Originality, Practice, and a new Chaos Poster

Most weeks when I sit down to start a new piece, I'm expecting an evolution of skill. From project to project, the difference in craftsmanship isn't very pronounced. While a better concept will ultimately result in a better execution, I "know" roughly how good a piece will look well before I've finished. It's one of the big barriers of extended practice, not being able to see yourself dramatically improve every time you do a new piece. Except for that every once in a while, something weird happens. 

You can download the new poster here.

Those of you who have been following my work for a while will recognize instantly how much better this is than anything that has preceded it. This is one of those very rare moments, not of evolution, but revolution. This is a game changer, and inevitably will become the new standard by which all my other work will be judged.

So what gives? How did I make such a dramatic change in just 1 week?

You don't always have to be original

In a speech I listened to long ago, an industrial designer was trying to tell us something important. It would be several years before I finally understood his message. He said, quite simply, that most of the problems had been solved, and it wasn't my responsibility to try and re-solve them. 

"Of course it is!" I thought. "If I'm going to be original, I can't build my work on someone else's ideas!"

Bullshit. 

Einstein used an existing system (math) to address his questions of the universe. Picasso painted with materials made by other people, most likely in a mass manufactured setting. Beethoven composed music for the instruments that everyone else had been playing for hundreds of years prior. My point is that even with 95% of their work already done for them, it took the lifetime of massively dedicated individuals to reach the zenith of human achievement. Originality is important, but it must be tempered with moderation. 

They already solved your problems

Enter the DC Comics Guide to Inking. I bought this book on a whim to get free shipping from Amazon. I rightly figured that someone who had been professionally working in illustration longer than I've been alive has a thing or two they could teach me. I got the book about a week ago, and read the first third of the book.

Wow.

I haven't even started in on the rest of it. The information contained in that book is so incredibly useful that I dare not go too fast for fear I'll miss something. But, in that first third, I learned enough about inking to revolutionize my technique. Every single thing I was doing wrong was covered in stunning detail. Not only did the book show me how it was wrong, but why. Most importantly though, it showed me how to fix it.

It was relieving in a way to realize that I'm not very unique and that I am running into the same mistakes as everyone else. Because if I make their mistakes, then I can make their victories as well. Needless to say, after seeing what this book could do for me. I went out and immediately ordered the other four in the series.

Practice

Time for the practice thing again. 

It's not enough to just keep slamming your head against the wall for ten thousand hours and then call yourself the master. This needs to be very deliberate practice with the intent to improve. Ten thousand hours of drawing lousy pictures will only make you really good at drawing lousy pictures. 

I just keep looking at that guy at the top of the post. I still don't believe I did that. But I will. In the meantime, it time to start the next poster sketch, and I can't wait to see what happens this time around...

Customizable Blood Bowl Poster: Wood Elves

Coming back at you this week with a brand new poster for your Blood Bowl Team. As always you can download the pdf here, fill in your own team name, and print straight from Adobe Reader. Enjoy!

Customizable Blood Bowl Poster: Dwarves

Coming back at you this week with a brand new poster for your Blood Bowl Team. As always you can download the pdf here, fill in your own team name, and print straight from Adobe Reader. Enjoy!

Customizable Blood Bowl Poster: High Elves

Coming back at you this week with a brand new poster for your Blood Bowl Team. As always you can download the pdf here, fill in your own team name, and print straight from Adobe Reader. Enjoy!

Customizable Blood Bowl Poster: Vampire Counts

You may notice something missing from today's Blood Bowl poster: the team name. That's because this week's offering is actually in the form of a fillable pdf that you can download, fill out, and print straight out of Adobe Reader!

In the coming weeks I'll be adding posters for some of the other races and archiving them in one location for people to find, download, and proudly display.

You can download this badboy right here.

What's in Your Sketchbook?

I talk to a lot of artists. Painters, sculptors, illustrators, graphic designers, hobbyists, you name it. In my opinion it's important to have time for "art talk" if this is what you're really into. And the cool thing is that no matter what it is we're into, we always have the one critical foundation to build the rest of our conversation off: the sketchbook.

But for some reason, when I talk to people who are into painting models and wargaming minis, I find the vast majority aren't keeping a sketchbook. When I ask why, the usual reason I get is something along the lines of not feeling "good enough" to keep a sketchbook or just not seeing the reason.

Lets dispel the myth right now: you ARE good enough to keep a sketchbook. The whole point of the sketchbook is to draw crappy things until they aren't so crappy anymore, then to used that practiced skill to make something beautiful. It's like saying you really want to do archery, but won't try because you're afraid of not hitting the bullseye with the first arrow you loose. They say everyone is filled with amazing drawings, they just need to clear out the 3,000 lousy ones that are gumming up the works.

Furthermore, the sketchbook is where you get to experiment. No one has to see what you're drawing, writing, or thinking about. It's your safe space to get those ideas on paper. Just like drawings, there are lots of good ideas in your head, you just need to get them out in the open so you can then analyze what you really have, and pick out the two or three bits that you actually will be able to use. Got a crazy idea that will never work? Draw it and you might stumble upon a way that it could work, or think or a similar approach that won't be so difficult, or come up with a new idea completely.

Being creative is tough. Everyone's a critic and most people are willing to share their opinions of your work with you whether you want to hear it or not. Most creative people aren't professionals, and don't have the opportunity to develop the thick skin to shield off words of "constructive" criticism. The sketchbook is your testing ground. It's a quick, easy way to visually conceptualize an idea, and get some meaningful feedback before you've sunk 25 hours and part of your soul into the project. It's much easier to reboot an idea you've been working on for 10 minutes.

In summary:

Mechanical pencil + gummy eraser + sketchbook = the most powerful tool in your arsenal, period. 

Do it.

Step by Step: Space Wolf Illustration

One of the real challenges of being an active artist is not falling into habit or taking the easy way out of a situation. It's so easy to just fall back on what you've done a hundred times before and simply repeat it. It's familiar territory, you have the confidence of knowing it's going to work and the risk factor is basically nil. It's a dangerous trap, one that leads to a loss of momentum of growth, which I hope is why everyone out there is pursuing their art. With that in mind, I knew I had to challenge myself with this marine.

The first thing to go was the helmet. Especially when dealing with a faction like the Space Wolves who are known for fighting without them, helmets are very much one of the easy ways out. A humanoid face is ten times more expressive and equally as difficult to get right. I've never been great at drawing faces, so I use a ton of references. This particular one is half based off an existing GW sculpt and half from the facial expressions seen on Kratos, especially in God of War 3's high definition glory. 

Once I had the figure done, I started working on the background. I often drop in filler in the form of large chunks of color and texture to help flesh out the weight of the piece, but I wanted to take on the challenge of not only completing the image, but of giving the marine a proper context that added to the story of the image. My dad is constantly pushing me with the question of what the story is that I'm trying to tell with my work, and it's a question worth answering. 

In this case, I wanted the marine ready to launch himself at whatever unfortunate soul had wandered into his vision. Claws up, ready to destroy, the placid snowy scene behind him serves as a stark contrast to the intensity of his armor and stature.

I did my normal round of shading, but gave more time to highlighting, as I really needed the grey armor to stand out against the background. In the past, I had used simple lines to highlight, but this time around I added in full weight to match the shadows. The resulting contrast really helped the definition. 

I then took the process a step further by adding a secondary layer of highlight and shadow with as much detail as the first. Again, in the past I had done this, but far less detailed and not with original line work. Though more time consuming, the customized results were far more organic and much stronger composition-wise.

I finished the piece with some soft transparencies, such as the wind, the marine's frozen breath, and the glow of the claws. That last little bit of texture really sealed the deal, and bought everything into focus for me. My lesson from the project:

Take Your Time

I've said it a million times before and I'm going to say it many more as I continue this blog. The only way to improve is to put those hours in. If you've made it this far I can only assume you're related to me (hi mom!) or you have a genuine desire to be the best you can. If you've never heard of Outliers, you can read the synopsis of the book on wikipedia. 

The super short version: Practice makes perfect, roughly 10,000 hours worth. 

You read that right. Anyone can run with the big boys, as long as they pay the price of admission. I'll freely admit that I'm just breaking out of the bottom 25%, but I'm throwing everything I have at upping my game, so that one day guys like John Blanche and Raymond Swanland might know who I am. It's a long shot, and I'm going to be very tired at the end of every day, but in honesty, I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Here's to dreams. 

Stay tuned for more drawings next week.