The Sad Decline of Animation....

I would put forth a very profound claim that animation while not invented in America was indeed nearly perfected here. We owe this largely to the Walt Disney Company of old, certainly not the new. Over decades they built up what was to become the finest study of hand drawn and traditional animation to be found in the world. Yes I'm a fan of Ghibli as well, but they admittedly came much later and were influenced heavily by Disney. Then one day a new train came to town. Pixar. Love em, hate em, they were what people were looking for at the time and something new and fun, so they thrived. I for one thought that the cg animation world could happily coexist alongside the long standing tradition of 2d animation. Back then my goal was to indeed become a 2d animator. In a short time, shorter than I would have ever expected me and a lot of other 2d animation hopefuls would see Disney and others gut their 2d houses in favor of cheaper, faster and easier to produce cg. I have nothing against CG animation-other than it is a severely limited tool, and is lacking in expression compared to hand drawn animation. I enjoy some of it, but for it to have replaced 2d outright in my mind is simply awful. I know most cg animators will tell you that cg is only a tool and the process is still the same. In ways they are quite correct, but I've yet to see a cg animated feature achieve the same brilliance and richness or their 2d counterparts. Plus to see possibly the most perfected and deep knowledge of 2d animation, a legacy of the original Disney studio just be thrown away in favor of pose to pose cg animation should really raise eyebrows, and I'm sure it does for a lot of people. Unfortunately the move towards cg was mainly to appease the stock market cats that are funding our glorious cinematic enterprise these days. They want profit and will only invest in sure things or at least things they think will be surely make them some money. Long gone are the days of Walt financing movies at the bank and staying true to his vision. It's why in cinema as a whole we are bombarded with sequels, pop movies, and the same old thing over and over again. This is especially true for animation. We just keep seeing everyone's movies starting to look the same. Overloaded with useless and jittery secondary movement and packed with stupid cliches and fad one liners. It is becoming very homogeneous out there and we are seeing another alarming trend. Our animation jobs for the sake of profit are being shipped overseas. I know these days everything is made in China, but not animation too? It's not because they are better at it. We have the best lot of animators in the world, rivaled only by the Japanese, right here at home. Instead of paying them a living wage and making a little less profit, our talented people have been replaced by computers or sweatshop animation studios run out of ghetto apartments overseas. The craft is suffering as any does when the focus becomes pure profit rather than great people working collectively to tell great stories, where profit is a welcome bi-product allowing them to do it again. It is sad to me that Disney has become so focused on profit and media mongering that it has actually forgotten how it became what it is today. I have to have faith that 2D will come back. I think people are already souring on the the fact that there is no real Disney anymore, and that they just keep seeing the same old things out of the other big animation houses(I wholeheartedly exclude the stop motion houses like Aardman-I love what they do!). Hopefully sooner than later someone will get their shot at making a truly great animated feature in 2d and show the world at large what they've been missing. For now we'll just have to wait, but thanks to Hayao Miyazaki for coming out of retirement and making his latest film, due out in June of this year. I know I'll be watching it in Japanese with or without subs because I can't wait for it! All the best. IIId

Usage of Style

Use style as a tool, don't let it make you into one..... Don't let a personal style become a crutch or a fence or an excuse for drawing or painting wrong. You hear it all the time as a cover for a lot of bad artwork, 'Oh dude, that's just my style.' Each project deserves a fresh and different approach and possibly an entirely different drawing or painting style. To illustrate or draw every project in the same manner is not only doing the project a disservice, but yourself as an artist. Every new project is a chance to explore a new style or a twist on a old one. This sin't to say that having a good foundational set of skills isn't essential to produce compelling artwork, it is, but the style needs to work with the story and when it fails to do so it simply reads as disingenuous. Sometimes this happens in a non obvious way, but it still reads as wrong on some level. I've certainly been pages into a story and realized that I was drawing it wrong and had to chuck pages, but for me that's the right decision. I'd rather throw away and start fresh than try to fix that which is unfix-able due to a lack of forethought on my part. Sometimes tweaks can indeed be made but not always. I generally layout loosely and detail only what I'm sure about up front in case this sort of thing happens. It leaves me an out so that I don't have to commit to anything until the last minute. In this way I don't get too precious with my drawings up front by committing a bunch of detail to the page that I'm reluctant to toss out. Draw light, redraw until it's right. I have also mentioned in the past that drawing individual panel layouts rather than pages can help in this process and is a very free approach to getting to the page as a whole. Then if a panel doesn't fit you don't have to trash a good page or mess with cutouts and glue, etc. Really look at what you are doing stylistically and try to relate it to the story objectively. Ask yourself the hard questions. Be critical, but not overly so. Just make sure you are holding yourself to a professional standard in your work and not ignoring obvious faux-pas in your work. Before undertaking any big drawing or painting project I sketch, a lot! I usually do a sketchbook full of quick characters sketches, story beats that I can envision, world areas that I find compelling, etc. This is research and while it seems like a lot of work, it's work that pays you back later with solutions for problems you will inevitably run into. After you initial research, once you find a style that works with the story, commit to it and run with it. Don't think about it after that, don't second guess it, just do it. Compartmentalize your steps and don't backtrack. This will help you get the project done and stay sane while doing it. You will undoubtedly make a few mistakes and what not, but no artistic effort is perfect, just try to learn all you can from each project and do better on the next! IIId

Eraseable ink!

My wife JAG gets full credit: I love sketching in ballpoint pen. I do most of my thumbnails and layouts with them. I can't even tell you any reason why, but for me they just work well. I use black or red, as the blue is useless and too close to black to separate in PS easily anyway. The other day my wife brought home eraseable ballpoints for me from one of her shopping forays. She thought I might like them. At first I eschewed the notion of using them at all, having remembered them from long long long ago in school when they didn't really erase or work very well. I must say that when I tried one at her urging I was blown away. The ink is great, the variation in line is better than in standard ballpoints I use. They flow really well and as long as you keep it clean the eraser does a good job. I know it's a freakin office implement! But the ones I have simply rock. I'm having fun like a kid sketching in eraseable ink! Just for the record I'm using black Erasermates by paper mate-supposedly the most erasable out there? I think you can even find them at dollar stores. Give them or similar ones a try if you are fond of sketching in ballpoint. I think you'll find them fun and enjoyable as well as great to produce sketch art with. After some more playing with these I might even try drawing a short story with them just to see if it's doable. IIId

Scratched up Intous Surface?

It's amazing that Wacom makes the Intuos line for professionals and supplies the tablets with a very cheap surface that scratches very easily even with regular nib replacement! I change my nibs all the time and still the scratches occur and always in the maddening spot where you draw all the time. This drove me nuts for about 6 months awhile back. Now they claim that the new sheets they sell are more opaque and better in this regard. Fine but they cost like 50 bucks! It's not that I can't afford it, but I find the price tag on a lot of wacom items a bit on the offensive side. So here's what. I found a cool tip online in a forum post that I wanted to share. The surface sheets are simply stuck in place but a thin strip of double stick tape at the top. Peel it up slowly and flip that sucker over. The backside is actually a tad bit rougher which I find to be a little more paper like and scratches a lot less easy. At worst you get two surface sheets out of every one you buy. Note: If you use hot buttons on your tablet this doesn't work for you as the label will all be in the wrong place and backwards, but for those of us that don't it rocks! Hope that is helpful to anyone with an annoying scratch in the middle of their Intuos! It saved me from going nuts! IIId

One important skill budding illustrators overlook....

When drawing anything narrative we all find or write things to work on while building our portfolios that we like. In some way the story we illustrate is enjoyable to us and inspires us to do our best work. Makes logical sense. Ok for portfolio building that's pretty much the way it's done and really should be. When however you get out into the real world and start landing freelance or jobs with publishers/agencies, the nature of stories you work on will be a bit different sometimes. Suddenly you are getting paid to work on stories that you can't alter and you have someone else who has never drawn a thing(sometimes)telling you how to change what you produced for them, in ways that suit them and not you, and not always for the better. Suddenly you are working on some pretty bad stories for money and have to make them look great which can be as painful and sitting in a dentist chair when he forgot the Novacaine. This is the skill you need to practice. Find bad scripts online(there are plenty of them if you search) draw them, and do your best to make them look stellar. It doesn't matter if you like or enjoy them or even if they end up in your portfolio. Do this for yourself to prepare yourself for dealing with the inevitable, because you will be doing it sometimes when you are hired by someone else. Some publishers or writers will simply not budge on a bad story and sometimes, they are even right! Don't always draw in your comfort zone or chosen genre, search and seek out stories that challenge, broaden you and your artistic repertoire. This will help you become a more flexible and dynamic artist in term of the subject matter you can handle and allow you to engage clients from a much broader pool. I've found it worthwhile. For example being more of a sci-fi/fantasy guy I never wanted to draw superhero comics until I drew some, and even though I didn't particularly like the scripts I was drawing from, I found the end result to be something I really liked and learned a surprising amount doing them, which I think contributed to a healthy broadening of my illustrative horizons. Don't shy away from anything, new old, off the wall, draw it and spin it your way and see what you come up with. You'll surprise yourself and come out the other side a more competent and confident artist. Well friends that's all for now....until next time...same bat time...same bat channel.... IIId

Social media sites are great...but

We all love them and they are a part of our daily lives but there is certainly a catch to social media sites, that lies within their very nature. The fact that they are indeed social can easily and to your detriment suck you in. Interacting with fans and other artists is a great way to keep up with trends and build a following but spending too much time on such sites is simply not productive. If you are wasting time promoting your old work, chances are you're failing to produce new work at a rate on par with the thousands of people out there you are competing with in the freelance arena. Make sure to budget your time on social sites and spend more time working than the next guy and you'll be much farther ahead. In today's world work ethic separates the men from the boys, or girls.....Remember work speaks volumes over tweets. IIId

To all you moms out there!

Happy mother's day! We know it's not always easy and you might not always feel appreciated, but today is the day when we celebrate the wonders of the universe that are mom's. Thanks so much for all you do! You're the greatest! IIId and Co.

You can learn a lot by......

Tracing.....A ton of great artists out there learned a ton by tracing comics they loved or from photos. Trace first so you can almost mindlessly break down how the artists did what they did, then draw it from reference, then draw it from memory. Might seem like a big commitment but it will help you memorize skills you'll be able to incorporate int your own style for the rest of your life. Just a tip. I DO NOT condone tracing work and passing it off as your own, but used properly it can be a fantastic learning tool. For all of you that struggle with drawing backgrounds, it's a great way to learn that skill as well. Find backgrounds you like in comics or just convert photos of scenes you like into black and white(or grayscale) and figure out how to indicate the various areas with a pencil. It's not cheating. In another post I'll outline how some artists base their entire style on tracing. All the best! IIId

This is the inital dev sketch for'The Ripper' Character from one of my upcoming comics. He's not quite finalized but I wanted to share some of my wip's on this one as it comes together.

Overcoming comic penciling anxiety-at least for personal work......

Let's face it, a lot of folks have a real fear of a blank white piece of Bristol board. Too many erasures, or the wrong layout and you end up wasting what is comparatively and expensive piece of drawing media compared to a piece of paper-but you can't use paper because it simply doesn't hold up to high detai penciling and especially not to inking. Well if you are penciling or inking on your own project I have an easy solution. I started using card stock from the office supply store which has the same weight as bristol board and a nice plate smooth surface. It isn't bristol, but it holds up to penciling and ink well, and even to marker. I've only found it in letter size which means you can pencil manga pages with no problem on it, or if you work in that size for your comics, but I normally use a3 boards which are quite a bit bigger. What I do is separate my panels onto different sheets and then re composite the inked panels in photoshop(you can use any basic image editing program to do this)Sometimes this results in a really fresh and vibrant page and I've found that doing it simply for a change of pace in how I normally work, is sometimes a really good thing, plus 150-200 sheets of this card stock runs about 5 bucks so you can afford to use it like cheap copy paper with no worries about messing a piece up. Plus if you mess a panel up you don't have to trash a page of mess with cutting and pasting cutout panel together. I use messed up chunks to roll tortillons, make paper airplanes, origami, or let my daughter have them for coloring pages! It is available at walmart, staples, office depot, etc. Easy to get and guilt free cheap to use. As I said for self publishing or personal work it's great, if are working for a publisher then you have to of course use their required boards and deal with the heavy anxiety of big blank pages with blue lines, but more about how to deal with that later. All the best! IIId

Don't call it anything....Do what you love.

As an artist first and foremost you have to do what you love to do. I know this might sound a tad contrite and I'm sure you may have heard it before, but I think in today's marketplace it is a really important fact that many artists out there are overlooking. So many people label themselves as this type of artist or that type of artist. I certainly denote what I feel my strongest areas are professionally when asked about what type of artwork I produce, but I never limit myself to any style or type of artwork. This in short means I don't limit myself or snob off any jobs that sound interesting simply because they don't fit into the idyll of some set artistic persona I wish to convey to the rest of the digital world at large. Taking on new and interesting challenges is fun for me. I love working in different ways and on different stuff all the time and really the only artistic truth about me is that I'm an artist for hire. You see it all the time these days, there are for example 'concept artists' everywhere and most of them don't have any idea what a concept artist really is. I mean you can argue that every painting is a concept of something, right? So if you can paint, you can concept right? Not so....As a professional concept artist you have to be able to paint story beats, characters in many angles, environments, revisions, and then be able to extract elements out of any of these and explode them as any draftsman would. You also have to know intimately how to communicate mood through your work in many different ways. It's all very deliberate, and very required of you. Painting nice pictures is cool, but it's only a fraction of the job. Really 'concept artist' is almost a misnomer. Most concept artists working in the industry would be the first to tell anyone that what they do is much more design than art. While we all use artistic technique to get the job done, it's the real design choices that make it all really happen. I recently heard Chris Oatley say that 'people want to be concept artists because they love the concept of being an artist.' This really rings true and brings me to my ultimate point. You have to do what you love as an artist without labels, especially if you are just starting out because that passion for what you are producing will carry you through hard times, rejection and more importantly give your work a very genuine aspect that most people's just doesn't have. If you truly follow your personal inspirations and influences in your own way you can become great. Nobody ever got there by copying another's style or really more to the point, they perceive as another's style. Doing that will always make you second rate. You might produce good paintings, but there will always be something missing. Don't worry about how to get the phat paycheck job, followers online, or votes on pieces, etc. When you start really putting your heart and soul into your work in a true way, drawing upon the things that have moved you throughout your life, then your work will eventually attract people. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes not, but you will gain a genuine audience, unlike the fad followers who will come and go. There are no shortcuts to getting great other than the obvious one which is an insane amount of hard work and struggle to get there, but that is something that every artist who has gotten there has been through and had to rely on the love of their craft and belief in themselves to get through. It's something that most artists think they can avoid or take a class and skip over. Trust me Gnomon has no dvd out there that addresses that particular doldrum. You have to practice, paint and draw your way through it. Show your work and honestly look for critique rather than praise. Critique will teach you lessons, praise offers you far less in terms of making you better. I'd take a good honest critique, rather than empty praise any day, even though people saying nice things about your work is really nice. I really write these endless rants hoping that I can help others out there get over the humps and bumps of this digital artistic age we live in and I hope this one while rambling and long has helped you gain a little insight into following your own path as an artist and the rewards that ultimately entails. All the best! IIId

Wow thanks Displa.io!!!!

The folks over at displa.io.com were nice enough to ask us to showcase some of our artwork on their website which if you don't know is uber kewl! They print art prints on sheets of metal. As soon as I saw it I was all for it. We're still setting up our gallery area over there and adding newly selected pieces. We'll post the link when it's all up and running. These guys are delivering artwork from some great artists in a truly unique and fantastic way. IIId

Okay bad form game boy.....

You are a game professional who needs artwork, ah but you can't pay for it. A freelancer is nice enough to offer you their services, for which you are required to put forth nothing but some faith on a stick....maybe a small royalty check in two years time....Don't ask them for a resume you dope! Since when do people have to interview for free or royalty jobs to work with people who might be losers with a dream? Sorry I know this is a bit of a rant but I was asked recently third party to donate some artwork to help a new start-up get off the ground through a friend of the project who happens to be a friend of mine and when I asked them what they wanted me to produce for them, they actually started interviewing me. I told them they could see my demo reel and I quickly backed out of the whole thing and then sent an apology note to my friend who set the whole thing up. C'mon qualify to provide pro-bono or charity artwork? Not this popsicle! I think for some people the make believe game company thing goes right to their head. Too many stoned bedroom CEO's out there. I did tell them best of luck with their project though...thought that was nice. All the best cats! Remember stand up for yourselves! Only you know how much work you actually put into your artwork. There are lots of jokers out there that don't know and surely don't care. IIId

Kneeling Pixie

Sunday Pinup so I could blow off Mowing My Lawn!

How do you work?

Do you sit in a desk chair all day slumped, slouched, crunched or cramped? I used to, but haven't for about 2 years now. Sometimes I sit on a bar stool at my desk but rarely at all. Years ago I was gaining weight and feeling kind of poorly and it came to me. It was due to the fact that I was sitting in one place for over 8 hours a day. I mean anyone will tell you that is not a good thing and I know some would say but you can't draw any other way effectively. I used to agree. That was however because I simply didn't know any better. One day thought I had a thought. When I was a professional glass artist I worked long days standing up. In that profession it allows you to be more reflexive and mobile with large amounts of hot glass in your hands and also to get out of the way quick in the case of mishaps. When I painted traditionally I painted at an upright easel standing up. This forced me to rethink my computer desk. What If I raised the height to 42 inches? That's a good leaning height for a bar top so I thought it might work for a standing desk(now I'm only 5'7" so adjust your desk height accordingly). I did just that. I built new legs and lengthened the desk to accommodate all of my stuff. My experimental desk is still there and I'm still rockin it. I find that working while standing allows me to work not only faster but in a more decisive manner. The arm swing I'm allowed by standing makes full use of my big Intuos as well. I get better and cleaner lines with more flow, energy, and power. At the end of the day I feel better, and know I've actually burned a few calories while working rather than feeling stiff and cramped, while trying to unfold myself. I also seem to take quick walks away from my desk frequently which freshens up my eyes a lot and allows me to refine my work a lot more effectively without a ton of flipping, etc. I know most folks think it's nuts but it works well for me and I wanted to share it with others in the hopes that it might be a good working method for some of you out there. All the best! IIId

Redraw it!

The great Chris Oatley recently did a small article on this in his newsletter and I wanted to expand upon it and throw my 2 cents in: Time and time again you hear artists asking others about how to improve, or break out of a rut, etc, etc. For me the answer is simple and one I've certainly stated in other posts. Don't shy away from drawing, or redrawing! It's amazing how many or our commonly used digital tools and tricks are all aimed at avoiding drawing. Drawing is the foundation of great artwork and the #1 vehicle for improving upon the artwork we produced yesterday. If your drawing skills are not improving then neither is your artwork as a whole. It really is the key to great painting. Lately I find myself gravitating more and more towards simpler drawing programs that do not rely on tools for tweaking of transforming my drawings that indeed force me to redraw something if it is wrong. In this way I force myself to improve my draftsmanship and refine my hand/eye coordination at the same time resulting over time in a better understanding of ways to indicates various subjects within my own artwork. I know the free transform tools, warp, etc are very useful but they don'y help you improve much or help you improve upon basic skills. They are fast but they over time can become a crutch in the name of speed. I find that when I slow down a bit I'm much happier in my work and in the end more satisfied with the outcome of the finished pieces. Not preaching just expousing the virtues of drawing and redrawing for me as they relate to my own evolution as an artist and designer. Drawing either with a tablet, or a pencil for me is simply the foundation of what I do as an artist and relates to my entire process, start to finish. It is also the best way I find to really avoid pitfalls and big mistakes later on within your process. Like building a house. You work out the design on paper first and hence work out many of the inherent problems of your design up front and after that is done, you build your house with a clear understanding of the process you will use. Shortcuts on the initial steps might save you some time up front, but they will generally haunt you all the way through the project. Point? Don't shortcut on your drawing skills. Get really good at it and you'll find that you get really good at painting in general digital or traditional. All the best, and as Bob Ross would say....Happy Painting.... IIId