What is Ironborn?
Ironborn is a comic. It’s got robots and magic in it. You should read it!
Who are you, and what do you do besides writing and drawing Ironborn?
My name is Olle Lindestad; my age changes constantly, but can be arrived at by subtracting my year of birth (1988) from the current year; I look like either of these guys; I am a cheerful sort of person who enjoys life, people, nature, science and art. I study for a Bachelor’s degree in biology at Lund university, Sweden.
Sweden? Is that why some of the comments are in moon language?
Yes. Unless you mean the spambots. But we don’t get a lot of those these days.
Did you create this webpage, too?
No, you are looking at the good work of in part Wordpress and in part my friend Andy. While I run and update the site by myself, the hosting is graciously provided by Miz. They’re great guys, and you should be thankful to both of them.
How/why did you start creating Ironborn?
I’ve been writing and drawing comics on and off all my life, and for some time I’d been pretty set on starting a serious, devoted, coherent webcomic project - I just needed something to work with. Ironborn’s happened to be the setting that it seemed I could get the most material out of – the first concepts ambled into my head early in the fall of 2006, and from there things pretty much seemed to unfold naturally. Drawing, and publishing, began in summer 2007.
How do you go about creating an Ironborn page?
Each page starts as a storyboard, which is a rough sketch of what everyone is saying and doing in each panel, with various notes – the actual page is drawn on A4 (21 x 29.7 cm) paper, using a 0.7mm HB mechanical pencil for lines and hatching, a 0.5mm HB pencil for detailed line work and an ordinary HB pencil for soft shading; pretty straightforward. Then I scan the page, and do all the editing – retouching, darkening, adding frames and lettering – in Photoshop.
How much time do you spend on each page?
Oh, far too long. About six or seven hours’ worth of drawing – editing is much faster, and much less arduous. Of course, before that there’s storyboarding, pre-sketching, reference and concept work, but those are too incoherent processes to assign any kind of time frame.
Where does your inspiration come from?
Ironborn originally sprung from two things: Megaman, and a poem called Cold Colours by Neil Gaiman. Everything else is just stuff I thought would be cool. I don’t try to make this look like anything in particular, but if it does, that’s okay!
Do you have the story planned out ahead?
Yes. If I didn’t, I’d be conce- I’d be even more concerned about what I’m doing. I know how things began, I know how most of them will end, and I know roughly how we’ll get there, but there’s always lots of stuff to work out on the way - thankfully, because it keeps me occupied. Detailed planning is done one or two chapters ahead, and storyboards are usually done about three pages ahead. And there’s a collection of distant notes in my concept folder that’d ruin everyone’s fun if they read them.
This is a pretty rad comic! Can I repay your efforts?
Yes, you can, by telling other people about Ironborn. Please do!
I have a question that isn’t answered here!
Then send me an email! You can reach me at ironborncomic [at] gmail.com.
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