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[grace-kum]

Pixar Dream Destinations opened @gallerynucleus today! 

Here’s “The Spirit of Adventure” based on UP. 

 Someone kindly realized this crazy person probably went insane from the line count on this thing so they made prints!  You can purchase in the link below:   https://gallerynucleus.com/detail/29994/

[vanessagillings]

I was so honored to join the Pixar Dream Destinations show opening today at Gallery Nucleus!  Here’s my piece for the witch’s cottage from Brave – it’s available for sale here.

[erysium]

Here’s ÖTÖÖ, written by Paloma Hernando & drawn by me !! 💌🐎💘

a little wlw comic about messengers on a Mongolian mail/supply route, that we made last year for Dates! An Anthology of Queer Historical Fiction (3)!

[erysium]

The anthology this is featured in got an Ignatz nomination yesterday!!! 💖💫

[thingsorganizedneatly]

Branding & design process by 1924us. Always be knolling.

[ma-trii-deactivated20220119]

[zimuschka]

After the Rain 🌈

[unoobang-deactivated20210222]

[yourmobi]

Reupload My old alphyne work (2016?)

Thank you for remembering my work <3 <3 

I really want to play deltarune, but I feel like I should play undertale againT_T

[camoherb]

What was in my mind when watching the concert.

Thank you Toby Fox and Music ENGINE, such a great concert!!!😭😭😭🥳

[everydaylouie]

welcome to the grand opening of

THE BIRD MUSEUM

a virtual museum of crowdsourced bird art. over 1000 birds!

download and visit. a quiet place in these strange times

[dearartdirector]

Dear AD, is there such a thing as "the artist's artist" or is it just poor marketing? I've noticed that in the illustration circles there are quite a few very talented and high regarded artists whose work is very respected and known to ADs and fellow professionals, and yet who still struggle to hit big time with the main stream audiences or even land projects. Could it be that at a certain level the work becomes too hard for the average viewer to consume?

This is a great question, actually, and the answer is yes, there are many artists who are fantastic and beloved by artists, but ADs have a hard time getting them approved for some projects. This comes up A LOT in book covers but is also common in any piece of art that is acting as advertising (which is a hell of a lot of commercial illustration projects, but less so for concept art, which is used as a tool for other creatives. Gaming can be either side - is it an advertisement/feature piece for a game or an interior illo or card in a set?).

There’s 2 components to every project: Content and Style, and how they affect your Target Audience.

Content means what is this thing/story/product about. Usually we’re talking tropes or “genre checkpoints”. If it’s epic fantasy, there’s a sword & a guy in a cloak. If it’s women’s fiction, a beach and a woman in a dress. And so on. Style is what the art looks like, and when we talk about style in terms of a target audience, either it is a common style for that target audience that will be recognizable OR whether it is a brand new look that the target audience might not recognize. Obviously a big part of an AD’s job is knowing both the genre checkpoints for whatever they’re working on but also the style trends that are popular.

Here’s the key: you can only move ahead on one side at a time. Either you can have a fresh new (unrecognizable) style but have very obvious genre checkpoints OR not have any of the usual genre checkpoints but have a very recognizable style. There are times you really decide to play it safe and do genre checkpoints AND recognizable style, and there’s all kinds of reasons you’d choose to do that, but yea, it can be boring.

If you have a new style and don’t have genre checkpoints, then you’d better have an established fanbase already. In a book publishing space, that would mean a reissue of a famous book, or a new book by an already famous author. That’s why Penguin Classics and Folio Society can get away with reissuing classic books (which already have a huge fanbase) with really cutting-edge art.

The artists you’re describing are artists that have a new style. Artists recognize this and love it. Skill! Originality! Drool! However, most buyers are not looking for GORGEOUS, they’re looking for FAMILIARITY. Sure, will they appreciate beautiful art? Yes, but only if it first catches their eye as something like something they already know they like. The artists that have a fresh new style must be used to illustrate things that have really clear genre checkpoints until their style of art is seen around enough that they’re adopted as recognizable by the target audience. A good AD will know this, and will only pitch those artists for projects with clear genre checkpoints. But that can still be a really hard sell to approvers above the AD (remember, ADs control the choices, steer the direction of visuals, but don’t have the final approval). What helps an AD get an artist with an original style on a job is if that artist has samples in their portfolio that really hit the genre checkpoints of the field they’re looking to work in.

A great example of this process over time is an artist like Richard Anderson.

Richard was a concept artist for years, mostly on Guild Wars. Guild Wars has a LOT of genre checkpoint and target audience overlap with adventure fantasy books. Lots of roughly medieval age characters holding swords.

ADs in SFF publishing noticed this and said oh thank god, here’s someone doing the same thing that we are constantly asked to put on covers in a new & interesting way. Let’s hire him to do covers!

Then, once SFF book fans started recognizing his style as denoting a book they enjoy reading, you could get a little further afield. Now, given that the STYLE is recognizable, you can get a little crazier with CONTENT that isn’t usually seen on fantasy books, like hippos and dinosaurs:

Now Richard’s style is completely embedded in the target audience (it also doesn’t hurt that he keeps doing amazing concept art for the movies that the same fans love) and if an editors wants art to do something in a new and fresh style, you actually can’t use Richard, his style is too well known and on too many books. This is the stage at which an artist is still getting a ton of work, but should also be thinking of pushing his style further, so he’s staying relevant. Richard does that and is constantly showing sketches and experiments on his instagram.

That was a long answer but hopefully you get the idea. I don’t think it’s a curse to be an “artist’s artist” — far from it, it means you’re doing a lot right! — But you may have to do a little help in your samples to make sure you’re helping the ADs sell you to their approvers, by showing how your art can be used to what they make.

—Agent KillFee

[mattjabbar-deactivated20240609]

The Creative Refrigerator 

This article started with another idea that came from me discussing art related things with Kana. We always seem to look for new metaphors that would help us understand what exactly are we doing with our art careers. Also, we get excited each time we manage to find a parallel that is a particularly good fit for explaining difficult art concepts to people not immersed in the topic so much. 

Let’s start from the beginning: if you are an artist online, you probably know the concept of a “creative bank account” - something that Jake Parker, amongst others, often uses to explain his inspiration gathering habits.

A bank account is a good metaphor, but Kana and I like to compare making art to cooking. It’s a surprisingly flexible parallel! Your ingredients are the inspirations and ideas, and the place you store and manage them is, obviously, the creative refrigerator (you have to keep your ideas fresh ;) )

Keep reading

[lowlighter]

I lost my mind

[aka-outwork]

Drawing

『 MONOPOLY 』

2018.07.03  MOLESKINE

acryl gouache, watercolor 

[wannabeanimator]

Jesse Ham is a cartoonist and illustrator who often shares tips on his Twitter. Here’s Jesse’s advice on an often-asked question: How do you find your style? (source)

[oliviawhen]

A short animation I made for my favorite podcast @CIPYDPodcast!! I love everything about it, especially the opening song. ▼・ᴥ・▼ ♫

[dearartdirector]

‘I Can’t Stop Comparing Myself to More Successful Writers!’

You need to stop seeing the world through the lens of your fears.

Look, we’re not in the habit of reposting other people’s material here on DearAD, but there’s SO many questions in the queue about Jealousy, Comparing Ourselves to Others, Felling Like We’re Behind, etc. that this post answers so well that you should all go read it. Enjoy!