Thien Pham creator of Family Style cooks up comics on Cartoon Breakdown

Join me (Daniel McCloskey) and award-winning cartoonist Thien Pham (award-winning creator of Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam) while they provide commentary on a timelapse recording of Thien creating the front and back covers of his graphic memoir with Procreate Pick up a copy of Thien's critically acclaimed and all around amazing book at your local book shop or with this link: https://bookshop.org/p/books/family-style-memories-of-an-american-from-vietnam-thien-pham/18675038 Follow him on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thiendog/?hl=en

Get these videos before the general population at https://www.patreon.com/freemoney

I’m just learning how to generate transcripts, and computers are getting smart, but dang do they still have no idea what a pho bowl is! Furball Frisbees and Fumbles were changed by hand. All that is to say, I’m a terrible speller and new at generating transcripts. Until I can afford some more help here’s my best shot at it:

ROUGH GENERATED TRANSCRIPT:

I think there's something there

because it's you know, there's

so many people that have complete

graphic novels in time lapse now.

Oh, really?

Yeah anyone that drew it

on Procreate. Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you've got your

entire book in time lapse

Welcome to Studio BeanCan's, Cartoon Breakdown

a repository for all the amazing

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here it is. Let's go.

Let's do it.

, I'm here with Thein. Pham

, creator of Family Style.

Um, yeah, I was gonna record my cover

with you, but like my time lapse

for that is like this weird choose

your own adventure thing Uh huh.

I duplicated it a bunch of times and

went in all these different directions.

Oh, yeah publisher Um, so it it's

not a continuous thing at all

I don't konw if you know this, but , I was

doing each panel on a different layer.

. So each panel is a single layer.

Yeah.

And you would just duplicate and delete

the lower layer when you did the next panel

No, that would just make a new

layer and that would be the next panel.

Okay.

Yeah.

So is your final file a thousand layers?

No, no, no,

no, it's grouped in pages, so this

is a page, and then if you go to each

page, each page has, each layer, like

each layer groups here is a panel,

and each panel has, it doesn't really,

It does because you were

going to Instagram first.

Yeah, yeah.

And , I did a similar thing,

cause especially if you have

minor changes from panel to panel.

when I was drawing this comic, All

the panels were, about the size of

what an Instagram post would be.

And then when I made it up into a book,

they were like, Oh, we want some panels

that are longer, some panels that are

shorter, some panels that are bigger.

So this is me taking, , one of

the panels and basically extending

it and then recoloring it.

So , I'm just going to show you

my , coloring method in Procreate,

so here, I took the old thing.

I'm drawing, I'm extending

all the lines out again.

I have that wave going.

Um, and what I do normally is I, will

have a layer that is color and then one

layer that is just black, but set to 20%.

Okay.

Yeah.

Then I erase the highlights.

So that's how I do my shading.

I find that it saves a lot of

time I thought I was like the

only one that was doing that.

I was telling all these people

, but everybody kind of does it.

Yeah, it's a pretty universal thing.

Some people use a dark color too.

Oh yeah, yeah.

So I, for a long time,

I was using multiple.

Layers like a blue and then a black

and then erasing some of this and then

releasing both of them So I can get

like more depth but the more I did

it I figured I just did one layer of

shading and also a layer of Highlights

Now I also have a layer that is a texture.

It's just a paper texture.

And that layer is, like yellowy.

Okay.

Right.

Is that like something you

scanned or just found somewhere?

I, I found it online a long time

ago and I kept it using it for

almost everything in my career.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I, I like the, the slight yellowness

of the paper because it really unifies,

, all the colors so I can throw in whatever

color and because of that yellow.

It's a really cool texture it

and gives everything a warm glow.

, it's impressive to me that you're

doing so many redrawings, but you also

seem to be pretty fast as a creator.

Like a page a day with a day job

is pretty wild,., the only person I

know that does, like, more than that

regularly does three panel pages.

Yeah.

Right?

I think the, I think what people

don't account for is, erasing.

Yeah.

I feel like, , for me, erasing

takes way longer than almost

starting over, you know what I mean?

And I think that's why I love

procreate so much because it's so

easy to just create a new layer,

lower the opacity for the layer.

So you're just constantly putting

a tracing paper on top and drawing

the thing that you just drew.

And so like sometimes, if I have

one panel, I'll draw that panel like

10 times, , and it would still be..

Less time than me erasing and

then fixing something and then

erasing and fixing something.

When I show you mine, you're going

to be like, Oh, cause I do that.

That's my problem with procreate.

, I can erase infinity.

Yeah, exactly.

I'll have like a page that took me 16

hours that should have taken me four.

So now I ink in physical cause

then I do the rough and I print it

and then I lightbox in real life.

So, I think that saved me a lot of time,

but also it was a little crazy because

when I create comics there are times

where You are so inspired

that You're just like oh I'm going for it

and it just everything just goes so fast

right but it's almost like a manic state,

?

, I don't know if it is, but

I'm going like so hard at it.

You can't sustain it.

Yeah, you know, I sustained it for a

while, but at some point I was like,

okay, this is too much and then the

pace got a little slower You know,

which is yeah, and a lot of those pages

that I did like in one day I definitely

have to go back in and fix, you know,

cause I was like, Oh, okay, I, just

threw this up a little bit too fast.

But , that city scene was just really

nice perspective, clean drawing and

your use of color is really strong.

It's like both super saturated,

but kind of muted tones.

I have a palette that I use, of like 30

colors, and I only stick to those colors.

Did you, do that from the beginning,

you're an art teacher, right?

Are those choices that are connected

to formal training or is that

something you just kind of intuited?

Well, I only did that because

I didn't want to Waste a lot

of time searching for colors.

Yeah, it's just so many colors

So I basically filled up a

swatch window of procreate.

And whatever is in that swatch window

is basically what I have I never erase.

I just make new layers, you know, and

here I'm like adjusting some of the lines.

Um, and, and, and then I'm sketching

, I go from really rough pencils.

To, to finish inks and the only way I

can do that is because , I take like

maybe two or three passes at each kind

of ink layer before, before it sets.

Oh, exciting.

Oh, what happened?

It's all right.

This is all going to be edited together.

Oh, they're closing the gate.

They're closing the gate, yeah.

Oh yeah, we're at 8 3 6.

We should mention that too.

Hi, I'm Dan.

Mark.

Nice to meet you.

I think the cover would be fun too,

after I look at this and whatnot.

The only problem is I think this time

lapse might go too fast, you know what I

mean?

Well, you don't get the, the

details of, , your hand really.

Yeah.

It is a little bit of seeing the

rough and see how people think.

Here this is me redrawing,

basically get the symmetry lines.

I reversed the front for the back for

the line so that they would be smooth.

And here I'm sketching in the back cover.

Right?

And, , so this is what

my rough looks like.

Or,, my pencils look like.

And, um, now I'm going in.

And you can see that the

gray lines right there.

That's how, like, rough my pencils are.

You can see that there's no faces really.

It's just, as soon as I

get the body positioning

and Um, , then I'm ready to draw.

And I guess here I'm doing another layer.

That's a little bit more detailed.

Okay, so for this, I guess

I'm doing another layer that's

a little bit more detailed.

It makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a little more, I don't know if

you felt this, but there's kind of

pressure when you're doing the cover.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

You really want to impress

when you do the cover.

So, now I'm putting in

all the, the, the pencils.

And as soon as I finish this, I'm

going to lower that opacity again.

And then draw on top again.

Uh, and uh, and so now this is

gonna be the, back of the cover.

So I don't really know how much

of this ... Is actually going to

be shown because , they'll have

like a big box for description.

They'll have like, , the barcode,

they'll have bunch of different things.

So I really, at this point, this back

one, I have to resign myself knowing

that if any of this gets covered

up, uh, I have to live with it.

However, When I was drawing, I was like,

Oh man, some of these are really good.

You know, like you can't

separate from really like, Oh

my God, I really like this.

I really love this

portion of the back cover.

And so when it did get

covered up, I was like.

This is kind of a bummer, you know, like I

was like, it is a little bit of a bummer.

Is that why you silkscreened the?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah I wanted to print this.

As a big silkscreen as well.

Like, uh, because I was like, I love this.

Let's cover like the entire thing, but

no one really sees the entire thing

because when they place the text,

the font, the boxes, , a lot of this

stuff is going to get covered up.

Um, so here I am.

I'm just, uh, going in here.

Um, I'm drawing each scene.

This is Mark and Lark and, uh, and each

one of these scenes also represents

a scene in, in the, the comic.

, so that was a little bit hard.

It's coming up with things that

I wanted to portray and I thought

it was this one right here.

I thought it was a cute idea because

I have this photograph where I

hold up like basically my name

when I was in the refugee camp.

I thought it would be really

interesting to do that, but hold up a

placard , where the barcode would go.

I sent that to the publisher and

they sent me back The actual layout.

Yeah, Yeah, the bleed and the flaps

So I was like, oh crap.

They didn't, yeah, they didn't know

they were So, yeah, so then I was

like, oh crap, I gotta do the flaps.

I totally forgot it.

So I had to extend it

and then redraw a bunch.

There's a few panels here I'm gonna

completely redraw because of the flap.

And also because I wanted

to move a few things.

There's one that I wanted to move a few

things because I wanted, uh, like, I

wanted Lark to be, in the cover.

So I, like, completely, redid the

composition so that Lark could be on

one side so that she wouldn't be covered

up , but they covered her up anyways,

so again, when I'm doing these flaps,

I have no idea what is going to get

covered up , but I definitely wanted

the art to extend all the way through

and didn't want it to, , look like

it was cut off or anything like that.

So I went back in.

And I basically readjusted a

lot , you can see that the back here

is, is almost completely, redone.

Uh, this whole scene right here is

redone from the, the one I did before.

And did they request the, the

pho bowl separated out or?

Yeah, I, I had already drawn the

pho bowl, um, uh, when, I thought the

cover was going to be just, um, Um,

like a color, uh, so I had already

drawn the pho bowl and I wanted to

use it was a really good pho bowl.

So, um, so yeah, so the pho bowl,

I just like, I, I, I knew

where, how big was going to be.

I knew where it was going to be.

So I, that was the only

thing I could measure again.

So I left the center of the front

cover, you can tell I left it a little

bit empty cause I knew that that's

where the pho bowl was going to go.

Um, so right now I'm just

doing the French flaps here.

I'm basically extending

a lot of these scenes.

I'm adding a new scene here with my uncle,

I extended the classroom, I extended

this scene here with the kids playing

with trees, I extended the strawberry

things out a little bit, I added a few

new scenes, and this is gonna be a whole

new one of me eating with my uncle.

So, now, you can tell that this is

their layout, and now I'm just trying

to figure out what it looks like.

And so this right here

is the final, like...

Drawing and when I did it,

I was like, okay, good.

All the little parts that they told me was

going to get covered up should be okay.

It's not, but then it came back

and they had like redesigned

like a lot of those parts.

So a lot of the stuff

got covered up anyways.

Um, so yeah, I mean, I, I think that's,

my process and,, everybody on here is

gonna probably be doing something on

procreate because of the time lapse,

you know, but without this program in

particular, I don't think I could have.

I've done this comic in this amount

of time with the style that I chose.

I really can't sing the praises of

this program enough I mean, they're

constantly making it a little bit better.

There's, of course, there's little gripes.

Like, I'm constantly like, I wish I could

do this, or I wish I could do this better,

or the typing tool is better, or...

But it gets better a little bit over time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Over the course of probably you doing your

book, but me doing my book, like a lot

of the things I wanted started happening.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to use

it forever, because there are some things

, but yeah, it's a pretty impressive thing.

But also , there's a lot of digital

artists that you can, that get lumped in

together, like visually, and I think your

style does not, while like, knowing that

you did it on Procreate is not necessarily

surprising to me, but you don't look at

it and think digital artists necessarily.

It's got a really organic feel, and

part of that I think is like, And

your choices of keeping that layering

system and your own aesthetic.

And also your choice to never erase.

And it wasn't like you were

using whatever the arc tools were.

Yeah.

Well, I I think, , you're right.

Like the problem with procreate when I

first started using it was everything

would take forever because if you

can make it perfect, you, you just

make it perfect and take a day and a

half, two days to like draw one panel

I think I learned , early on

that you gotta let that go.

And that there's sometimes

like messiness is an aesthetic.

Do you think that the daily, like

Instagram deadline helps you?

Yeah.

I mean, that definitely helped, but then,

, also , I'm just not a very clean artist.

I can imagine if somebody like,

an Adam Hughes or a Dan Clowes.

Adrian Tomine if they took digital.

It might drive them nuts.

Yeah.

Because they're already so

perfect with their ink lines.

Yeah.

That if they were able

to fix it infinity Yeah.

, you know?

I don't know if does Sure.

I can see that.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well thank you so much for your, Hey.

Yeah.

Thanks for, this is so fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can I show you one of my Yeah.

Yours?

Yeah.

I'm gonna

stop and start again.

Hey guys.

Don't forget to check out.

Family style, at your local comic shop

and wherever fine books are sold.

It's an incredibly moving

true story of Thien Pham's

flight from Vietnam.

To America.

With an positive trajectory.

And all centered around food.

, if you have a heart, you will cry.

If you have a stomach, you will be hungry.

I cried on the subway.

So, yeah, please do check it out.

Family Style.

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