Local Animation Studyblr

Some quick animation smear guides I put together for a friend! not sure if it works as a tutorial without my in person commentary, also more intended as a guide to show examples of basic/common smear types :O

a very, very basic image guide on how your portfolio should be presented or appear, whether you’re in fine arts, graphic design or illustration, illustrated by yours truly

Flexible Time Blocking: A More Breathable Way to Get Things Done

I’ve met a lot of people who struggle with sticking to a schedule - myself included - so here’s one way you can get things done without restricting your spontaneity.

Linked: The ABCDE Method: Accomplish Tasks More Efficiently

besides using a table, you can also do this on the side of your bed, sitting with the ankle on the opposite knee, lying on your back in the same way, or on the floor as in the original yoga position.

here’s a video that guides you through proper technique and variations on the pose if you’re not able to do the above stretch.

and here’s another video on pigeon modifications aimed at helping fat people safely and comfortably get into the pose(s).

Ten Major Artists:

Wong Wong & Lulu

Pepper examining himself before commencing a self-portrait

Pepper’s self-portrait

Tiger the spontaneous reductionist

Misty goes off the wall

Minnie, the abstract expressionist

Minnie’s Reindeer in Provence, 1992.

Smokey painting after an hour in the catnip patch

Smokey at work

Ginger’s Stripped Bare Birds, 1992.

Princess, the elemental fragmentist

Guidelines for Setting Commission Prices

Article by @dragonofdarknesschaos​ article dated April 25th 2017 Original Source: [x]

I’m going to be blunt with all'y'all.  You are most likely under-pricing your work.  That’s okay, but please consider the following:

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Industry Standard Price List for Book Illustration*

Black and White:    • Spread: $500-$1500    • Full Page: $500-$9500    • Quarter Page: $100-$350

Color:   • Spread: $700-$2000   • Full Page: $500-$1500   • Quarter Page: $200-$400

*From The Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines by the Graphic Artists Guild, ed. 13–basically the bible for all visual artists looking to sell and price their work.  Check your local library for a copy.

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Not all artists are comfortable charging this much for their work, or maybe feel that their work isn’t good enough to charge more than a few bucks (if anything at all), some are just doing it for fun and don’t care about the money so much.

All of that is okay.  Individual commissioners usually don’t have the kind of money to drop that large corporations do.  

This is more about setting a few guidelines to prevent people from charging pennies for a full-color spread.  

See below:

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Fandom’ Average Price List

Black and White:   • Spread: $10-$50   • Full Page: $5-$30   • Quarter Page: $5-$30

Color:  • Spread: $50-$200  • Full Page: $20-$70  • Quarter Page: $10-$30

Valuing Your Work

If you don’t value your time, no one else will.

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You probably put a lot of time and effort into your work over the months or even years that you’ve been honing your craft.  So even if you’re in the select few who can actually bang out a beautiful piece of art in twenty minutes or less, think about how long it took you to get to that point.  I knew I wanted to do art professionally since the age of four; at the time of this writing I’ve gained 21 years of experience.  Not all of it was paid or professional quality work, but I learned and grew to what I am now.  Even if you’ve only been drawing a few months, that time and experience matters all the same!  Don’t sell your skills short. Now that you’ve gained some confidence in your abilities, it’s time to set a monetary value for your skills.  Usually artists go with an hourly rate.  This means that for however many hours you work on a piece, you charge the commissioner (or customer) by the amount you set.  THE COMMISSIONER DOES NOT NEED TO KNOW HOW LONG IT TAKES YOU TO MAKE THE ARTWORK.  DO, however, ask when they need the artwork by.  If you cannot complete the artwork in that amount of time asked, turn down the commission or find out if the deadline can be changed. Let’s try this hourly rate in an example now.  

Say it takes three hours to do a full color bust and the hourly rate is $10.  

In math terms it’s…

(hourly rate) x (time spent) = (amount to charge).  

The artist would charge $30 for the full-color bust commission.  

Thirty dollars for just a drawing of a head and shoulders might seem like a lot, and one might be tempted to decrease the hourly rate so the amount to charge is within those ‘Fandom’ Averages mentioned above. 

 Doing the same work for a total of $5 means one would charge $1.67 hourly.

Most states have minimum wages well above that.  

Are you worth less than the bare minimum, or are you worth more?   Spoiler alert–YOU MATTER!!  And so does your artwork too!  

If you’re still not feeling confident enough, just look up your state’s minimum wage and use that for your hourly rate.  You can then slowly raise your prices as you gain more confidence in your work.  While people might complain, remind them–and yourself–about those Industry Standard Prices listed above.  

It doesn’t hurt to let your fans know that you will be increasing your prices in advance either!

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When to Increase Your Prices

Either increase your prices when you feel confident in doing so, when there’s simply too much demand for your work, or if you’ve been undervaluing yourself.

Increasing the price will deter some potential customers, but those who sincerely want your work will save up to commission you no matter what.  Those are the people you want to work with. 

If the demand is still too high for you to keep up, or you don’t feel comfortable increasing prices to keep up with demand, create slots, or a short list of commissions you are currently working on.

Create a wait list too, if that helps.  Just maintain a clear path of communication with your supporters.

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The Nuances of Pricing

If you really want to get technical, there’s going to be MORE MATH ahead. Though it’s basically all about breaking down how much time it takes you to do anything.

It will take you three times longer than you think it will.

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Pricing by Style

Wow, you can actually draw in multiple styles!?  GREAT!  AMAZING!  Not everyone can do that.  

If it takes you more time to draw one style than another have a price chart that clearly shows that. 

If you have multiple coloring styles or techniques, break down how long each takes and give prices based on that. 

Dissect your artistic process into steps if that helps to understand what to charge for. Creating steps like this will also help if (and when) you need to make invoices, or lists of the services you’re providing for billing purposes.  

The following are examples of pricing broken down into each step in an artistic process for two vastly different styles:

Super Cartoony Style (full page):

- sketch: $10 x 15mins (or .25hr) = $2.50  - lines: $10 x 90mins (or 1.5hrs) = $15.00 - color: $10 x 1hr = $10 - (no shading) Total: $27.50

Semi-Realistic Painterly Style (full page):

- sketch: $10 x 1hr = $10 - (no lines) - color: $10 x 2hrs = $20 - shading: $10 x 6hrs = $60 Total: $70

Having these kinds of breakdowns will help potential commissioners identify what they want and what they can afford.  

Yeah, that’s great, but what if someone just wants a sketch in the Super Cartoony Style?  Then I’m making less than those ‘Fandom’ Average prices! 

True, but what if you sit down to do the sketch commission, and instead of taking fifteen minutes, you end up spending twenty minutes looking up reference of the character, and the poses you want, end up scrapping a bunch of attempts, and before you know it, an hour and a half has passed? By then you’ve charged the commissioner for fifteen minutes of work when it actually took you six times longer.  If this happens to you consistently, consider switching to a flat-rate approach or compensate for this time difference in the prices you offer.

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Flat Rate Pricing

Essentially you charge more up front and lower the price of any additional steps.  As such, additional services, like lines, color, and shading are then smaller fees that get tacked on after the preliminary sketch is completed.  

The flat rate is typically based on the average amount of time it takes to do each step of the process.  

Say it takes anywhere from 15-90 minutes to do a sketch depending on how inspired you are. 

With the same hourly rate of $10, that’s a range of $2.50-$15.  Depending on complexity things might take longer, so let’s bump it up to $20 just to be safe. 

Keeping the total costs the same as for the hourly break downs above results in the following:

Super Cartoony Style (full page) flat rate:

- sketch: $20 - lines: $4 - color: $3.50 - (no shading) Total: $27.50

Semi-Realistic Painterly Style (full page) flat rate:

sketch: $30 (no lines) color: $15 shading: $25 Total: $70

There’s less actual math involved, but it means that you’ll at least get your money’s worth whether you spend the fifteen minutes you originally allotted, or wind up taking two hours.

Again, the commissioner doesn’t need to know how long it actually took you to make the art.  

Consider adjusting the flat rates if you find yourself spending more time on certain things than your hourly rate covers.  

In the example, if you repeatedly spend more than two hours on a sketch, then you need to increase your initial rate to compensate. This model also plays a bit into the ideas behind the “super size” marketing. For just four dollars more you get cleaner line art. For only three and a half dollars more you get full color!  If a commissioner can get over the initial price to start, chances are they’ll be more willing to spend the few extra dollars to get a higher level of finish.

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Methods of Payment

While DeviantArt is a great place for finding and getting commissions, they don’t exactly have the best monetary system in place.  

Here are a few other methods you can use.  

While there are other sites and services you can use to send money, be sure both the artist and commissioner have agreed on the amount due and payment method before sending anything.  

In general do not start on the artwork until at least half of the payment is received or processed.

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The Commissions Widget (on DeviantArt)

Pros:

easy to use

built into site

allows points to be turned into actual cash

Cons:

deducts 20% from your earnings (most sites charge less than 10%)

keeps points earned from commissions separate from total points

few people have 3,000 points to drop

If you’re intent on using this system, be sure to add a 20% tax to your final cost (e.g. $27.50 + ($27.50 x .2) = $33.00 or 3,300 points) 

While you could simply trade the points outside the commissions widget, the points cannot [legally] be turned back into cash.

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Google Wallet

Pros:

easy to use

works fast

no usage fee

Cons:

open to continental US ONLY

requires gmail account

no invoices

If you already have a gmail account, then you automatically have access to gwallet.  It’s just a matter of connecting a bank account or credit card then. 

 While there are no invoices for any money exchanges that I’m aware of, still consider making invoices for your records.

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PayPal

Pros:

internationally available

used across many sites for payment

very secure

has built-in invoices

Cons:

lots of rules that constantly change and are difficult to understand

difficult to navigate; if done incorrectly one may be charged

both parties must fill out forms correctly or the artist will be charged or have their account banned

If you live inside or outside the continental US, here are a few links that may be helpful in [writing those invoices], and [making sure you don’t get burned].  

Also do not use PayPal to send your art, as their rules are a bit convoluted about who owns the rights to the artwork then.

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Patreon

Pros:

easy to understand

processes payments through Amazon

allows creators to build communities around their projects

multiple price points can be offered at the same time

encourages repeat customers

Cons:

while it’s a bit daunting to get set up and situated, Patreon has an almost infinite amount of easy to understand resources to help their creators take off

though not necessary, it helps to have a strong social media presence elsewhere

smaller group of commissioners

For those who don’t know, Patreon is like KickStarter, but it recurs monthly, and it’s just for creatives.  

What I’ve seen most artists who do commissions exclusively through Patreon do is have a lower reward tier that is fan driven like monthly requests, in addition to a higher reward tier that is the actual commission button so-to-speak.  

This format kind of forces the flat rate pricing method to an extreme, so price well, or create a dialogue with your fans/patrons/potential commissioners to see what they’re most interested in getting for their money.   They might even give you ideas for projects to do down the road.

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TL;DR

Professional illustrations go for 20-50 times MORE than what most ‘fandom’ artists charge.

Value your time, or else no one else will.  This means that you deserve to work for above minimum wage.

Never tell the commissioner how long it takes to make your artwork (unless you need more time to make your artwork).

It’s OKAY to increase your prices.  Especially if there’s high demand for your work.

You can price by how long it takes you to do each step of your artistic process OR…

You can have a higher flat rate to do the first step of your process, with smaller, additional fees for finishes like color, or shading, or both.

Be transparent about what you’re charging for.

There are many sites and methods of payment, use the one that is most convenient for both parties.

USE. INVOICES.  No matter how simple.

If you DO decide to use dA’s Commission Widget, charge a 20% tax to cover the site’s cut.

Trust yourself–after all, these commissioners came to you for your unique art style!  You can’t go wrong by doing you.

Anyone is welcome to ask further questions, or suggest additions.

Hello ! i cant say ive ever had to take an exam exactly like that, but ill try to give you some tips from art school that you can apply to any art piece, no matter what the medium is

this is a handy infographic of the elements of art and principles of design, which is kind of like a checklist that we go through during critiques (theyre all pretty easily googlable if you dont understand them but if you still need help lmk)

when you choose the subject of your pieces, choose something really important to you! art always comes out better when your heart is in it

im not sure what kind of paint you plan to use, but i suggest acrylic if youre not used to traditional painting. oil in my opinion is less forgiving and you cant just paint over top of it until it dries for a bazillion hours. make sure to mix paints thoroughly, keep enough paint on your brush so that you dont make clumpy/scratchy strokes, and take good care of your materials! try to cover every inch of your canvas with paint, because teachers dont like to see any bare canvas. i prime the canvas by putting down a layer of white (or other BG color) first

Paint-on-glass animation is a technique for making animated films by manipulating slow-drying oil-paints on sheets of glass as the animator gradually alters the shapes they create, and during this process, a camera records each finished ‘frame’.

When adapting ONE’s Mob Psycho 100, director Yuzuru Tachikawa wanted to adapt the source material in fantastic ways. And so, by combining the talents of a skilled staff, an anime with an incredible mix of animation techniques was born. 

TIME MANAGEMENT STUFF / TERM 7 

It’s not a contest to see who can get by without them. It’s not cheating to look at a thing in order to know what the thing looks like.

USING REFERENCES FOR ART IS NOT ‘CHEATING’!!!

If you can draw/paint without references, great!  But if you need to use them, and feel that your art can be bettered by using references, please, use them!  This is one of the biggest tips I can give to artists, is USE REFERENCES! 

Anyone who would dare to attack someone for using references after ‘recognizing a pose’ is a dipshit, who doesn’t know a thing about art.

Do you know who else used references for their art?

Norman Rockwell

Alphonse Mucha

Gustav Klimt

Toulouse Lautrec

Vincent Van Gogh

Paul Gauguin

Edgar Degas

Gil Elvgren

Frida Kahlo

Pablo Picasso

Disney Studios

You can even use other artists work, it’s just a matter of respecting the artist. Just be very careful and ASK (if you can) before posting any art you made that directly references an artists work. If you cannot contact them, let people know or link to the reference you used. Do not claim the work is your own or let people assume it by not saying anything at all-that’s where the call out culture is. Emulating master works was REQUIRED for half my undergrad classes in painting- and my original work was so much better because I studied someone with more experience and knowledge of the craft.

Unless you have a very good grasp on your subject matter trying to draw everything from memory is just going to hinder and frustrate you.

Study the masters.

Study real life.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

As an amateur artist the moment I realized I could and should be using references was the moment I started to substantially improve. Drawing from references is what taught me how different angles of the body look and stupid shit like how arms bend and what shoulders look like on different bodies. Now I can draw more poses from memory and internal references, but I still need and use references to improve beyond where I’m at!

In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.

Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.

I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.

-Yo painters, use pencil if u must underdraw beneath an oil painting, the lead is archival but ideally you should be doing underdrawings in a muted earth tones (siennas, umbers, ochres or earth green) with some titanium white added to it. (The white nearly matches the canvas and earth tones naturally blend with all colors on top unless u do super thin glaze washes).

-Trying to make a natural looking warm black? Don’t use black straight from tube, Mix alizarin crimson and viridan. add raw umber to adjust for light depth.

-If your into mixed media ALWAYS use acrylic first and oil on top (the gesso on primed canvas is acrylic based and oil sits on top of it great). NEVER put acrylic paint on top of oil, the acrylic will crackle/decompose and fall apart/off the canvas.

-India ink is permanent and if your using ink from a jar it should say it’s permanence. professional art grade pens usually have there permanace listed either on the pen or the companies website.

-Red cinnabar is poisonous, DO NOT EAT IT, no matter how much like fruit loops it smells.

-Translucent and transparent are NOT the same. translucent is *shiny* and a cloudier color, ideal for mixing usually ordor making vibrant colors like for eyes, cars, etc. Transparent is matte and usually a 50% transparency from an opaque color.

-ALWAYS DO A TEST SWATCH OF ANY NEW MATERIAL.

-any paint made with “true alizarin crimson” “red lake” and “chrome yellow” pigment is a fugitive paint. Fugitive means the pigment fades dramatically and disappears over time, (usually 5 to 15 years) lots of van goghs paintings have this problem. be very careful with these pigments. Alizarin crimson especially smells extremely sweet and like fruit loops or fruit loops, don’t eat it.

-gauche is a mix of watercolor and ink, proceed with caution as this material can be an asshole.

-Watercolor can be made darker/thicker by letting it dry slightly in cake form or in liquid form and can be dry brushed if u get the timing down.

-Paint liquid rubber or lay down thin pieces of painters tape on edges in watercolor paintings to Prevent bleeding between lines if u need super sharp edges.

-always tape down the entire paper edges when u paint with watercolor to a board to prevent the paper from curling as it dries.

-add salt directly into wet watercolor paintings to absorb pigment and make shit look like space.

-Always paint in well ventilated areas and avoid getting lots of paint on your hands. lots of paint is made with heavy metals and can cause cancer.

-natural materials aren’t always safe, especially

-Ones u collect yourself, do your research before grinding, burning, sanding these things especially indoors.

-natural sable is good for watercolor if you can afford it, i have two smaller brushes i shelled out for to try it, and while i probably didn’t treat the finer point one right, the other one is a miracle i’ve had for nearly 20 years.

have fun drawing kisses now!!!!!!

“Lighten Up” by Ronald Wimberly

I give it MASCLES

And I wanna stress that when i say “top of the leg” i’m not talking about the crotch (please don’t flag me tumblr it’s an anatomical term) i’m talking about the point where the femur connects to the pelvis, which is higher up on the hips:

It’s easier to see what I’m talking about in this photo of a man squatting: 

So yeah if you use that measurement when using this technique you should get fairly realistically proportioned legs:

But remember! messing with proportions is an important and fun part of character design! Know the rules first so you can then break them however you please!