Just Another Art Blog

After 10 years of inactivity, I’d like to start drawing again.

[smeixxx]

[astrumovi]

when your sheriff's department small but y'all silly

[smeixxx]

Just some faces.

[smeixxx]

After 10 years and an art degree that made me unable to create things for fun, I’ve decided to start posting my art to this dead blog that no one sees to document me potentially enjoying being creative again.

So, here’s my digital painting of the iconic stoplight from Twin Peaks. My partner and I watched all three seasons recently and fell in love with it.

[egrizzzzzzzzzzzz]

[compactcarl-deactivated20140309]

im not even an artist and these prices are hurting my feelings 

[sandpuppeteer]

This is what I have to dig through every time I look for new jobs to apply for.

For non-artists, let’s give you a little perspective.

For me, an illustration takes a bare minimum of 6 hours. Mind you, that’s JUST the drawing part. Not the research, or the communications, or gathering information. Just drawing.

That’s if it’s a simple illustration.

My art deco or more detailed stuff can take 20+ hours each.

Even simple, cartoony things still take at least 3 hours.

Let’s go with the second one. 2 illustrations for $25. Figuring 6 hours each. 12 hours total, for JUST the drawings. That’s approximately $2.08/hour. 

Asking these prices is an insult. But what’s even more hurtful is there are people out there that will take these jobs. Which only encourages rates like this to be acceptable. And there are people who will try to say these are just what you have to do to get started.

I believed that. So my first coloring gigs were just $10/page. The day someone offered me $25/page for just flatting work, I realized just how wrong I’d been. I’m still not making the rates I’d like, but now I refuse anything below $25/page. Because there is value in my time.

In any standardized industry, even ones that pay piece rate over hourly, these numbers are criminal.

Do your fellow artists a favor. Never accept jobs like these. There are others that pay legitimate rates. Or at least closer to legitimate.

[bathsabbath-deactivated20200309]

Such baby bullshit. Don’t even get out of bed for these rates.

    If you are an artist who wants to make money off their art, I highly suggest you buy The Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook. It goes in depth about copyright issues and even contains contract and model release templates. The 2013 book *I believe* states the average professional charges $72 an hour. This article calculated that to make a 40k annual salary you would need to charge about $60 per hour.

  After graduating from Art Center in 2012, I think I asked for somewhere between $35-45 an hour and got laughed at by multiple big name clients, which was infuriating, sadly expected, and terrifying with over $100K worth of student loans staring me in the face. If they tell you it will be “great exposure” that’s a red flag. Ask yourself how their exposure can compare to your Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Flickr and Facebook pages combined? 

And when you do get a decent paying gig, PROTECT YOURSELF. You have the right to negotiate and revise a contract. Do not start a job until you have a contract signed. If they don’t provide you with one, MAKE ONE. And make sure you have your bases covered. You can specify in a contract that maybe two revisions are included in your cost, and if they ask you to revise the piece more than twice, they will have to pay extra. In terms of payment schedule, I usually do the 50/50 Method (50% before, 50% after) or the 3/3/3 Method (1/3 before, 1/3 in the middle, 1/3 after all work has been received). Both of those are pretty standard in the industry, as they guarantee you will get compensated for your time, even if the job goes bad.

Remember you have a skill, and you have spent time honing that skill and you deserve to be adequately paid for that time and effort. You will have clients dismiss you because, honest to God they think, “Well, I could do that if I wanted. Hell, my five year old does it now.” No they can’t, because they didn’t, they don’t, they won’t and they probably never will. And good luck hiring a five year old. They can’t keep a fucking deadline.

And in a last ditch effort they’ll say, “But that drawing only took you an hour!” Son, that drawing took me 20. fucking. years.

[ohyeahcourtoon-deactivated20150]

10 Dollars for 1 minute of animation.  Oh my god my heart.  It took my team 6 months and a team of 12 to make a 4 minute short. 

[briannacherrygarcia]

The Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook

I second this book! I’ve had it for several years now, and it’s been a HUGE help in my work as a freelance artist. It gives great advice on what to charge for different areas of art!

[anatomicalart]

Please remember. Your art is worth a respectable payment! Accepting ridiculously low prices actually hurts the arts/illustration/animation communities because it makes employers believe they can employ people without offering decent pay.

Check the internet if you need help figuring out what you should be charging for your commissions. Invest in the books that will inform you professionally, and put your foot down if you think someone is trying to cheat you out of your time and hard work. You have a right to refuse a job, and/or request decent payment. If your employer denies a you decent pay, well then they’re probably not a very good employer. Do not undersell your skills. it is bad for the art community and you are worth more then that.

[jbaxteranimator]

Giselle getting out of her carriage. The drawings for this scene sat on my desk for months waiting for me to finish that crazy dress!

[typette-deactivated20150825]

[mildlyamused]

[smeixxx]

An artist with Alzheimer’s drawing self-portraits.

this is sad and beautiful bye 

William Utermohlen

[coltre]

me: *is a living train wreck*  yaaas!!! stay hydrated guys! life is so beautiful we are all beautiful always smile at strangers and eat healthy :)

[smeixxx]

My current mentality is “I’m sad and I hate myself but I have to get good grades”

[drawingden]

Digital Painting

Autodesk SketchBook Copic Edition - This is the limited edition of SketchBook Pro with 72 Copic colours to choose from

Krita - Krita offers CMYK support, HDR painting, perspective grids, dockers, filters, painting assistants, and many other great features

GIMP - GIMP is a well known free alternative to Photoshop with similar features 

Mischief Free Version - With six essential brushes, a basic palette of colors and an infinite vector canvas, Mischief-Free is perfect for hashing out ideas, life drawing, and endless doodles

MyPaint - MyPaint is a fast and easy open-source graphics application for digital painters, and comes with 39 different brushes

3D Modelling  

Google Sketchup - Drawing-based tool for architects, designers, builders, makers and engineers who design for the physical world. SketchUp Make is a free version and SketchUp Pro is a paid version with additional functionality.

Sculptris - A free, introductory digital sculpting tool, a great stepping stone for digital sculptors, created by the makers of Zbrush.

Blender - A powerful application with full-fledged professional tools, Blender has a wide community and resources to help you learn.

Animation

Synfig - Synfig Studio is a free and open-source 2D animation software, designed as powerful industrial-strength solution for creating film-quality animation using a vector and bitmap artwork.

ToonBoom Animate PLE Edition - The free Personal Learning Edition gives you the opportunity to learn all the features of Toon Boom Animate and Toon Boom Animate Pro.

EmoFuri - EmoFuri is a new animation software that helps artists easily animate photoshop illustrations in a 2D-3D style! It uses PSD files of character illustrations to animate them.

Etc

Thisissand - An online fun and unique playground for creating colourful sandscapes, also comes in an app version

Flame Painter - A free demo of the full program, it allows you to try out the flame generator and change different brush settings and paint your own flame paintings

Silk - An online interactive generative art program that creates bright silk-like patterns, with options to change colours and rotational symmetry.

Bomomo - This interesting program has a group of dots that move around the screen in the pattern you choose, then paint the canvas according to when you click the screen.

[ostracizedpoodle]

ive seen things 

[tylerchokely-deactivated2014081]

how many things?

[ostracizedpoodle]

8

[leahxsarah-deactivated20170228]

OUR ART GROUP HAS A CHAT CALLED ‘FUCK BITCHES GET MONET’

[leahxsarah-deactivated20170228]

NOW IT IS ‘WAKE ME UP BEFORE YOU GOGH GOGH’

[leahxsarah-deactivated20170228]

'FIRST THINGS FIRST IM SURREALIST'

[nataliehall]

My fun for the day.

[adisneysoul]

Don’t animate drawings, animate feelings!

Ollie Johnston (one of Disney’s Nine Old Men)

[smeixxx]

So I painted Rise-Against-themed for my boyfriend as a Christmas present. I hope he loves them as much as I do. I wish they were mine.

[teganquinruinedmylife]

[shoujo-addict]

H i s t o r i c a l  P r i n c e s s e s  &  Q u e e n s  by shoomlah

more:

[zebbycorn]

Lost it at Maid Marion.

[feministbatwoman]

Okay, but it’s actually super-important that Claire Hummel changed the portrait of Pocahontas after being criticized by native activists for the first Pocahontas’s age/sexualization etc.