Given another opportunity, Bored Panda reached out to Domien Delforge again with some new questions. First, we asked the artist if he had any life-changing influences that might have helped him with his art and art style in general when it comes to his comics.
"I have always been an enormous pop-art lover since I was a child, so a lot of my style has been influenced by pop artists from the '60s and '70s. John Wesley, an American painter, is probably one of my biggest examples. He has a way of making rather explicit drawings in a way that makes them look innocent and kind. Alex Katz is also a major influence, in my opinion he is the king of composition, making strange and awesome colorful settings that I can stare at for hours. When it comes to the cartoon part of what I do, Belgian cartoonist Jeroom is probably my biggest influence. He gets away with a lot of rude and controversial stuff just because he is so damn funny."
Art, in any kind of form, takes a lot of time not only to practice but also to produce, therefore we asked Domien how long it takes him to fully finish his comics.
"It depends on what you see as 'creating'. Coming up with the ideas probably takes up most of the time. Some days I have a lot of ideas, sometimes it takes days to come up with one single great idea.
The drawing itself doesn't take that long as my style is not extremely complicated. Normally in about an hour, I am able to finish a cartoon, once the idea is finalized."
Being an artist is not easy, one can easily encounter a lack of inspiration, burnout, etc, so we wanted to ask Domien about his ideas for the comics.
"This also depends on what the drawing is for. Ideas for my own drawings mostly come at night, right before I go to sleep. I always keep a notebook to write them down so I remember them the next morning. However, I mostly write down key words, so it happens a lot that I have no idea what I was thinking the night before and just see some strange words when I get up. If I have to make drawings for a specific project, I normally do small brainstorm sessions with a few people I think are funny and talented. The best ideas are made when minds cooperate."
As we mentioned before, sometimes creative work can cause quite a burnout, therefore we asked the artist how he dealt with that as well.
"Fortunately, I never experienced a complete burnout. However, being expected to be funny and creative the entire time can be exhausting. Sometimes I accept too many projects which all involve cartoons or funny drawings. This can be very tiring, so sometimes I just need to take a few days off from being funny."
We also asked the artist about how people reacted to his work.
"There's a lot of variation in the reactions. Fortunately, a lot of people like what I do. However, because I try to find the balance between what's funny and what can be considered rude or inappropriate, people tend to switch from lovers to haters in a heartbeat. I have had followers who liked everything since the beginning who start insulting me when I make 1 single illustration they don't like. In general, I have had my portion of haters. Most of them are men who think I am against them for fighting for women's rights. A completely silly idea knowing I am a man myself. Since a few months ago I decided to stop reading the comments on my illustrations, this made my life a lot better!"
The creative process is not easy, but there are some enjoyable parts about it.
"I actually like coming up with ideas much more than drawing itself. I always considered drawing the necessary evil to create images. Also the printing process is something I enjoy a lot. The idea of having an idea and completing the entire process by manually silkscreen printing the end result is hugely satisfying. During the pandemic and not being able to go printing, I also started to test Riso printing. An absolutely wonderful way to make awesome printed images and something I will keep creating in the future."
We also asked about the inspiration behind the artist's Instagram account.
"It started by just drawing some silly illustrations out of protest because art is so expensive. Nice silkscreen prints from cool artists are sold for ridiculous prices and mostly kept in safes instead of walls where they can be enjoyed. After a few weeks of silly illustrations, I noticed people started to follow the account. Because next to expensive art prices, a lot of things are going wrong in today's society. Instagram is an easy way to gather a large crowd and try to point out these problems by turning them into cartoons. I believe that making illustrations about controversial themes can start awareness and dialogue about these matters. I hope that by doing this I can play my part in making this world a slightly better place."
Digital art and art, in general, is not easy and requires a lot of patience, time, resources, and in most cases even money, therefore we wanted to know how the talented comic artist started his own career in digital art.
"I started because my wife was already making digital illustrations, so we had a Wacom tablet at home. Before working digitally, I tried drawings and painting first. However, it turns out I am not very talented. One of the reasons I draw digitally is the undo button, so I can have a lot of fuckups without anyone noticing this when they see the end result. As mentioned before, I don't specifically like the drawing process. I don't hate it, but I probably should spend more time experiencing different forms."
Artists tend to get motivated by a lot of things such as curiosity, the search for beauty, or even meaning. Therefore, we asked the artist about that too.
"I think it is really a combination of both. I started creating drawings to make beautiful things that I hoped people would hang on their walls.
Still, one of the things I enjoy most is when people send me a picture of where my art ends up in their living room after they made a purchase.
However, during the years, the page changed from only art to art and cartoons. The cartoons I mostly make out of little frustrations in life and some sort of psychological curiosity.
I always like to find out what people think is socially acceptable to make fun of. I like to create drawings that make people think about themselves and our society and, hopefully, might change behavior afterward and try to be better humans. The end goal of all cartoons and criticism is to end up in a world where everyone, regardless of age, sex, color, faith, etc... can be safe and happy in whatever they are doing wherever they are doing it."
