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.

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/

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.

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.

@mag For a submission ready dummy I would suggest a hybrid of the two options you posted.

Take your rough sketches and add a bit of shape based toning (I use the lasso tool in photoshop). In the image below I simply added a few minutes worth of toning to the rough sketch version you posted.

This is one of my favorite things to do when working on a dummy because you get so much value out of relatively little effort! And it encourages me to think about designing the images at a very early stage.

@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".

@carlianne I would be interested to see the wording of a contract that actually states that.

But I can't say for certain a ridiculous clause like this doesn't exist. I have seen contracts that state the "rights are licensed in all forms now known or created in the future throughout the known universe"
My feeling is, "You want to publish my work in Alpha Centauri? -- Cool. Let's add a bunch of extra zeros to that licensing fee!"

But, for anyone reading this thread who decides to get a full-time in-house illustration position -- read your contracts! This would clearly be a negotiating point that could (and absolutely should) be crossed out.*

*Except in the case of the Bratz dolls. I'm actually sympathetic to Mattel on this one.
Carter Bryant made a product that directly competed with his employer.
If you are a shoe designer working for Nike, they are going to be understandably irritated if you design a shoe and then take it over to Adidas (here in PDX that is literally across the river)
What Nike shouldn't be irritated about is if you are a shoe designer who writes a picture book and has it published. The two markets don't overlap in any significant way.

As a full-time employee I would have no problem agreeing not to create a directly competing product. But I would not agree to letting the company own EVERYTHING I make outside of the office.

@Janette I saw your message, and see that you've received a number of replies to your OP.
I am a huge fan of illustrators understanding the concept of Work For Hire (WFH), and then based on that understanding, deciding if they wish to agree to it or not for a given project.

I encourage all illustrators to read and understand the copyright law in their given country. In the U.S. it is Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17)

An important concept to understand about WFH is that when you agree to transfer your copyright the client now becomes the legal "author" of the work. From a legal standpoint you did not create the work, the client did. The client, as the author of the work, had no obligation to give you a credit line. The client now controls ALL the aspects of copyright, including the sole ability to distribute and profit from the work for 95 years after it is published (or 120 years from date it was created)

Work For Hire is a very specific term that is defined in Title 17. Check out Section 201, subsection b.

I briefly explained during the conversation that the illustrator maintains the copyright of their work, but sells the rights to use the images to the author and it would be laid on in a contract

Fundamentally correct, but I would encourage you to alter the word "sell" to "license".
"Sell" implies a transfer of ownership. While "license" implies renting the rights to the client for a limited amount of time. Check out this article from the Graphic Artist Guild To Sell or to Rent: The Difference Between Copyright License and Transfer

As I understood if, work for hire means that you have benefits and are basically an employee.

Yes and no.

It is true that most illustrators who are full-time employees of a company have signed a WFH employment contract with the company they work for. But legally it does not HAVE to be that way. That is, there is no specific U.S. law that says: "All work created by full-time employees MUST be created WFH". It is simply much easier (and potentially profitable) for the company to own all the intellectual property created by their employees, during work hours, on company property, using company tools and materials provided and paid for by the company.

But in theory if the company wanted you and your creativity badly enough you could say that "Everything I make every second Thursday of the month is not WFH. I license that work only for the time that I am fully employed by the company". It would be unusual, but not impossible.

My feeling with full-time employment and WFH is that it is a reasonable trade off.
As I mentioned earlier as a full time employee you make work from 9-5. At 5pm you stop working.
You make artwork in a building the company pays rent on. The company heats and cools. The company provides water, gas, and cleaning services. You work on a computer the company buys, uses a phone and phone service the company pays for etc. etc.
But most importantly, if you come in to work one day and there isn't a project for you to work on -- you still get paid an hourly rate and get insurance and benefits!

For all this the agreement is: all the intellectual property (IP) you created during the 9-5 you are in the company's building using company supplies, the company owns the IP.

Now, when it comes to freelance my opinion on WFH flips completely.

All that stuff the company pays for, well as a self-employed freelancer YOU pay for everything.
If you come into your studio and there isn't a project to work on -- you don't get paid that day. Oh, but you still pay for all the materials, utilities, insurance etc. etc.

There is little to no reason for a client to need to own the copyright to the original IP a freelance illustrator creates. As a freelance illustrator I personally recommend maintaining control over all your copyrights, and only licensing limited, specific rights. Licensing the client specific rights for a specific amount of time will allow both the client and the illustrator to be successful.

Of course it would be easier and more convenient for the client to own the copyright to your illustration (IP). And the only way for a client to own the copyright to your work is for the illustrator to sign (you can't do a WFH transfer verbally) a WFH contract. But like all things that are convenient -- a WFH transfer of rights is, and should be, extremely expensive.

I think of it (roughly) like this:
A pie company is just starting up. They want to deliver those pies to clients all over the city, but they don't have a delivery truck. They do have a small budget to rent a truck for a week. And in that week ideally they will generate enough money to make more pies and rent the truck again to deliver them.

Yes it would definitely be MUCH more convenient and easier for the new pie company to own the truck. But buying (WFH) a delivery truck is very expensive. Renting (licensing) the tuck successfully accomplishes what the startup company needs right now to be successful.

This analogy is imperfect because a vehicle loses value with age, while the more an image is promoted the more valuable it becomes -- but hopefully you get the idea.

@Urvashi-S Glad it's helpful. Most "realistic" cityscapes will employ multiple different sets of Left and Right VPs. This is because typically the world doesn't exist in a simple, tidy grid.
You can always tell the cityscape drawing of someone new to perspective because everything is just a little too perfectly parallel with each other, or at 90 degrees to each other. (Hey, we've all been there!)

So, yes you could certainly use something like this.

This is a bit tricky -- but honestly you all have given great info on how to approach a perspective situation like this.

First, does this photo primarily use a 1 point, 2 point, or 3 point system?

Keep in mind we always experience the world using a 3 point system.
The application of 1 or 2 point is an artificial construct applied to a scene to simplify it. So, while a photograph is always fundamentally capturing a 3 point system sometimes it can be just as effective to evaluate it using a 1 or 2 point.

Okay so let's begin:
First does this photo justify a 3 point system?!
I drew some vertical lines (orthogonals) on the photo. While the vertical (and also parallel) sides of the buildings do seem to taper slightly toward the top of the image, in my opinion they don't do it dramatically enough to justify a 3 point system.

Cool. A bit simpler!
So, is this a typical 2 point system?

I'm going to ignore the FlatIron building at this stage (it's a big triangle) and focus on the buildings to the left, right and behind the Flat Iron. These are more rectangular buildings with 90 deg corners.

The Horizon line (HL) is indicated by the purple line toward the bottom.

Note how all the sides the buildings with windows facing the viewer (generally) follow the brown horizontal lines. If those brown lines converged toward the HL on either the left side of the image (the left vanishing point) or the right side of the image (the right vanishing point) this would indicate a typical 2 point system. These lines don't converge. They remain parallel to the HL. This image does not employ a 2 point system.

So then what's the deal with those two streets (5th Ave and Broadway)?

I've found it's important to understand a city photo from above as well as street level, when trying to fit it into a 1, 2 or 3 point system. Check out this shot from Google Earth:

A nice, simple two point persecutive system applies neatly to a city scene when the buildings are on a tidy rectangular grid. When all the streets and buildings are perfectly 90 degrees to each other. @Jeremy-Ross shows this perfectly in the example he posted above.

An important concept to remember is that in linear perspective all groups of parallel lines (orthogonals) converge on their own vanishing point on the horizon line (HL). So each of these sets of parallel lines (blue, green and purple) will converge on their own distinct blue, green and purple vanishing points (VP).

Note what the location of the Flat Iron Building does. 5th Ave and Broadway angle away from each other, each street forming it's own 1 point perspective system. The blue line of Broadway, as compared to the purple lines of 5th Ave.
Combine that with the fact that the Broadway face of the Flat Iron Building itself doesn't line up parallel the street. The green lines show it's at a slightly different angle. (Who built this thing‽)

By looking at the ariel view in Google Earth above we can start to better understand the street level photograph below.

The 5th ave face of the Flat Iron is parallel to the street and to the buildings on the opposite side of 5th ave. All the purple horizontal lines of those buildings converge neatly on a vanishing point (VP) on the HL.

The buildings on the left side of Broadway are also parallel to each other and the street. The blue horizontal lines of those buildings converge on their own VP on the HL.

The left face (Broadway) face of the Flat Iron is parallel to itself, but not to the Broadway street or the buildings on the opposite side of the street. So all the green horizontal lines of that face of the Flat Iron will converge on their own VP on the HL.

The result of this careful analysis, is a photo that creates a perspective grid that looks like this

To the uninitiated artist, a confusing tangle of lines -- but if you step through each set of orthogonals carefully you can see the underlying order in the image.

@Lee-White wrote:

know that in photos the lens that is used can wreck havoc on trying to line up vanishing points in a easy to understand way. Wide angle lens vs telephoto will yield VERY different results for a scene.

This is too true! For this reason, when students are starting out I strongly recommend that you work from photos you've taken. From locations you have physically been in. That way you'll be better prepared to understand the potential distortions a camera lens can create.

@LauraA Hey that's a cool solution! And yes, I was pleasantly surprised by how affordable they are. I hope your overall experience is positive!

@LauraA I suppose that I do. Everything on screen is back lit so it naturally a bit brighter vs a reflective surface. I will brighten "a bit" rather than a standard 30%.

If it's a dark image with subtle value differences I'll punch up the value differences so they look a bit "too much" on screen, knowing they will soften in a physical print. But if the overall image has an even mix of lights and darks with punchy hues I don't mess with the settings much. Maybe just a 5-10% level adjustment. It's the kind of thing that most clients won't notice -- but I do.

@Lee-White I know it's been a bit since you used Gango but did you have a process when working with them?

@xin-li Really great to read your thoughts on this!
Honestly I'm amazed that you saw the mother and child on that last spread so fast. I think you can simply claim really sharp eyes!

I just checked the US Amazon and there's a copy available (also used) for a very reasonable $77! (Yikes!)
Does feel like this book is ready for a reprint. It's not even that old!
If you make it happen with your publisher please keep us posted. I would love to claim that this discussion somehow had a part in bringing a book back into print!

@LauraA My thoughts on this

1. Cintiq are typically quite well calibrated right out of the box. But there can a shift in brightness/hues over time. I have a guy here in Portland Or who I hire every two years to come out and recalibrate my Cintiq and my printer so that they match. Unfortunately you will never get an ABSOLUTELY PERFECT match unless you are in the building where the print is being made and can make adjustment in real time. That said, I've been doing this for years. Ages ago the difference between printers was huge. These days (especially with professional printers) not so much. I have work printed at a place here in PDX Gango Editions I send them digital files and then pick up the color prints. Always look great! A good general color profile to work in is Adobe RGB 1998. Everyone (at least in US) seem to calibrate to that as a baseline. I create files in my home studio using this profile. Print them at Gango Editions and I'm always happy. BTW, I've also used three other professional print services in PDX over the years using the same profile and process. Always looks good.

2. Can't speak to a print service in NYC. I will go ahead and recommend Gango Editions I've had them print my images on large canvases and then ship them to various clients around the country. Gango handles all the shipping. Because they are local to me I went down to look at the prints before they were shipped, but I never had any changes. (and it's fun to see your work printed on 4' x 6' giant canvases!)

3. Because it's an existing image I would charge just for the print (your printing and shipping costs plus a reasonable profit margin)
   I wouldn't charge her for the time spent creating the image as it is a pre-existing portfolio image. You took a gamble on yourself, and made all the creative decisions personally. I would feel differently if this client called you up and wanted you to create a custom image, but still only wanted a print. In that case you are actively saying "no" to other paying clients, or working on promotional images, so you could make specifically what this client wanted. In that case I would price the project hourly (keeping in mind that all reproduction rights would remain with you) and add in the cost of the print + shipping. As for how pricing a print sale works, the pricing is based on the cost of printing (usually this differs based on size and/or substrate and is dictated by the print service company you use.) along with demand for your work. An 8 x 10 might cost $10 to print, but a popular artist could get $100 per print (a $90 profit). While a less popular artist might only be able to command $15 per print. The less popular artist might be thrilled with a $5 profit -- or they might figure it's not worth the effort and personally feel that a $15 profit make the time and effort worth it. So then an 8 x 10 print would need to sell for $25. This last bit is really about market demand and artist incentive.

I think that Will forgetting the name of a movie -- and then Lee and Jake vainly trying to throw out movie titles (the first 5 of which must always be completely wrong) -- should be a new feature of the podcast.

The Draftsman is pretty good video.
Good for pricing a drawing or painting, but not a great one for pricing illustration.

Proko is more of a gallery artist and so is "selling" physical artwork (i.e. not for reproduction and is usually a flat fee where the artist no longer has the possibility of generating additional income)
rather than an illustrator who is typically "licensing" artwork for reproduction (the original artwork isn't sold, and remains with the illustrator. Usually payment is a flat fee OR a royalty, but typically one in which additional income from an ongoing license is possible)

@brettb_draws is creating artwork to "license" for a comic book project.
When pricing work to license, "time" "materials" and even and "hourly rate" are factors to consider (I will always recommend that you don't actively lose money on any project you take) but these are lesser considerations than the value of the project to the client

In illustration you are primarily pricing a project based on the potential value of the project to the client.

So the really important part of the 1 hour and 20 min Draftsman video is at 01:12:20 Story 4: To License or Not to License

In the case of @brettb_draws comic book project, an important point to discuss with the client is how many copies if each comic book will be sold.
If the initial print run is going to be 1000 copies the potential value of the project is much smaller than if the initial print run is going to be 20,000 copies. With this information in hand, the licensing fee for the project would be adjusted accordingly.