January 28th, 2008 by admin
Handprint.com is a strangely organized site that has some really great information regarding watercolors, the tools associated with the paint and their usage . Click here for the site map!
January 15th, 2008 by admin
Illustrator Nate Williams has had work appear in magazines, fashion, music, advertising and tons of other stuff. [See his portfolio]. He’s not exactly in the animation, comic, fantasy or anime artist world, but I think he’s got some good advice on being an illustration artist, which turns out to be good advice on being an artist in general.
Snippet:
Marketing your illustrations
All your marketing efforts should point back to your web site. A web site is a place where you can centralize information, keep it up to date, and gives the client a few actionable options (contact you via email, phone, subscribe to your RSS feed so they are updated whenever you post new work, book mark a piece of art they like, etc).
So the first thing you do is make sure you have a good web site.
—
Informational
You can save yourself a lot of extra work by asking a few questions up front.
First, get the basic information:
* Dimensions
* Resolution
* Color or Black and white
* Important Dates
* etc
If this is the first time working with this person ask them:
* Why did you choose me for this project?(I like your concepts, I like your painterly style, your work is cute and works well for teenage girl magazines, your style is rough and dark and works well for this editorial piece on drug abuse, etc)
* Which pieces of work do you particularly like and why?(I like the man on the boat cause it’s funny, I like all the texture in the piece you did for Converse, etc)
* How did you discover my work?
This will give you a better idea of what the client likes about your work, why they chose you for this particular project and what they expect.
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January 15th, 2008 by admin
n.design studio is an interesting place, particularly if you’re into using Adobe Illustrator for vector drawings. Nick La, the website creator, is a web designer and has graciously put a ton of illustrator tutorials up that will help any artist interested in learning about vector art. I was able to use his photo tracing tutorial to practice tracing over my sketches with the vector tool. Still sloppy, but a decent start on getting comfortable with the process! He also has wordpress themes, dreamweaver tutorials and much more. Plus his site’s web design is pretty bangin’. 
January 11th, 2008 by admin
Admin note: Neondragon posted this on her Livejournal, calling it “a sad story” … and I thought it would make a great little mini tutorial on the “ACEO” (sketchcards, art cards, etc) art card craze that’s taken over as of late. So enjoy! Neondragon does some amazing fantasy work, so also check her site out! Please note that the tutorial has paraphrased her exact words to allow for some extra artistic information and for formatting. The original posting is located HERE.
ACEO Art Cards — A Mini Tutorial
by Jessica “Neon Dragon” Peffer @ NeonDragonArt.com
Intro Notes: A lot of artists are making “ACEO” art cards as of late, which are pocket-sized original artwork done on a standard 2.5×3.5 card. Hundreds of artists make them, and the variety in style and medium contributes to the majority of the appeal. So I got it in my head that I was gonna make me an ACEO of a nice dragon.
1. I taped off the drawing area, then drew a teeny dragon.
2. I painted flat colors with teh paints!
3. I added some shadin’s. (for depth)
4. I’m like “LOL neon paint”!
5. I drew with my pencil cuz that’s all I knew to do!
6. And boom! ACEO! I peeled off the tape and admired my nice clean white edge. I was pretty proud…
Detail shots:
7. And then…then I was like “Oh hey, it’s like real art. I should sign it. Artists do that, right? I’m an artist lol.”
Why do I do these things!? That was just about the worst placement I could have chosen. And I had to use ink… because of the slight sheen the pencil sig that I started didn’t work.
8. But I fixed it! The next day. I repainted the background and you can’t even see that it was repainted. It actually works better now. It’s a blue violet that’s more vibrant, and it really makes the orange pop — LOL, color theory!
Finito! Check out Neondragon’s work @ NeonDragonArt!
January 1st, 2008 by admin
From the website:
Young American Comics is proud to present 52 Comic Challenges!
52 Comic Challenges is a weekly exercise designed to shake you out of old habits and encourage you to try new things and push your limits in comic making. We’ve made a habit of our own: a habit of creating cool experimental comics and hosting large scale group anthologies. In that same vein, we hope these exercises will inspire your creativity and encourage you to try new things. All of the exercises are specifically designed to help you experiment with a specific element of the comic-making process.
This sounds like a fun thing to do if you’re a comic book type or interested in making your own comic. Also, it looks like the people that do a challenge link up to their rendition of the challenge if they so choose, so you can see other people’s interpretation of the theme. Which is always good for learning, IMHO Check it out!