Category: Blog Posts

Cons Complete! What Next?

Hello, all!  I’m back from another con and am happy to report it was my last con of the year.  Cons are great and I adore the chance to connect face to face with kindred spirits, but the lack of sleep, running around, and preparation can be draining.  I’m going to enjoy the chance to kick back and focus on creating rather than selling.  So what am I up to for the rest of the year? Read on and find out!

The Rising Stars Competition

First up on the list is the Rising Stars contest, which boasts some really great swag from Corel, the creators of Painter, as well as a chance to get your stuff seen by some big names in the industry.  There are categories for different types of artists, including one for Comic Art, Concept Art, Illustration, and more!  It’s free to enter, so GO ENTER all of you!  I don’t care if you don’t think you’re good enough. A contest with no entry fee, publicity, and a chance to win swag is an opportunity no one should miss!

We had to choose five images to represent ourselves, so here are the five I’m going with for the Illustration category:

Yup! All digital, minus the last one! Who would’ve thought years ago I would be a digital artist? I have to say I’m really enjoying it more than I expected I would!

Adobe Re-Education

No, I’m not talking about being imprisoned and fed only Adobe brand products till they are my master…that already happened last year.  Going digital has made me realize that it might be a smart thing to be more up to date with art tech, considering my Photoshop is over 10 years old.  I’ve bought a massive training book and am getting myself up to date on all things Adobe with the help of the Creative Cloud subscription!

This has the two-fold effect of giving me the power to realize my projects more efficiently (especially where I might need vector effects), as well as to be more knowledgeable for any design work I might pick up to help pay the bills, for it is an unfortunate fact one cannot make a living off of Elves alone (at least not yet!).  Expect a review of the Creative Cloud services once I spend a little more time with it.

Kushiel Concepts

The pages of my ebook copy of Kushiel’s Dart have been digitally earmarked and my drawing fingers are itching!  I’m ready to move forward with my Kushiel’s Legacy illustration exercise once I finally catch my breath from the Halloween mask rush over at my Etsy shop.  Stay tuned for sketches over at the Kushiel Concepts blog, if lavish masquerade, courtesans, and tattoos are your scene.

Moving!

On a more personal note, I’m finally moving in with my significant other towards the end of this year (January at the latest), meaning that I will finally have a dedicated work space.  Unfortunately, the little studio space I had previously been working in is going out of business, meaning I’m sleeping and working all in the same room again, which is a recipe for insanity.  The prospect of moving in with someone I think is the coolest man on the planet and having a dedicated room for a studio that is not my bedroom has me very excited, indeed!

So What’s Next?

Drawing, painting, and MOAR art!  I am dedicating myself to revamping this portfolio of mine by the time Illuxcon 2013 rolls around, where I fully intend to tout my shiny new improved art to AD’s and anyone with eyeballs.  It’s going to be a whole new beginning for me in the coming year and I cannot wait to get started!

So how bout yourselves? What are your plans for next year? Are you working on anything that you’re excited about? Share in comments!

Sketch Diary: Dreaming Butterfly v2

Concept and Inspiration

A detail of Dreaming Butterfly.

I’m currently working on a painting I hope to include in my portfolio which is a redo of one of my most popular (and personal favorite) pieces entitled Dreaming Butterfly.  The character in this piece is Aurora, my old Shadowrun character who was the first character I really got attached to during my dice-rolling days.

She is like my own Pepper, for those of you who know Artgerm over at DA.  I’m always using Aury to experiment with new art styles, random fashions, and whatever comes to mind.  While she may disappear from my gallery at times, I always come crawling back to her when my muse is in search of inspiration.  Ironically, she almost always comes out looking peaceful and surrounded by symbolic butterflies when she’s actually an ill-temper, foul-mouthed, speed ganger Yakuza Elf, but I digress.

I admit to having ulterior motives for composing this piece, namely so I have something new to submit to DeviantART’s Draw it Again contest due on the 30th of this month and for The Rising Stars competition IFX and Corel are running (due next month). Yup, that’s right! I double-dip my chips!

Thumbnailing

I came up with just four thumbnails for this because I felt I had nailed my concept in the very first one, which was the closest to the original piece. I still like the 2nd one a lot, which may become another painting in the future.  I’m trying a new method of thumbnailing on kraft paper so that the brown of the paper acts as a midtone, with ink and white color pencil acting as my shadow and highlights.  That way, I am not using white paper to start off with, which sometimes confuses my sense of value and tone.

Gathering Reference

I’ve taken Dan Dos Santos and Justin Gerard‘s advice from Dragon*Con to heart when it comes to shooting my own reference photos.  The theory is that if you merely use a publicly available stock photo, you’re inviting the chance that another artist will have used the same stock photo to compose a very similar image.  It’s true that I can almost instantly recognize mjranum-stock‘s photos as soon as I see them.

So in the interest of being unique, I lit and photographed my own reference photos, totaling at around 100 I had to sift through for the perfect shot.  This involved folding 47 red origami butterflies as well as roping a family member into helping out or using the self-timer while I got up and down and up and down to line up the camera and then rush back to lay on the ground before the timer went off.  The results speak for themselves:

(I plan to post the ‘rejects’ from this photo shoot for public use up at my stock art account, so keep an eye on that gallery!)

Preparatory Painting

I ended up using the top right pose, rotating it 90 degrees then tweaking the neck so there was more of a flowing S-curve through the body and composition.  I also replicated the butterflies in the background to make it seem as if she’s laying in a bed of red butterflies (no relation to that scene from American Beauty!)

Now, I’m hopeful I can just blast through the painting phase without having to alter my composition and anatomy on the fly so much, which I’ve been prone to do in the past.  I’ve figured out these complicated aspects in the planning phase first, which is a new habit for me.  I suspect my biggest challenges from here on out will be making this look less like a photomanip and more like my own painting, as I am doing this digitally.
If I can get a screen capture app working, I may be hopping on my Livestream channel while I paint, we’ll see!  If so, I’ll be making such announcements on my DeviantART, Facebook, and Twitter streams.

Finally, keep up at this painting’s WIPnation thread to see a step-by-step comparison of each phase of this image and give redlines and crits.  I highly recommend participating at this website, as it’s a great resource for critique, as well as a good archive of your own workflow for your own educational purposes.

The Portfolio Regeneration Project

The main character from
Kushiel’s Dart.

Since Dragon*Con, it’s been a week of cleaning, catching up on work, and riding the tide of inspiration that always comes after taking part of such a large art show full of inspiring people.  The portfolio reviews I received there have my brain in overdrive when it comes to thinking of ways I can get my portfolio up to snuff.  I needed newer work and more of it.  I needed more examples of illustration, book covers, and the kind of work I’d like to do for CCG.

While I have CCG covered by using my own in-progress fantasy novel for inspiration, generating art for the rest didn’t seem as straightforward.  That’s when it hit me.  If I am seeking to do art for fantasy novels, why don’t I do what I’m doing with the fake Magic the Gathering cards and do the same with a novel?  Since my own novel is largely incomplete, I’ve decided to take one of my favorite novels on instead – Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey.

With fallen angels, a rich tapestry of unique mythology, masquerade balls, and intricate tattoos, there’re plenty of visuals for me to play with in this novel that are right up my alley!  The plan to generate more portfolio pieces is to re-read this wonderful book and create my own versions of illustrations of my favorite scenes, as well as any character art that comes to mind.  This may include my tries at creating concept art sheets for that career wish of mine to get into concept art for games later on in life once my work is ready.

Finally, after I’ve absorbed the whole book and its themes, I plan to do my own version of the cover art for it.  If all goes well, I will be doing this art generation project with more than one from the Kushiel’s Legacy series, or perhaps other fantasy favorites of mine!

Working from a book which, to date, has no movie adaptation makes it far easier for me to create my own raw original versions without a visual influence.  It also gives me the freedom without the copyright worries, since copyrights for books only cover the text, and not any visual representations.  Even so, I don’t plan to sell whatever art comes from this project without Jacqueline’s blessing first.  It’s main purpose is to freshen up my portfolio and not my own pockets.

The plan is to post sketch collections from this project on this blog, but for those of you who want to keep up with every step and sketch of the Kushiel’s Legacy themed work from this project, you can follow the Kushiel art blog here or its Tumblr counterpart here, which will echo the posts on the Blogger version.  The Kushiel art blog is empty right now, but it won’t be for long!

The old iPad I inherited from my dad has proven an invaluable tool for this ambitious project, as I can add searchable notes to my ebook version of the novel and highlight pages which have physical description for illustration purposes.  The pages are marked, the blank sketchbooks have been acquired, and my drawing fingers are itching!  Let the regeneration of my portfolio begin!

What is your dream illustration project?  What novel would you love to do work for?  Finally, what novel would you love to see me illustrate?  Discuss in comments!

Con Report: Dragon*Con 2012

Sporting a leather Magpie feather
made by the multi-talented
Brenda Lyons!

My brain has finally returned from Dragon*Con 2012 (some days after it officially ended, I might add)! It was a haze of cool costumes, reunions, and meetings, as it usually is.  This is going to be a LONG entry, so grab a cup of tea and get comfy!

The Con

This year was an odd duck for me. I spent most of my time selling at my table in the art show, running to panels in the art track, and riding on the train since we commuted in. I didn’t get a chance to see many costumes or really leave the Hyatt.

I did, however, brave all three dealer’s rooms to hunt down amazing artists Michael C. Hayes, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, and Echo Chernik to buy their books, which I had been looking forward to doing for a long while! There’s no better feeling than to shake an artist’s hand and show them you support their work by buying a book directly from them at a show. This probably worked against me as I suspect I spent all my profits doing just that!

I also met several cool folks I have known online for ages, but had never met in person. So many folks came by to say hello and show their support!  It really made me feel special this year and I have no words to express how this warms my heart. Thanks, you guys!

The Selling Experience

As always, the Dragon*Con art show is a well oiled machine!  Set up and break down went smoothly, despite the fact I had three times the stuff I usually do this year.  I sold decently at the art show and hit my selling goal to break even, plus a few hundred.  My best selling work at the show was The Lotus Dancer, which I sold out of at my table, while none of my masks sold from the 3D table, which I’ll probably be dropping next year.  People seem to buy more masks right off the gallery bay, so I suspect that’s where I’ll be putting my masks from now on.

What I  Learned About My Display

For the first two days, I had nothing but older watercolor work of mine up on the panels arranged in very symmetrical grid patterns.  I have Death the Kid level obsession with symmetry, which works against me sometimes when I put up art for display!  My boyfriend tried an experiment of arranging a whole new selection of my digital works in asymmetrically balanced patterns and we noticed this seemed to grab the attention of con-goers far more. Lesson learned. Gotta dump my old work, get larger pieces for max eye-catching capability, AND stop being so symmetrical!

Other Stuff I Learned About Displaying Art

  • Tiered wire magazine racks make for great mask displays!
  • Instead of stretching canvases on stretcher bars, I want to try affixing them to masonite and covering them with gel medium. Annie Stegg used this to beautiful effect!  Her prints had the texture of her original paintings after applying the gel medium.
  • Offer more sketches and/or sketchbooks.  A lot of artists have been doing this and it seems like a smart way to get a little added income from your sketches!  Instead of rotting in my art pads, I could sell my doodles in bins or baskets.  Got to break my sketch hoarding habit!
  • Start ordering things wholesale. A couple of the other artists looked at me like I was crazy when I told them I hand cut all of my mats myself.  It’s time consuming and I can save a lot of time finding places that sell mats, backing, and bags all in one place for cheap at a bulk rate. (Anyone know any suppliers? I have been looking into Matdesigners.com)
  • Mitch Foust had an amazing looking display that folded up into little collapsible panels AND included its own lighting setup!  It also costs far less than my Propanels and seems to take up much less space.  It’s called The Original SMART Exhibit and it is lovely and professional looking!  It may not work well for my outdoor shows, but it’s a good choice for the inside ones.

My First Portfolio Review

This year was the first year I worked up the courage to ask other pro artists to review my art at length.  I talked to both Justin Gerard and Dan Dos Santos, two illustrators from Muddy Colors with amazing work who gave me some stellar advice at my review and during their painting demos, which I will paraphrase here:

  • Use more reference. They knew instantly where I had fudged anatomy and it really brought down the overall believability and quality of my work where I didn’t use it.
  • Relates to the last one. Do more preliminary studies and thumbnails. Both Justin and Dan did an alarming amount of planning until the next step in their production was merely  to copy the preliminary to their final format. My planning phase has always been short and rushed and that needs to change.  They did whatever they had to, from taking model shoots, to photomanipping in whatever props and faces they needed in the prelim phase.
  • NO PHOTOMERGED TREES! *hangs head in shame*
  • Cut out ALL of the old mediocre work from my portfolio. Out of 20 pieces, only 5 were really viable to show to an art director.  This means I better get cracking on new work!  If I’m not producing at last one polished piece a month, I am not being serious about my career nor will I get the amount of high quality images I need in my portfolio in a decent amount of time.
I’ve already emailed the both of them with my sincerest thanks!  I suspect the advice they gave me is really going to change my career in the best of ways, plus they are just two wonderfully nice fellows!  Don’t be afraid to chat them up if you see them at a con.

Photo and Video Stream

I only took a couple of photos this year while I was hurrying through the Marriott to the dealer’s room, but you can see them here.  I also gave a panel on leather mask-making, which you can watch the video walkthrough here.

Here’s a preview of two really awesome cosplayers who had built their costumes around my Red Dragon and Seraphim leather masks. You look stunning, ladies!

The Red Dragon and Seraphim masquers. More of my masquers
can be seen at Angela’s Masquers.

What’s Next?

I have been debating back and forth if I will even attend Dragon*Con next year.  My budget is very limited and while I always have a blast at this con, I really want to try attending other conventions geared for artists, such as Illuxcon or Spectrum Fantastic Live Art, where art is the focus and I can make more career contacts.  If I can do them all, I will, but it’s time to venture outside of my comfort zone, meaning that Dragon*Con will be prioritized beneath these others.

But this also means I have a whole new journey ahead of me to produce new, improved work so that I’m not just showing the same old tired pieces to people.  I also need more subject matter relevant to the gaming industries in my portfolio, if I am to seriously pursue the kinds of jobs I want there.  This probably means less floofy angels and more Elves, which I can’t argue with!  I have an action plan for doing this, but I’ll save that for next journal entry!

Thanks for joining me for my Dragon*Con wrap up. See you all next year, maybe?  If not, remember me when you see cosplayers in leather masks and/or wings. Take a photo for me!

Find Me at DragonCon 2012!

Phew!  DragonCon is just a week away over the Labor Day weekend!  It occurred to me that I have such a large spread out presence this year at the show, so here’s a handy map to help you find me and all my bits and baubles this year.

(Click to enlarge)

For you Dcon newbs out there, the way you get to the art show is to come in at the ground floor of the Hyatt hotel, take two escalators down, then you’re there!  There will be a banner across the top of the door that says Artist Alley.  We’re sharing a partitioned room with the Comic Artists Alley as well!

Meet Me Face to Face!
I’ll be manning a table in the far back left corner with my wonderful boyfriend, Kevin, so be sure to come say hello to us!  I’ll be right next door to my good friend Brenda Lyons, known in most parts as Windfalcon.

I’ll have prints, bookmarks, and copies of my art book, Angelic Visions, on hand!  If you want anything in particular, be sure to let me know and I can bring it for you.  You can also order the sketch option for your book at my Etsy shop and I can give it to you at the con. Just let me know and I’ll refund your shipping if you are picking up from me directly at the con.

Gallery Display
My gallery display will have a mix of my masks, limited edition prints, beautiful large canvas prints, and embellished ACEO prints this year.

Print Shop
You can find 11×14 open edition prints and book bundles in the print shop this year as well!

Leather Mask Making Panel
I’ll be hosting my panel on creating leather masks at 7pm on Saturday in the art track, which is in the twisting labyrinth of hallways known as Hanover right next to the art show on the same floor.  I’ll have handouts of supply lists and a 50 minute instructional video, so be sure to come if you’re interested in my creative process for masks!

See you at the con!

Creative Background Noise

Work, work, work.  With my largest con of the year coming up, it’s been nonstop rush time for me!  It occurred to me that I always have interesting background noise going to help keep me rolling into the wee hours of the night.  Most of it is just interesting enough that I have something to occupy my mind, but not so distracting that I can’t work at the same time.  Here are just a few things I’ve been listening to in random order:

Documentaries (Most available on Netflix)

  • I Shouldn’t Be Alive – Stories of survival with fascinating lessons about what it takes to stay alive.
  • Medicine Men Go Wild – Continuing my survival obsession of late.  A pair of medical grad students, who are identical twins, go on a world tour to learn about different medical techniques and what they can teach modern doctors.
  • Deadly Women – Featuring multiple stories about female murderers.
  • Fatal Attractions – Examining the psychology of individuals who choose to keep exotic animals in their homes.

(Um yeah. Just goes to show you my morbid array of interests, most of which fuel my inspiration as a writer, moreso than my visual interests as an artist.)

Random Funny Podcasts

  • Spill.com – Hilarious reviews and discussions of all the latest movies.
  • Zero Punctuation – Humorous video game reviews by the fast-talking game critic, Yahtzee.
  • Extra Credits – A podcast on the art and relevancy of video games which discusses the industry and its challenges, at large.

Music for the Muse

  • Niyaz – Really atmospheric middle-eastern group with an entrancing female vocalist
  • Two Steps from Hell – EPIC orchestral group with a variety of lovely vocals. Makes whatever you’re working on while listening that much more EPIC.
  • Bat for Lashes – Recently discovered this group! Very trippy, trance sounding stuff that’s great to zone out and work to.
  • Mass Effect Remixes – This action RPG had some really fantastic music. This particular group created some wonderful orchestral remixes and produced some catchy tunes that were also unused in the game, but are still fun to listen to. “Shepard of the Galaxy” is a particularly amazing track!

That’s been my DragonCon Rush listening list!  What are you listening to while you work? Feel free to share!  I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting background noise.

CofaA: Fear & Your Own Self-Worth

It’s a cold fear that sinks into the pit of your stomach.  You’ve just gotten a request for a commission you’ve been hoping will come for a long time. You know the one. The job that’s not a $10 portrait, but a job that is remotely in the price range the GAG guide says you should be charging.  You calmly send your reply and state your price and hope that you aren’t scaring away your potential client with a garishly high price that is sure to convince them never to work with you again.  You’re a dime a dozen. Any artist can do your job!  So you quote your price lower before you even begin just so they realize what a deal they’re getting and stick with you.

And therein lies the fallacy of it all.

 

Talking SRS BIZNESS today.

I’ve been dealing with this fear and second-guessing of myself for a long time since I decided to get a little more serious about my commission rates some years ago. Gone are the days of charging $10 commissions on DeviantART just to make a little extra pocket change to attend my favorite con.  Commissions, for me, have become a matter of paying bills.  I can no longer afford my previous low rate when I have to be the responsible adult and pay my own loan bills, credit cards for bad credit, etc.  When one needs to make a living instead of pocket change, those prices aren’t just low, they’re simply impossible! (Unless you have a day job to fall back on, that is)  By my math, I need to be making $40 an hour to even afford a decent living as a self-employed artist paying for my own benefits.  You can guess how many times that’s happened…and it’s not even because people aren’t willing to pay, though that is a part of it.

I fear those days of accepting less before I was truly ready to be paid for my work ruined me.  I became too accepting of being paid too little. I HAD to be cheap to be competitive. (Big Mistake Number One)  Years of doing this has  resulted in my present self being literally scared I’m charging too much for my work.  I get a lump of fear in my throat when I quote someone, fearing that the price will be too high and they’ll say no. I have to willfully repeat to myself “Another job will come along. Do not panic.”  I have to trick myself into thinking that YES. I am worth it!  YES there ARE people out there who are willing to pay what I quote them.  It’s embarrassing to admit this as a professional, but it’s something I’ve been willfully trying to change in myself for the past few years.  Since I’ve adopted this attitude, I have realized this isn’t just a half-truth I’m tricking myself into.  The people who connect with my work have found me and hired me and I’m working on making that a more regular occurrence!

One strategy that has helped me mitigate these fears with my clients has been to quote them the average price range for their job as provided in the GAG guide.  This helps the client, who is usually ignorant of such industry standard rates, to know what they should be paying an artist.  It also helps me feel justified in my asking price.  Most clients don’t want to willfully underpay anyone.  They generally understand that times are difficult for all right now and are willing to negotiate a middle ground for a price that makes everyone happy.  If the job falls through, than at least they’re now educated in what most professionals will ask for as a rate and have more respect for your work being perceived as expensive, and therefore more professional than someone else charging pennies for what is generally going to be lesser quality work.  Your rates can and will determine your perceived value as an artist and balancing that notion with your own honest impression of your skills is a balancing act one has to learn when becoming a professional.

Then there is the matter of other artists who have the same fears I do, who go about charging less for their work when they should be charging more.  It’s a free country, so you can do this, right?  Technically, yes, but just remember that when you as an artist charge less than you’re worth, you cast the false impression to your customers (and anyone they might refer to you) that the perceived value of art, as a whole, is less than what it should be.  Lowballing prices cheapens the worth of art as an industry and makes it that much more difficult for all artists to ask a fair price.  It’s an epidemic of fear and low self-worth we live in as artists and we need to face this as a community by encouraging and educating one another.

Remember, we are worth it.  Every artist is unique with their own expression, experience, and execution that forge their professional identity.  Earning pocket change is fine, but remember to raise your prices and be fearless doing so once your work improves.  Remember also that it is easier to lower prices than it is to raise them.

Better yet, save accepting commissions for when your skills are more developed so that you can be serious about your asking price from the get-go and avoid falling into the pitfalls that can come about from charging too cheaply.  Spend the time you would be working on pocket change commissions on developing a portfolio instead, which will help you to get a better paying job in the long run.

This is the advice I wish someone had given me years ago when I first got the notion in my head that I’d like to make a living drawing pretty pictures and now I’m giving it to you.

This will be my last post for a while with DragonCon and commissions sucking up all my time and what a doozy it was!  I’d like to know if others share my fears?  How have you dealt with them?  Discuss in comments!

DragonCon 2012 To-Do List

This year is going to be my biggest year yet at DragonCon!  I’ll have a table in the artist alley, a large gallery bay, and a 3D display table in addition to all the rest!  This will also be my first year giving a panel on the basics of leather mask-making (Saturday at 7pm during the con).  I thought it would be a good exercise to share my tentative to-do list for this year’s con just to give everyone an idea of the hecticness.

–  Shoot and edit videos of segments for the mask-making demo.
–  Finish “War Prince” and “Lotus Dancer” paintings.
–  Craft 6 leather masks to add to the displays.
–  Create head displays for masks (touch up ones from last year that are damaged).
–  Double mat 10 art cards and embellish each mat with a themed drawing.
–  Order canvas prints of centerpieces.
–  Order bookmarks (order vinyl sleeves and tassles for bookmarks).
–  Make prints for the print shop and table (what a time to break in a new printer!)
–  Make sure I have enough bags and backing for all the prints.
–  Program barcodes for products at my table. Train with the new scanner between now and Dragoncon.
–  Compile portfolio for black and white interior artwork and full color character art for tabletop game companies.
–  Sign up for portfolio reviews. Still need to research which companies are represented at DragonCon and what kind of art they’re looking for.
–  Make some kind of freebie for any interested AD’s. A sketchbook? Bookmarks? Mini Calendar? Brochure? Not sure yet…

Have a sneak peek of my art gallery panel layout, for the curious:
I almost always lose my layout during setup so it’s nice to have a backup
here on the blog just in case I lose it.

To be honest, I’ve never pursued portfolio reviews at DragonCon before. It’s always been too intimidating and I never felt like I had enough of the right kinds of pieces.  Now, I feel I have a better idea  of what I am trying to be hired for and better work, to boot.  We’ll see, though!  I suspect I will be in for a cold splash of reality, but it’s one I hope that will help me to improve my presentation, overall! I’m also going to experiment with presenting my portfolio on an ipad. Yay for hand-me-down electronics!

So let the mad rush begin! May the coffee flow free and the chocolate be plentiful!

Sketch Diary: The Lotus Dancer

In the last entry I talked about how I’m working on a portfolio to target playing card and RPG book art industries. Much to my joy, I’ve found that my own set of original characters and stories lend themselves quite well to this kind of subject matter.  I have been longing for ages to get back to writing about my own characters, but writing has always taken a back seat to improving my art.

Now, it seems I can finally combine these passions by exploring these characters visually for character-driven art for my portfolio, starting with card art.  What is card art?  The best examples I can think of are the lovely works created for Magic the Gathering and World of Warcraft playing card games.  Many of these card games include the kinds of things I love to draw and are a great entry level field for me to start in.  Competition is high, but there are plenty of game companies out there and we all have to start somewhere, don’t we?

Card art entails working on images with character and narrative driven compositions.  Studying the World Of Warcraft: The Art Of The Trading Card Game Vol. 1 provided me with fantastic insight into the quality of art I can expect to match and the usual mode of presentation for characters and settings within the card format.  Most cards involve a single character with compositions that emphasize easily identifiable shapes and movement, since a card is meant to be printed at a smaller size.  I was pleasantly surprised as well at the amount of traditional art included in this collection.  Most would have you believe trad art is dead, as far as illustration goes, but this gave me a glimmer of hope (despite the fact I still intend to work more digitally now for my own benefit).

To get started with my first mock art card, I began by writing myself a brief of the character concept so I have more specific direction.  A lot of my own original characters and worlds are still not quite fleshed out, so this forces me to solidify a few concepts so that they more easily translate into a visual mode.

CARD BRIEF – The Lotus Dancer

 “A desert oasis kingdom setting. Lotus Dancers specialize in ‘captive’ audiences  high on the smoke of lotus, their costumes reflecting this connection to the flower.  They use the altered states of their onlookers to create a dreamlike atomsphere with twisting smoke, twirling scarves, and flowing hair.  They move as if they were casting a spell on their onlookers.  The bells on their costume create accompanying music as they dance.  

If one has the money, they might even be able to afford a ‘private’ audience.  Their nack for getting close to incapacitated political figures at gatherings has proven a perfect cover for assassins in the past.”

The Doodle Sheet

I always start with one of these as a ‘getting to know you‘ exercise.  Typically done without reference so that I can channel the mental image without any visual biases. Also done in pen so I won’t obsess too much about making the doodle too detailed.  This is where I rough out basic ideas for compositions.

The last few thumbnails towards the bottom of the sheet show how I’ve tilted the perspective for a more interesting skew, as if we were one of the entranced onlookers.  It also made it easier to fit in more of the dancer’s body in motion, which just wasn’t fitting in the card format otherwise.

 The Reference Sheet



I also gather references from my own stock art poses and all over the net, baring in mind that lotuses have been translated into many visual forms, from more naturalistic to the abstract lotuses we see in Egyptian art.  A big challenge will be to make her setting read as a fantasy setting and not too heavily inspired by one culture or another.  These references will all play a big part of the detail in her costume and decor of the background hall she’s dancing in.

The last thumbnail on the bottom right of the doodle sheet won out for the delightful curve of the dancer’s body through the composition.  I took the scan of the thumb into Photoshop, which leads us to…

The Tonal Study

I’m trying something different and working in grayscale to establish tones first.  This should, in theory, help me to more efficiently come up with a composition with strong tonal focus that will be effective for the card art size.  I ended up tweaking the arm from the thumbnail so that it leads the eye through the page more without closing off the figure, where I would like to show more costume detail.

I’m also trying to overcome my propensity for work with low contrast and minimal settings as well as my habit to work in far too many layers digitally so that I take far too long tweaking every detail. I’m making a concerted effort to be fearless and paint all on one (or two) layers!  One for figure, one for background.  Possibly anther for tattoos and costume.  Having too many layers has resulted in huge files that slow down my computer so I must find a way to solve this workflow problem.

Next: The Gritty Details
See this image’s thread over at WipNation.com for step-by-step process shots

Out With the Old, In With the New

Persephone. A new direction?

We’ve headed into the final round of my charity auction (for now), and I’ve got to say it’s been a roller coaster of emotion for me!  I’ve said goodbye to so many of my old pieces in the past couple of weeks, some of which sold for only a dollar.  I’ve made my peace with this, however, as I’d much rather see these pieces go to homes that will appreciate them, rather than sit in my basement gathering dust. GONE, they are, and now I feel a weight lifted knowing that this old work is not present for me to rely on anymore as the base of my body of work.

I feel like having my old work around encouraged me to be less productive. It’s easy to get comfortable when certain pieces have met with some success.  Now that they’re gone, I feel an even greater push to be productive to fill that hole in my closet. I’d ideally like to be able to produce at least one fully thought out and detailed piece a month, but it just hasn’t happened for me for one reason or another.

It’s funny to think that my work will be different now, if Persephone is a portent of things to come.  I’m afraid of not being able to present a cohesive body of work anymore since my old work still makes up the majority of the prints I sell.    As such, I’ve been slowly retiring older prints (many which I already have in the CLEARANCE section of my shop) and gradually re-branding myself with newer work more pertinent to the industries I’m aiming for.  There is such a massive undertaking of creating completely new bodies of work ahead of me!  I have to wonder if most artists go through this shedding of skin? This metamorphosis of imagery, style, and media?  Surely, I am not the only one who shifts their colors throughout their career?  I wonder if we just never see the older work of the pros we know, so we always assume they knew what they were doing from the get-go.

On that note, I’ve been thinking long and hard about just what industry it is I’d like to target right now, with the good advice from friends in said industries and art communities to guide my way.  The hard facts are that my work and fundamental skills need to be more polished to get into concept art, which is my ultimate goal.  Neither do I currently have the ability to relocate to the places where I’ll find those kinds of jobs with my significant other’s career in the mix as well.  His career takes priority right now because I am simply not ready to enter into the field I’d like to pursue, while he has advanced to the point in his field that he is ready to enter the next level.

This is one of the many challenges of having romantic relationships as an artist.  Moving can be difficult when you have to prioritize one person over the other to make sure your bills are paid, while you also have to be honest to yourself about what your potential is at the given time.  By the same token, we are so incredibly lucky to be able to advance together and provide constant support for one another.  While one person is building strength, another can man the wheel.

However, all is not lost, as there are other art fields which seem suiting for me.  Playing card art, book covers, and interior art for rpgs have caught my eye, since they all tie in to my favorite subject matter (fantasy, scifi, and character-driven works) and, for the most part, allow you to work remotely.  It’s a way to suit my needs and develop my skills while still being in an industry I can be passionate about!

I’m excited about this course correction of mine and have been brainstorming on a list of subjects I’d like to depict in a targeted portfolio for each.  I shall have to ramble on what I’m thinking of doing later, however, because this blog entry is already long enough!

Thanks to all of you who drop words of support here and in other online communities.  I feel like a flag in the wind sometimes with no control over where life is taking me.  Words of encouragement can mean so much to build the kind of positive attitude I need to reach my goals.  I started this blog to document a journey from amateur to professional and I feel like I’m finally on a course that’s not as unrealistic as it used to be.  I have goals, steps, and everything I need to get there. Now it is up to the art to pave the way!

Let the productivity begin!