Process 1: Egg Laying

How I work….my usual process for creating illustrations first begins with a central concept or theme. This is concept will be the problem that I will be seeking to solve with my illustration. An example of this can be anything from a small paragraph brief describing what I am to design to a short and simple concept like “an illustration featuring a character fighting a Beholder”. For commissioned work this brief is provided by the client; for personal work I am able to call the shots and find inspiration in anything from the books I read, the games I play, to everything I see around me. Once I have this initial direction I usually let it simmer in my mind for some time (an hour to a few days depending on the time I have available) then I create a thumbnail of how I envision the final illustration. Many artists whose processes I have read about tend to do many thumbnails before arriving at the final composition, but I find that my first gut instinct is usually the course I take in the end. That being said I still usually do a few thumbnails just to double check myself and make sure that I have create the best possible solution. One artist who has a similar process described it as “laying an egg”: where as other artists create many thumbnails trying to search for and build up to the final design, I will mull over the concept till the illustration just comes to me. Thinking…thinking…thinking…*pop*…and the final thumbnail is down.

As I mentioned above this thumbnail portion is all about solving for composition within the picture plain. It is about organizing all the needed elements into the image in the best possible layout. The two major factors I consider are the visual aesthetics (does it look good) and how does the composition affect the story I am trying to tell; does it clearly communicate the base idea to the viewer. Another factor that I need to work on is the emotional impact an image will have on the viewer. Through looking back at my current work I see that my work needs more emotional content. Having strong emotional content and not just a pretty picture will help convey the message/story of my illustrations so much more.

Once I do have my final thumbnail, which is usually just a scribble on a page that only I can understand I will refine that thumbnail and try to solve a lot of the anatomy and major design elements in this small tiny size before I blow it up. Below are a few examples of unrefined thumbnails I have created for personally directed projects.


Beginning to solve these issues early on helps to get the work portion of the illustration done early on, so that later on when I am doing the final drawing all the major issues, such as anatomy, perspective, and composition have already been solved for allowing me to focus solely on drawing the image and the fine details. If I don’t solve all those issues in the thumbnail portion I find it really slows down my process once I get to the final illustration because I am not only having to draw and think of the final designs of the major elements (i.e. character costumes, props, etc) and texture details, but having solve for the anatomy, perspective, etc. I should also note that all my thumbnailing is done in black & white or monochrome; color comes into play later on once I have a final composition. For me I try to only focus on solving one issue at a time: concept, composition, then perspective, anatomy, costume, color, etc.

I enjoy making thumbnails as part of my process as well because if I am in the middle of an illustration and have an idea for a new illustration I can scribble down a thumbnail of it quickly and archive it for later use. Thumbnails are like an artist’s shorthand. Even now on Hisa’s desktop (my computer) I have a folder of thumbnails that I have done just waiting for me to make into final illustrations; a little basket of eggs.

A New Beginning, A New Direction PART 2: a Business Revelation

I am approaching the three year mark for being out of college and know that I am not where I want to be neither as an illustrator nor for my life in general. Not that where I am is necessarily bad, it’s just I expected more from myself and I need to do more. In a new book I recently picked up 'Breaking Into Freelance Illustration: the guide for artists, designers and illustrators' by Holly DeWolf, the author talks about how many new illustrators place almost no time into the business side of being a freelance illustrator and focus mostly on the art side because that is what they are comfortable with. However, it is the business side that needs the most attention. I find that is definitely the case with myself. I have completely neglected the business side of being an illustrator and justified it to myself over the year by using excuses that my art was not yet ready or that I just needed one more website update (all excuses just to procrastinate it). The author goes on to list a few points concerning one’s illustration career and how it will always be just a hobby if one keeps these certain bad habits. Here is the author’s list (14):

“Your illustration career will continue to be a hobby if:
1. You’re not proactive about getting work.
2. You’re not actively getting work out there.
3. You’re missing opportunities right in front of you.
4. You’re letting fear take over.
5. You’re not sure who your market is.
6. You don’t know whom you would like to work for.
7. You don’t see yourself as a business.
8. You aren’t actively seeking new markets for your work.”

This list really hit home when I read it. I have been calling myself a freelance illustrator for the last couple years, but in truth I never really fully grasped the concept beyond the basic idea because I’ve been ignoring the business side of things, which is essential in being a successful freelancer. This list hit so hard because I have been doing all these bad habits to some degree or another. I’ve been making art, doing mild company research etc, completing the occasional freelance job, but I have never really seen myself as a business owner or in business to make a living. For me working has always been associated with punching a clock and working for some company; never something I would be doing on my own time at home. And so I have allowed my part-time jobs, which were just supposed to be for gas money till my career took off after school, to take center stage in my working life and keeping illustration in the hobby corner. The idea of truly being self-employed was never something I embraced and took hold of; till now.
So, this revelation is helping me to reform my views of what it means to be an illustrator and more importantly how to live as one. I am a business owner, illustration is what I love, I highly enjoy it, and it along with my creativity are the products that I am selling in order to make a living. As I am learning more and more about the business of being an illustrator I am excited for the future because I now can see a path into the future, a path to move forward along, which is something I have not seen for some time.

A New Beginning, A New Direction PART 1: the Purpose of this Blog

Earlier this year when I started this blog I had no real set plans for it. I just knew that I wanted to have one and that others had told me they are good for artists to have. As I have been working on my art this year and contemplating not only what I want to do with my art, but with my life and career as well I have reevaluated my plans and goals. As for this blog it has long needed more focus, a purpose beyond mere random rants that occurred to me at the time I sat down to write and more consistent activity from me as well. So, in light of me trying to refocus myself and get my life started as an open for business independent free-lance illustrator this blog is going to get retooled as well. The face lift for it has already started as you may have noticed. Here I plan to chronicle my journey as an illustrator. I intend to cover such topics as: analyzing my art creation process as well as those of other artists, critiquing my work, discussing the business of being a freelance illustrator, investigating the works of those artist who inspire me and seeing what makes their illustrations work, and my personal experiences as an illustrator both from the perspectives of being an artist and a self-employed business owner. I also plan to include entries on the industries I am interested in creating work for such as the game industry, book illustration, comics, and role-playing games to name a few. Also, if you are interested in art books or art related literature please check out my new bookshelf in the sidebar. There I will be reviewing many of the books I read and if you have any suggestions for books I would love to hear them. One can never have too many books.




*An in-progress scan of an illustration I am currently doing the final penciled drawing for. It will feature a bard and barbarian fighting a host of drake and kobold like creatures. The drawing is going fairly well; for this drawing I am trying out a new comic board I picked up at the Motor City Comic Con earlier this year. I usually use Blue Line Pro's nice Pro 3ply bright white boards, but this new one is their Strathmore Premium 3ply art boards so I thought it would be better. However, where as the Pro 3 ply boards are nice and smooth like hot-press Bristol board the Strathmore paper these new boards are printed on is more like cold-press Bristol board. It is far more fragile of a surface, so when I draw on it with my sharp 4H or 2H lead it tears up the surface of the board. This is slowing down the drawing process quite a bit because I have to be very careful while I draw.*

A refreshing lake breeze

Hello everyone I just got back from a week long family vacation up north. It was fantastic. The Traverse City/Lenland area is my favorite area in all of Michigan; somewhere I would love to live for a time. Nice cool crisp air blowing in off the lake, lots of nice woods and forests around you, but also having a vibrant clean city nearby (Traverse) if one is in the mood for a more urban setting. Plus, it is an art mecha up there. Granted it is more of a fine art vibe, but it is still a very concentrated creative area with galleries everywhere. One neat place we came across up there (thanks to my mother’s internet hunting) is this renovated asylum called ‘The Village’, which is now being turned into not only apartments for people and artists, but the first floor of the entire complex is devoted to unique individually owned businesses (no corporate chains). So, there are a lot of shops owned by artists + crafters there and the walls are covered in paintings. It reminded me a lot of the CCS environment and just being there for a short time was really inspiring. It just made me want to come home and paint. I saw this awesome blow fish painting there. It was a reasonable $235 for its size, but I couldn’t justify it being that I don’t have a whole lot of extra money nor any walls to hang it on. So, instead I spent quite some time looking at it and am now painting my own blow fish painting for fun; and trying to capture the magic that caught me in the painting I saw up north.


[It’s just nice to sit in the middle of the woods or on a boat in the middle of a lake and just relax in nature. ]

In keeping my hands busy and in an attempt to maintain an active sketchbook I’ve taken up giving myself assignments to complete each week; starting with the ‘100’ assignment Arvell Jones gave out in his comic drawing class back at CCS. Two weeks ago I began it with 100 eyes; then last week 100 noses; this week 100 lips. The reason for these choices is that I am also working my way through The Human Figure by John Vanderpoel and that is the orders of his chapters. It is a great book that goes into extreme detail concerning the form and structure of the human body. His insight into the human form and the way he describes it have helped me so much in drawing these forms from my head with no reference.


Here is a small preview of the fantasy commission illustration I am working on. The rough line art is now complete. The next step is to go over the 4H lines with darker lead, thicken my lines, vary line weight, add shadows/blacks and prep the image for inking (I hope). Still not sure where the client will want to go for the final rendering: more of a comic style image vs. a full painting. I hope the first; I like line art too much.

I recently purchased David Finch’s Gnomon Workshop comic illustration DVD. It is a great 140 min video of nothing but him drawing and talking about how he draws. It is always neat to hear another artist talk about their mental workings concerning how they draw, their mindset, etc. When working he is all about drawing shadows not lines and using shadow to create form and bring out his image from the surface of the paper. This is a completely different approach then my own. I usually focus on line work, tight details, and using controlled line work to create my images. So, it was really eye opening to hear this new perspective from an artist whose work I admire. Mr.Finch is also into detail and a lot of it; something I can completely relate too.

What’s to come? Well, after I finish up this commission drawing this week and the blowfish painting I plan to create some illustrations based on games and series I love. I have never really allowed myself to create images of characters already designed thinking it was better to be original, but this is foolish especially if I want to go into illustration and comic illustration where I will have to illustrate other peoples’ characters. In which case, many of the characters being illustrated will have already established looks. First up I am planning a splash image based on the 90s cyberpunk anime series -Bubblegum Crisis. I have been itching to do a cyberpunk image and I recently re-watched the series. Then I have a group of four illustrations in mind based on the game I am current playing for my DS, Etrian Odyssey II. This will be a series of four connecting illustrations with each of the four panels featuring 2-3 characters from my guild inside the labyrinth (the environment of the game). While I plan to have the environment carry over from panel to panel the seasons will change from image to image: spring, summer, fall, winter. Then if I am still in the mood perhaps an illustration of the X-men or Alice in Wonderland…hmmmm so many possibilities. I am very excited to get to work on them. With that note I bid you all a great summer and am off to the drawing board to begin the final line art on the commission.

Reddaydream.com Version 2.0 is now up and running!!

Konbanwa minna-san,

I hit my deadline! I had my new site launched with the beginning of June and have since added an improved links page, a new resume', and a revised about page. I am very happy with the way it turned out and the new gallery system. Plus, with some of the design changes I made and techniques I used in constructing the site it now only takes me a few minutes to update the site versus more than a few hours with my last site. Please check it you and let me know what you think.

June has been a fairly busy month between work, birthdays, and the many open houses (including my little brothers). There is something going on every weekend. I do have some great news: the local author who approached me in regards to doing a commission for him has decided to go ahead with the project; so, I have finished the four comps, and am set to present them tomorrow.

In trying to carry on the fire I had while creating my new site I am launching my personal project: Operation Step Forward. With a focus on finding freelance work and/or employment, but also continuing and devoting more time to learning Japanese, taking up some sort of physical activity to work my body more into shape, and become a more disciplined artist. I am working to make solid steps forward on all these fronts; not just baby steps, I am beyond those now, but solid progress demonstrating steps. In addition I am still saving money away into my move-out-fund and am half way to my goal.

I am afraid I cannot yet post the comps or sketches I have been working on for the commission, but will definitely post something up as soon as I can. I hope all of you out there are doing well.

Best wishes everyone,

Lance

Moving Along Nicely

Greetings everyone, I can't believe it's May already; almost half way through the year. So much to do. Things are progressing nicely for my website update. I'm making the site a little sleeker and update friendly. I also found this neat pre-programmed gallery that I am hoping I will be able to incorporate into my new site; making it considerably easier to update every month as well as looking more professional. I was really excited when I found it online yesterday. I finally decided on a layout for it, which is the hardest part. Now it's just a matter of gathering the right materials to put into the layout.

As for art: most of my time has been spent in making new banners for my site and designing the site itself. However, I did finish the bench designs and orthographic drawings for the Type 3 game. Now I am working on designing trash receptacles for the city; those should be finished by tomorrow evening. Once my new site goes active next weekend I will be able to switch gears and focus on the commission illustration I mentioned last post (I am still working on the specifics of the deal with the client) and getting back into simple sketching: something I have always struggled with.

Back to work for now. Have a great weekend and be sure to keep an eye out for the new site next weekend. (Here is a small preview of the rough layout.)

I haven't fallen into the void I swear....

Greetings all,

Sheesh, you postpone a post for a week and how quickly that week turns into four...
Things have been busy: both good busy and bad busy. On a great note one of my best friends since middle school came home from England over these last few weeks and got married. Gratz Jenna & Laurence! On a not so good note one of the companies I currently work for is not doing so hot due to the economy, bad planning, etc and the forecast is that they will not last to 2010. On a good note a good friend from high-school who has been away serving his time in the military since high-school has come home, for good, so it is great to hang out with and see him again. Works been busy and somewhat chaotic/depressing due to the company's bad fortune, not giving me much time in between to devote to my art, but don't fear I have made some decent progression.

If you have visited my site you may be familiar with the ‘harpy-sisters’ drawing that is currently on display there. That is a drawing I have been meaning to ink (like a traditional comic book) for about a year and a half. Well, being that I've been so busy with work I did not want to start anything completely new so I went and inked that drawing. This is the second major piece I have inked now (the first being the Night-Elf illustration) and I keep learning more each time. It turned out great; really making the line-art pop. In this post is a little cut out from the whole inked piece, which you will be able to see in my site update next month (middle of May, I swear I am going to do all in my power to see that I hit that deadline: give up sleep, food, fun, everything; even if I have to post it while it’s still under construction…something new will be up).

I finished the drawings for and inked the three new banners I mentioned I had started in my last post. They turned out well, just need to be painted now and will be up for viewing with the new site update in May. Also, someone who approached me a while ago in regards to doing a freelance illustration for them re-approached me this past week and it looks like I may have a freelance fantasy illustration commission in the works. Woot! We just need to meet up and finalize everything. So, currently in the works I have the site update, a second set o new banners, a fantasy illustration, many things to paint (keep putting them off, because making new drawings is so much more fun), and a few illustrations all in various stages of the production process. The concept work for Type3 is still progressing as well: currently I am working on some renderings and orthographic drawings of props for a scene in a promo video for them.

Thanks for stopping by and checking in on me. If you ever have any thoughts, questions, commissions, feedback, oh' anything at all please feel free to email me.

Best wishes to you all.
Lance