https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEP5zb_eXvX2q2BlH8XkXNA/videos

I discovered Pete Beard's "Unsung Heroes of Illustration" videos a few months back and will visit it from time to time.
I found myself watching this channel this morning and it was a lovely balm for an otherwise stressful day.

It occurred to me that if there was ever an audience who should know about this channel it was anyone who has subscribed to SVS! The creator has a very mellow british accent and the artwork is straight up inspirational.

You'll find artists that you didn't know you loved, and possibly discover a historical connection to the artists that you already love.

Please post other resources like this that you've discovered.

Watched the video. My verdict: I don't know.

There are two different issues being blended in the video. Content vs arrangement of information.

As for content -- I've never seen Dunn's book but nothing he highlighted was unique or original to me. I've been drawing, learning, and teaching a long time and these are simply concepts and techniques that I've learned over the years. They are fundamentally facts. Facts are not protected by copyright.

Arrangement of information: Given that this is a fact-based book that is designed to teach, the arrangement of information is important and is more readily protected by copyright. From the video there appears to be a basis for a claim on this point.

BUT Dunn has not seen the finished book. Amount and nature of infringement matters. The only way to properly evaluate is by putting each book side by side and carefully evaluating both. Ideally, done by an impartial third party.

Instead we are only seeing one side that is clearly highly biased.

With so many out of school Oliver Jeffers, Mac Barnett and Mo Willems, Tony DiTerlizzi are doing a daily read, chat, draw of their books and characters.

How cool is that‽

Oliver Jeffers reads and discusses one book per day on Instagram Live:
https://www.instagram.com/oliverjeffers

Mac Barnett reads and offers a running commentary on one book per day on Instagram Live:
https://www.instagram.com/macbarnett

Mo Willems does a drawing and shows dummies, sketches and finished art for a character each day on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/RmzjCPQv3y8

Tony DiTerlizzi is doing a live drawing each day on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TonyDiterlizzi/

Thought I'd share a recent master copy study. The top image is by Kenard Pak. There was a fairly spirited discussion in my agent group about mediums and techniques he used to create it, so I decided to have a go at how I would have made the image. (FYI -- a whole bunch of physical media pieces that are composed/layered digitally)

But the great bit is how master copies like this give you permission to do things that you might not otherwise think of. I will definitely be incorporating elements of this method into future work!

Every so often I try out new assignments for myself. I love the idea that by simply changing the lighting of a scene you can alter the experience for the viewer. I recently had a go with this european village photo I found. Starting with this bright, sunny daytime scene ...

I spent a few hours turning it into this moody, mysterious night scene.

Pretty fun! Just thought I'd share.

Call this a shameless plug for my SVS Dynamic Expressions class if you like (enrolling now) -- but I'm kinda' excited that the new Venom movie is coming out. I've been fairly mixed on this so far (still wounded by Spiderman 3) but gotta' say the trailers make it look pretty good!

I spend a lot of time dissecting picture books. Trying to understand why I love certain ones and why I'm non-plussed by others. Then I try to bring that insight to my own books.

This is a page turn from one of my favorites "Nothing" by Jon Agee.
Check out how he uses the slow build of sequential images on this spread . . .

. . . to really pay off the utter insanity of this one*.

*That said, I do think there is a missed opportunity here.
Dutching the camera to shift away from the perfect 90 degree angles of this spread would have added to the overall sense of frenetic energy, and the kind of social pressure craziness that ensues for the next few pages.

This is a super smart book. Totally worth a check out from your local library.

@Laurel-Aylesworth There are no rules to laying out a dummy. Every book is going to be different. I'm a fan of taking various books that are either similar in subject matter or that "feel" similar to the book I'm dummying up. Photographing each page and laying it out as thumbnails. Then looking to see what choices the illustrator made. I find it's easier to see patterns in pacing, compositional choices, color scripting etc.

For example in Dan Santat's BEEKLE it's clear the choice to deviate from full bleed spreads is a choice rarely and carefully made. Everything is full bleed spreads except two where he uses vignettes to both speed up (pg 21-21) and slow down (pg 36-37) the action.

The first time I read it, I found the tree spreads on pgs 26-27 and 28-29 to be oddly flat and out of place with the other illustrations in the book. It wasn't until I laid this out that I realized Dan was trying to mimic/foreshadow Alice's drawing of the same tree on pg 35.

Also the desaturated/monochromatic quality of the images starting on pg 18 and continuing through pg 23 becomes more obvious.

I'll also often go through and try to simplify the images into simple black, white and grey shapes so see how value and silhouette affect the experience of the book.

When I did that to BEEKLE I realized that the little white shape of Beekle always appears on the right page of the spread -- except for pg 18-19, 22-23, 26-27 and 28-29. These are the moments in the book where Beekle is feeling unsure or overwhelmed.

These are some of the highlights from this particular book breakdown. Do this to a few other books and you'll start to see how other illustrators approach laying out books.

I think it's fine to post about this. Will did a FB live video this morning talking about this very issue. He has a characteristically calm and reasonable response to the change in the project status.

As for your question about making/selling fan art: There is clearly a market for fan art out there. But it is important to understand what you are doing when you make fan art and even more importantly when you try to monetize it.

Whether you are making money or not -- the mere act of creating fan art is a copyright infringement. The important bit is whether the fundamental infringement rises to the level of an "actionable" infringement.

I was drawing comic characters from the age of 8 when I got my first X-men comic from a friend at school. While all those drawings were "technically" infringements they never rose to the level of "actionable infringements". Along the way I got more invested in the Marvel characters, I became a little "cooler" to my friends at school, and I learned how to draw.

So yes -- I think that fan art can be a useful and productive thing.

It's when you try to monetize fan art that you need to go in with eyes wide open. Understanding that the fan art you make is fundamentally an infringement. You are creating copies and derivatives of intellectual property created and owned by someone else. If you are going to use and generate income off fan art, without negotiating a license beforehand with the Intellectual Property (IP) owner, you need to have a full and complete understanding of the Fair Use Defense. And in the case of some characters, you need to understand Trademark Law.

Which goes to the second half of your question -- is it worth the risk trying to sell it?
I have made concerted effort to study copyright law and how it pertains to illustrators. In the absence of a license from the original IP holder I have landed on -- No -- it is not worth trying to sell it.

It is, in my opinion, always better to negotiate a license with the IP holder if I want to sell fan art.

And I want to clarify -- the term "negotiate" can vary in it's meaning. Most people think it means "pay" (and often it does) but it can also just mean "ask and get permission".

This is simply a variation on the @demetrius post above but one of my favorite methods is pulled from Norman Rockwell. Basically he renders the "imaginative" part in a higher key than "reality". Definitely color casts it as well (usually in the old-timey yellow ochre)

Net means "after costs are deducted".

So if a Licensee has a "gross" income of $10 and they deduct business costs of $3 then the Licensee has a "net" income of $7.

For an illustrator working with this client:

• 5% of a $10 "gross" item (or "list price") is $0.50
• 5% of a $7 "net" item is $0.35

Personal Opinion: I am not a fan of "net" but have found some publishers have baked it into their accounting dept.
Because of this when working with contracts specifying "net" rather than "list" (or "gross") it is typical to negotiate double the royalty rates.

As for the contract line you quoted here -- yeah, that's confusing. Based on just this quoted text it does read that Net Sales = Gross invoice amount billed. But contracts are often depended on other clauses in the document. Difficult to evaluate without the rest of the contract.

@Jonathan-Malski Good video!

Wow! Love how you've thought this through! (I'm a sucker for architectural cutaway views)
Great pitch! You've got a clear goal for this piece. With all that in mind I'm a fan of 4A.

Personal opinion: I would have a go at pulling the camera out to showcase a bit more of the unique architecture of this space.

@Elliot Been there! Both with the substrate and the cheap gouache pigments.
That said -- this looks cool! I find that with this technique the results never quite match what was in my head. I often have to come back to a piece a week (or more) later and only then realize that it actually is working!

This is great! An image that makes good use of the qualities of this technique.

@xin-li I've found the same problem! They've become my lunchtime "break" as I need to actually watch the videos!

@Julia Good point! I hadn't really considered their target audience.

@Dima-Eichhorn totally agree about Art Prof video.
And I'm not familiar with Vasperism. Is that a podcast or a youtube video channel?

@Dima-Eichhorn The Art Prof videos are a good resource. Particularly the "Copyright: Ask a Lawyer" that you directly linked.

That said, before anyone puts too much stock in this channel I also watched this video
https://youtu.be/gCjW1T-JHUE "Inspiration vs Plagarism".

Unfortunately this one should also have been done in conjunction with an IP attorney. These two teachers offer some questionable/misleading definitions and reach conclusions that could get an illustrator facing legal action(s) if applied to their professional practice.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEP5zb_eXvX2q2BlH8XkXNA/videos

I discovered Pete Beard's "Unsung Heroes of Illustration" videos a few months back and will visit it from time to time.
I found myself watching this channel this morning and it was a lovely balm for an otherwise stressful day.

It occurred to me that if there was ever an audience who should know about this channel it was anyone who has subscribed to SVS! The creator has a very mellow british accent and the artwork is straight up inspirational.

You'll find artists that you didn't know you loved, and possibly discover a historical connection to the artists that you already love.

Please post other resources like this that you've discovered.