COOL ARTISTS / FRIENDLY PEOPLE - They talk to me!



SHE'S MY POOKY!

It has come to my attention that I have a long way to go as an artist. Mind you I think I have improved quite a bit even in the last year and DA has a lot to do with that. I've seen the great art done by some many others and it has encouraged me to strive for the same level of competence. Competition can be a good thing.

Still, I've seen many areas where I fall short and somethings that I keep doing which I should not. I'm going to keep a list and update the list as more of these things are revealed to me. My main method of acquiring these nuggets of wisdom is from critiques. I'm not the best at accepting criticism I admit. There is an art to delivering the critique without crushing the soul of the artist. Some have it, some don't but I'm going to try and be strong and pragmatic about this.

If you can think of any qualities about my art that need to be corrected, please let me know. If I agree, I'll add them to the list here and we'll keep this as a list of self improvement goals! OK?

5/27/09 - BOOBS! Okay, this one needs some explanation and is not as shallow as it initially sounds. I just couldn't come up with a wittier tag line. The problem, as it was pointed out to me by my father-in-law, is this: I draw all my female characters boobs very similarly. That is, quite large and almost perfectly spherical making them all appear to have had breast enhancement surgery and gone about one cup size too far. He was right too. I do tend to make them all roughly the same cup size and sometimes way too round.

Good God, I think most of the population of artists on DA seem to have this same problem. Shame too, cause there can be so much variation in the female form that it is staggering and a woman does not have to be an oversized triple D to be beautiful. I'm honestly not a fan of the boob-job stripper look but I guess I'm just imitating what I see so much of. Maybe too much of. Need to work on that.

I once even had definite plans on how to deferentiate my female Zodiac characters from each other by giving them definite differences in cup size. In order from smallest to largest that would be Scorpio, Virgo, Capricorn, Sagittarius, Aquarius and Taurus. That was my plan but looking back they are all roughly the same size. That's just boring. And just as boring is making all the guys roughly the same physique. That just means I have poor range as an artist. I wanted each of my guys to have a recognizable body shape and I've gotten away from that too. Need to redouble my efforts so this is a good wake-up call.

Allright, that was a good start and something to think about and work on for me. Like I said, I'll update this journal every so often with some thoughts on how I can improve based on what others have told me. I encourage other artists to read it as well especially if they know they could use some advice. Most of the advice I get could probably work for most beginning artists.

ZODIAC FOR SALE AS TRADE PAPERBACK! New Price of $13.99!
Available through Indyplanet. Contains the first 100 pages from here on DA plus all the character bio pages. All you need is paypal to purchase!
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COMMISION WORK TO DO
Monthly Zodiac Quetzalcoatlus comic for June-finished!
Valkyrie cover for in July
4 "First Mission" pages for in July
Villainess pic for
Kangaskan ghostbuster pic for