          • Don’t focus only on the character’s little details that are not necessarily needed, take time to develop the story and your characters will come along with it. Balance is key.
          • The Three Act Structure is, at its core, simply Beginning, Middle and End.
          • Do the rough draft first and then choose a story theory and apply it to your story. Stick to only one theory.
            • 26 min
          • 010: Story Is King (Part 5 of 6): The Hero’s Journey

            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 010: In this episode, Brent takes the lead and shares with us another story theory: The Hero’s Journey. Found in epic movies such as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Star Wars, The Hero’s Journey invites us to tell a story using a Three Act Structure, 12 steps your character must go through to grow, and character archetypes that will challenge your character and entertain your readers.


            Key Takeaways
            • Write your story first. Then chose a story theory. If you decide to learn the theory first, then write your story, you’ll try to write within the context of the theory and have a more difficult time just getting the broader stuff out of your head and onto paper. Writing first, you get everything out of your head from start to finish. Then when you finish learning theory, you can now rewrite your completed draft through the lens of this theory and have the chance to improve what you’ve already written for the next draft.
            • Don’t cherry-pick theories to start. If you’re going to do The Hero’s Journey, do The Hero’s Journey. If you’re going to do Dramatica, do Dramatica. Don’t confuse yourself or your story by mixing all the theories up. Have a single focus.
            • The Hero’s Journey gives you more flexibility. There are different variations of the theory that use different terminology, but you can choose the one that fits you best.
              • 1 hr 2 min
            • 009: Story Is King (Part 4 of 6): Dramatica

              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 009: In this episode, Ed does his first solo show as he walks you through an introduction to Dramatica, going over a few of its defining features: the Story Mind; the Four Throughlines; and the 8 Character Archetypes that saved his characters from becoming convoluted and repetitive.


              Key Takeaways
              • Dramatica is complex, but it isn’t impossible. Don’t let its difficulty run you off. It’s worth diving in and learning. If you can master it, you’ll be telling stories on a Pixar-level.
              • Write. Learn. Apply. Rewrite. That’s the order you need to approach Dramatica with. If not, you’ll get caught in the other cycle: Learn. Learn. Learn. Get stressed out. Get frustrated. Don’t write. No matter how sloppy your story is, get it done first, learn Dramatica, then go back to your story and apply what was learned.
              • Dramatica’s Story Mind basically approaches every story in the context of an argument. And within that grand argument, there are four perspectives this argument must be filtered through for your story to have no holes or inconsistencies. These throughlines are: 1) Overall Story Throughline, 2) Main Character Story Throughline, 3) Impact Character Story Throughline, and 4) Relationship Story Throughline.
              • The 8 Character Archetypes help refine and structure your characters to prevent overlap and redundancy.
                • 44 min
              • 008: Story Is King (Part 3 of 6): The Narrative Conflicts

                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 008: Conflict keeps our lives interesting. It gives us challenges to overcome and allows us to grow as people. The same conflicts you go through are the same conflicts your character(s) need to go through in order to drive your story forward.


                Key Takeaways
                • Conflict keeps the story moving forward. It reveals your character’s inner strength and weaknesses, and helps the readers to judge the motives of your character, thus forming an opinion.
                • Conflict challenges your characters and helps expose your character’s different belief systems, perspectives on life, and weaknesses.
                • Finding the soul of your characters helps create great internal conflict.
                • There’s only 1 internal conflict:
                  • Man v. Self
                • There are 4 external conflicts:
                  • Man v. Man
                  Man v. Nature
                  Man v. Society
                  Man v. Fate
                • There are 2 additional conflicts:
                  • Man v. God/ Supernatural
                  Man v. Machines
                  1 hr 8 min
                • 007: Setting Your Comic Project Up For Success in 2016

                  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 007: We talk about the importance of planning and organizing for your comic project. It isn’t enough to say, “I want to make a comic.” You need to have steps in place to get to that end goal. We share some of our mishaps and mistakes from not planning, Arclight’s big mistake with Facebook, what happens when you don’t have the resources to maintain social media, and more.

                  18 min
                • 006: Respect Goes a Long Way

                  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 006: Your inspiration began somewhere. Your gateway into superheroes and comics were because of the larger companies/corporations. You may not agree with everything they’re doing, but we have to honor and respect the journeys they individually traveled to open the doors for us.


                  Key Takeaways
                  • You aren’t going to achieve your comic goals any faster by dissing and disrespecting those who have come before you.
                  • Humility goes a long way. You can strive to outdo an existing company, but be humble and respectful about it all in the same breath.
                  • As your project and other endeavors gain traction, always remember to keep the arrogance at home and recognize your fans and those who have supported you along the way.
                  • You may not change the genre, but you can influence it.
                    • 25 min
                  • 005: Story Is King (Part 2 of 6): The 7 Basic Plots

                    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 005: In the 2nd episode of our 6-part series, we go over all 9 plots, their examples, and even go into how they’re used in our own comic projects and stories.


                    Key Takeaways
                    • You don’t have to stick to just one plot. Several plots can happen within your comic’s story. The best example of multiple plots is Star Wars. Star Wars is a rags to riches quest where the hero overcomes the monster on a voyage and return while the Villain experiences rebirth at the end.
                    • You can’t put syrup on trash and expect pancakes, you’re just going to get syrupy trash. You only get phenomenal storytelling when you make story a priority and not an afterthought.
                    • Even with finding the soul of your character, having a great story to tell through them helps you find the soul.
                    • You need great characters to tell a great story. You need a great story to support great characters. You can’t have one without the other.
                    • Note: Ed keeps pounding on his desk. He won’t do that again, but that’s the thudding noise you keep hearing in the recording. Forgive us!
                      • 49 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…