Illustrative Journal Vol. 1

Ladies and gentlemen, after several years of art journals, offering advice, tutorials, tips and general information for those wishing to follow a career in the illustration field I have come to a point of being told countless times to turn these into news items, as to better help people here on DeviantART. I have no idea how this will be viewed by the general populous of DA, but hopefully it will help somebody out there. Which is what matters.

If during these, you have any questions on what I had to say (lets face it, most of these are written when I haven't slept), or if you wish to suggest an idea for future content, or even tell me that I suck at life me – don't hesitate. I listen to all the feedback I'm given and there really isn't too dumb of a question. It just gives me a reason to avoid work heh.

The point of this is that long ago, I had no guidance for many years as an aspiring illustrator – and this heavily hurt my progress. If I can help even one or two people out there with their path, then maybe these have been worth it.

But lets start simple today, I'd like to talk about illustration itself. I understand that by offering information on only illustration I come off biased – problem is, it's all I know. With this in mind, a lot of the information that I provide will transcend genres and styles often enough – so hopefully those who aren't into the illustrative stand point can still value these in some way.

So, if we were to take this from the beginning, Illustration would effectively be a form of art where the artist is using an image to accompany words. In this regard, illustration is in our pen and paper role playing games, it's on our book covers, it's in our video game manuals, it's in our magazines, and even on our bags of chips. Illustration is everywhere from websites to readable things to consumables. The biggest product probably being books or graphic novels.

With this in mind, the difference between illustration and fine art is that generally there's a monetary component. While fine art is something that an artist will spend countless hours on to perfect and share their vision, the illustrator needs to pay his bills by telling a story with art. He or she will be aware that the image may not be to their vision, and may go back and fix it some day, but they'd rather buy groceries before fixing the face of the damsel in distress.

I was once approached at a convention where somebody said, “You only spent 6 hours on that? I spend over 200 hours on my pieces!” And all I could ask was, “did you have a deadline?” And she stared at me like I was insane. She was a fine artist, I was an illustrator. Two separate boats, two separate goals, same product.

In a way, Illustration is the capitalism of the art world, along with graphic design and what not. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a step away from fine art, and generally the original purpose of why we got into art in the first place – which often wasn't to make money, it was because we were loners and needed to vent out some feelings. This is a generalization of course, and won't apply to everyone.

What do you say we talk about portfolios for a moment, just so that we get some content in this thing. If you wish to form a career out of art, you'll probably need a portfolio at some point (unless you're one lucky bugger). Problem is that very few of us really know what to add into it or how to arrange it.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for art schooling – but this here is arranged around jobs and careers. And the two follow a different set of guidelines.

Let's face it, an art school has a different purpose in mind, they want to fill out their numbers of successful applicants and make sure that they take somebody with real heart and vigor so that this individual lands an awesome job after the schooling process – this makes them look really good. They want to see more work. An art director doesn't want to see as much work.... they have a lot of work to do usually (or so they tell us har har) and so it's best to include enough to impress them but not exhaust them at the same time. You want them to ask for more before they ask you to please please please go away. The latter is a hard way to get a job from what I hear.

Sooo, with this in mind, for an illustrative job, such as with an RPG gaming company, I would recommend keeping your portfolio to between 7 and 10 illustrations. You can go as low as 5, but it may not be enough for them to truly get a feel for what they can expect from you.

Let's take a look at the art director's expectations for a moment. This individual is looking for an artist who seems to have very consistent work, has variety in what they do, but at the same time has a spot where they may excel over something else. They don't want to see just muscle bound men doing nothing.... they want the characters to interact with the image, forming a true illustration. They don't want to see pages upon pages of half naked women (or fully naked women for that matter) holding swords bigger than their entire body. They want you to convey an emotion or story.

And finally, they really want you to provide them work that is IN THEIR GENRE. This is in caps for a reason. I've heard, time and time again, art directors annoyed that piles of artist hopefuls do no research into the company sending them work, providing them with massive amounts of artwork that does not apply to the company. Don't send children's stories to a company specializing in horror.... and a fantasy art company may not have much interest in science fiction. And so on. Plan a bit, and develop your portfolio around the company. For this reason, you may end up with 5 different portfolios at one time, just to provide variety for whatever company you may come across.

I'll expand on these things later on in a few weeks once we get further into the art journals, hopefully going into finer details.

Just remember that if you send somebody that portfolio, don't hound them for work weekly. Sometimes all you need is a once a month check in, and in many cases just a check in every 3 or 4 months. I know some art directors who prefer if I email them just once every 6 months since they're so busy. Get an idea on who you're talking to, get in their mind a little as to how they act and judge accordingly. If you were in their shoes, would you want massive updates every two weeks from all of your artists on file? I wouldn't. Most of these art directors are talking to hundreds of artists each year.

But hey, do what works. Just don't burn bridges.

That's it for today. I'm always open for advice on what you'd like to hear in an illustrative art journal (I have a file of ideas that I compile based on feedback!). If you're really curious about something – don't hesitate to comment or note me.

I have quite a few of these backlogged in my DA journal here, so if you would like to read up on what I've had to say the last two years, I urge you to go back and check them out. I'll likely be compiling them sometime soon though – cleaning them up and whatever else it'll take to keep them useful.

Have a wonderful time, boys and girls. Join me next time. I think we'll talk lighting, what do you think?

[link] <--This is the link to the journal entry, all are welcome to join in on the conversations that we tend to have there and read back to older journals should they wish.


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-If anybody wishes to contribute information, please note me, and I'll quote you with full credit - this isn't for me, everyone, this is for those who wish to learn.... so let's help em out

-Chris