Writers don’t write from experience, though many are resistant to admit that they don’t. I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

Nikki Giovanni (via amandaonwriting)

(via magpieandwhale)

theminttu:

Since people were asking, here’s some progress shots for Duncan!

I mostly use regular Photoshop brushes with some setting customization. I change them around a lot to suit my needs so I’m afraid this isn’t very helpful haha…. one of my favorites is this Photoshop square chalk brush that I use for painting pretty much everything and with added texture, for sketching.

This brush pack has some good texture brushes and the square painting brush I favor. Go download it!

(via anoia)

sirens stuff

Some close-ups/a process gif!

image

^ Layer by layer! This makes me look tidier/more organized than I actually am, haha. Over the past six months or so I’ve been trying to wean myself off being so dependent on linework, so this was an attempt to get out of my comfort zone on a more finished piece.

image

image

(Final art here.)

johnnydombrowski:

Pandora (Process)

Johnny Dombrowski

First of all, hello to new followers! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that people are digging my work. Now on to business…

I’ve been thinking about posting more of my process on here, but with reblogs possible, I never wanted to cram posts with too much writing or images. So I figured I’ll post the final illustration and then a second post with more info about the piece later on. I’ll post whatever stages I have, so you can learn a little more about how I work.

With the urge to experiment more, I’ve started this year playing around with my technique a bit along with working on more concept. First with Chump and now this. I’m not sure what initially caused it, but I got this craving to draw Pandora. While reading through my copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology *pushes up glasses* and I came across an interesting take on her story…

Pandora was created by Zeus, not as a punishment to Prometheus for stealing fire, but as a blessing towards man. Every god in heaven contributed something to perfect her. Aphrodite gave her beauty, Hermes persuasion, Apollo music, etc. And instead of evils, each god also placed a blessing into a jar. Eager with curiosity, Pandora slipped off the cover to look inside, when all of the blessings started to escape. She tried to close the lid as quickly as possible, but was only able to keep hope from escaping. That’s why, whatever evils we come across, we’ll always have a sense of hope in our lives. 

Reading through her story, I didn’t see a box ever mentioned- only the jar. Turns out that box is a mistranslation! The original greek mentions it as a “pithos” or jar. But that was later translated to “pyxis” or box, by Eramus of Rotterdam in the 16th century. THANKS ERAMUS.

With the evils of the box gone, I tried my best to instead capture her curiosity. To try and get that peeking look, I used Alphonse Mucha’s photography as reference. Bending her back down, eye level with the jar, taking a quick look at the wonders waiting inside.

And now that I’ve talked your ears off, I’ll wait to see if you all want more of this. If you’d like to share just the image without all of this rambling, you can go to the original post 

And now whenever someone uses the phrase “It’s like opening Pandora’s Box” you can slap them across the face with a white glove. Even challenging them to a duel, if you’d like. I don’t care. It’s your glove- do what you want with it. It’s in your hands. Or should I say ON your hands! Do you get it? Because it’s a glove? You wear them on your h- ok I’m gonna get going.

Just out of curiosity — I swear I’m not trying to start any drama about this — does anyone else feel uncomfortable when artwork is clearly based off of a specific promo image/still (as in, directly copying the lighting/composition/etc) and the artist does not mention this? I’m not saying that artists shouldn’t do such work (hell, I draw studies from photos all the time) or even post it, just … I expect to see some sort of credit, even something as simple as “referenced from a photo of Bilbo Baggins”. 

Am I the weird one with weird expectations? It strikes me as slightly disingenuous, but maybe I’m just over-thinking matters. What do y’all think??

cocokat:

finished!

Made for Static Fish, using digital and watercolor.

I might color it sometime, but it only needed B&W for the book…

eyecager: painted-bees: tennine: msg: explore-blog: Chuck Close on creativity The rest of this quote is glorious as well: “Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea.’ And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you’ll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.” Normally I dont reblog these things, but this has been especially true to me this year.  100% Adding to this with Nick Cave’s quote “Inspiration is a word used by people who aren’t really doing anything. I go into my office every day that I’m in Brighton and work. Whether I feel like it or not is irrelevant.” Inspiration is nice, but if you only work when it strikes, you’re going to be an unhappy artist. This is especially true if you want to earn a living at it; you don’t hear about surgeons getting “surgeon’s block” or garbage men getting “garbage men’s block.” There are assuredly days when the surgeon doesn’t want to be removing gall-bladders, but she does it anyway, because that’s her job.”

eyecager:

painted-bees:

tennine:

msg:

explore-blog:

Chuck Close on creativity

The rest of this quote is glorious as well:

“Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea.’ And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you’ll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.”

Normally I dont reblog these things, but this has been especially true to me this year. 

100%

Adding to this with Nick Cave’s quote

“Inspiration is a word used by people who aren’t really doing anything. I go into my office every day that I’m in Brighton and work. Whether I feel like it or not is irrelevant.” Inspiration is nice, but if you only work when it strikes, you’re going to be an unhappy artist. This is especially true if you want to earn a living at it; you don’t hear about surgeons getting “surgeon’s block” or garbage men getting “garbage men’s block.” There are assuredly days when the surgeon doesn’t want to be removing gall-bladders, but she does it anyway, because that’s her job.”

(via juliedillon)

Ah, you turned it around on me, you sly minx, you!

1) My favorite art teacher was a dude who taught me the value of impersonal critique. He was kind of an asshole (a very endearing asshole), and he was able to tear my work apart without ever making it about me. It definitely helped prepare me for a professional life filled with change orders and revisions, but it also taught me a larger lesson about how it’s possible to be critical without being mean. (And, how, in turn, to take critique in the spirit it’s meant — which is generally in kindness — and not as an insult.)

2) It probably takes me around a year to get comfortable with any given style. I wouldn’t say I have a singular style, though — this year alone I probably bounced around between three or four different styles. When I was younger I was really focused on making everything ~pretty~ and agonized over line weights and shit so I guess I was more consistent, but I like being able to adapt my artwork now to match the idea/content.

mingdoyle:

My thoughts on photo-referencing: I don’t do it enough.

Either subconsciously or unthinkingly, over the past few years I’ve made it my mission to draw all my sequential work with no referencing at all. I don’t think this was due to any sort of cockiness, i.e., “I can draw this better than real life, so why bother looking at reference?,” but rather out of a genuine desire to just magically know how to be able to draw anything, always.

Of course that’s a lofty and unrealistic goal, and even now, about 6 years into drawing comics professionally, I still feel like an absolute beginner in most ways. Maybe that’s due to having studied fine arts rather than illustration or comics, and never having formally learned how pesky little things like perspective and pacing worked.

Anyway, the point is that now, I’m finally starting to admit that I may not just be able to come up with everything off the top of my head (though I certainly do try that approach, nine times out of ten). I remember something my friend and great influence Eric Canete said to me several years ago, when I asked him to look over my first set of substantive inked comic pages: “Is this supposed to be the inside of a car? I think it might be, because of the seatbelts, but why don’t you try looking at the inside of a car?”

Oh, ouch! But Eric really did have a great point. Observation is often the best teacher.

To that end, I’ve been using photo reference in about 10-20% of my panels on MARA, which is more than I’ve ever used before. Here’s an example of one of my most extreme instances of photo-referencing so far, from photographs, to thumbnails, to semi-finished inks. There’s my whole process.

Maybe some people still view photo-referencing as cheating, but more and more I view it as a kind of exciting evil. Sure, looking at a photograph isn’t as creatively “pure” as pulling something fully formed from your own mind, but if it helps you grow? Then I suppose I’m for it. I’ve been very preoccupied with bettering my craft and not painting myself into a rut through sheer stubbornness lately, so here you go. My confession. My name is Ming Doyle, and sometimes, I use other pictures to make my own pictures better!

Theodinspire asked: Top five portrait paintings. (Super Specific Request, I know)

Oh hey, this is a neat one! Thanks for such an interesting question. :D It’ll be the last one for today, I don’t want to spam y’all.

1) Portrait of a Roman Couple (Artist Unknown; fresco from Pompeii) —When I was a kid, I was obsessed with two things: Pompeii and the Titanic. I used to check out the same three books about Rome over and over. So I grew up seeing this portrait quite often! Then in my art history classes I learned that this couple was probably educated, and were proud of it. I’m at an age now where I look at them and see two people who look like my peers, who are painted in a manner that is startlingly contemporary and largely lacking in idealization. I want to be friends with them.

2) Braids (Andrew Wyeth) — I’ve always been attracted to the glow of her skin against the black background; it reminds me of the severe beauty of Flemish portraiture (which I also adore). The textures in this are fantastic, too. I love carefully and precisely the details of her hair and sweater are rendered.

3) Self Portrait in a Straw Hat (Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun) — Look how fresh and pretty she is! I think I like this so much because I identify with how she has painted herself; she is most confident and comfortable in her identity as an artist, but she is also given to romantic embellishments (such a jaunty feather!) and even bits of dun-give-a-fuck (check out that natural cleavage, no corset there hon hon hon).

4) Madame X (John Singer Sargent) -- This one (and the story behind it) is pretty well-known, so there’s not much I can add. That line from her neck down to that twisted hand is one of the most elegant things in the Western canon to me.

5) An Old Man in Military Costume (Rembrant van Rijn) — This fellow is like an old friend. I go to the Getty at least once a year, and I always make sure to visit him. I love his rheumy old eyes and consternated expression and ridiculous feather. You can really see Rembrandt’s mastery when you get up close to the shiny bits; the base color, shadow, reflected light and highlight are laid down with such economy and confidence.

30 . storyboard artist . los angeles, ca

Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
--Kurt Vonnegut

welcome!

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