10 QUESTIONS WITH SUPER FAN

This is a new BLUEWATER PRODUCTIONS feature. Our Super Fan, Crystal Vandiver is doing interviews with our creative team each week. A bit of trvia is the character LYNX from Isis is name for Crystal.

1st up is the colorist from CAMELOT and BLACKBEARD LEGACY - ANDREW CRAMER:

QUESTION1:
SUPER FAN: HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH  BLACKBEARD LEGACY & CAMELOT?
ANDREW: Well, a friend of mine, Dawid Strauss, told me about Bluewater Comics as he was working on some stuff for them.  I reckon he had Darren Davis take a look at my website cos I received an email not long after that.  Darren initially offered me colour work on 'The Muse' and eventually I started colouring some covers for 'Jason and the Argonauts' and 'Gearz'.  It wasn't long before Darren offered me 'The Blackbeard Legacy' which I jumped at cos it just seemed like an awesome title to work on plus I love Nicolas Giacondino's work!  Later on he offered me the Camelot one-shot as well, that was a fun book to colour!

QUESTION 2:
SUPER FAN: WHAT TYPE OF TECHNIQUE DO YOU USE AS A COLORIST?
ANDREW: Hmmm, I dunno if I have a "specific" technique as such...I guess my usual style is close to the 'cut n grad' technique however on Camelot I applied a more 'painterly/freehand' technique where I brushed without any lasso selections.

QUESTION 3:
SUPER FAN: WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING ABOUT BEING A COLORIST?
ANDREW: I think, for me, it's really challenging to make your work look as appealing as possible.  I am constantly learning new tricks or techniques.  I also strive to use the perfect colours and try use them to give the pencils the perfect mood or look. When I colour something, I want the readers to look at it the whole page and say "Wow, this looks awesome!" One other thing is the fact that a lot of websites that preview and review comics neglect to credit the colourist and/or inker as part of the art team!  I think they are just as much part of the process as the writer and artist. 

QUESTION 4:
SUPER FAN: DO YOU HAVE ANY RITUALS YOU FOLLOW WHILE DOING A PROJECT?
ANDREW: Try to stay on schedule!!! LOL. Besides that I don't think I have any specific 'rituals'  - I like to listen to to music whilst I work though.

QUESTION 5:
SUPER FAN: WHAT TYPE OF MUSIC DO YOU LISTEN TO?
ANDREW: Heavy Metal, Rock and Alternative mostly.  Im up for anything though, depends on my mood.
(just no Rave or Country music though!! Blegh!)

QUESTION 6:
SUPER FAN: WHICH OTHER ARTISTS DO YOU ADMIRE?
ANDREW: Im a big fan of Jim Lee! I also like Chris Bachelo, Mark Brooks, John Byrne and Emiliano Santalucia. There are a few guys out there who aren't mainstream comic artists whose work I really admire, guys like Nathan Baertsch, Ric Nicholls, Cody Constable, Eric Marshall and Thomas Tolman.

QUESTION 7:
SUPER FAN: WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FAST FOOD?
ANDREW: KFC! And a local franchise here in South Africa called Steers (best chips/fries ever!)

QUESTION 8:
SUPER FAN: WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COMIC BOOK AND CHARACTER?
ANDREW: I really love X-Men and the whole X-title range really. It's hard to choose a favourite character but I think He-Man stands out as a firm favourite of mine.

QUESTION 9:
SUPER FAN: HAVE YOU WORKED ON ANY OTHER PROJECTS?
ANDREW: Besides Bluewater, I haven't worked on any U.S. stuff but here in South Africa I worked on a comic called Supa Strikas and currently work on titles such as Unicity and Kasi Wash which are locally produced comics found in Mshana magazine.(http://beatcomicstudio.blogspot.com). I have also done some colour work for Cerealgeek magazine (www.cerealgeek.com), it's an awesome mag based on 80's animation!

QUESTION 10:
SUPER FAN: IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPER POWER WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
ANDREW: Ha! It's funny cos we kinda throw this question around in the studio here a lot! Ummm, I think I would take the Mimic power like Peter Petrelli in Heroes... then I can have whatever power I wanted... however then I would have to come into contact with other super heroes -  that could be bad.
Maybe I would just take telekinesis then.