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travistravis
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Registered User regular
www.thehappyskull.webs.com there's other stuff there too
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Gimme some more goddammit
thanks. I'm always sending drawing to companies to see what they have to say but it's notoriously difficult getting attention doing this sort of thing. I use twitter as a way of sending things to companies quickly and easily http://twitter.com/#!/alundrawellman alundra, a game i like and wellman my surname. If any one want to follow me on there I try to post as much art as possible but I was also thinking if I had more than 7 followers suda 51 or media molecule might notice. Maybe I'm setting my sights too high, I'll send something to 2000ad lol.
(I know this is going to make me sound like the bad guy here since everyone else is head over heels for this stuff, but...)
If you're talking about jobs, then yeah, it's going to be difficult getting attention doing this particular sort of thing. Sure you can draw things that look cool at a superficial level, but your work doesn't demonstrate that you're going to be all that useful if employed as a concept or comic artist.
Despite what stereotypes about artists may have lead you to believe, companies generally don't make hiring decisions based on how CAH-RAY-ZEE a free spirit you are- they hire people based on how well they think someone is going to draw the sort of stuff they need drawn, of which maybe 2-3% would be crazy-go-nuts stuff like this- not nearly enough to justify employing you for months on end.
The other 98% is going to be down to earth stuff- chairs, hills, normal looking people with no extra limbs, apartment buildings that look like any old apartment building, cars that don't have vaginas, etc.; and it generally has to be that sort of ratio, otherwise the game/comic would wind up a context-free, incoherent jumble of meaningless weird images. (You can get away with that shit in art school, but once you have millions of dollars riding on your work being able to effectively communicate to an audience, people actually start giving a shit).
The real challenge is not coming up with crazy shit (if it were, companies would be lacing their employee water coolers with LSD)- it's making what would usually be run-of-the-mill interesting in subtle ways, so you can demonstrate that you will excel at that doing that other 98% of the work; that means artistic license combined with rock-solid, well-honed fundamentals. Having a lot of your portfolio consist of amorphous stuff that has little to no point of comparison to nature doesn't show an art director that you have those fundamentals- at best it leaves them confused about what you do and don't know, and at worst it makes them suspicious that you may be trying to hide known weaknesses. Either way, it's not going to do your career any favors. That sort of thing is like a spice- it can add a lot when applied in moderation, but it's no replacement for a solid meal.
Now, I'm not going to tell you to stop what you're doing, personal work is personal work and I don't really care one way or another as far as that goes. The point I'm making is purely about making the leap from personal to professional work, if that is your intention.
Twitter
To add to what bacon has told you, you need to also find a focus and cater a portfolio to that. Show some variety and some of your personal work, but decide whether you want to do concept design for games or comic work. Those two fields are related in you need incredible technical and creative skills to get noticed in both but the portfolio you would submit to marvel or dc would show more storytelling skills while the concept art would focus more on characters/props/environments which show potential to aid in the storytelling.
i wonder if spex is going to tear him a new asshole as well...
Also, yeah I can really see a ba-alita inspiration too, so hooray for rad robotic violence!
heh.
But srsly travis, I like what you have going on, and while I think Bacon is probably spot on about external employment, your style should serve you well for personal projects.
Unfortunately I can't dig up any information on his artistic education, but if Travis Charest acquired his level of skill through a combination of random fucking around and displays of infantile homophobia, I for one would be extremely surprised.
On the other hand, if he acquired his skills through life drawing (including, but not limited to, drawing naked dudes) and dedicated practice of fundamental drawing concepts, I would not be surprised at all- considering that's basically how every Western artist worth a damn since the Renaissance did it. His work demonstrates the principles of light and shade, form, anatomy, construction, and perspective far too well for me to believe for a second that those skills just happened to bubble up out of his head fully-formed by pure chance, rather than by long years of hardcore practice and education (which means, (hark!) he's likely drawn many, many things that aren't wild and crazy, just in order to acquire and practice those skills.) If anything, the technical-mindedness of his work is almost the complete opposite of your own approach.
But, hey, don't take my word for it- if you can look him up I'd suggest trying to shoot him an email or a letter or try to meet him at a comic convention appearance, and ask him what training or practice he has had over the years to get him to where he is in terms of skill- maybe if you won't take us seriously, his voice would carry more weight.
Also- if this is too abstract an argument for you- he'd have a real problem drawing the chairs in these panels if he didn't acquire the fundamental principles required to draw chairs somewhere along the way. Why you'd argue that nobody would care or not about whether or not he could draw chairs seems somewhat silly, considering that his work indicates that he himself obviously cares a great deal about the matter.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8WIrmVUn13Y/SaM9cZqCTBI/AAAAAAAAADk/APTzofu5O0E/s1600-h/Spacegirl#62.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rktGNUrcGxA/ThTJaN7GpJI/AAAAAAAAB8k/1lmY6j0TPZ8/s1600/Page-12+b%26w.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u4vJTmzqzn0/TgmRZbGb_pI/AAAAAAAAB64/K9dQr49oaY8/s1600/Spacegirl%2368.jpg
Twitter
"If I could draw like Travis Charest, people wouldn't care if I sucked at drawing"
"I don't know what I want to do or where I want to go, but if I don't get there I'm obviously a shitty person"
"I'm afraid of failure, but I will basically make up infinite excuses for not attempting to better myself as an artist"
That last one may have been fabricated, and is really more of a theme of every single one of your threads.
Basically, you don't seem to know what you're doing, or even what you want to be doing, but you're insufferably obstinate about receiving critiques on your work, as if you have even the slightest clue. You would probably get more out of these threads if you figured out where the prow of that ship is pointing, first. Then breaking out of what seems to be a pretty substantial "big fish in a small pond" complex, hiding laziness of craft behind style ("eh, expanding my horizons isn't really my jive, bro"), and carefully planting your work in situations where it will either be ignored (spamming professionals with e-mail and Twitter garbage), or praised by people who don't know better. Speaking to the former, I don't even know how you expect any of them to give a shit when its clear the only networking you're interested in is the kind that can be done from a computer with a handful of mouse clicks, and your subject matter is almost too narrow to even be called as much. I will guarantee you, if that's as "go-getter" as you can get, they will not empathize.
And the style mask? It takes maybe 3 images to see what you're trying to hide in regards to your lack of understanding of anatomy, composition, and stylistic cohesion. You're putting a rug over a sinkhole.
I understand that at times it's really friggen hard to take a crit, if you feel like you've accomplished what you wanted out of a drawing.
i get that
I'm on the same page as you. There are times when someone will comment on something I post and I think in my head "yeah right whatever you just don't get me man, you don't know what I'm going for". But there's a part of me that knows that it's my stupid ego getting in the way.
So I close my laptop
I go do something else
in the back of my mind, I'm thinking of what the person said
i come back at the computer
i look at the drawing in question again... i really look at it
and 99% of the time, i go "you know what? that person is totally right"
and then I either a) fix the problem or b) don't bother cause I'm tired of the drawing and want to move on, but that crit is usually fresh in my mind for the next time.
And you know what? I'd say 99.9% of the time, I am so much happier with the result of fixing it.
Swallowing your pride can be hard at times. My pride still trips me up sometimes. i find myself having to reel it in (usually browsing some of my favorite art blogs is a good slice of humble pie.) No good artist honestly looks at their work and goes "you know what? I have hit the end, I am as good as I can possibly be, there is no way to make this better"
There's always ways to become better, there's always things you could improve on. The quicker you realize that, the easier it is to push the ego aside and actually start improving.
Your ego is your number 1 problem. Screw your lack of anatomical or compositional knowledge... that comes with time and practice. you're not willing to practice because you don't think you have to You need to get that in check. When you can admit you're just as flawed as every one of us, when you can look at your work and think more than "this is my style and i like it so i'm keeping it this way" you'll actually start to improve, and you'll get noticed without even trying.
I had the incredibly humbling honour of being mentored by Mark English last summer (look him up if you don't know). The man is in his 70s. He's one of the most recognized and celebrated american illustrators in the society of illustrators. He is a very very accomplished man. But when he did demos for us, he always tried some completely new approach he'd not tried yet. He's in his 70s and he's one of the few older instructors I've had who wasn't completely afraid of digital, he thought it was neat, and new and exciting. When asked about this, he said "if i'm not learning, what's the point? I'm always learning"
if mark friggen english is still learning, then i assure you, every single artist you love and admire has room to learn too. yourself included.
They don't. Dark Horse, Image, IDW, Dynamite, Boom, First Second, Oni Press...You don't have to work for Marvel or DC to make a name for yourself in comics. Don't assume you know about things you know nothing about ]:
Also, I remember the last time you posted here and couldn't take crits. Learn to accept advice or you'll never progress...
Almost forgot, in my first day at Art College our teacher asked us to draw a chair... true story.
i find it hard to take all this stuff seriously is all. and if i wanted to get a job on spiderman your right. your all perfectly right. but like i said i dont. i just want to draw cool stuff. if you want chairs or perfectly represented human bodies then there's plenty of other artists you can admire.
any way its total shit i wont progress. like i said a year ago i couldnt draw at all. i haven't paid the slightest bit of attention to any one on anything and i've gotten better at drawing every thing. i think its just most important to enjoy it and to do it as much as possible. i see people online that spend years learning all the stuff theyre told to and they never get any where. i couldn't be bothered to read the longer posts so im sorry if i didnt answer every ones problems but rest assured nothings going to change so you'd better get used to it.
And then travistravis did an ollie while totally flipping that crusty old dean the bird.
Also- if this is too abstract an argument for you- he'd have a real problem drawing the chairs in these panels if he didn't acquire the fundamental principles required to draw chairs somewhere along the way. Why you'd argue that nobody would care or not about whether or not he could draw chairs seems somewhat silly, considering that his work indicates that he himself obviously cares a great deal about the matter.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8WIrmVUn13Y/SaM9cZqCTBI/AAAAAAAAADk/APTzofu5O0E/s1600-h/Spacegirl#62.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rktGNUrcGxA/ThTJaN7GpJI/AAAAAAAAB8k/1lmY6j0TPZ8/s1600/Page-12+b%26w.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u4vJTmzqzn0/TgmRZbGb_pI/AAAAAAAAB64/K9dQr49oaY8/s1600/Spacegirl%2368.jpg[/quote]
your right there's no way i could draw those chairs. i appreciate the comments really. i think that looks awesome though because of the ink wash and the angles and the design. the middle one especially. i'd like to now as well where he learnt to do that. he couldn't do it when he first started drawing comics. the middle one i wouldn't even know where to start. i ink washed some thing recently but i don't have it now. if any one nows how those effects were done that would sweet.