Hey, gang, I'm new to the forums and thought I might introduce myself. My name is Corey Johnston, I'm from San Diego, and I want to learn how to be a part-time illustrator.
I have a part-time job already as the Costume faculty member at a local university (well... It's supposed to be part-time, but for anyone who has ever done theatrical costuming you'll know it swings between utter overload to vast nothingness at various times--much like some illustration careers, I imagine). I teach Costume Design, Fundamentals of Theatrical Design, and a sewing unit of Tech Theatre as well as manage the costume shop and design/build all the shows for an Undergrad BA and a Grad MFA in Acting. I am blessed with the luxury of being able to invest some time into developing my artwork, but I simply logistically can't do full time illustration.
I am currently enrolled in self-guided Schoolism classes, but I am finding their curriculum to be sharply slanted toward current and potential artists in the concept art and character art career fields, and while there are a lot of renowned people involved they don't necessarily know how to teach... Suffice to say as a teacher of 20 years this has caused me all kinds of angst... hehe... The caché of success does not equate the capacity to teach. Jus' sayin'.
I'd been carrying a preconceived notion that my costuming skills might translate over into gaming and animation but I was ignoring all the other opportunities I might pursue. It wasn't until I found Will Terry's vid blogs that I started to let myself truly understand how Illustration is a much larger field than just concept art for games and movies, and opened myself up to different pathways. His descriptions of what pieces should be in a portfolio broadened my mind to the expansiveness of what's out there.
Regardless, I feel like I still need to develop my fundamentals--and when I saw that Proko had his class on SVS I realized this was probably the place for me.
I read an article that said people who read fiction develop deeper empathy than those who read historical biographies or other non-fictional works. I don't know why or how, but I know it's true--I see it every time someone goes to the theatre. Audiences witness something that influences their emotional state, whether it's to make them happy or sad or philosophical or even outright prompt them to change their minds about something. I'd like to do that with my illustration: create imaginative imagery that helps develop empathy or makes a person think or feel--either through story or context or abstraction or style or whatever. Maybe I can help make the world a better place somehow. Just a little. One viewer at a time.
I got an iPad Pro 12.9" last year around this time, and since then I dove into Procreate with a passion. Most of my work thus far is heavily based on photo reference, and I'm looking to find better ways of using it over simply re-drawing it verbatim. My work can be found here (but be warned, there's some nudity from my figure construction studies):
https://www.coreyartusimagery.com/
My costume design portfolio is here:
https://www.coreyjohnstondesigns.com/
Anyway, I thought I'd say hello and introduce myself. I'm looking forward to diving into SVS classes soon (can't in the immediate future, but will be doing so soon).