Meeting Recap 02/22/2013

This Friday we talked about what a niche is and how we find one for ourselves. The leaders shared who inspired their work and how these artists helped them find their Niches.

What is a Niche?

The Literal definition of a niche is a recess in which you can place something into. This relates perfectly into how we are as artists, we need to find a field in art that we fit into. We need to find what niche fits us perfectly.

How do you find your Niche?

To find your niche you have to do research into what art you enjoy and what type of artwork you make. Then ask yourself what do these artists do? Where do they work? and how can you improve your work to get a great portfolio like the artists who Inspire you.

Another Great tip is to do research into where your favorite artists work. If your work is similar to these artists this means these are Studios and businesses that could hire you. So you should make a list of possible places that you could apply to.

Lexie explained that you should look at where your favorite artists work to see possible places that you can apply for jobs. She said that if your work is similar to theirs then those companies could be interested in Hiring you. Lexie Talked about her two favorite artists Brittney Lee and Chris Sanders, Both of these artists work For Disney and are involved in Visual development.

Brittney Lee

Her work is graphic and colorful

She has worked on movies like,

-Wreck-it-Ralph

-Tangled

Link to Brittney's Work,

http://britsketch.blogspot.com/

Chris Sanders 
is a story board and Character artist for Disney

He Has worked on the Movies,

-The Croods

-Lilio and Stitch

-Mulan

Link to Chris's Work,

http://www.chrissandersart.com/

Lexie is Niche is;

-Story Boards

-Prop Designs

-Color Studies

Link to Lexies work,

http://www.lexieholliday.com/

AJ talked about how he has found his niche and wants to become a medical illustrator. The most important things that he talked about was that you need to research what it will take to go into the field that you are interested in. He would not have known that he needed to take 4 specific classes to get into Grad school if he did not research what it takes to get into the Medical illustration field.

His first favorite artist is Sam sprat. This artist inspired AJ with his use of color and his unique Portrait paintings.

Sam Sprat 

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Is and Editorial artist and has created cover art for Game Informer.

Sam Sprat focuses on,

-Portraits

-Color Theory

-Shaping

-Line work

Link to Sam Sprats Artwork,

http://www.samspratt.com/

AJ's second artist is Ken coulter

Ken coulter

is a Medical Illustrator and  started Ion Medical Designs

Link to Ken Coulter's Website,

http://ionmedicaldesigns.com/ion_site/about.html

Link to AJ's Artwork,

http://ajrothert.deviantart.com

Wes shared his two favorite artists Nicholas Kole and Justin Gerard. Wes explained that as artists we need to do what we love to do, not what other people want us to do.

Nicholas Kole

 

is a Freelance Illustrator and Character designer.

He has worked for,

-38 Studios

-Comics (Dark horse and Disney)

In addition to creating artwork he is a voice actor, He is not afraid to do what he loves.

Link to Nicholas's Artwork,

http://nicholaskole.deviantart.com/

Justin Gerard 

is a Freelance artist and has worked on Book Covers and Concept art. He starts his work in watercolor and boosts the colors in Photoshop.

He has Worked for Warner Brothers as a concept artist

Link to his Website,

http://www.justingerard.com/

Wes has found his Niche as a Freelance Artist

He wants to,

-Work for Lego

-Fantasy Freelance

Link to His Artwork,

http://westalbott.deviantart.com/

Colleens two favorite artists are Kali Ciesemier and Natasha Allegri. She is interested in artwork that depicts people as Realistic, specifically real life women. Colleen encourages you to create artwork that you like even if your teachers do not. Be who you want to be. She wants to be a character artist and an in house worker.

Kali Ciesemier   

She is a Freelance editorial artist and has worked for places like,

-New Yorkers

-New York Times

Link to Her Website,

http://www.ciesemier.com/

Natasha Allegri

Is a concept artist for Cartoon Network, specifically Adventure Time. She Draws what she wants to and has a very creative voice.

Natasha was the one responsible for the Gender swap episodes for Adventure Time.

Here is a link to her artwork,

 http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Art_by_Natasha_Allegri

Link to Colleen's artwork,

http://colleenclarkart.tumblr.com/

Lucie Shearer also Visited us this week and shared with us what she does as a Freelance artist. She Graduated two years ago and is now doing freelance art for Layne Bryant.

She Works with Layne Bryant's marketing team to create Brand Presentations and Charts. The charts she creates tell the stores where and how everything should be placed in their stores. For example the charts explain where banners hang, Where fixtures go and how mannequins should be displayed. A fun fact is that where Items are placed can affect how well the items sell. The Chart book runs at around 60 pages. Another job she does is create illustrations of Items that would look weird if you just cut them out of a photo.

The First big tip she had for us was that when you are applying for a job you need to know who to apply through. For example to get the job for Layne Bryant she did not apply strait to Layne Bryant, she went to the Limited  company first. Layne Bryant does not Hire you Limited does.

The second tip that she gave us was that as a freelance artist we will not have our taxes taken out of our money. You need to put aside money to pay the government for the taxes you owe them. Lucie recommends that you make four smaller payments throughout the year instead of  one large sum all at once. It is easier to do so and not as painful when you pay.

The Biggest tips what she gave were ones about how to be professional and how to appeal to the person who will hire you. Lucie gave us three things that will help you get hired by a company,

-Know what your talking about

-Know the Process

-Show you know the process

She recommends that you put something personal into your portfolio, the people who look at portfolios see the same things everyday. If you put something personal into your portfolio you show that your different and that causes you to stand out from the multitude.

Lucie Shared the artists that she is inspired by,

Louis Van Baarle

He is a Freelance artist for Cafe Presser and has worked for the Tri color Ink company.

link to her website,

http://loish.net/

Kelsey Beckett

She is a Freelance artist that does very detail portraits of women.

Link to Her website,

http://kelseybeckett.blogspot.com/

Glen Arthur

Is also a portrait artist and has his own unique style.

Link to his Website,

http://www.glennarthurart.com/Portfolio_VGKE.php

Lucie wants her niche to be in fine art illustration

Link to her website,

http://www.behance.net/lucieshearer

Her suggestion to finding your niche is to find a style that you are comfortable with. She also stated that you and your art will change. You need to experiment with different media to find what you are most comfortable with.

Do not be afraid to ask people about Niches and where they think you would  

it in.

Some of the Members of our group presented their work. First was Luis Uzcategui who shared the artists Victo Ngai (Victoria Ngai) and Yuko Shimizu. Both of these artists focus on line work traditionally then color it in photoshop.

Victo Ngai

Is an editorial artist and has had her work published in,

-The New Yorker

-New York Times

-Tor Books

Link to her Website,

http://victo-ngai.com/

Yuko Shimizu

Is also an editorial Artist and has had her work publish in,

-The Discovery Channel Magazine

-Rolling stone

-Tor Books (Tor Books hire alot of illustrators so research them if you want to be an editorial artist)

Some tips for artists looking for jobs are,

-Know alot of illustrators (networking)

-Be a hard worker

-Be Persistent. The people who try the hardest are the ones who get the jobs.

Link to Luis Uzcategui's work,

http://www.behance.net/luzcategui#page=1&sort=creatives_order

Allison Also Shared who inspired her

The first artist is,

Ralph Mcquarrie

He was a concept artist for the first Star Wars Movies,

Link to his Arrtwork,

http://galactic-voyage.com/Ralph%20McQuarrie%20Art.htm

Tod Lockwood

Is a fantasy artist. He has done work for,

-Magic (Card game)

-Legend of Drizz Books

-Dungeons and Dragons

Baolong Zhang

Is a 3D Modeler who creates the 3D models and does the texture painting,

He has work on,

-Ghost Recon 2

-Brother in Arms

-Doctor Who PS3 Vita

Link to His Work,

http://baolongzhang.blogspot.com/

Other artists Mentioned,

Sam Webber

http://sampaints.com/

Arthur Rackham

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/illustrators/rackham.html

Edmund Dulac

http://dulac.artpassions.net/

If you have any question concerning Niches help finding where you would fit in please ask us. We are here to help!

Meeting Recap 2/1/13

This Friday the lovely Lillie Templeton came to visit and gave a wonderful lecture about the importance of being professional on the web, in your resumes, and in your portfolio.

Here is the presentation below.

The first good tip Lillie gave was always asking for your target audience.
-Who is looking at what you are presenting
-What are they looking for
-Is what you are presenting what they are looking for
- Cater your illustrations to the client / company.
It's always good to research the client that you plan on working on.
Make sure you can fit within the branding of the client you are working for.

Two great websites Lillie suggested are when thinking about using fonts.

Lillie also suggested that until you feel comfortable with fonts you should limit yourself to the list below to not feel over whelmed. 

Couple of other notes from Lillie's talk. Don't mix fonts until you feel comfortable with using basic fonts. Sometimes the less font the better. 

Another topic Lillie covered was Client Proposals:

- Hourly Rates

--- How long it will take you to do the project

--- Always pad your hours

- Charge them tax

Resumes:

- Skills come first

- Education and Awards

- Client List

- Try to cut useless info from your Resumes. 

- Try to avoid strict black, but use tints of black.

- NO pie charts on a resume

-   If you're not comfortable with a program don't put it on your resume.

Great place to find social media

http://picons.me/download-social.php

Meeting Recap 1/25/13

Hey eveyone,

So were back for another fun filled semster, I hope it has been a great start!

This last week was one of the coolest weeks we've had so far as Steve Prescott came to Visit!!


Steve Prescott

He was super funny and did a talk about his development as an artst and how he grew into who he is now.



Meeting Recap 11/2/12

Lora Innes comes to the ISC!

So Lora Innes came to the ISC this last Friday! She told us her dark and mysterious past of life as a CCAD graduate and the dreams of becoming a comic book superstar!

She talked about her mentor and great boss Jim Theodore and her first real art job at The Artifact Group

She also talked about the importance of having someone draw over your work to show where you can improve in something! 

And the importance of learning the program Adobe Illustrator if you really want to get commercial work! 

Lora also talked about the importance of budgeting your money if you are a freelance illustrator. 

She regaled us with wondrous stories about meeting Jeff Smith for the first time

And finding a life long friend and mentor in Beau Smith

She talked about the importance of showing your portfolios to the right people, especially to the people who are doing what you want to do!

One of the places you can go if you are also interested in comics / web comics is C2E2

There are many other conventions you can go to but you must learn to pick and choose the the shows that make the most sense for you, some of this will be trial an error.

Once you find these conventions that you best connect with there will be a basic timeline of how well you do if you should decide to have an art table

-First couple of years you will be in the red as you slowly build up your stock of items to sell, and find out what sells and what doesn't as well as getting a following of people that are interested in you.
- Then as you learn what works and what doesn't and have people that are excited to see you each year you will begin to break even.
- Next comes actually making a profit, as you have found a good niche hopefully for yourself and what others want, and you have loyal customers!
-finally and hopefully if you get enough people who love your work and what you do, some conventions might even invite you to come, which means they would pay for things like your hotel room, ticket to convention and table, and maybe even your travel cost.

To reach this final goal though you have to be doing the research and committing to being part of the community.

Here Lora met people like Bob Shrek. When Bob was looking over her stuff he said:

You should be involved with the people you want to work with, give it time and you will get work in the field that you want.

Lora also gave the great advice of, don't work for free!!!! 
and, draw what you want and what you are passionate about because people will see the passion through the work!

She also went through a couple of webcomics she liked

Girl Genius

And before you start putting up a web comic you should make connections and try to build a fan base and advertising the comic to people you think would be interested in it.

You have to find out where your fans are and interact and socialize there if you want to build a loyal following

The top 2 most important details to making a successful web comic are

1. UPDATE ALL THE TIME, EVERYTIME!
---you cannot let your readers forget about you, it has to be a part of their everyday life to think about your webcomic, or it will be forgotten.

2. YOU CONTENT MUST BE ABLE TO STAND OUT
---there are so many people creating web comics now a days it is important that if you are going to add to the list that it be something worth exploring and something you are truly passionate about. You are not competing with just others like you, but also professionals and those who have been doing this for years. Be original, and don't just try to fit into a genre!

Here is a podcast about story topics and their importance!

and finally what ever you want to do in are go for it with everything you have, but don't be fooled that it's not hard.


Lora talked about the importance of updating when you said you would, and keeping that promise to your readers!
About how important the flow of lettering is on each page, and how she used a program called Comic Life for her lettering in her own work!

Lora also talked about the tools she uses in her own process, which are

Sketchbook Pro for the drawings

and Adobe Photoshop for the colors. 

For those of you interested in trying out Sketchbook pro here is a link where you can get a 2 years free use with your school email. Enjoy!!

http://students.autodesk.com/

Now that Lora updates her comic twice a week, she has hired on extra hands to help her with the comic, one being 

Julie Wright - who is a CCAD graduate!

For many of you out there who are interested in starting a webcomic, a good place to host it is Comicpress which is hosted through Wordpress 

Important people to know in the comic world

Scott Peterson - worked on many Batman comics
David Mack - creator of Kabuki
Chris Claremont - the man that made the X-men the X-men
Frank Miller - Writer and director. Worked on The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, 300.
Bill Wilingham - writers and creator of the comic Fables

Lora next went into how a web comic can be the stepping stone into publishing!

Lora brought here stats and views of her webcomic to the publishing company IDW 

And because they saw how many readers she had online they said yes because she had proven her comic and story were marketable! 

If anyone is interested in looking into commercial illustration work there is a company called
Envisual 

Lora also talked about the advantages of getting an art rep - as if you don't and you are working as a freelancer you will being doing two jobs instead of just one!

Those were all the major pointers now here are couple of photos of Lora being awesome at the ISC

Also Paperwings Podcast - go there, learn things, do it now!

That's all for now -

P.S there will not be an official meeting of ISC next week as most of us will be out of town, but Colleen might have something special for all of you!

Meeting recap 10/26/12

The Parkinson Brothers!

This week Chris and Tyler Parkinson Came in to talk about their game they are creating for a Dairy company.

Chris first talked about the inner workings of the game they are creating! 

First thing they talked about is the fact that flash is NOT dead when it comes to game development, and in fact it is a live and well in the indie game community.

To really get started creating a game for money you first have to fine a funder, their's was Dairy Enterprise Inc.

Next you have to make a timeline to project how long it will take to produce your game!

Then you begin the to get into the real meat of game design, with the concept art and programming.

The  animation of a flash game is divided into spread sheets on a png file where you can jump from one image to the next to create the animation.

Try to simplify images where you can to make the programming as easy as possible.

This game when done will have taken them six months to make! 

Some of the programs that they suggested if you are interested in Physics programming in games were

Box 2D

Nape

Here is a fun example of the physics engine of Nape:

If you wanted to make a game without having to learn any code you can go to

Gamesalad

Games made on Gamesalad

Stunt Squirrels!

Star Daze HD

Danger Cats

Tyler talked about Zynga and how was a decent enough place to work but their ethics about creating games is terrible, and that it was the spawn of Satan.

The things you would make at Zynga

Tyler's Blog

Concept for Mars needs milk

Oh and this little gem.

If you're looking to work with game developers check out the site 

Meetup.com

Tyler suggested for anyone interested, to take a class with Neil Riley a CCAD 

He teaching painting classes particularly landscape.

An Artist Tyler recommend is Jason Chan who works for Massive Black

We will definitely be talking more about Massive Black in the future as well guys so stay tuned! 

If you want to do indie flash game work your portfolio should have 

Character design

Png Sequences

Sprite sheets 

That's all for now!!