Sunday, October 28, 2012

To ink wash or not to ink wash....

You're seeing more and more of it.  I've tried it and my verdict is this.  Some people can do it and get the look they like, and others, myself included just love to cross-hatch way too much.  For me I guess it boils down to subjective standards of how you want the finished artwork to look.  I know when I got into drawing comics I just loved the insane cross hatching work guys were doing and knew that I wanted to emulate it in my own work.  The work done that way to me just looks uber sexy-even though on a complicated piece it can take a lot longer and may not even be noticed by anyone but me.  I love it so I do it.  More and more people who hire freelancers and artists to work on comics are wanting to see the ink wash style done and there is certainly nothing wrong with it.  I don't think it looks as good, but that is really only an opinion and to some it probably looks better that all those crazy lines.  For me I gotta stick with what I love in order to love what I'm putting out, so I'll just keep hatching.......It's never about the time spent, it's about looking at the finished work and simply loving it.....So do what you love guys!!!!  All the best!

D

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Making sure Freelance doesn't just mean free...

    Guys I don't want to lecture or sound too heavy about this but it's something I see more and more as a freelancer. so I wanted to ar least comment on it and describe the way I deal with it.
      I've had it happen.  I've got friends who've had it happen.  Chances are you may have had it happen.  You run into a snake charmer who sells you some story about how they've got all the talent in the world as a writer, or are the next big indy publisher, and need someone to draw their comic for them, but the kick is they've got limited funds and can't really pay you what you are worth.  Right there is the telling point.  They are trying to test you out to see if you'll take less that you think you are worth.  There are exceptions to every rule kiddees but the answer is almost always sorry, no.  I have rates that I must adhere to that keep me doing my best work, which is all I want to put out.   I try to be as flexible as I can and I've even worked out deals with people to do piecemeal work as they can afford it, but do yourself a favor and stick to your rates.  Don't ever let someone else tell you that their financial bottom line is more important that yours.  After all without your art, their comic is just words on a page.  Remember where you stand in terms of how much work you do as opposed to a writer.   With services like Kickstarter and Kabbage it's easier than ever to get funding for projects. 
     Ok with that said it's tough to get money up front in the freelancing world so how do you protect yourself?  Well I like to use watermarks and also send low res images out for samples and never release a high res, un-watermarked image as a sample until I'm paid.  Yes people will try stuff like,' I can't make out the image clearly with that thing there', or 'can I get a higher res image to look at?'  Both are usually signs that they are fishing for free work to use.  It's sad but true if you believe the stories people tell these days you will inevitably get burned and the more trustworthy you are, the worse it will be.  Protect yourself, and treat transactions in a business-like manner and don't trust the charming guy who is suddenly your long lost best pal on the other end of the email until said guy coughs up the fee you agreed upon.  If you do you will suddenly stop hearing from him or her in the middle of a project and often times see your work pop up finished or colored by someone else in a manner that you aren't happy with and often times are powerless to stop.  People also use this trick to build fake portfolios to shop around.  It's happened to me and worse to other people I know.  None of which deserved it.  It really benefits nobody, as the people who are content to steal partially finished work and who have a string of dupes working for them are taking what would have been great work with soul in it and turning it into sample quality work that they can't see the flaws in, with no heart or soul.  Sad but true.  There are a lot of these folks out there and they all have a good story to tell, but I mean if you are going to work for free dust off that comic you wrote but haven't had time to work on and do something great with it in your free time.  Don't do someone else' work for them, especially if they aren't willing to pay you anything.  They don't deserve your artwork or your time.  Take the time and make yourself a watermark, and make sure to send optimized images out at 72 dpi for samples, trust me they show people what they need to know, no matter what they say.  Trust your gut on people but protect yourself so that they cannot take advantage of you.  I know how hard artists work, these people often times think it's easy for us and/or just don't care if we put in a full week/month of 14 hour days on their project.  Their goal is to get it done and spend little or nothing on the artwork.  If we all get wise and protect ourselves soon enough they won't have artists to exploit and these folks will go away in large part.  They don't appreciate art and therefore don't deserve your time or effort, and certainly not the art you slaved over and put all your heart and soul into.  It's a real problem these days but one that we can all deal with simply and methodically.  Best Wishes!

D

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

The importance of the pencil to me....

I've certainly stated before that I almost always start a composition in an analog fashion.  Usually I start with a marker sketch or pencil drawing depending on what I'm working on and the way I plan to finish the piece.  Sometimes I just happen to be doodling when on the phone or in front of the TV, etc.  I wanted to relate the reason why and the relevance of such in this modern digital age of Wacom tablets, and cintiqs.  First of all I'll admit something.  I draw poorly on tablets, even on my intuos 4.  I've have many tablets and upgraded over the years trying to find the magic bullet, and finally came to the conclusion that it just isn't the tablet.  It's me.  I draw in long sweeping arcs with my arm, and very little with my wrist, aka I draw like a painter and not like someone writing.  With that said I realize that embracing the digital works for some, and I'll be the first to say that if it works for you, then you don't need to be reading this!  My drawing skills were learned largely while ignoring my teachers and spending my school days creating in notebooks intended for other purposes.  I'm rooted in the pencil, pen and paper world, and I'm cool with it.  I'm also much faster and more dynamic with a pencil in hand.  I simply can't hold my Wacom stylus right for how I draw.  I hold my pencil at it's very end and lightly sketch, refining and darkening lines as I go but rarely grip my pencil toward the tip until the very end of a drawing when I'm heavy into detailing.  Ok enough technical stuff.  There is an even more important reason I use the pencil rather than embracing all the wonderful digital tricks and such.  It's just that, I want to avoid the digital tricks and relying on them.  I know them.  I use them but I don't want them to become part of my style and be a slave to them.  Every time I screw up with a pencil guess what?  I have to erase, evaluate and do it over.  Do you know what effect that has on me?  It forces me to learn from every mistake and to improve henceforth.  Consequently my learning curve is better and faster simply by using a pencil and paper and allowing myself to mess up and correct things.  I know that you're thinking, 'Oh but that's so much work!'  My answer is simple.  You should not be thinking of drawing as work, period.  It's fun and even if you are a professional, the mindset that drawing is work, lends anxiety to your effort which ultimately hinders you and steers you toward comfortable places within your skill set, taking shortcuts, and settling for sub standard work.  You have to be fearless when it comes to your artwork, and unafraid to take chances or throw something out.  I mean come on, if you mess up, it's only a piece of paper and some time spent at your desk.  If you learned from the mistakes or came out the other end with a really kick ass drawing that you never would have thought possible, then you have lost nothing.  Time has to be irrelevant to you.  Besides every time you overcome challenges, you know that you've improved as an artist, and that is a great feeling, even after a long day of struggling with something hard.  It can be mentally taxing, but it can be ultimately rewarding to win at the end of the day as well.  I love the feeling of turning off my light at the end of the day and know that I struggled through, didn't accept defeat and nailed it in the end.  It gives me more confidence to approach the next day's artwork.  See what a pencil can do?  As always this is just my insight and what works for me.  I think the mindset can be applied to anyone's working style and it is indeed the mindset that matters.  For me the pencil and the analog is the way but for you just using fewer digital tricks might be the way to mastery.  If you understand the value of mistakes and working through them then you're already well on your way to being great.   Once again I hope my ramblings on technique and artistic mindset are helpful to you in finding your inner greatness.   Best Wishes and much love to all!

IIID

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Clearly defining depth in your pencils

Whether communicating with an inker or just to keep track of them for yourself, having clearly defined foreground mid ground and back ground elements is a must for bringing your work to life, and of course communicating depth and space to your readers.  This is something that is very easy to overlook as the trend these days is to simply pack as much detail in to your panels and possible.  While this can work some of the time.  It's a bad idea to do all of your work this way.  You work a great deal harder and actually flatten out your drawings.  When it comes to detail, you have to know when to just 'leave it out'. The first person I saw who really relayed this idea to me effectively was Alvin Lee.  His work is so clean and economical in terms of line and detail that it's staggeringly beautiful to me.  I find it's harder to achieve than work that really has it all packed in there as it is easy to cover up fundamental errors with detail.  It's something I strive to master.  Really good manga artists are great at this type of work as well.  Always think level of detail, backgrounds have little, mid-grounds some, and foregrounds have tons. One simple, fairly mechanical, trick that has helped me though is the use of three different leads.  I use 2h, 4h and 6h Tombow mono's respectively for foreground, midground, and backgrounds.  Even though it's a bit of a hassle to use three leads, I find that it allows me to draw each area in my natural style, with little or no alteration in physical technique.  This allows more natural and flowing strokes in all areas of my work, and doesn't stifle my hand from trying to draw lightly or more heavily in various areas.  The reason I use Tombow's is also important.  All of their leads are virtually smudge-free and erase very clean which is great for peace of mind,  They are a bit pricey but well worth it.  I use regular pencils but I believe you can get mono lead for holders as well.  I use soft lead for sketching, layouts, or to work fast, but always finish my work in harder lead because soft lead blunts way too fast, and to strike clean lines with them you have to exert enough pressure to actually 'etch' the paper or board, which makes clean erasures impossible, so naturally I recommend getting used to harder leads for finished work.  If you really focus on seeing the depth in what your drawing and 'organize' the spaces within accordingly you will find that you pages instantly become more three dimensional and communicate so much more with your audience.  Best Wishes!

IIId

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Simply the best chicken soup you ever had.....


Those that know me know well that I'm a prodigious home cook, not a chef by any rate just a guy who is passionate about cooking awesome food for his family and friends.  I do all of our cooking and love it!  It's honestly one of the best parts of my day, and being that we're now into autumn I wanted share something.  It's a different kind of art, as it does come in various guises right?  Smoked Chicken Soup with Fresh Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano.

It's easy to make, but admittedly a bit time consuming but well, well worth it.

I use a whole chicken, any size or type will do as long as it fits in your boiling pot of course.

I won't get too deep into this but I like to smoke the whole chicken beforehand.  You can do this on any charcoal grill with a lid-I've even used my little weber to do it!.  Keep the temp low and the heat indirect as you are really trying to cold smoke the chicken, to get all that smoky flavor but without cooking and consequently drying out the chicken.  I usually smoke as prodigiously as I can for 1/3 to half the alloted time it would take to smoke the whole bird to fully cooked.  (Don't worry there's an easy quick alternative I'll go into in the end if you feel that smoking a chicken is too daunting.)

From here get the chicken(whole into your now boiling pot of Lightly salted (don't oversalt the water-add your salt at the end-easy to add hard to take out sort of thing) water and boil it on medium heat until the chicken is falling off the bone tender-2-3 hours usually but sometimes it's faster.

Remove the chicken completely from the broth you just made, remove as much of the meat as you want to use, save/or discard the rest.  I have dogs so getting rid of the fat and whatever I don't want to use is a cinch.  Bones hit the trash of course.

Add 4-5 bay leaves to the broth as well as about 1 tsp pepper-any you desire-White, Black, Cayenne, doesn't matter.

Return the chicken to the broth and now add cut up onions(1-2 decent ones) crushed, or minced fresh garlic-to taste-, Cut up carrots, celery if you wish, and egg noodles-any type will work but I find that homeade ones really are much better.  If you have a pasta roller I say go for it!

If you like garden greens in soup you can add them during the last half of the boil with no problem-any variety will do.  I put fresh Kale in my soups all the time.  Spinach also works really well.

Boil until vegetables are done and noodles are nicely tender.

Dish out into bowls sprinkle quite liberally with the Fresh Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano blend-I mean any or all of these, or others will work.  This is just the way I do it because this is our favorite blend from the store.  ie-Manchego is great in this soup all by itself.  Don't be afraid to experiment.

Sprinkle a pinch of Kosher Salt into every bowl....

Eat Much!

Now for the easy alternative I mentioned:  If you are in a time pinch or just don't want to go through the smoking hassles, etc.  I have found that you can make the soup exactly as described-sans chicken smoking of course- and when you add the bay leaves add about 1- tbsp of liquid smoke extract to the broth-Honestly it comes out really good this way so don't be afraid to try it.

All in all and different way to have chicken soup but an incredibly enjoyable one that I really wanted to share.  If you come up with any variations on this you love, I'd love to hear about them.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Creative freedom can sometimes be more difficult

At present I'm working on two creator owned manga stories.  I'm glad that I have the time and freedom to finally get to them, because they are stories I've long wanted to tell.  In the midst of penciling said stories I've noticed something that I wanted to share.  The importance of 'locking' your story ahead of time.  Having the discipline to really treat writing as a separate craft ahead of executing the artwork and sticking to the storyline once pen'd.  This is something I definitely struggle with.  As I draw I'll see a new angle and start to deviate from my pre-written version.  Soon I end up on Nowhereland, or off on a disconnected tangent and have wasted a day or two penciling pages that have taken me far afield of where I should have been going.  Yes making changes to improve your story is fine in measured amounts, but make sure that before you start drawing that the basic structural foundation of your story is solid and will take the reader where you want them to go.  Trust me, if it isn't, you will end up wasting a lot of time changing and re-arranging things, and often to no avail.  Now, with the advent of Photoshop or GIMP, it's easy to re-composite pages and chop them up, move stuff around, etc after the fact, so really, draw it first the way you wrote it, and make changes later as needed.  I've found this to be a much more effective and productive strategy when working on my own stuff.  I mean we all want to shoot the moon and achieve greatness in our work, but drawing yourself into a disorganized corner will never get you anywhere except burnt out, frustrated, and lacking confidence in your efforts.  The way to avoid this is by inches.  Write a solid story, draw your layouts, finish your pencils, ink them suckas, tone or color, submit or publish.  No skipping steps or jumping ahead.  Shortcuts are always the long way around.  I think you'll find that by slowing down and being a bit more methodical that you actually speed up in the grand scheme of things sequential.  Best Wished and I hope this little bit of insight from my drawing table has been helpful.


IIID

Watch out for new previews of 'Miko' and 'Agency Black' coming soon!

Friday, September 21, 2012

The New 'Agency Black' coming soon

Yes I know we had that 8 page 'indy teaser' out like a year ago and then never went any farther with it, but actually I have been working away on it.   I did a complete rewrite and have reset the odometer to Zero.  Yup I just decided that I wanted to get deeper with the story and really explore the characters a bit more as well as add a whole bunch of twists and turns.  Well the new first issue is rolling right along and will be inked colored and lettered soon, I promise.  I think you'll agree it had to be done and I hope for the curious that it will have indeed been worth the wait.  Best Wishes to all.  I'll post some teasers, WIP's and such up here and a few other places as I roll them out.  Oh and we'll have related artwork up in the stores as well.

IIId

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Whas up with that?

Clarification of sorts folks.  There is an individual from the Czech republic on a number of freelancing sites who is now using the artist tag IIID.  I'm not saying that it is anything other than an innocent coincidence and accusing this chap or chapet of nothing.  The simple fact is, I've signed my work as 'IIId' since the early 90's.  My work and posts are always signed with the graphic tag you see on work in this blog or with IIId(I always use the lower case 'd')  I am not from the Czech republic.  I live right here in the United States in the midst of our fair Great Lakes.  Lucky me!  I thank the emailer who brought this to my attention.  Best Wishes to all!

IIId

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

IIId man, do you do manga? Yeah, I do manga too........

Saturday, September 15, 2012

After The Mission...

After The Mission...I was just in the mood for some classic 007 action today, and what's more 007 than girl, martini, beach and sunset?  Best Wishes!

IIId

Friday, September 14, 2012

Less can indeed be more......

Drawing sequential artwork in any form is challenging, stressful at times, but very rewarding.  I'm not going to go in a lecture to any extent about this but I really wanted to comment on something I see a great deal and certainly have done in the past.  It is a huge faux pas you want to avoid.  DO NOT draw your artwork panel by panel in all medium shots.  It is very natural to do this because of how we visualize our world, but you must think in a cinematic way when laying out panels or pages.  There are a number of reasons to use many angles both uber far and uber close.  Firstly is it adds a ton of appeal to your pages.  Secondly and more important is it saves you tons of work.  Learning to do your pages this way allows you flexibility and often less is indeed more.  Also your pages with have more emotional depth as well and visible impact.  This also allows you to control the pace of the story allowing you to speed the reader up and slow him or her down.  It's a very powerful tool in that respect.  Lastly know that publishers can spot this instantly and consider endless pages full of medium shots a real flaw.  Some even call it a 'rookie' mistake. They also know that you'll never finish your pages on time.   I think it can happen to even a veteran artist at times.  Sometimes it just reflects your mood about a scene or a story you are working on.  Sometimes it's even ok to do a slow moving page like this and works well for that, but it really is to be avoided throughout your work.  Try to really vary your panels up a lot and think in terms of a dynamic camera and you really will do faster, smarter and simply better sequential artwork.  An eye can say as much as a face.....Hope this is a helpful bit of insight.  Best Wishes and Blessings to all!

D

As an aside to this try writing short one or two page stories and drawing them.  It forces you to vary up your shots.  It's a good exercise and teaches you to work on one or two pages at a time thinking of each as a mini chapter or story with it's own problem, climax and conclusion.  When I go through a script I usually chop them up this way.  I also like to sometimes draw all my panels for a pages or series on separate sheets of paper, then either cutting them up and pasting them together(yes paper and glue was how they did that before digital)or just using Photoshop to composite them. 

SOPWITH FLYBOYS!

The new 'Sopwith Flyboys' design.  Hope you all love it!  I just love old fighter planes and what not and that episode of peanuts from back in the day with Snoopy flying one of these bad boys against the infamous Red Baron.  I just had to do it.  This one is already up in our Cafepress store.  Best Wishes to all and stay blessed! 

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Does She Talk?

Alright technical skills aside I want to address something that at least to me is important in every piece of art I work on whether it is fine art, or design work.  Does it speak to me?  Sometimes the answer is actually no.  I've certainly done what I considered good painting and what not and then looked at it after the fact and just felt flat.  No response.  No stirred emotion, Nada.  These usually get stuck in a folder, or sent off to the island of misfit art, etc.  Never shared and often forgotten.  I just feel like if it doesn't speak to me before during and after producing it then it isn't art.  If it doesn't speak to you then it has almost no chance of speaking to anyone else.  Even if they think it's good they won't think it is inspired and that's the point.  You have to let yourself be inspired to produce work that you feel strongly about.  Anyone can learn to draw or paint a picture but it's those inspired cats that really flirt with disaster and achieve greatness in their work.  Academic drawing and painting skill is great but it isn't always of primary importance.  Getting the message in there in some clever way that shouts it out to your audience, that is never secondary.  Vibrance, Dynamism, Message, Technique,  they are all important and need to be addressed in every piece of important art you put out.  If you produce inspired work you really believe in you will be that much more confident in selling yourself and standing behind your body of public work as an artist.  Experiment, take chances, overcome challenges, in every piece and you will come out of each a stronger and better artist.  Comfort zones and niches while sometimes necessary from an economic POV, are easy places that don't push your skill or repertoire at all.  There is nothing wrong with consistency or making money, but don't be afraid to try new styles, subjects, improvise, or to blaze new trails within your artistic realm.  Don't be afraid to to mess up something you love, or be afraid to fail because you can't.  Keep trying, don't accept failure, and the concept of failure is banished.  Don't work at art, have fun with it.  When you begin to have fun and take chances in your work.  When you actually 'get fearless' with it you have reached new heights as an artist.  Others will notice the attitude shift in your work as well.  Your art is the chronicle of a journey and the way that story is told can hold others rapt or leave them passing by disinterested.  Tell your stories well, and remember shortcuts are often the long way around.  Best Wishes.

IIId

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Don't worry Leia I 'tuned' up the Falcon already....

Had to do it!  I was just doodling one day last week and came up with the rough sketch of this.  I'm a self professed Star Wars Universe Junkie so I went ahead and finished it in Photoshop.  I had so much fun doing this one I'm sure you'll see more Star Wars fan art up here real soon.  Enjoy and Best Wishes to all!

IIId

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Yeah we got Chops!

I love cars and drawing and painting 'Chops' is so much fun.  This one was drawn on pencil and paper and then colored and finished in Photoshop.  I think you really get a much better result doing it this way than doing the 'warp' thing in Photoshop.  I've tried it both ways but drawing the initial 'Tune' just works better for me.  I also like putting my chops in environments rather than leaving them on white or a simple grad.  Just wanted to share one of the latest ones I've done.  Best Wishes to all!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Getting the hang of perspective......

     In terms of perspective, and yes I'm talking about the technical kind, I was fortunate.  In college, Architecture was one minor course of study I had when pursuing a degree in construction mgmt.  Drafting class after drafting class taught me a lot about linear perspective and why certain angles complement each other in terms of the human cone of vision.  This was a great complement to drawing skills I had practiced all my young life and really helped me become a better artist.  Now years later I have learned other important lessons regarding the use of linear, artistic as well as atmospheric perspective systems.  Some of these points I thought important to share.  First one is probably the most important which is yes you must actually struggle through and learn academic perspective inside and out so you understand spatial relationships and how they work with perspective systems.  This gives you your base in terms of that ever important artistic problem solving repertoire that you will indeed use your whole life as an artist.  While this is important to learn it brings me to my next point regarding perspective usage.  One of the most important reasons to learn about perspective systems is not what you'd expect.  You have to learn how to use perspective so you can then learn how to break the rules because at times your perspective will be technically correct but guess what?  Your drawing looks stiff, or wrong and you have to nudge something out of the technically correct perspective arrangement in order to get back on track.  This is a much more subjective thing and will only come with time and lots of practice.  I mean read all the books you want, look at tutorials, etc.  They are fine but nothing will teach you like sitting at your drawing board or computer and simply drawing, and that includes drawing terrible stuff.  You have to mess up to progress so don't be afraid to erase something or toss out something you've messed up.  Embrace the failures and study how you went wrong so you can learn from it, then they cease to become failures but rather become tools.  Next is you have to learn another subjective lesson.  In various types of work some forms of perspective take precedence over others.  When drawing vehicles you will most likely be adhering to a linear perspective true, but what about drawing panoramas or sweeping vistas?  Well they really call for knowing how to use atmospheric perspective effectively.  Sometimes a combination is in order.  You must decide how and when to use each type.  Finally there is a mistake I see in work all over the place and I feel it is a result of how perspective is taught rather than misunderstanding on the students' part.  DO NOT make every item in your drawing follow the same vanishing points!!!  This is ultra important.  Every single item in a picture, unless it is completely parallel and in line with another has its own vanishing point(s).  Sometimes, ie cityscapes,  you can cheat this a bit so you don't go nuts but in most pictures you have to take the time to draw most features with their own perspective.  Another overlooked point in perspective is that curved lines work in nearly the same fashion as straight lines and using them adds live to your drawings rather than using straight, stiff grids all the time.  One last thing, simply think of your visual field as a cone that deforms all you see.  As items retreat from you into the smaller part of the cone they get smaller and closer together no matter which direction you are looking or what point perspective you are viewing them in.  I know this is all pretty basic stuff but I feel they are points that are very important in getting your work to look great while adhering to the correct perspective.  Get really comfortable with perspective drawing so you can play around with it and really start to make things happen with it in your own way.  I hope my perspective on perspective is helpful.  Best Wishes.

IIId

***Perspective For Artists by Rex Vicat Cole is a very in depth book that a lot of great artists refer to.  I certainly own it.  It's a bit tough to read but it covers a great deal concerning the technical aspects of artistic perspective systems.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Don't forget the Silhouette......

I do not write tutorials as I think that you should really find your own methods for accomplishing tasks or overcoming challenges within your artwork, ones that fit within your personal working style, but I do like to give pointers and tips on things I feel are important. Silhouettes I feel are very important but often ignored. When we are working on a new composition there are a good number of reasons to draw traditionally instead of composing with random brush strokes. The most important of which to me is silhouette and how they actually 'read' within your composition. Starting with the silhouettes first and then moving inward in not only logical it allows you to really check your composition quickly and effectively while seeing how its individual components read within it. This allows you to make fast and effective decisions about moving forward with a particular piece without wasting time and energy on details, evaluate negative space within the piece, etc.   The silhouettes within your work should be the starting point and almost never a result of piecing details together. Okay you say but I work digitally and I use a lot of random Photoshop brushes to generate ideas and use the random happy accidents, and chaos in these rapid paintings as starting points. Not a problem. I do it sometimes too, especially when I'm just not having any strong visuals come into my head or I'm tired, or whatever. I use a special set of inkblot brushes to do this, but I've seen many approaches to it and I feel that they are all valid as long as they allow you to recognize shape and silhouette cleanly. I love the way the Steambot cats do their thing this way but it has never worked well for me so I had to find a different way to go about it. Inkblots have a quality that builds silhouettes rather than details inside them so for me it works better and composition jump right out at me. Scott Robertson also has as awesome way of doing this that he details in a Gnomon DVD entitled 'Creating Unique Environments' where you use initial marker sketches and varied blending modes to composite them within Photoshop. Any method can really work, it's all about finding the shapes. The big initial read of the shapes and how they form the initial composition is the key to a strong read early on and hence a strong foundation to build on. This is a very simple concept but very easy to overlook and when used will strengthen you artwork every time. Good Shapes! D  BTW-If anyone wants my inkblot brush set to play with(PS7 or above) just email me or leave a comment. I have no problem emailing it to interested folks.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Why I Left DeviantArt

Let me first say that I've been a DA member for a few years and have had reasonable success in generating a buzz for my artwork there and feel that it is a great community and resource for artists of various mediums both traditional and digital. It really is like no other place online. With that said I recently deactivated my account there for a few reasons that to me were important. Firstly the art theft thing. I realize that when you publish any piece of artwork online you are taking a risk, but in most cases the benefit outweighs the risk. When I first started uploading work to DA I never had to refuse permission for downloads but when I started seeing various pieces of my artwork on other profiles, either cropped or recolored, etc and signed by someone else, I had to start refusing download permission on all of my pieces. I didn't like this, and not because the thefts upset me, but because I feel that the key to being a good artist is simply TRYING. I didn't like not being able to share my artwork with people who simply wanted to download it for inspiration. Simply grabbing various pieces of artwork from various artists and photo-shopping them up, and then claiming them as your own is just silly and forces artists to withhold their work from good people with no ill intention to protect themselves from the ones who have ulterior motives. One great comic book artist named David Finch had to nix his whole website due to this very same phenomenon. Which to me was very sad as he was a true inspiration and remains to be for many people who would love to see new work from him posted online, but as he stated on his now closed website, too many people were stealing his work and claiming it to be their own. To what end? Who knows. I guess they figure getting attention in the short term is better than working for years at their craft and really becoming great. The next reason I decided to walk away from DA was that I kept seeing their contests pop up and even entered one, which really isn't my bag, but I did it. I just kept noticing that most of the winners or finalists over there were either borderline or outright plagiarists. In contest after contest there were many many outraged people who were all asking the same question of DA. If I produce a composition from scratch and this guy just tweaks and bashes photos how can you choose his work over mine? This is the rub. In all of these cases DA defended it's position and actually endorsed the plagiarism. To me you can't on one hand state that you are trying to further the arts while on the other hand awarding and endorsing plagiarism in any degree or form. It was rather distasteful for me to look at pieces that I knew good people spent a week on, lose to someone who pushed a couple of buttons , ran a few filters, etc and in 45 minutes produced, voila! A winner.... Sites like CG hub will actually disqualify you from their jams and contests for the same actions that DA endorses in their contests. In my opinion CGHUB has it right as the point of competitions is to test your skills, against your peers, in a manner that it outside your comfort zone-which is usually the point of competing against others! Lastly I decided that in order to really focus on my craft I had to pare down my online presence' as I simply was finding that I was spending too much time administrating them, answering emails, etc. This was a personal choice and really a matter of time management and had very little to do with DA other than me having to make a decision about which online arenas were productive for me to be involved in and which weren't. Of course the above reasons were a factor in this decision but not the only factor when weighing both the pros and cons associated with DA membership. At present I really need to focus on work and anything that I find is a detractor must be weeded out. I am a bit down that I feel that I cannot share my work on DA anymore and maybe down the road I'll take another crack at it, but for now I'm cool with where I'm at with the whole thing and feel I made the right decision. D

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Norita Graflex 66 UP!!

Wow are we ever fortunate! My lovely girl JAG was at an estate sale recently and picked up a Norita Graflex 66 with the legendary 80mm lense, and the prismatic viewfinder! I mean to folks that know, this camera has no equal in terms of medium format cameras and no digital SLR even holds a candle against it. Now JAG is much more of a photographer than I but now even I'm feeling the itch to snap a few rolls. I mean the variable depth of field on this camera is flat out amazing! It actually feels like cheating when you use it! She picked up a Mamiya medium format studio camera as well and they are great but we haven't even picked that up yet. It will be fun to play with down the road. The last camera she bought was a 50's vintage Kodak Medalist, pretty much an American Leica, and we ended up selling it to a very nice gentleman in Tokyo! They are very popular in Japan I guess. I'm sure he's rocking it hard. Good fortune! Best Wishes to all. D

Monday, August 6, 2012

Free Analog Sketching for Design instructional video with Mikael Lugnegård.


Mikael was kind enough to produce and share this video about analog sketching for design, free of charge and even encourages sharing it!  I found it informative and quite inspirational.  He's quite and artist and a very positive individual.  Check it out.


The techniques of Mikael Lugnegård from Mikael Lugnegård on Vimeo.

Being a process junkie and using process to your advantage...

     I love watching other artists in my and related fields display their process in instructional videos, books, demos, and the like.  I've watched a ton of footage regarding comic creation, concept art, design, etc.  I'm just a geek for it.  I always learn something but I must say that the most important lesson I've ever learned from watching all of these great artists is an underlying one.
     Sure you can pick apart a great artist's process bit by bit and say well I really want to do what he does and be great like him so I'm going to do my artwork exactly lie he does and in no time I'll be kicking ass and taking names like him.  This mindset is all too common these days in the arts and in short it is akin to simply missing the point.  When you see a great artist or better yet a number of great artists demonstrating their ways of accomplishing the artistically incredible, they are essentially letting you in on the way they problem solve throughout a project.  This is helpful in many ways, and you can always learn something from a great artist if you pay attention.  The truly meaningful lessons we glean from educational material in the arts are those one or two solid things we can really incorporate into our very own, and very personal process.  You must establish your own 'pipeline'(to what degree really is subjective in terms of each artist) but your artwork will always lack something if you simply try to be someone else and never establish your own set of problem solving skills and hence your own style.  You may even produce some cool work that looks like this guy or that but deep down you will never feel that it is your own.  I mean really watch a guy like James Clyne, or Aaron Limonick, Christin Lorenz Schurer,  Mikael LungneGard, Ryan Church, Syd Mead, Feng Zhu, Etc.  They are great for one reason they toiled through the hard, difficult and often times lonely process of each finding their own style and working methods.  They may have gleaned a tip or two from here or there but they don't copy anyone in any fashion.  Their various instructional materials are meant to inspire, educate, and show that it is indeed possible to create great artwork, but there are no shortcuts, and it is a lot of work to acheive any level of greatness in any field, especially those in the arts.  We all need to have enough confidence in ourselves to walk our own artistic path and at the end of every project know that on the next one we can indeed do better by some measure.   I think that finding out who you aren't is just as important as finding out who you are as an artist so indeed read, watch, learn, work hard and be proud of yourself every day for your accomplishments.

Below are links to a few vids that I've found rather helpful over the years...