One Nice Bug Per Day
official daine visual archive
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JVL
we're not kids anymore.
YOU ARE THE REASON
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Product Placement
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@artist-advice
I made a 37 minute long tutorial about how I draw cozy interiors! It runs you through how I make a perspective grid, as well as all of the tools I use to make these kinds of illustrations. Here’s a little preview of it ~ if you want to access the full video for $5, you can find it here: https://www.patreon.com/loish
a collection of motivational insights regarding content creation and creative hobbies
and of course the classic
I’ve shared this story before, but some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten was from a writing professor who said, “The thing that makes your work interesting isn’t the stuff you’re good at, it’s the stuff you struggle with. Because you’ll either focus on improving those skills until you’re really good or you’ll figure out how to work around it in really cool ways.”
after eight years, I finally updated my huge Historical Fashion Reference & Resources Doc! Now in the form of a MUCH more easily updated Google Doc with better organization, refreshed links, and five more pages of books and online resources.
I know tumblr hates links, but it’s worth it for a doc that I can now update with far more regularity going forward! RIP to the original, you did your duty for far longer than you should have. 😔🙏🏼
Hello artists who can’t draw backgrounds
There’s a completely free website called roomstyler that allows you to create high-quality 3D renders of rooms that you can easily use as reference for actual drawings
Here’s a few examples I’ve done
Support me on PATREON or Ko-fi 💕
hi! i was wondering if you had any tips for knowing when to color a section of lineart vs keep it black vs blend? your art always blends so seamlessly between colored and black lineart and it makes it look so natural and have so much movement!
Hi, thank you for asking! Here’s a condensed tutorial on how I color my lineart :)
When to color lineart:
When to use the airbrush tool:
In general, I recommend trying things out and seeing how you like it. After drawing for years I’ve gone back and forth on fully colored and plain black lineart, and sometimes I change it depending on the look I’m going for in the final piece.
In any case, I hope this helps ! I’m always happy to answer questions on my art process ^^
Preparing for Conventions
What events are best to go to?
Whether it’s a huge celebrity-studded multi-day weekend or a small gathering at a local library, in-person events are an exciting way to reach all kinds of comic fans that may not be in any of your circles online. There’s opportunities to be had at almost every type of event, but a few things that might narrow your focus:
Events that don’t cost more than you think you can make. Convention costs can add up extremely quickly. You can expect to pay at least $100/day for an artist table at mid-sized or large conventions. If you’re just starting out, prioritize conventions that are close enough to your home (or friends/family who will host you) that you won’t have to pay for a hotel or spend a lot in transportation costs. Splitting the table with another artist is another option!
Events that other artists in your area/genre recommend. A great way to learn about events in your area is to attend one and ask others what conventions they like in the area. Some regular artists even maintain online groups to discuss application deadlines and share experiences. Depending on the genre of your art or comic, you might also find adjacent things like horror shows, anime shows, or zine fests worth exploring too!
Events that you can actually get into. Conventions can be very competitive to get into, and have very small application windows months in advance. Once you’ve identified which conventions are in your area, follow their Twitter, mailing lists or websites to catch their sign up deadlines. Juried shows may also ask for a link to your portfolio, author bio or store to get an idea of who you are and what you’d be selling, so be sure to put something together and be ready!
What kinds of products should I prepare?
Our Masterlist of Printers is a great place to start for recommendations about places to make your products and inspiration! But to cut down on costs and keep yourself flexible while you figure things out, it’s a good idea to focus on:
Products that suit a specific style and taste. Do you make big intricate illustrations that would look good as 11x17 printed art? Are you good with quippy one-liners that would make fun stickers? Is there a popular fandom that you like that has a similar genre to your other work? Popular products are prints, stickers, charms, pins, and comics. But don’t be afraid to handcraft figures or something else.
Products that work together. Be deliberate about the vibe you’re setting, whether that’s a genre (horror, humor, superheroes, etc.), an age range (all ages, adult), a specific type of product (mostly t-shirts, mostly prints, accessories), a theme (eg, all things coffee!). There’s a lot of approaches to making a cohesive product line and organizing your table to keep like things together, but having cute plushies AND saucy pinups AND anime figurines AND coffee mugs can be confusing to customers who are trying to figure out what your table is all about.
Products with low price points that won’t be too expensive to make. Products priced $15 or lower are generally an easy buy for new customers, and offering a range of small inexpensive things is great for folks who are on a budget but still want to support you. When you’re just starting, look for things that don’t require a high amount of money to produce for you or can print in low quantities with a printer. Printed-at-home or handcrafted things are also possibilities for a more zine-style table presence and can save you a little money.
Products with a low minimum order quantity. Try not to order more than 10 or so copies of any one thing (especially anything that a stranger wouldn’t recognize like OC) until you’re confident it will sell. You can always order more after the show if you run out. If you DO have leftover stock (and 99% of the time you will), you definitely can sell it at a future convention, a crowdfunding campaign, include it as Patreon rewards, or list it in an online store. But being stuck with a closet full of 500 postcard prints that you can’t sell is not a fun time, even if you DID get a bulk discount.
Products that have a general appeal. Even if you have a massive social media following, 99% of your customers will have never heard of your comic or your original characters. Comic enthusiasts will often be open to giving a new story from a local artist a chance if you chat them up a little and tell them about it. But also having general interest products (animals, fanart, nerd humor, mythology) on the table that don’t require as much explanation to enjoy is a very good idea.
What do I need other than merch?
A good convention setup looks clean, organized, and easy to engage with. Once you’re accepted, look carefully at the details of the convention and what’s included with your space. Many conventions will give you a table and chair, but you’ll probably also need:
Backdrop - Backdrops display your best art and help people see it from across a crowded room, and partition your space if you’re very close to other tables. A photo backdrop stand with a bunch of 11x17/A3 prints taped together that you’re selling, a wire cube grid construction you can set on your table and stick smaller merch pieces to, or a professionally-printed banner with your name, URL/social handle, and your best art and are all solid options for this.
Where to get them: Google “photo backdrop” or look for photography supply stores. Google “wire cube grids” or look around hardware stores or Walmart/Target. For banners, you can find printers that can make retractable banners or vinyl banners to hang from a photo backdrop.
8-foot Tablecloth - Many conventions assign you a very weathered 6-foot table, so always plan on having something to cover it (optionally for multi-day shows, a second to cover your setup for security purposes when you leave your table.)
Where to get them: Fabric stores, bedsheets, party stores.
Displays - Flat items on a table are invisible to anyone who isn’t directly in front of you, so look for a way to make your stuff stand up and be seen! Easel stands to highlight featured books or art, cork boards and pins you can prop up, boxes or porfolio books to flip through, wire/wooden racks to hold lots of books are all great ideas to consider, depending on your products.
Where to get them: For heavy-duty stuff, you’ll probably want to Google around order displays online. Art supply stores will often have easels and portfolios. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money yet, dollar stores can be a gold mine of quick solutions too!
Price Signage - Having clear pricing on your table helps people decide what to buy without having to ask you about every product. Print your own signs at home, bring colorful post-its, or some stiff paper, markers, and tape. You can also use a white board or chalk board to make a “menu” style price list.
Where to get them: Office supply stores, Target/Walmart.
The ability to take money from people - A secure place that’s accessible to you to keep money for making change. Cashbox theft can unfortunately be an issue sometimes, so wearable pouches or discreet envelopes that don’t immediately look like money are better in this context. If you have a cellphone or tablet, you can also get an app where you can list your products and connect an attachment to swipe or tap credit cards for a small fee. (Note wi-fi and power are not dependable in many venues, so be sure to have a charger and a good data plan for your phone)
Where to get them: For cash, go to your bank in person and ask for $50-$100 in 1s and 5s. For credit card payments, Square, Paypal, and SumUp all have apps that you can put on a phone or tablet and have attachments to swipe or tap credit cards.
Business cards - Customers will often want to follow you on social media, read your comic, or shop online after the show, so be sure to have lots of business cards! Use your most memorable art so they’ll be able to remember where they got it from! If you’re looking to offer commissions or talk to agents/comic professionals, you might also include your email address, but otherwise leave it off.
Where to get them: Many printers offer business cards for cheap. In a pinch, you can also print your own at home or have one sign with your info and ask people to take a picture.
What to Expect
Lots of talking! You don’t have to have a carnival sideshow “step right up” persona, but be ready to give a friendly hello to folks who look interested in your work, and confidently answer questions about all of your products when asked. If you have a comic, practice a quick elevator pitch to explain it.
Not many breaks! While you can technically step away from your table whenever you want (if you’re alone, you can usually ask a neighboring table to watch your stuff for you), every hour you spend away from your table getting food or going to see cool panels are sales opportunities missed. Keep snacks and water at your table to minimize your time away, look for slow traffic times to step away and explore a bit, or bring a friend who can watch your table and sell things for you if you need longer breaks to recharge.
People who have never read a comic on the internet! For those of us who live and breathe our webcomics, this can come as a shock, but many people are still only readers of printed comics and will want to buy your physical book rather than read it free on the internet or buy a digital copy. Even if it’s just a small chapter book, having a print version is a great idea to get readers!
Fun and profit! This can also be surprising if you only have experience with online stores, but people come to convention floors with very open wallets. Things that don’t sell at all online can do gangbusters at conventions when presented right! Experiment with your setup to highlight your favorite things, take careful records of what attracts peoples’ attention and what sells, and keep notes for the next day and next convention, and have fun learning about this new market!
A Mini Guide to RSS Feeds
With all the talk about Twitter and social media going on, I felt really inspired to do a comic about RSS feeds. This is a really barebones guide but I hope it helps you stay updated with your favourite webcomics, artists and websites. The nice thing about RSS feeds is that almost any kind of site has one, so if you wanted you could add user feeds from tumblr, twitter, mastodon, etc. here’s some helpful guides on how to add those (1) (2) I hope you found this little guide helpful. I’m just a simple guy who’s passionate about RSS feeds, comics and staying updated using both. Go forth and make the feed of your dreams! Topaz Comics | Topaz Comics RSS | Art Blog | Art Blog RSS
oh hey clip studio tip of the day: if ur ever doing shading on a multiply layer (or any other blending mode) and it annoys u that u have to flip it back to normal to color pick the dif tones you're using: you can select the eyedropper tool and switch to this while you're working!
leave it on this option and it will still work w your keyboard shortcuts (alt+click, etc), you don't have to switch to the eyedropper tool each time or anything. good for layers where the opacity is turned down too, or basically anything where ur obscuring/altering the "base" colors. just remember to change it back when ur done bc this option Only works for the layer ur actively working on!
Trying to draw buildings
yo here’s a useful tip from your fellow art ho cynellis… use google sketchup to create a model of the room/building/town you’re trying to draw… then take a screenshot & use it as a reference! It’s simple & fun!
Sketchup is incredibly helpful. I can’t recommend it enough.
There’s a 3D model warehouse where you can download all kinds of stuff so you don’t have to build everything from scratch.
reblog to save a life
This is an incomplete tutorial, and it drives me crazy every time I see it come around.
We live in a pretty great digital age and we have access to a ton of amazing tools that artists in past generations couldn’t even dream of, but a lot of people look at a cool trick and only learn half of the process of using it.
Here’s the missing part of this tutorial:
How do you populate your backgrounds?
Well, here’s the answer:
If the focus is the environment, you must show a person in relation to that environment.
The examples above are great because they show how to use the software itself, but each one just kind of “plops” the character in front of their finished product with no regard of the person’s relation to their environment.
How do you fix this?
Well, here’s the simplest solution:
This is a popular trick used by professional storyboard and comic artists alike when they’re quickly planning compositions. It’s simple and it requires you to do some planning before you sit down to crank out that polished, final version of your work, but it will be the difference between a background and an environment.
From Blacksad (artist: Juanjo Guarnido)
From Hellboy (Mike Mignola)
Even if your draftsmanship isn’t that great (like mine), people can be more immersed in the story you tell if you just make it feel like there is a world that exists completely separate from the one in which they currently reside – not just making a backdrop the characters stand in front of.
Your creations live in a unique world, and it is as much a character as any other member of the cast. Make it as believable as they are.
Great comments and tutorials!
I’m a 3d artist and have been exploring the possibilities of using 3d as reference for 2d poses. I want to add a couple of tips and things!
Sketchup is very useful for environment references, and I assume it’s reasonably easy to learn. If you’re interested in going above and beyond, I highly recommend learning a proper 3d modeling program to help with art, especially because you can very easily populate a scene or location with characters!
Using 3ds Max I can pretty quickly construct an environment for reference. But going beyond that, I can also pose a pretty simple ‘CAT’ armature (known in 3d as a rig) straight into the scene, which can be totally customized, from various limbs, tails, wings, whatever, to proportions, and also can be modeled onto and expanded upon (for an example, you could 3d sculpt a head reference for your character and then attach it to the CAT rig, so you have a reference for complex face angles!)
The armature can also be posed incredibly easily. I know programs exist for stuff like this - Manga Studio, Design Doll - but posing characters in these programs is always an exercise in frustration and very fiddly imo. A simple 3d rig is impossibly easy to pose.
By creating an environment and dropping my character rig into it, I have an excellent point of reference when it comes to drawing the scene!
Not only that, but I can also view the scene from whatever angle I could ever want or need, including the character and their pose/position relative to the environment.
We can even quickly and easily expand this scene to include more characters!
Proper 3d modeling software is immensely powerful, and if you wanted to, you could model a complex environment that occurs regularly in your comic or illustration work (say, a castle interior, or an outdoor forest environment) and populate the scene with as many perspective-grounded characters as you need!
reblogging to save a life
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look at this amazing addition! This is fantastic!
Friendly reminder to all working artists or (especially) aspiring artists.
If a client says they can’t afford to pay you but you’ll get good exposure, one of two things is happening:
1. They are lying. They can afford to pay you, but they are choosing not to. They will pay the printer to print the books, they will pay the mail service to deliver them, and you’d better believe they’re going to pay themselves for sending you an email explaining that they can’t afford to pay you. They think you are a sucker, and if you take the job you’ll be telling them they are right.
2. They are not lying. They have zero budget, no audience and no real distribution system. They’ll still be paying the printer and mail service because people who work in those professions don’t work for free just because someone promises them a recommendation. But they aren’t paying themselves, they’re running on an incredibly small margin, and there’s a good chance they won’t exist as a corporate entity in a few years. Publishing your work with them will give you less exposure than putting it on tumblr or Instagram for free would. It will never lead to a paying job.
If a client starts ranting about the “short-sightedness” of artists, or otherwise complains about artists in general in their opening offer to you, run. Run as fast as you would run if a blind date spent the whole of dinner ranting about how horrible your entire gender is. Yes, there are doubtlessly clients who’ve been screwed over by artists in the past, but the ones who complain about artists in general will not respect you, they will not treat you well.
Working for free does not prove that you are passionate about something. It proves that you do not need to be paid for your work. How many doctors went into medicine because they are passionate about saving lives? Do you think any of them are asked to perform heart surgery for free?
No one will ever pay $50 for something if they can get something similar for $5. When you charge next to nothing for art that you’ve worked for hours on, art that required years of training to create, you are telling your client that it is worth next to nothing. They will remember that the next time they want to hire an artist.
People who are looking to exploit artists know that artists are hard on themselves. They know that most artists don’t think their work is good enough to charge top dollar. They know that artists have been told from the first day they started taking their art seriously as a career that they’ll never make any money off it, that it’s not a real job, that it has no value to society. They know how to push artists’ insecurities about their profession in order to convince them that that demanding fair compensation is unrealistic and uncooperative.
If you’re just desperate for a job in the arts, any job in the arts, give yourself a job. Start a webcomic, or give yourself illustration assignments that you post on social media regularly, create work for a gallery show even if you don’t have one yet, or make a book. Give yourself a job. If you’re going to work for free, you may as well be working for yourself, setting your own hours and following your own interests. Having original art with original characters and ideas in your portfolio, and making sure your art is visible online will get the attention of publishers who are actually looking to hire people for good jobs. Drawing a shitty comic for a defunct publisher based on someone else’s shitty ideas will not.
Protect yourself, because no one else will. Protect yourself, because no one else will. There are people lining up around the block to exploit you. Protect yourself because no one else will.
I’m sure a ton of people already know how to do this, but I only learned recently, so I wanted to share one of my favorite thumbnailing tricks! Color matching is SUPER helpful to quickly map out potential color schemes :D
[EDIT] this is in Adobe Photoshop, sorry for forgetting to mention that!
Skeletal Guidebook from Bambi by Rico LeBrun (Part 1 of 5)
I forgot I have to be active here so here’s my Twitter tutorial on how to draw folds I made a while back to help a friend!
collection of art wisdom
sources: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
a couple of people over the past few months have been surprised i use and prefer a pen tablet over a pen display so i thought i might do a little graphic about why pen displays shouldn't be thought of as the "final step" of every digital artist's hardware journey, more of a branching path option!
Assets by CaptainHarrie for use in Clip Studio Paint.
hi guys i made a bunch of horn models for csp
