Sunday, October 30, 2011

Guest post number 2! - The Big Project


This is the second of our guests post from Will aka Rob, of Reynard City.  In today's post he talks about his project, Reynard City, what it means to him and why it's important to do something you love.

I have made a number of mistakes in my life. Letting my brother cut my hair in the style of David Beckham. My brief attempt at being a postal worker, despite being not that quick on a bike, a poor sense of direction and a fear of dogs (Yes even your cute little dog that has never bitten anyone and the saints sing their praises for being so wonderfully doggy)

But one thing I can’t regret is working on Reynard City. It’s taken a number of years, format changes and general figuring things out but we seem to be getting there. And it is down to a collaborative effort with a number of different people.

One thing I realise now is that the whole “Success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan” thing need not necessarily be negative. It is often trundled out as a cynical response to someone succeeding and people jumping on the bandwagon.

However in this instance it is more that working together with people gets results, while trying to do things on your own is a heck of a lot harder. The range of contributors over the years has included writers, artists, costume designers, musicians and film makers, all of whom have added their creative spark to the collective fire.

While I love talking about the comic and the characters I’ve practically grown up with, it is also awesome to see people from all over coming together to work on something. The good news is that if people have an idea then there are people out there that can help.

The problem is that sometimes you may think “What if someone steals my idea?” While this can happen and there is always a danger of that, sadly risk is a part of life. I think it’s better to be inclusive and try to bring people into it as much as possible.

Inevitably sometimes it’ll go wrong, you’ll annoy people and so on. But I have found if a concept is strong enough then it won’t go away, regardless of time, money or lack of sleep. In short, if you love a project, find some people and share it.

Rob Turner (aka Will Turner) is the writer/producer for Polycomical Studios, a group dedicated to young and emerging artists. Their webcomic Reynard City (www.reynardcity.com) is currently being made into a cartoon pilot and a video game.

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