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)

@Neha-Rawat My pleasure! I love talking picture books (other people's even more than my own) Thanks for coming to hang out!

Congratulations! These first projects are such learning curves -- but it's all time well spent. Looking forward to seeing what projects you work on next!

@LauraA Thanks for staying up so late! We need to do some kind of Turbocharging reunion! A "Where are they now" kind of thing. I love watching you guys progress in your skills and careers!

@Jeremy-Ross Thanks very much! Both for hanging out with us and for getting a copy of the book!

But now I want to hear the "Teachable Moments" melody.
In my head it's like the old Saturday morning cartoons "The More You know"

No question these SVS events need more random sound effects

@Asyas_illos Thanks so much for joining today!

@Mr-NiftyRat Any work that is in the public domain can be used by anyone without restrictions. A good rule of thumb is anything created before 1925. So rewriting Red Riding Hood would not be Fan Art (or Fan Fiction in the case of text) because there is no copyright holder.

Also any changes you make in your rewritten version would be copyrightable to you! (cool right‽ )

Thing is, that last bit works in the other direction as well. If you reference a version of Red Riding Hood (re)written after 1925, any unique elements in that version could be still protected and using them in your "new" version could be infringing on someone's copyright. This is what @Kevin-Longueil was referring to.

And so @Melissa-Bailey-0 advice to research carefully public domain works is important!

Oh yeah this is happening!
Here's the cover art for the book in question. Going to be a lot of "sausage getting made" kind of chat. I'll show all the stuff that got rejected.

@xin-li Very proud of your success! Can't wait to see where you illustration journey takes you!

@xin-li This is excellent news! Congratulations!

@NessIllustration wrote

I would imagine if you're unable to find the original owner, then you should just not use it and find something else right?

I would agree with you -- but not everyone does. And some of those "everyones" are big companies with very deep pockets.

I'll play devils advocate here and mention a situation in which finding something else isn't an option.

I don't know how many of you are aware of the Orphan Works bill that has been introduced to congress a number of times over the last 15 years.

Definitely worth educating yourself on this concept as it has the potential to alter the art community in both good and bad ways.

A shorter Communication Arts article written by Tad Crawford that highlights the problems with the previous versions of the Orphan Works bills

TLDR: There are genuine cases in which it is in the public interest to make infringing copies of films, photos, recording, and artwork because the original work is decaying and may eventually be unavailable to make a copy AND the IP holder simply can't be found. But these are very limited and specific cases.

The Orphan Works bills, as they have been previously introduced, applied a sledgehammer to a job that requires a scalpel. Previous versions of the bill would have effectively gutted the protections of copyright allowing everything to be deemed an "orphan work". I have been one of many freelance illustrators who have repeatedly written to the US Copyright Office to oppose the legislation as it was written.

BUT the problem of genuine orphan works remains, and I would expect the bill to be reintroduced in the future. Ideally it will be in the form of a very specific and limited (scalpel-like) form the problem warrants.