Round of Links #4

Be The Leaf! - LeSean Thomas -- A collection of storyboards from The Legend of Korra, as linked from one of it's storyboard artists.

John Shindehette - What is a Portfolio? -- What are you building towards?

Art of Manliness - NUTS! Why Remembering Christmas 1944 Can Change Your Life -- A little inspiration for when you're feeling down in the dumps about whatever you may be inspired to do.

Mark Kennedy - Arcs and Transformations Part One -- Good notes on storytelling deconstruction

Mark Kenndy - Arcs and Transformations Part Two -- More of the above

Round of Links #3

PVP - Know Your Creator Rights - Some good words about ownership from a veteran in the online business.

Art Order - Getting Serious - As a famous baseball player once said, "90% of this game is half mental."

Art Order - Removing Roadblocks - Like I said....

Temple of the Seven Golden Camels - Arcs and Transformation - Some good thoughts on creating characters that learn.

Page (Card) 4

Another card in a series. I'm hoping to make a short story out of this.

Also, Spider Lady!

Page (Card) 3

Another card continuing a card from earlier

And another sketch of Edge, who I haven't drawn in forever.

Not so recognizable

Doesn't look familiar in any way, but it is supposed to be Street Fighter's Makoto

And some more sketches after reading Otoyomegatari, one of my more recent favorite mangas in awhile.

So many pencils...

Shasta cares not for your piddly attempts at punching.

 And another slightly more image of the trio I sketched out in marker a couple weeks ago. One is obviously Shasta, but who are the other two?

Next Round of Links

Jim Zubkovich - How Do I Find an Artist? - Very insightful take on the best way to approach an artist if you're a writer -- or, if you're an artist, how you should expect to be approached by a writer worth his salt.

Jim Zubkovich - Rates, Cons, and Distribution - Another useful read, but I want to highlight the points at the end of this article that every professional, let alone artist, should pay attention to:

- Don’t spend money you don’t have/can’t do without, even for your creative dreams. 

Do you REALLY need to buy the latest copy of that digital art program? Do you REALLY need the latest and greatest $500 Copic market set?

- Don’t assume you are the exception to the rule.

Just because you think you're awesome (and you might be!) don't expect everyone else to immediately buy in to your greatness. If you want to be in the business of having people pay you a living wage to make beautiful things, you're going to have to work just like everyone else.

- Be brutally honest with yourself about the quality of the work you’re producing and strive to improve each and every time you put your stuff out there.

Always be asking yourself, 'Would I actually pay money for what I'm making right now?' If you can't answer yes, there's probably things you can do to improve.

Art Order - How to Commission Art - The document Jon Shindehette link to is a wealth of information, both on how a commissioner should expect to approach artists, as well as how artists should expect to approached and treated by any commissioner worth your time. A contract for art is just like any other relationship, and should be built on mutual respect.

Art Order - Artist as Brand, Part 2 - Lengthy, but worth your time.

Something a little more detailed

Yeeaaah booooyyyeeee...

And another slightly more detailed card featuring the same OCs from last week, Shasta included.

I should start making an index of these indexes...

More Shasta, still trying to nail her down.

And page 2 of an intended short series of cards, based on my earlier perspective practice.

Keeping things fresh

One sketch to keep loose and to stay awake...

 And one of 3 of my OCs, shaded in marker.

Colored Pencil Practice

A revival of one of my old OCs, Shasta, sporting a little Kingdom Hearts style gear:

Always feels nice to get some more coloring practice in, even if it's not digital.

And, of course, the original with just the ballpoint pen:

Tess and a Mage

Yet another colored pencil drawing of Crybringer's infamous Demon Mage, Tess!

Also one of my own OCs, a fire mage. Hopefully also soon to be colored.

Some more finished drawings

Did a little shading work from my earlier card of Yoko (FYI, markers only work well on card stock if you don't want them to turn all curly-queue!).

Also a little perspective practice because I stink at that kind of thing.

More links

I follow multiple artist blogs, many of which are veterans in their respective industries. While reading alone will by no stretch make you a better artist, there are always tips that an be picked up from literally anywhere. Art is one of the few professions in which all of the information that you REALLY NEED in order to be successful can be placed out in the open without restriction.

There are far too many good articles out there to list in one place, and if I tried to link everything I came across that looked useful this blog would become very watered down with other peoples' opinions indeed. That said, I have found a few good links worth your attention. I'll try to do a few more of these whenever I collect a good batch of links.

John Schindehette - Artist as Brand, Part 1: John Schindehette works as Art Director for Wizards of the Coast, but he is a genius when it comes to the business of art. Highly recommend browsing his entire blog archive, not just this entry.

James Gurney - Line Direction: Short, direct, but highly informational.

Mark Kenndy - The Environment Should Also be a Character: More validation for why one needs to know about drawing EVERYTHING, not just cute characters.

More fellow minions

After seeing the sketch of one of my coworkers with a ZZ Top beard, another coworker asked me to do a drawing of her. So, naturally, I obliged.

And another index card that I doodled up, adding in a little marker shading.More

Borderlands 2 Index Card

Day job has officially been keeping me too busy to draw, but here's something from the previous week!

Been getting a kick out of Borderlands 2 recently, so I drew a buddies' Siren. Still looking for time to color this one.

You're generic post-apocalyptic 'Can't we all just get along?' drawing.

Cowboy ZZ

A buddy of mine at work requested I draw him with a ZZ Top style beard. Sounded like an interesting opportunity to practice, so here you go, for your viewing pleasure:

For the record, yes, he is a Cowboys' fan, and yes, he was weeping after the game today.

The Art Center - Wouter Tulp: Thoughts on Character Design

I attend to far too many blogs with excellent recommendations on how to study and think to improve one's art. If I reblogged every single worthwhile post I found, this page would quickly become flooded and become nothing more than an echo of other people's sites.

However, this is definitely one worth reading. It is concise but still contains a wealth of information: http://theartcenter.blogspot.com/2012/10/wouter-tulp-thoughts-on-character-design.html

Gurann Lagann and other sketches

Continuing my recent spate of index card art, have some lineart of one of my recent favorite animes.

And the other things I dream up when my day job gives me a little free time.

Some food for thought...

A good critical thinking blog post from one of my favorite sites, The Art of Non-Conformity, on what it means when you actually start to gain some traction on your business (whether art related or otherwise), and what it means to hustle:

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/around-here/

More sketches during downtime...

Gotta take advantage of what little time you get!

The Demon Mages!

More index card art, and for once I kind of like how the lineart turned out. Anyway.

Behold The Demon Mages by the epic Crybringer!

Ari!

Tess!

Tara!

Ziggy!

Like everything else I've been doing lately, ballpoint pen on the back of index cards.

I almost don't want to screw these up by trying to color them....

Cryamore Sketch Card #2

Couldn't help myself, I had to do another one. At least I have a better picture of it this time.

It's battle-damage Esmyrelda!

Some more sketches from the last few days...

I'm putting a little more effort into getting in at least one sketch a day. Thankfully these days I'm not drawing on anything bigger than an index card.

Weirdly enough, I found an interesting way to ensure I put out at least one drawing a day is to have a 365 day calendar, and use the back of the sheet that I tear off for my sketch of the day. My day is not finished until the back of that calendar sheet has something on it.

(5 points if you can tell which calendar I've been using!)

In Motion

Slow progress is still progress!

And a couple more doodles:

Doodles and more

Progress!

And a few doodles from my pocket sketchbook that I carry around:

I don't get a whole lot of time to draw these days, so it's become even more important to use what spare time I have in the best manner possible. And that, right now, is using it to provide some interesting things for you guys to see! Enjoy!

Let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like me to draw, I'm always open to more ideas!

Haunted Archer

I'm going to make more of an effort to post some of the small sketches I do whenever I have free time. It's dawning more and more on me that any time to draw, no matter how basic or how rough, is precious, and I want to make sure that it gets somewhere that's a little more durable than the backpack I keep most of my things in right now.

Done on a 3x5 sketch card. I really want to ink and color this one, time permitting!