Meet Robert Atkins | Freelance Comic Artist, Video Game concept artist, Professor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Robert Atkins and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Robert, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
As an early creator my priority and focus was finding work, and making sure I could hit deadlines so I’d be reliable for my editors and art directors. As I was married, and had kids my life obligations expanded. My family was always going to be my top priority. I wanted to make sure, while I was working from home my kids always felt like they could come into my studio and interrupt me. I even took the door off my studio because I wanted it clear my family was welcome into my work space.
Early while working, I met an artist who’s dad was also a published artist, but unfortunately was so tied to deadlines and long hours, the child felt like they had a “Stay at home Dad that was an absentee Father.” That really impacted me, and I promised myself I’d be available for my kids.

It’s easy to get sucked into the work since as a freelance artist, you only get paid as much as you draw, and you’re constantly juggling clients, jobs and deadlines. So it can get all consuming quickly.

You have to budget time like you budget money. If you don’t have a plan for its purpose, before you know it, it’s gone.

I planned my work schedule around my family, church, and community obligations. I still found time to get it all done. It took focus and purposeful time management, but it’s possible.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design for Sequential Art Masters Degree. I knew I wanted to teach collegiately eventually, but first I wanted to gain experience in the comics and entertainment illustration field so I could teach from learned experiences. Just before graduating I began doing “art help” or production work for Randy Green along with commissions to make money while still refining my comic storytelling portfolio.
9 months after graduation, I was hired by Devil’s Due Publishing (who owned the Hasbro publishing license at the time) to work on GI Joe comics. Doing fill in issues, inking other artists and character profiles. Then the License moved to IDW comics, and I was hired as the lead comic artist on the main GI Joe title. Since then I’ve created over 130 covers for GIJoe and over 40 issues of various series titles. I’m mostly known for my GI JOE work over the years. I also started work at Marvel drawing pages on Amazing Spider-man, Venom, She-Hulk, Fantastic Four and X-Men.
After 7 years of drawing comics full time, I started getting offers to do toy package art. I became the lead artist for NERF Zombie Strike Guns, Star Wars hot Wheels and some Star Wars black label series figures. Shortly after that I started getting work with Playful Studios video game company. Doing concept art, level design and character art. I helped produced deliverables for 4 shipped games through that company.

In 2018, I was offered a job to come teach at SCAD (my alma mater) in the Sequential art department. My initial career goal was really coming true. I had the opportunity to work in multiple creative fields and could now teach about industry standards, craft, professional practices, etc.
Since becoming a full time professor, I still do freelance work and moved into other industries as well, Board Games, Deck building games, Table Top Role-Playing games mostly through Renegade Game Studios.
That allowed me to learn about another part of the industry and teach to those aspects.

Most recently I work (while teaching) as the Creative Director for Radcat Designs. Developing new Intellectual Properties, managing art teams and using industry contacts to launch a new property for RadCat.

The most difficult part of this kind of career and job is consistency. Being dependable, and keeping a professional quality level of work to each project. You have to be easy to work with, and considerate of others in the pipeline of production to keep getting hired regularly.

One of the biggest lessons I learned was managing my time based on when I am the most creative to prevent burn out. It’s a real thing, and I found if I was trying to be creative when I wasn’t OR if I was feeling creative, but was spending my time doing mundane things…that led to burnout.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Living in Savannah, GA the historic downtown and being so close to the beach would fill most of the weekend. There are great places to eat downtown, and theres a fun, calm, historic atmosphere to the city.
You can easily spend a full day touring the downtown. Then the next day you could go to Tybee Island, or up north to Hilton Head Island in SC, or down south to St. Simons/Jekyl Island to see the beaches in the area. Each island has it’s own flare and interesting sites.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
For me I was graduating Art School and Randy Green was an established comic artist who hired me to do his backgrounds on the X-Men comic for Marvel. I learned a lot from him and after graduation joined the Tsunami art studio that he was a part of. While being a part of that studio, Randy Green and inker, Rick Ketcham were phenomenal mentors for me learning the professional aspects of the mainstream comic industry.

Website: https://www.robertatkinsart.co

Instagram: @robertatkinsart

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Image Credits
Illustrated by Robert Atkins. Colors by Antonioy Ramos and Ross Persechetti