What you can do if a big company stole your art An indy artist's work being used by Disney without permission: http://katiewoodger.tumblr.com/post/47454350768/disney-have-stolen-my-artwork-i-dont-know-whatMy tumblr reply: http://mayshing.tumblr.com/post/47627305546/katiewoodger-disney-have-stolen-my-artwork-iPS: this one is on the verge being settled, Disney already started working on it, she's being helped. Seeing posts like this, I just thought I should share some knowledge I have, I personally already have met 3 different artists who doesn't know what to do when:Record company ripped them offPublisher ripped them offBig corporation used their artwork without permission (that's usually by accident because of an outsource company broke the rule etc) USA people: Go
THREE TIPS FOR DRAWING CARSYou know that green ellipse tool that you bought in art school? Do you know how to use it for something other than oval shapes? Do you know what those "cross-hair" marks are for? And do you know how to use it for technically correct perspective drawings?TOO many comics artists don't, and it's driving me crazy. So instead of starting a blog that starts showing examples and naming names, I figured it was better to make a quick tutorial. And this isn't just for cars but also for guns, fire hydrants, and millions of other machined objects found in comics.If you go through this and you're still stuck, please don't write to me. I'm happy to show you at a convention to make it clearer, but within a blog this is the best I can do. Check out "Perspective for Comic Artists by David Chelsea" for more.TIP #1Cars are a whole lot easier to draw if you know how to properly use perspective and ellipses. The more familiar you are with the math, the more fun it is to draw cars. Once I figured out th
Types of Artist blues, what helped, what didn'tThere are several artist blues I know of, since I have experienced practically all of them during the past few months since 2011. I will write about how I got them, how I overcome them. What helped, what didn't.Some of these blues are professional freelance blues, happens to those who are making their own series/productions and when there's money and risk involved.Some of these blues are shared by all artists.Pre-production bluesBefore the production even starts, the fear of it failing caused me to think about failing instead of success. It makes me hesitate about actually working on the project before I even produce anything. What helped- Refocus on what I am making the project for, what's the true message I try to convey with the project, make that shine, and try to choose a cheap launch platform that makes it cost-effective. What didn't help- trying to level up on art skill. It helped with my overall art as work for hire, it didn't help with
TUTORIAL - Tips for All ArtistsHello everyone!I have written a tutorial like this before here. But recently I have had more thoughts about it that I decided to share. As you may have noticed, I am not a professional artist, I am a hobbyist and self-taught, and what I will expose here is what I've learnt from my own experience. Even so, I hope this tutorial will be helpful to you!Another note: English is not my first language, so I apologize if I commit any mistakes.Feel free to correct my grammar any time, as well as make suggestions or asking questions!This tutorial is for every kind of artist, but sometimes I will focus more on visual artists (since it's my speciality).I believe that everyone can be an artist, and this tutorial has not only the purpose of providing advices and tips, but also motivation for all.Contents1. Your Image as an Artist on dA2. Your Image as an Artist outside dA3. Your Popularity4. Your Art Process5. Your Artistic Style6. You
How to Write a Novel - a beginner's guideI am often asked - how do you write novels? I am often told by the person asking - so politely - "It is my dream to write a novel" "I wish I could write" "I would love to write my novel on ..." I let people know I am on my third novel. It is rare to meet a writer, rarely someone who has realised their dream, and who has produced a book. Rarer still to find a published author --- why? it seems so easy.....when you read them.Many try the
Top 5 Mistakes (I've made over the years)To many people in comics, I only arrived a few years ago with Joe the Barbarian. Then came Hellblazer (completed in 2008 before I began working on Joe), American Vampire: SOTF, and finally Punk Rock Jesus. Once in a while someone will mention Off Road (an OGN I did with Oni back in 2004), but for the most part it seems like I've been published only these last few years when in fact I've been published professionally for a decade now.This isn't a plea to have everyone go back through my previous work--in fact, I'm glad that a lot of the books I've done over the years aren't on readers' radars. I'm proud of it all, but the books above are a nice, tight group of titles to be associated with. They're all in a similar brand, they're all recent, they all have good creators/publishers associated with them, and the artwork is mostly consistent. Go back further than that, and you'll see artwork that looks nothing like the stuff I'm doing these days. (Although Off Road still holds up to some de
The Necessity of Flaws in CharacterizationOkay. Close your eyes (well, maybe just one) and imagine your favorite fictional character. Are they strong? Compassionate and giving? Witty and clever? Wise and intelligent? No matter the make-up of their awesomeness, they probably bring a smile to your face and that warm, fuzzy feeling to your insides. You probably remember vividly their adventures and hijinks, their clever retorts, or how amazing they were at figuring out some wild and crazy puzzle. They probably inspired your own writing. You probably wanted to recreate that smile and fuzzy feeling with your own readers, so you made your version of the character (or took some of their tra
To War Against the Dialogue Tags!I am waging a war. Consider this your invitation to join my army.What is this war about, you ask? It's about destroying dialogue tags. What are dialogue tags, you ask? They are the parts that explain who's talking, like "he said" and "she asked". Why am I doing this, you ask? It's not that they kicked my puppy (I don't even have one, despite the opposition's claim). It's not that they burned my toast. It's not even that they opened my favorite book too far and creased the spine. Here. Let me explain why you're going to be fighting the good fight.Dialogue tags have a use. It's a very useful use, even. They prevent confusion about who gener
The Chronology of StorytellingImagine you're reading to a live audience. It can be as big or small as you'd like. It can be your writing or someone else's. It doesn't matter. Indulge yourself in the fantasy. So you're reading to a live audience. They're enraptured. They're engrossed. They're generating a movie in their heads as you weave your tale. Imagine how important every word you produce is to these movies. Every detail you provide adds another layer. They smell the flowers. They feel the roughness of the brick. They see the vivid colors of the clothes.And then you require they perform time travel to make the movies accurate.Wait. What?The chronology, or order
How to feel good about your ArtWe've all had those moments as an artist where we just can't seem to like what we're doing, where nothing seems sufficient and everybody else seems to draw so much better than ourselves.There's a few simple things you can do to avoid feeling like that or that you can remind yourself of should you already be right in the middle of this mess.Draw for yourself, not an audience! The first and probably most important point, especially for any artist on here who in one way or the other seeks feedback and recognition from their fellow deviants. You should never forget that your art is after all YOUR art, so it should be a means to express yourself, relax yourself, be proud of yourself etc and not anyone else. Never let yourself be pressured to do anything you don't want simply because your watchers might demand it or do anything for the sole purpose of getting more attention. It might make you happy in the beginning but loosing track
Writer's Workshop: Fleshing out CharactersDecember 14th, 2011.Fleshing Out Your Characters.Some people are good at writing people. They have no difficulties conceiving of them and don't balk at doing the legwork involved in writing interesting, well-developed characters. They know what is believable and what isn't, and have some idea of how readers may react to their cast.Other people seem to have no idea what makes people tick, what makes characters interesting, and hope that piling on enough abilities or cool traits is a workable substitute for character development.As you might have expected, this ramble is dedicated to not being the latter. Here are some tips and tricks f
How to cope with Art BlocksAlmost every single artist has at one point or the other in their life lost motivation, inspiration or even both and without the knowledge of how to deal with what we then call an Art Block, it can take a long time to overcome this lack of artistic drive. A time that might otherwise be used for further improvement and personal artistic growth.So today I would like to give you a few tips on how to defeat an art block. There is no definite guarantee to either of them, as everybody experiences their blocking differently but maybe you can at least find small suggestions that will eventually help.______________________________________ Retrieving Inspiration Inspiration is literally everywhere, you just need to open your eyes to see it.We can find inspiration through:MediaLetting your favourite books, movies, series or games inspire you is always one of the most obvious ways. Fan Art is a good way to retrieve inspiration because most of all y
How to get started with Pixel ArtLately I have frequently been asked what programs I use for pixeling and/or animating and also in general how I go about it. Now I currently don't have the time to create a tutorial of my own but I figured until I will be able to do so I could at least give you some helpful tips and link you to some tutorials made by others. About the programs I use I do pretty much all the pixeling itself in Photoshop Elements 8.0 which sadly enough isn't free. But don't worry, in general photshop is even a little overpowered for pixel art, I simply use it because I am most used to it.Technically you can even use Microsoft Paint for pixeling, after all the only two things you really need to be able to create pixel art is a pen tool and the ability to zoom in far enough. The only real disadvantage about Paint is the lack of transparency support so you can only create pixels with an opaque background.However I can offer you a really great third optio
We are World-Changing ArtisansI recently came across some issues that had seem to occur within the art world, and it made me want to share my personal thoughts with other artists, as it makes me wonder how many artists feel this way.These are views such as the world being a mean, heartless place for artists, and the pressure to perform art over enjoying it, and the constant competition between other fellow artists.Personally, I agree the world isn't always nice, but I also think that it is in a person's hands to make the world a nice place for them to live in. After writing my first article on motivation and loving the work that an artist does, I received comments fro
Several ways to get published Q: I am wondering. How do i go about getting one of my mangas published? i thought you might know the answer.A: If you post it on DrunkDuck or Deviantart it's count as published, digitally, but it doesn't mean your publisher on digital world is obligated to pay you for it, if you publish on your own site, maybe you can earn ad money from it.For book publishing, there are two major ways to go: go submit to a publisher, or be your own publisher. Publishing is both easy and hard, depending on the scale of publishing you want to go for. -Nation/world wide book publishing is what most refer to as "being published" (It means being "commercia
Motivation and enjoying artRecently, I've noticed something very interesting. Despite the fact I'm on a course where I pretty much don't do anything, I've noticed something.I've drawn more here than I ever did studying art at uni. And what's even more amazing is that I've enjoyed it.Recently, I've been on a bit of a downer concering my artwork. I hadn't been doing anything. I knew I should've been, but I hadn't. I'd tried many different exercises for drawing techniques and tried drawing drills. After coming to this course however, and meeting several friends, I began to realise.I was enjoying the work that I was doing. Before, in uni, I had fallen into such a sta
The Mary Sue Litmus TestHolepunch's Mary Sue Litmus Test:Ah, the Mary Sue. We can't cobble together a truly comprehensive description of what they are, exactly, but we can agree on one thing: an annoying, 'perfect' character who, through a general lack of flaws and character development, is excruciating to sit through and often makes us gnash our teeth, tear our hair, and reach for the back button. This nefarious creature can be measured and detected, so let's all grab our magnifying glasses and get classifying.This is a subjective subject; a trait that drives one person right up the wall might fail to get any reaction from another. As you go through the list, c
The Loving Art CommunityI'm tired of hubris... I'm tired of hypocrisy...I'm tired of this masquerade that people have built up over the years... perpetually changing masks... taking off one and putting on another... so quickly...it's a blur... What about the ones... the ones who want to hold true to themselves... the one who are true... why are they always broken.... In this I believe... The Art Community Stands Out... I believe we're probably the thought of as the most brazen...most earthy community... And that we can't keep our opinion to ourselves however horrible they might be... But if only the earthly mortals were to look a little closer..
Design a country work sheetFor those people who needs to design their own world.This is a form I will use from now on to help me design it faster and more complete. original from: droemar's journalEdited by mayshing 2010Country:Colors: (An example would be red, white, and blue)Symbol: (An example would be stars and stripes.)Location, geographic:calender measure (time table): (Does their calender go by the moon, or sun? Or other planets?)Races: (The races that inhabit the area, whether or not they're native.Physical: (The ethnic description of your race: skin color, hair color, builds, dress) Pr
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An indy artist's work being used by Disney without permission: http://katiewoodger.tumblr.com/post/47454350768/disney-have-stolen-my-artwork-i-dont-know-what
What helped- Refocus on what I am making the project for, what's the true message I try to convey with the project, make that shine, and try to choose a cheap launch platform that makes it cost-effective. 
Media
About the programs I use 
