fabulous999 2009-10-23 01:04:55

Yeah, I was completely in the same boat. I was a nazi about "copying" stuff and what not but the research and planning is what makes the difference between good work and great work, getting ideas wherever you can and processing them into your own deal. Unfortunately I can't help on the photoshop brush question, I'm still pretty green with the software as a whole. But I will share some links I've gotten from instructors that should be helpful.

http://www.imaginefx.com/02287754 330326480692/workshops.html?page=
9 http://www.imaginefx.com/02287754 331827093439/tutorial.pdf http://www.seventhsanctum.com/

There should be something on the ImagineFX site related to brushes but the other links are interesting resources for character and environment creation.

fabulous999 2009-10-23 01:40:24

Any time.

fabulous999 2009-10-23 01:50:56

So first off, another very helpful piece of advice is that even though you recognize that you're having issues, it's important that you give yourself credit for what you're doing that's right. This next sentence is important so I'm going caps lock.
DON'T POINT OUT THAT YOU'RE NOT CONFIDENT IN YOUR WORK WHEN PRESENTING YOUR PORTFOLIO / WORK IN CLASS / WORK AT A JOB INTERVIEW (especially the last one since you don't wan't to fuck yourself out of actually GETTING money).

Once you start pointing out the fact that you feel your work is lacking it gives the impression that you didn't put everything you've got into your final pieces, which hopefully won't be the case. Don't be a pretentious dick either, just be positive about your work and interests. This, however, is the perfect place to draw attention to mistakes, so, whatever, just thought I'd add that. On top of that, everyone has issues and people typically look past them as long as there's something good in your work, and in your case I think there is a lot of potential.

Your characters display a lot of, well, character, which is awesome. You appear to be exploring your imagination and trying different stuff.

My main concerns would be that they lack depth and cohesiveness. Figure drawing is huge your first years at school for pretty much anything you're going into, specifically because everyone sucks at it coming in, even the really good kids (and most of the really really good kids). I would suggest doing some exploration in drawing real naked people to start getting a better sense of anatomy and applying it to your characters. You have a piece titled "rtil" where the feet and legs appear to be facing straight forward, the line under the crotch makes it appear to face his left side, and his face is pointing to his right. Watch for that kind of stuff EARLY in your drawing process.

Once you address your anatomy issues I would also try taking your rendering to the next level. Start exploring artwork and get inspired to try something you haven't yet. These look like they were done in Flash mostly (maybe I'm wrong) but start getting down and dirty with photoshop or sketchbook pro. For character work it would be good to name your characters and even include a description in the finished image as long as the text style is cohesive, but you should really be doing images where your people are in an environment. Visit the links I posted above for Starogre.

That's a start. Do what I tell you and then send me your work and I'll let you know if you've improved. Take your time on your finished pieces if it takes you two weeks to do one fucktastically awesome piece that's going to do you a lot more favors than 10 decent pieces. Put down your lines first, ask yourself if it looks awesome as just a line drawing, if not make changes there until it's awesome, then render it.

fabulous999 2009-10-23 01:52:52

Tip 7: Suck dicks for cash!

fabulous999 2009-10-23 06:14:11

That's excellent that you have that much sketchbook work going on at your age but if you're planning on showing up with a stack of sketchbooks then you're going to encounter some trouble. Take your best work from your sketchbooks and turn it into larger scale pieces, fully rendered pieces on nice paper. Also, go to whatever art school is closest and ask if someone can look over your work and point out strengths and weaknesses.

Every school has different requirements but most put them on their website. Definitely start drawing from life. Set up an interesting still life, it doesn't have to be flowers and shit. Get a dildo, a baby bottle, a pack of batteries and a bottle of bleach, or whatever you're into (not toys, plz, k, thx).

Also just push the creativity as much as possible, you're going to suck on some level no matter how hard you try and the reviewers expect that but what will set you apart from the other kids who suck is your creativity and willingness to experiment and take chances.

fabulous999 2009-10-23 08:47:45

You are definitely hot stuff Luis. But yeah, college can be pretty humbling once you get there.

fabulous999 2009-10-23 11:23:23

Your job outlook depends a number of factors but the bottom line is that GOOD art schools have career service departments. There are several people working full time who's sole purpose is to get students a job. Now this exists at most universities of any kind but the difference is that ART SCHOOL career service people specialize in landing you ART RELATED jobs.

If you're planning on majoring in fine arts or photography, well, good luck. But I'd say an animation, graphic design, illustration, industriral design, etc. etc. major has a pretty fucking good chance of getting a REAL job after going to a good art school.

I guess one could argue that creative professions aren't real jobs because there's potentially great satisfaction involved, but if you're good enough then you can make real money at it.

So, in summary, fuck your teachers and their shitty attitude.

fabulous999 2009-10-23 11:56:52

Before I give any advice I'm going to gush over your work. I mentioned earlier that style before technique can hinder an artist but you've pushed an incredibly original style by developing a technique that compliments it wonderfully. There's an incredible mystique and primitive chaos to what you do that any artist worth his salt should be able to appreciate. So don't ever lose that.

That said, yes, anatomy is huge even for the type of work you do. That doesn't mean completely changing your style, but if you increase your understanding of how the body is constructed you're going to start bringing some of those elements into what you do now and that knowledge will strengthen all of your future work.

For me, the thing that I believe is most lacking from your current work is environment. Your characters are so crazy they need to have more complimentary surroundings, especially in your still images, but your animation backgrounds could be pushed as well. If I were you I would look up some old old old animations where people had all the bouncey dancey people running around, much like you do, but they still definitely had more interesting environments. And I know frame by frame animating a detailed dancing building would be a pain in the ass so find shortcuts where you can. Adobe After Effects allows you to animate still images and make them as rubbery as your current work.

You're also going to want to show that you can work in other styles as well. Scale back the craziness a bit occasionally and try some different stuff. There's a kid in a figure illustration class I have who's work reminds me of yours somewhat (your stuff is better) but he can't draw a real person for shit, so he doesn't try. We'll all be drawing a naked lady in class, standing right in front of us, and he'll come up with some crazy man looking thing with a grotesque face similar to how you approach faces.

While your style is awesome (really awesome) don't stop there, yes study some anatomy but mostly just push yourself in some new directions, even if they're new anatomically fucked directions :)

fabulous999 2009-10-23 14:58:09

I transferred to my current school from a community college. In my opinion the main difference is the atmosphere. At community college the attitude seemed to be generally glazed over people, frustrated instructors and negativity flying everywhere with little direction. Art school is more like, well kind of like what I'm doing here. There's an abundance of constructive criticism and a lot of passionate instructors and smiling faces.

Sure you can learn art on your own and try to dive into a career, but if you go to art school and keep your eyes and ears peeled and really soak up the information and don't act like "fuck this, bah, it's expensive, muh, my stuff's already cool i don't wanna do this it's pointless" which a LOT of people do on some level, then you're going to come out of there with tons of connections, a head full of new ideas you would have never had on your own and super fantastic ninja fuck off art skills.

But it's all what you make of it.

fabulous999 2009-10-23 15:34:29

If you are planning on pursuing a career in art I would definitely take as many electives in high school as you can cram in. In fact, if you have an engineering drafting elective I would consider working that in too.

Look at a few different art college websites. They will list portfolio requirements. Typically it's something like 5 still life drawings and some other finished drawings, photographs, sculptures or any other visual creative thing, but you'll have to check the specific school for requirements. Sometimes there's an essay involved too but don't worry too much about that.

Once you're in you start from scratch basically. They expect you not to be hopelessly shitty but you might be surprised at the skill level of the average art school freshman. It's not as difficult to get in as you might think so if you're really interested it's definitely not too late for you to get some stuff together and get accepted.

fabulous999 2009-10-23 17:24:37

Absolutely. It's never too late. Read the post above this one.

It's mostly about dedicating your time to improving and creating finished pieces and not getting discouraged. You might suck to high heaven but acknowledging that is a big step in the right direction. Read this whole thread and start putting the hours in and you'll see yourself improve in no time.

Once you have something you think is halfway decent feel free to get ahold of me for specific advice. You can also talk to counselors at the school you're interested in and they're usually happy to look your stuff over.

fabulous999 2009-10-23 23:57:08

As far as I know the school I'm going to didn't have a foreign language requirement, although I transferred from a community college so there's a possibility I guess. I really can't imagine an art school preferring you to take a foreign language class over another art class but better safe than sorry I guess. Ultimately your best source for that kind of information is going to be the art schools you're thinking about attending .

Glad to be of help.