Active Illustrator: 2013

End of the Semester

...never doing 16 credits again ...15 credits in the fall (2 fitness classes and 1 lectures class)

The hard work from this semester will be posted within a couple of weeks of the end of the semester.

Learn Learn Learn

Ever since discovering reader last week I have been opened up to a new world of amazing things. I just want to gush over some of my favorite artists, but that won't do me any good as long as I am not focusing on my own work.

So it's Saturday afternoon and I have a bunch of Redbox movies and have them playing as I paint. I have been working on an assignment for a couple of hours and have one maybe two hours left, but am taking a break. So here I am on my break, and my thoughts go back to something I read in the wee hours of the morning on theartorder.com, a website by Jon Schindehette. The portion on portfolio building was fantastic. But a challenge he posted has been on my mind.

How will I execute this? I was thinking color would be one of the keys for me to accomplish what I want, but what is it I want? Which category or categories would I submit it to (I'm leaning towards the book covers, or interiors)? Where would I find the time to do it? It/They would be great for my portfolio (which is lacking right now).

But I need to get back to my homework and then prepare for my Saturday night date with my wife.

Things to check out until next week.

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com
http://jungpark.blogspot.com
http://kekai.blogspot.com

Discovery of new tools

Thursday night (1-31-12) I was in my evening lecture class at Utah Valley University and an illustrator/designer/instructor Jory Dayne spoke to us (http://www.jorydayne.com). I am not 100% what he spoke about because my notes are being recorded as my attendance for that day, but he made mention of a very handy tool, Google reader. He talked about how he used it to follow blogs of other artists, so I did that very thing, and took my artist folder in my bookmarks and set myself to follow them in google reader (unfortunately N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle don't have an active blog). But I did find something very interesting that an amazing artist named Daarken (http://daarken.com/blog) posted which went along really well with something one of my illustration instructors talked to us about.

"It has been a few years since I worked in a studio, so it was nice to get back to working with other artists. As a freelancer I tend to stay at home and not interact with the outside world. Working with other artists can really inspire you and give you an insight into their design process and how they solve problems. Artists usually tend to have a certain style and design sense, so after awhile your concepts might look the same. What is great is that I can look at what the other guys are doing and say “hey, I never thought of using that shape.”

I think collaboration when creating a world is essential in order for it to have a believable and cohesive look. I know sometimes as a freelancer when I’m working on a game I don’t feel like I really know what the world is all about because I’m not shown what the other artists are working on. Again, that is one of the great things about being a staff artist. You can just look at what the people around you are doing, you can’t exactly do that when you work from home."

It's a lot to digest, and the entire post is fascinating, but this segment has something I really wanted to look at, "What is great is that I can look at what the other guys are doing and say 'hey, I never thought of using that shape.'"

The reason I bring out this sentence is because of what we have been going over in a visual literacy class, and talking about shape and how it relates to the readability of the image. When I read this it started to make sense to me, we can look at how other artists work, and the techniques they use and try and try to emulate it. But at the heart of it all is the shapes they use.

Here are the artists Daarken is making reference to, and look at there work (I would suggest book marking them) and see the way shape is used to increase the readability of the illustration. Look a a figure in the scene and imagine it silhoetted and blacked out and see if it's still readable.

Daarken: www.daarken.com
Tyler Jacobson: www.tylerjacobsonart.com
Wayne Reynolds: www.waynereynolds.com
Chase Stone: http://chase-sc2.deviantart.com
Sam Bruley: www.samburleystudio.com

I learned a lot just by writing this and am inspired not to work on some homework so I can get to my personal projects.

The first day of classes, this is going to be an interesting semester. I am repeating one of my previous classes to make up for a grade I deserved. It matched the effort and quality of work that I produced in that class.

Because I messed up 2 classes I was put on academic probation this semester, which almost cost me my financial aid and has taken me out of any possibility of getting scholarships in the fall (hoo ray for making bad choices...)

So this semester I am approaching school and life differently. I am listening to the wise council of my wife and academic adviser, have a schedule and get help to manage the stress, schedule everything I can, and keep doing it so I can succeed.

So I am including some of my work from the beginning of me coming back to school in 2011, until where I am now. I will be posting my pieces of work as I get them scanned and will update on Monday and Friday. With some of the pieces I put up I will show my process, and if you can provide any constructive feedback, or if you don't like what is posted, just let me know, and give specific things you would suggest.

Here is my first couple of pieces from between September 2011 - August 2012