@carrieannebrown

Unfortunately yeah ahaha. I floated through circles of a lot of the younger artists that @kylebeaudette is talking about when I was getting started (I started out doing Comic and Anime Cons, and that crowd is about 50/50 that crowd and working professionals that do cons on the side like Jake and Will) and have historically made a comment every time Inktober "controversies" pop up along the lines of "whoa wait a second guys, let's stop, actually take a look at everything, and not immediately grab torches and pitchforks" which has never gone over well with that crowd. Kyle's right in that no amount of proof or reasoning will appease them - they've made up their minds.

I've been seeing a lot of those folks cancelling their planned projects this year (a big wave when the trademark thing happened, and a much BIGGER wave now, it's been unavoidable on my feed) and unfortunately to a lot of the people in that portion of the art world, if you're not explicitly with them and hopping on the "cancel" train, you're against them and doing just as much "harm" as they perceive that the "cancelled" person did. It bothers me less now if I get comments giving me flack (I just block and move on), but it breaks my heart to see the community going after one another about this. The art community is supposed to support one another, not tear one another down.

I absolutely agree with @carolinebautista. We absolutely were not meant to decide this, even if we were comparing a book to a book and not a book to a quick flip-through. I think it's horrible that this was brought straight to the court of public opinion instead of being handled through the proper channels, and can already see this having a lasting effect on the art community. The nastier parts of Art Twitter have always been nasty, and I would hope that anyone with a following as large as Alphonso's would know that and not send those people after someone. I've followed both artists for a while and I don't know - nor do I really have any business knowing - if the book was plagiarized or not, it's CERTAINLY soured my opinion of Alphonso. He's certainly taken this and turned it into a no-win situation for everyone.

Been busy with a lot of projects this month, but I really wanted to enter this month! This was more of a digital painting practice than anything else, but I really enjoyed doing it.

Throwing my hat in the ring for the first time!

Hello SVS! I finally treated myself to a subscription for Christmas this year and have been lurking around in the classes and the forums. I'm super excited to get involved in the community and really get my hands dirty with illustration this year.

My biggest goal with illustration is to be able to do it full time from my home - right now I'm looking at both freelancing and doing children's books (a long time dream of mine) and to participate in the local and international communities through local conventions, social media, and a YouTube and Twitch page.

Here's a piece I've done recently (also my avatar - I think I will keep it as my avatar across sites for the moment until I have the time to get some more branding done). I'd love to know how I could make it better!

Also - I recently got a scanner and am excited to use nice, high res scans of my work both for online and for printmaking, but I"m finding that the scanner keeps blowing things out - especially my watercolors. Is there a way around this? I've touched this one up in photoshop, but I feel like I can't get the right balance - I feel like the darks end up way too saturated by the time I've gotten the lights balanced.

Anyway, I'm super excited to be here and can't wait to meet everyone! I've gone through Jake's How to Draw Everything and his Inking class and I think I'll get into the Creative Composition class next.

Hey guys! With this month's prompt being a book cover, I know that it might be a lot of people's first time working with bleed and I wanted to offer some helpful tips based on some things I've noticed happening around the forums this month.

Something I'm seeing a lot of (and I'm by no means not guilty! I noticed this happening in my thumbs and that's what inspired this post!) in people's thumbs and comps is text or foreground elements bumping right up against where the bleed lines would be.

It's super important to remember that bleed is going to be CUT OFF! I think a lot of people understand that on a logical level, but it really takes going in and "cutting off" your bleed to see what's going on - it's really unintuitive because you're looking at your entire image and it seems balanced!

Here's the first try at one of my own covers for a personal project (I've done some others but have any I can share right now either due to NDA or having my working files on a separate drive)

At first glance it's okay! Nothing's bumping into each other or fighting each other, nothing important is being cut off, etc. But everything is balanced to the edge of the canvas, not the edge of what's actually going to be published. Here's what happens when you cut off the bleed:

YIKES! You can definitely tell I wasn't thinking! The top text has no space to breathe, the subtitle is about to fall off the cover entirely, and, perhaps the sneakiest part, the DD on my title is about to get lost in the spine (if you look at a book, even a simple stapled book, there's usually some curve at the spine). LUCKILY it's just text and I can just move it around, but I've had this happen with the artwork as well because I wasn't thinking things all the way though. Here's what happens when you fix it!

It almost looks like there's TOO MUCH negative space now, especially since this cover is all white (this was especially noticeable in my back cover, I'll see if I can find that file!) But when you "cut off" the bleed?

MUCH BETTER! I do covers in InDesign which has a handy toggle for "bleed" mode and "preview" mode exactly for this purpose so you can flip it back and forth. For thumbnailing/comps, I'll usually go in and make a layer mask in Procreate or Photoshop that takes away the "extra" bits of my image so I can double check the comp as I go. If I'm working traditionally, I'll 100% go in and do my drawing digitally so that I can double check and then transfer it to my watercolor paper later. It really, really sucks to have an important part of your piece fighting with an edge because you forgot about bleed and it can be a hard mistake to recover from after a certain point, so I've become very careful of remembering it and incorporating it into my process!

I really hoped this helped someone/ I wasn't out of place to write up a mini-lesson! It's not something that's super intuitive unless you've actually done something for print before and I had a hard time finding good info on it when I was starting out, and it's something I still have to remind myself of even though I've been designing for print for years! Let me know if y'all have questions about it!

I am very glad there is a thread here - the discourse on social media and on the art groups (facebook/discord/etc) I am in have turned absolutely vile and nasty.

I agree a lot with David Hohn on the content vs layout. I think it's unfair to compare a finished book with one that's not out yet. I don't have enough information to form an opinion either way.

HOWEVER I don't think it's my responsibility or the responsibility of the collective internet to make that call. I think this entire situation has been handled incredibly poorly on Alphonso's part - bringing this to social media instead of his agent (if he has one), his lawyer (if he has one), and his publisher (is the place I would have gone to first, honestly) is absolutely out of line. Even he doesn't want to give Jake a call, this should have been handled differently. If he thought he had a case, he should have gone to a lawyer or his agent FIRST, because posting the video he did puts his case in serious jeopardy.

Handing this straight to the social media outrage machine, especially since Jake's kinda got a target on his back surrounding Inktober anyway, comes off as an incredibly callous and cruel move to me.

Day 2: mindless! Had a harder time with this one, both with the medium and the subject, but I think it turned out okay!

I wanted to stop by and thank everyone for their imput on this!!

I ended up switching the values around a little bit in the end - the lighter sky didn't give it as much "oomph" as I would like, and I think having it darker ended up framing the frog character much better. I 100% almost quit this piece, I got so frustrated, but I'm so glad I stuck with it to the end!

@Jana @Chip-Valecek @lmrush @Mara @drawingmelee Thank you all for the super warm welcome!! Sorry for the late reply - I've been arms deep in classes and loving it!

@dulcie Thank you so much! I've only recently (as in 5 months ago!) discovered watercolor and I"m very much enjoying the different textures that are possible with the medium. I haven't had this much fun with a new medium in a very long time! (and am happy to have finally found a medium that's just about perfect for string instruments).

I love your little mouse in your avatar - He's got so much appeal!

Oh wow! Such a WIDE OPEN prompt this month!!

I'm not sure whether to go literal or play to my strengths (dragons!) and do a pun on the word "dragon-fly"

There's going to be a lot to "chew" on this month and I have a feeling getting those 50 thumbnails in is going to be super easy!

@Braden-Hallett Oh gosh I did not know there was a group hanging on discord! Do you all mind if I poke my head in from time to time? I moderate a few communities on there so my discord time is often pretty full but I'd honestly love a low-key hangout with friends from the forum (:

@xin-li We might be working on the same laptop ahaha! Mine's a 2012 macbook.

I've found that when recording, it only gets laggy if I'm trying to work in two different adobe products at the same time. Photoshop and recording? fine! Photoshop and InDesign and recording? Less fine ahaha.

Good to know I'm not the only one working on a dinosaur ;P

@xin-li

I use OBS for this! It's fairly lightweight, and you can set it to record your photoshop window instead of your entire screen if you're like me and bop in and out of photoshop to check email!

@Coreyartus oh wow thank you so much for this info - it really explains a lot of the "problems" I've been having with color while working in ProCreate! I super noticed the difference between P3 and looking on a screen literally anywhere else and I'm super glad to know what the problem is now!

@NessIllustration Thanks so much for answering, that was really helpful!

Do you add an image in the email usually? Like the way that a postcard is an "advert" for your portfolio? Or is a promo image not as necessary if you're sending an email and they've got to click on links anyway?

@NessIllustration

Can I ask what your email mailings usually look like? I feel like there isn't a ton of info on best practices for emails like there is for postcards (and with most people still doing work from home, it's much, much harder to do a postcard campaign this year!).

I've been actively working on my human figures! Grown ups and kids are LEAGUES behind my animals in skill level, and I'm focusing really hard on exploring ways to simplify the human form in a style that matches my animals. It takes me at least three times the amount of time to do a human than it does for most of the animal kingdom and it's starting to feel very limiting!

I work a lot in this market, and had a couple years where I was making most of my income from commissions - it's very hard to give a good answer without a couple bits of info!

1. How long does it take you?
2. Let's see some samples!

Always remember that you want to be charging a fair hourly wage for yourself, and that if you're freelancing you have to make roughly double the amount of a W-2 Employee if you're in the US (30% for taxes, and then healthcare/retirement savings that employers would normally help cover). The market isn't always in the right place for charging that amount (depending on your style/how long it takes you to complete), but it's always a good starting point, and then you can take your work and compare it to others with a similar style/skill level to see if you're roughly on par with the market.

Another thing to factor in is client communication takes a lot longer than you think! My lowest tier when I have my commissions open is $30, because anything less than that I'm usually losing money and time with going back and forth with my client, even if the actual art from that tier only takes 30 minutes. When I started out I had a lot lower prices, and it was 100% worth it taking on less commissions for more money - a lot less stressful too!

@MOO

Oh wow! Howdy neighbor! I’m near Willow Glen. I’d totes be down for coffee once this whole COVID thing clears up.

I'm in San Jose, California!