Since I'm going to be using a lot of black in my current project I need a fat felt marker. Does anyone know what brands black will most closely match the micron's I'm using for line work? Sharpie is distinctly more blue so but I don't want to just start buying brands since large markers are kind of pricey.
Might be easiest to just bring a small notebook with you to your local art supply store, and try out what they have until you find a match you're happy with. Unless the marker is wrapped or sealed somehow, they tend to expect you'll do this and most art stores tend to have scraps of paper by the marker and pen displays for exactly this purpose.
Since I'm going to be using a lot of black in my current project I need a fat felt marker. Does anyone know what brands black will most closely match the micron's I'm using for line work? Sharpie is distinctly more blue so but I don't want to just start buying brands since large markers are kind of pricey.
Might be easiest to just bring a small notebook with you to your local art supply store, and try out what they have until you find a match you're happy with. Unless the marker is wrapped or sealed somehow, they tend to expect you'll do this and most art stores tend to have scraps of paper by the marker and pen displays for exactly this purpose.
Totally makes sense, I just figured I'd throw it out there in case it was a normal question/problem and everyone is like "buy Krink dummy."
I'd only recommend Krink if you really need a strange nib size (like, for inking a wall, ie, graffiti)
It also sort of depends on what your idea of a large marker size is, but yeah, ND is on the money. Here in NYC a bunch of places like Blick etc will even have pads of paper out with the pens to discourage you from writing on the display stands (not that it prevents intrepid art students from doing so regardless)
If you have the emotional strength to ruin some shit, you could also just buy some ink. for laying down large areas it'd make your life easier. It will also destroy your soul and carpet and sketchbook if you knock it over, so enjoy.
If you dont care about what happens to the original, making a bunch of almost blacks actually black digitally is maybe one of the easiest scanning/touch up jobs there is.
Found this on artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/X4Gln
I sometimes like seeing peoples shitty stages because its easy to forget that professionals have them. People post very pretty "exploratory" work, but sometimes I want to see some fucked up sketches where the leg just fucking turned out wrong and they fixed it.
@Angel_of_Bacon btw. I'm trying to work through the Framed Perspective book and got pretty far just reading it till I realized "oh. Hes not going to stop and say "try drawing this".
My goal is to try and get some environments going in the next month or two, but I'm intimidated to really get into it. Its because its painful and I kinda hate it, but to set up the environments I know I want to, I need to do it. Setting things up in 3D only seems to take me but so far because I need to wrestle so much with the other thing I seem to hate, which is fucking 3D.
One of my favorite things to see from super good artists is their sketches. Polished work is cool to see of course, but with sketches you can really SEE into their process. You can also sometimes tell that they're super skilled with a certain thing due to how confident their marks are...or you can see how they worked out a problem (like a broken-ass leg, like you mentioned).
Are you looking for inspiration for the exaggeration and stylization of the poses, or just reference in general? A lot of the japanese/anime artists with good poses seem to recommend getting your hands on a few of these:
There's another brand too, I dont remember the name but looking around for "japanese pose book" tends to pull up a variety. I still find the occasional good stock photo over deviant art too. Many of the photos you find are a bit poorly lit, but unlike the life drawing resources they tend to be very creative with poses.
Well I meant more the former, but both would be helpful; don't have a lot of good photo ref along these lines to work from, and don't have enough art ref to know how to handle it in an interesting way if I did. I'll add some of these books to my amazon wishlist, but man I think I start pumping the brakes on spending money on stuff- I think since November I've been eating/spending money with a little less care than usual as an emotional escape from the news, and that probably ain't healthy.
That pinterest turned up a bunch of good stuff, so thanks for reminding me of it (like most of the art sites/books/videos I've got lying around, I render useless by always completely forgetting about them. :P)
One of my favorite things to see from super good artists is their sketches. You can also sometimes tell that they're super skilled with a certain thing due to how confident their marks are.
Well now that you've said that, if we ever meet up again I will probably just opt to set whatever sketchbooks I may have on me on fire in front of you, rather than let you see the primitive scribblings within.
I've started using pinterest as my reference dump, and I use that character design blog as my bookmark gateway to the site so I remember to look there too.
I gotta say converting over it to using it has been more smooth than I anticipated. Its nice having all my ref online somewhere, and the app is handy enough that I can use it when I sketch in airports and still reference things a bit.
I'm working on putting all my tumblr faves over there (Im a bit of a digital pack rat, honestly)
gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
This was a pretty good one, at least from a podcast perspective. I didn't get much out of the drawing itself, but Eric was candid about working in the industry and perspective.
I went to the Schoolism Live workshop in Seattle. It was pretty sweet I guess. Two days of talks/demos. I only knew two of the artist before going, but I still think I got something from each of them, even if some of it wasn't really related to what I do (one guy was a sculptor).
I didn't really talk to anyone, which is fine by me. But if someone wanted to go there to network, they totally could. The instructors were super accessible too. Before and after their talk, they were basically all jut chilling in a little Schoolism merch area. Many people got feedback on their work, and all of the instructors were happy to do it.
All in all, I'm super happy I went. I've gone to a lot of different types of cons and stuff, but I've never really been to a straight up art workshop. Turns out this is what I've been looking for this whole time. Now I need to find more! (Or just follow schoolism around haha).
Now I have a one day pass to ECCC. Pretty excited for this. Also Seattle is my favorite city in the US. And it's not because you can literally walk into a store and buy weed, though that doesn't hurt.
Pretty good weekend, overall. Work tomorrow is going to suuuuuuuuck.
Anyone have experience with these? I just got one for my birthday I'm pretty tempted excited even if it's not as amazing as advertised (these things never are).
@Doodmann that think looks weird. I hadn't even seen it before. You should...report back if you like it.
@Sublimus Glad you had a good time at schoolism and eccc! Hope you got inspired/motivated to get painting. I think you've been making good strides forward in the last few weeks, keep it up man.
@Iruka I was actually a little scared to mess with what's been working for me haha. I think I found a balance of getting some new insights without rocking the boat too much,
@Agentflit Dang! Well, I may move there sometime this year, so I'll hit you up if I do! Iruka and I both live in Austin and we converted to IRL friends hehe.
Man, dont be afraid to shake it up. The worst thing that can happen is a bad painting or two. If you never take the risk to try new techniques and methods, it'll be hard to grow.
Yeah, I'm not afraid to shake it up! But in the past I was so open to feedback that I kind of lost my own way. So now I'm just trying to take what I have, and process new stuff, rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I picked up quite a few things! I'm actually a little overwhelmed with how many things I want to (and know how to) improve in my work work haha! One thing at a time! Being deliberate is super important, I'm learning more and more.
gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
The merging of 3D software, machine intelligence and art is an interesting convergence. Somebody recently released a program that will automatically do a soft diffuse watercolor-ish palette on lineart if you dab in the core colors as dots. There was much gnashing of teeth by young artists that they were being replaced. Yet its hardly surprising. If you want flat colors or shading, then its largely mechanical. Establish your map, give it the relative values, press go.
With a large enough training set, I doubt there's any singular style that we can't train a machine to approximate. After all, machines are very good at copying.
There are times where I'd like to print out a digital thing and get my sketching going traditionally. I used to do this at school when I had an entire print lab at my disposal, but these days I just have my little B&W brother printer.
I have seen a lot about this scanning-things-and-printing-them technique while watching Wylie Beckert's stuff
The closest I've gotten is printing stuff and doing penciled transfers, which has actually been kind of a neat experiment in trying to get something right, because I can do it a few times before it gets frustrating
I just recently got some photo paper which is definitely just glorified cardstock and I think I'm going to start doing some experiments with scanned pencils and inking or working gouache over them. I know you can run 1-ply Strathmore 500 drawing paper through a home inkjet printer, it just has to be the right size?
I feel you on the larger printer scale tho. I'm still trying to iron out how I want to do some different pieces I'm contemplating. I know some people who have had success taking things to print shops? but it probably depends on what scale you're aiming for.
There are print shops in austin that can handle when I want to get prints made in batches, but Integrating it into my actual process would probably make a trip too much of a hassle. If I had something in walking distance I might actually do it that way.
There are a bunch of things I want to do at home, but I need more space haha
There are print shops in austin that can handle when I want to get prints made in batches, but Integrating it into my actual process would probably make a trip too much of a hassle. If I had something in walking distance I might actually do it that way.
There are a bunch of things I want to do at home, but I need more space haha
woof, ain't that the truth all over, heh. even if I had a printer that could handle the scale of some stuff I want to do, it's like, where would I work on it? where would I put it? fml.
I have what is probably a pretty nice printer(?), but unless I get Billy Madison'd into going back to high school/college and have to start handing people essays again, it'll probably remain getting used maybe 1-3 times a year.
So, I decided to apply for a smaller convention around Philly, but missed the deadline and was waitlisted. Then I applied for a local art festival/street festival that has an emerging artist area. Then today I got an email saying I am in for the Philly convention. I've never done one before! Ahhhhh.
Dear me, don't procrastinate. You have 3 weeks to make stuff to bring. Signed, future you.
My goal is to try and get stuff done early in-case I have to re-order stuff or whatnot.
Any tips for someone's first convention? Types of things to sell? How much to bring? I don't plan to take commissions honestly because I don't think I am confident enough and I want to make my first experience as comfortable as possible.
My current printer is pretty much a boarding pass printing machine, because I'm never convinced that my phone wont somehow die if I use the digital ones. I bought it nearly 5 years ago and just replaced the toner cartridge.
I wanna get more physical with my work and its hard. Apartments really limit you in the "man I dont want to fuck up this floor" department.
I also kinda want to start trying to get stuff up on some walls around austin, and that would require that I have some more physical things.
So, I decided to apply for a smaller convention around Philly, but missed the deadline and was waitlisted. Then I applied for a local art festival/street festival that has an emerging artist area. Then today I got an email saying I am in for the Philly convention. I've never done one before! Ahhhhh.
Dear me, don't procrastinate. You have 3 weeks to make stuff to bring. Signed, future you.
My goal is to try and get stuff done early in-case I have to re-order stuff or whatnot.
Any tips for someone's first convention? Types of things to sell? How much to bring? I don't plan to take commissions honestly because I don't think I am confident enough and I want to make my first experience as comfortable as possible.
I sold a decent amount of zines, because they are kinda cool and cheaper than prints, but 3 weeks isn't enough time to get one going unless you really bang it out. I suggest playing it cool and using the time to get to know/hang with people on the con circuit.
I brought some pokemon prints and they sold well. I think it helps to have one recognizable thing on the table, it gets people to stop. Might also want to look up some rack setups, If you have alot of prints, it helps get your stuff off the table and more viewable. Get a square if you dont have one. My prints were small and uniform enough to fit in manilla envelopes. People really appreciated that what they bought got packed up for them.
Other than that there's probably a lot of posts on tumblr that have more advice.
I bought a nice wireless printer/scanner that I use a handful of times a year. My company will be selling a large format printer that we're phasing out and I'm tempted to spring for it, if not for the fact that I'll never use it...
I wish I could print a resume on some quality, high-gloss paper and then trim the 40" roll down to letter size.
So, I decided to apply for a smaller convention around Philly, but missed the deadline and was waitlisted. Then I applied for a local art festival/street festival that has an emerging artist area. Then today I got an email saying I am in for the Philly convention. I've never done one before! Ahhhhh.
Dear me, don't procrastinate. You have 3 weeks to make stuff to bring. Signed, future you.
My goal is to try and get stuff done early in-case I have to re-order stuff or whatnot.
Any tips for someone's first convention? Types of things to sell? How much to bring? I don't plan to take commissions honestly because I don't think I am confident enough and I want to make my first experience as comfortable as possible.
I sold a decent amount of zines, because they are kinda cool and cheaper than prints, but 3 weeks isn't enough time to get one going unless you really bang it out. I suggest playing it cool and using the time to get to know/hang with people on the con circuit.
I brought some pokemon prints and they sold well. I think it helps to have one recognizable thing on the table, it gets people to stop. Might also want to look up some rack setups, If you have alot of prints, it helps get your stuff off the table and more viewable. Get a square if you dont have one. My prints were small and uniform enough to fit in manilla envelopes. People really appreciated that what they bought got packed up for them.
Other than that there's probably a lot of posts on tumblr that have more advice.
I'll have to do some research when I get a chance. Thanks!
Another question: How do taxes work when selling things at a con? Any info or what direction I need to look would be super helpful.
If you plan to do it regularly you should probably pick up something to calculate it for you. I have the Self Employed quickbooks for a variety of reasons, and it basically taxes my income as it comes in so I can properly pay the big man quarterly. Literally everything I currently take in as income is contract, so its just an essential part of my budget to pay for it.
If you only do it once and only make like 200 bucks, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I believe the cap is about $400 before it starts to matter. If you set up square as your POS, you can also use it to deal with your cash transactions, which is a good way to have a record of everything and know when you eclipsed the point where you need to dig into taxes.
If you plan to do it regularly you should probably pick up something to calculate it for you. I have the Self Employed quickbooks for a variety of reasons, and it basically taxes my income as it comes in so I can properly pay the big man quarterly. Literally everything I currently take in as income is contract, so its just an essential part of my budget to pay for it.
If you only do it once and only make like 200 bucks, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I believe the cap is about $400 before it starts to matter. If you set up square as your POS, you can also use it to deal with your cash transactions, which is a good way to have a record of everything and know when you eclipsed the point where you need to dig into taxes.
Thanks for all your help, @Iruka. While this is a pretty overwhelming thing in general, just getting some tips is helpful. I actually am writing an email to our family tax...guy? Seeing if I can get an official statement on when I need to actually report things. Everywhere I've asked, it definitely seems like A) I need to hit a $$ total that will probably not happen and don't worry about it.
The con is April 7-9. Maybe I should look into the Square and if I can get it before then. Otherwise I will be SOL for CC transactions.
After a few emails, it is time to get to work on merch and a business card.
Posts
Might be easiest to just bring a small notebook with you to your local art supply store, and try out what they have until you find a match you're happy with. Unless the marker is wrapped or sealed somehow, they tend to expect you'll do this and most art stores tend to have scraps of paper by the marker and pen displays for exactly this purpose.
Totally makes sense, I just figured I'd throw it out there in case it was a normal question/problem and everyone is like "buy Krink dummy."
It also sort of depends on what your idea of a large marker size is, but yeah, ND is on the money. Here in NYC a bunch of places like Blick etc will even have pads of paper out with the pens to discourage you from writing on the display stands (not that it prevents intrepid art students from doing so regardless)
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
If you dont care about what happens to the original, making a bunch of almost blacks actually black digitally is maybe one of the easiest scanning/touch up jobs there is.
I sometimes like seeing peoples shitty stages because its easy to forget that professionals have them. People post very pretty "exploratory" work, but sometimes I want to see some fucked up sketches where the leg just fucking turned out wrong and they fixed it.
@Angel_of_Bacon btw. I'm trying to work through the Framed Perspective book and got pretty far just reading it till I realized "oh. Hes not going to stop and say "try drawing this".
My goal is to try and get some environments going in the next month or two, but I'm intimidated to really get into it. Its because its painful and I kinda hate it, but to set up the environments I know I want to, I need to do it. Setting things up in 3D only seems to take me but so far because I need to wrestle so much with the other thing I seem to hate, which is fucking 3D.
uh anyway. I did go back and by Framed Ink, though, and its cool shit. I also got this: https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Zelda-Art-Artifacts/dp/1506703356 and its preeetty cool.
Sketches are hella cool.
Well I meant more the former, but both would be helpful; don't have a lot of good photo ref along these lines to work from, and don't have enough art ref to know how to handle it in an interesting way if I did. I'll add some of these books to my amazon wishlist, but man I think I start pumping the brakes on spending money on stuff- I think since November I've been eating/spending money with a little less care than usual as an emotional escape from the news, and that probably ain't healthy.
That pinterest turned up a bunch of good stuff, so thanks for reminding me of it (like most of the art sites/books/videos I've got lying around, I render useless by always completely forgetting about them. :P)
Well now that you've said that, if we ever meet up again I will probably just opt to set whatever sketchbooks I may have on me on fire in front of you, rather than let you see the primitive scribblings within.
Twitter
I gotta say converting over it to using it has been more smooth than I anticipated. Its nice having all my ref online somewhere, and the app is handy enough that I can use it when I sketch in airports and still reference things a bit.
I'm working on putting all my tumblr faves over there (Im a bit of a digital pack rat, honestly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK4i5uQR74o
I didn't really talk to anyone, which is fine by me. But if someone wanted to go there to network, they totally could. The instructors were super accessible too. Before and after their talk, they were basically all jut chilling in a little Schoolism merch area. Many people got feedback on their work, and all of the instructors were happy to do it.
All in all, I'm super happy I went. I've gone to a lot of different types of cons and stuff, but I've never really been to a straight up art workshop. Turns out this is what I've been looking for this whole time. Now I need to find more! (Or just follow schoolism around haha).
Now I have a one day pass to ECCC. Pretty excited for this. Also Seattle is my favorite city in the US. And it's not because you can literally walk into a store and buy weed, though that doesn't hurt.
Pretty good weekend, overall. Work tomorrow is going to suuuuuuuuck.
And yes, work sucked this morning.
@Sublimus Glad you had a good time at schoolism and eccc! Hope you got inspired/motivated to get painting. I think you've been making good strides forward in the last few weeks, keep it up man.
Hey @Sublimus I was at eccc on thurs. I got several of my favorite artists to doodle a butt in my sketchbook
You can say hi to me if you come back to Seattle cos I live here n stuff
@Agentflit Dang! Well, I may move there sometime this year, so I'll hit you up if I do! Iruka and I both live in Austin and we converted to IRL friends hehe.
I picked up quite a few things! I'm actually a little overwhelmed with how many things I want to (and know how to) improve in my work work haha! One thing at a time! Being deliberate is super important, I'm learning more and more.
Things are awkward
Still thinking about picking up some 3D software for this kind of stuff.
With a large enough training set, I doubt there's any singular style that we can't train a machine to approximate. After all, machines are very good at copying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bF3ofvI8bM
Twitter
and then there was Metalbourne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnYOrzhzQv0
There are times where I'd like to print out a digital thing and get my sketching going traditionally. I used to do this at school when I had an entire print lab at my disposal, but these days I just have my little B&W brother printer.
I just replaced the toner in the brother so I'm probably not going to run out and buy anything, but I'm curious about it. The buy-in for the hardware is getting cheaper, even for stuff that can print a little larger: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/893738-REG/Canon_6228b002_Pixma_Pro_100_Photo_Inkjet.html
One day I want to get a house and just put a fucking banner printer in it.
The closest I've gotten is printing stuff and doing penciled transfers, which has actually been kind of a neat experiment in trying to get something right, because I can do it a few times before it gets frustrating
I just recently got some photo paper which is definitely just glorified cardstock and I think I'm going to start doing some experiments with scanned pencils and inking or working gouache over them. I know you can run 1-ply Strathmore 500 drawing paper through a home inkjet printer, it just has to be the right size?
I feel you on the larger printer scale tho. I'm still trying to iron out how I want to do some different pieces I'm contemplating. I know some people who have had success taking things to print shops? but it probably depends on what scale you're aiming for.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
There are a bunch of things I want to do at home, but I need more space haha
woof, ain't that the truth all over, heh. even if I had a printer that could handle the scale of some stuff I want to do, it's like, where would I work on it? where would I put it? fml.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Twitter
Dear me, don't procrastinate. You have 3 weeks to make stuff to bring. Signed, future you.
My goal is to try and get stuff done early in-case I have to re-order stuff or whatnot.
Any tips for someone's first convention? Types of things to sell? How much to bring? I don't plan to take commissions honestly because I don't think I am confident enough and I want to make my first experience as comfortable as possible.
Tumblr | Twitter | Twitch | Pinny Arcade Lanyard
[3DS] 3394-3901-4002 | [Xbox/Steam] Redfield85
I wanna get more physical with my work and its hard. Apartments really limit you in the "man I dont want to fuck up this floor" department.
I also kinda want to start trying to get stuff up on some walls around austin, and that would require that I have some more physical things.
@redfield85
I sold a decent amount of zines, because they are kinda cool and cheaper than prints, but 3 weeks isn't enough time to get one going unless you really bang it out. I suggest playing it cool and using the time to get to know/hang with people on the con circuit.
I brought some pokemon prints and they sold well. I think it helps to have one recognizable thing on the table, it gets people to stop. Might also want to look up some rack setups, If you have alot of prints, it helps get your stuff off the table and more viewable. Get a square if you dont have one. My prints were small and uniform enough to fit in manilla envelopes. People really appreciated that what they bought got packed up for them.
Other than that there's probably a lot of posts on tumblr that have more advice.
I wish I could print a resume on some quality, high-gloss paper and then trim the 40" roll down to letter size.
I'll have to do some research when I get a chance. Thanks!
Another question: How do taxes work when selling things at a con? Any info or what direction I need to look would be super helpful.
Tumblr | Twitter | Twitch | Pinny Arcade Lanyard
[3DS] 3394-3901-4002 | [Xbox/Steam] Redfield85
If you only do it once and only make like 200 bucks, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I believe the cap is about $400 before it starts to matter. If you set up square as your POS, you can also use it to deal with your cash transactions, which is a good way to have a record of everything and know when you eclipsed the point where you need to dig into taxes.
Thanks for all your help, @Iruka. While this is a pretty overwhelming thing in general, just getting some tips is helpful. I actually am writing an email to our family tax...guy? Seeing if I can get an official statement on when I need to actually report things. Everywhere I've asked, it definitely seems like A) I need to hit a $$ total that will probably not happen and don't worry about it.
The con is April 7-9. Maybe I should look into the Square and if I can get it before then. Otherwise I will be SOL for CC transactions.
After a few emails, it is time to get to work on merch and a business card.
Tumblr | Twitter | Twitch | Pinny Arcade Lanyard
[3DS] 3394-3901-4002 | [Xbox/Steam] Redfield85
And no problem. I'm a total novice at cons, but I'm happy to help where I can haha