New Beginnings - New Years Advice

With the new year coming up, it's a great time for goal setting. The reason is that the calendar resets and provides us with a mental "refresh" period. Honestly, you can change your life any time, any day. But the new year allows our brain to cooperate with our mental need to change. Which is why it's the perfect time to set goals.

Here's the problem. 98% of people give up or back out on their goals by the end of February. That's a fact. So when the new year comes up again they say "Ok, NOW I'm serious.". But statistics say the same thing will happen again. Why?

Here's why. Setting goals is not enough. You need to take it a step further. Goals are the fun and easy part to set. From there you need to really analyze it and figure out an action plan. What exactly you need to do to achieve those goals. You need to be really honest with yourself and don't fluff it up because that's just self-sabotage. If you want to hit a certain goal in 2013, YOU CAN. No matter how big. But the bigger the goal, the harder the action plan. So just be honest with yourself.

Action plans are still not enough though. I could set hardcore action plans all day. Will I do them? Who knows. It comes down to this one word; BEHAVIORS.

"For things to change, you have to change." -Jim Rohn

There's no way around this. At all. If you don't change, your 2012 will be exactly the same as your 2013. Don't believe me? Look at anyone who's ever won the lottery. Obviously they're still the same person. They just have more money now. In about a year, that money is usually gone. Look at millionaires though. You take their money away, and they'll get it back in a month. Most of them. Why? They're millionaires in their mind. They have the habits of millionaires. Behaviors are important.

This is hard to swallow for some people to swallow. They don't think they need to change. Yet I can show you how their 2013 will be exactly like their 2012. Which they might be content with. I believe in always moving forward. Always taking it up to another level. I don't care what level you're at, once you stop growing, you start dying.

If your goal is to be a better artist, but you put the exact same amount of time and effort into your art as you did last year, you might improve a little. But most likely not. Behaviors need to change. Habits. If you wanna be a better artist in 2013 you need to draw MORE than you did last year. But that's not enough. You need to think different. Act different. Step out of your comfort zone more. You need to change. If you're inspired by Jim Lee and wanna draw like Jim Lee, but aren't drawing nearly as much as he does, you're going to have a bad time.

You may not know the kind of behaviors and habits you need to have to do the actions you need to hit the goals that you want. Here's a tip. Find someone who has what you want. And do what they do. Simple? Maybe. Depends on what they're doing. Someone who is having success that you want, was not born that way. I guarantee it. They were once worse than you, hard to believe sometimes right? So if you do what they do, you will get what they have. It's simple. If your favorite artist is studying 20 hours a week on top of work on top of family time, etc. then do that.

Stop searching for instant gratification! It doesn't exist. I was guilty of it and most newbies are. "Well maybe if I get that pencil I can draw like them" "Maybe if I get that DVD I'll be instantly better". No. Now, I won't say don't do those things. Because you don't know what you don't know. You might try a new pencil and it might work better for you than the one you used to use. Who knows. But don't expect improvement without insane, ridiculous, hard work. If you're not doing so, follow *Ricky-Martinez. He embodies this concept. He's at the grind every day. He doesn't make excuses. He finds a way. No matter what, he finds a way. And he pulls himself out of his comfort zone CONSTANTLY. And boom, out of nowhere he's improving. It's not magic, nor is it rocket science. His behaviors and habits changed, and therefore he improved.

1. Set your goals
2. Create an honest action plan
3. Set a list of behaviors and habits you'll need to embody to perform those actions NO MATTER WHAT
4. Start forcing yourself to change habits (bad habits die hard).
5. Perform the actions you need to hit your goals.
6. Hit your goals.

"A goal is a dream with a deadline." -Napoleon Hill

You can make 2013 different. You can make it better. You can literally change your life in 2013. The ONLY thing stopping you from doing that is you. No one else. Nothing else. Just you. So if you don't hit your goals and if you didn't last year, it's because of you. Plain and simple. Hard to swallow? I'd rather give real advice than sugar-coat it. You can blame people, your job, make excuses, whatever. But it was none of that and will be none of that. It's you. So decide to make change. Commit. Do whatever it takes. I believe in you. Feel free to ask me for anything. And have a wonderful New Year everyone!

-Chris Shehan

Illustration - Wolf Blitzer: Full Moon Quarterback

I did this for Bloodsports which is a challenge held by Crimson Daggers. Crimson Daggers is a free online study group that I recommend all digital artists take part of in some form. They help you improve by doing critiques, live drawing all the time, and challenges like this that force you to learn while also helping you create an image for your portfolio. So it's a win/win. Even if you don't "win".

For this challenge we had to pick between 3 ridiculous topics. I chose Wolf Blitzer: Full Moon Quarterback. No limits, you could take it literally or not, the only rules are you have to show your studies, sketches, and reference, and the image has to have a background. They require studies, sketches, and reference in every challenge to make sure that were learning and not just entering art. It's like when your math teacher says to "show your work". Which is great. And I did learn. A lot.

I never used to do studies for my finished artwork. I'd just go. But studies actually help A LOT and now I'm doing them all the time. Why are studies good? They force you to understand what you're painting, and how things work, to bring a more realistic feel to your images. For example, for this challenge I did studies of a football player and a couple movie stills from American Werewolf in London. This way I had fresh on my mind the way a lit stadium looks, how a football helmet, football uniform reflects light, textures, what cool werewolf transformations look like, and so on. So then when I get to painting from my mind, everything is easy. There's no struggling. And I know the image would have looked much different without the studies. I remembered the way the werewolf's hair looked, the way the football players looked with the bright stadium lights, the way I painted the grass. Because I understood it all I could easily apply it to a painting from imagination.

Here's a detail shot of the face.

And here's some of the studies I did for this piece. (1-2 hours of painting each)

Process

 

Video - Digital Painting Process - Haunt

A lot of times I like to screen record my digital painting process so that way I can look back at it myself and also share my process with others in hopes that it'll help. I usually only record speedpaintings because that's only an hour or 2 of video, but sometimes I'll record full illustrations.

This piece is of the character Haunt, created by Todd McFarlane. He was holding a contest for Haunt and the winner would get published in an issue of the comic. I was lucky enough to make the top 15 semi finalists along with my friend Danny Morales, but we were both unable to make finals and get published. Either way I had a lot of fun doing this piece.

The reason I recorded this was because I wanted to show how I can paint something semi-realistic, without a "real" reference of this character. There's no Haunt movie or any realistic depictions of Haunt online so I had to improvise.

First of all, realism in art is ALWAYS based on the way light effects something. The better you can understand light, the more real you can make anything look. For example, look at any Pixar movie. They take cartoony designs and bring them into a 3D world with advanced lighting that makes the characters real and believable.

Secondly, different textures are effected differently by lighting. This is a common mistake I see all the time. People will light metal the same way they light cloth, the same way they light leather. For this piece, before I even started I had to think about what this character is made of. I came to the conclusion that all the white parts of his costume were made of rubbery, slimy, bone matter. I came up with "liquid bone" as a way to describe it. I wanted it to look like it's strong enough to protect him, but fluid enough to morph and change and wrap around him organically. To make this texture believable, I couldn't paint it the same as I painted his skin. Because his skin is not slimy or gross. If I painted his whole body like his skin, he'd look like a dull 3D model with simple lighting and no rendering or textures. So I studied slimy, shiny gross objects. You've got to do paint studies of textures you're going to use, because this way you can get an understanding of how it works with light before you go into your painting.

So really, realism "from your head" is as simple as understanding light, and how surfaces are lit. To get better at this just takes painting different textures/lighting scenarios from life. Trying to get the colors right and light the different textured surfaces right.

I hope that helps! Keep drawing! Here's the video

Lighting and Atmosphere - Grasslands

Here's an older speedpainting I did from mid 2011. I wanted to share this because this was one of my first attempts at some lighting & atmosphere techniques and I recorded the process. A few people have asked me about lighting and atmosphere so I figured I could talk a little bit about it here. I tried to put commentary on the video, but I couldn't figure out how to get it to work, but the video demonstrates it a little bit at the end.

I always try to get some sort of interesting lighting scheme. Sometimes I get realistic lighting, and sometimes I prefer to get what's called "stage lighting". Meaning you normally wouldn't see lighting like that in real life, but it works great for compositional purposes. For example, when you see a movie and a person's face is fully lit from all sides, yet so is the person they're talking to who's facing them. Where could that light possibly be coming from? Or to a more extreme level, when you play a video game and there's always a light in the direction that you're supposed to go. Where as in real life it might be harder to find that door to the next area. The lights are designed to lead your eye a certain way, lead your character a certain way, or set a mood. This is "stage lighting" because it's fake, believable light that serves as a compositional tool.

In the example above, I didn't necessarily have a purpose for the lighting, but it was more of a test to see if I could get some sort of mood and atmosphere with it. To achieve this I paint the character and the background in fairly flat, darker colors. Once the values are all there I use a "color dodge" layer in photoshop to paint some hot spots on the robot. I hardly use "color dodge" anymore and I don't recommend it unless it's used VERY lightly. After that I make a new layer and set it to "screen" and with a soft brush I start painting in light coming from the top right. "Screen" layers are GREAT for lighting and atmosphere. The reason is because a "screen" layer mixes the color you've chosen with the background, but also lightens the background and diffuses it as well. In real life, atmospheric perspective does the same things. Like when you see mountains that are far away, they are usually just a blue silhouette. The blue in the atmosphere mixes with the colors of the mountain and also the dark and light contrast fades away as well. After adding the lighting with the screen layer I then add a shadow layer set to "multiply". I pick a blue color for this to not only compliment the yellows and oranges, but to show the shadow is much cooler than the light. This happens in real life too, you'll notice a lot of times shadows have a blue or purple tint to them. "Multiply" layer is almost the exact opposite of a "screen" layer. It mixes colors with the layers below, but it darkens them. Great for shadows. This not only balances the composition but makes the light seem brighter and hotter than before.

Lastly, for added atmosphere, I always like to throw dust and particles into the atmosphere. Showing different levels of particles in the foreground, mid ground, and background gives the feeling of depth. Rain, snow, bubbles, dust, fire embers, all of these help make the subject matter seem like it's in a 3D plain rather than a 2D one.

So I hope that all helps! I'll do a more in-depth lighting tutorial later on so watch out for that. And last, but not least, here's the video of this painting.

Speedpaintings

Here are some speedpaintings I've done recently. I've been working on my portfolio so the only time I have for personal art is just a few hours which is perfect time for speedpaintings. What are speedpaintings exactly?

Speedpaintings were invented by concept artists in the film and video game industry. Everything you see in a movie or a video game, down to the lighting and colors used in the shot, started with an artist. In the entertainment industry there is not a lot of time, and a lot of deadlines, especially for artists. So in order to crank out more artwork, artists started doing speedpaintings. Speedpaintings generally take from 30 minutes to an hour or two. The point is for a painting to be finished enough to get the point across. Not a lot of detail, mainly implied detail. The things artists need to get across in this amount of time are design and mood usually. Sometimes one over the other. So colors and shapes are most important during this process, not details. Over time, artists learn to imply details using quick textures or brush strokes.

If you were to zoom in on the speedpaintings shown here, there really wouldn't be very much detail at all. Each of these paintings was done in an hour or two. Speedpaintings are also great for practice, and warming up before doing other work. In the examples shown here, I was mainly practicing lighting, color palettes, and composition. Three very important things for production work. A lot of times, an artist will do several speedpaintings to help decide how their final piece will look. For example, I could take one of the paintings shown here, use everything shown, color, composition, and lighting, and just refine it to the point of being a fully finished painting, details and all. All of the hard work is already done for me, it'd just be rendering and detailing from there.

So speedpaintings have many useful purposes. For another great, more in-depth article on speedpainting with some other great examples, click here. Remember, a speedpainting's main function is to get a point across, and not to serve as a finished painting. Use it as a tool, and not as a crutch. Keep drawing!



-ZhouRules (Chris Shehan)

Painting A Novel Cover

A couple months ago I was hired to paint the cover for a detective novel about an Armadillo detective. I obviously couldn't turn it down because that just sounded too fun. I've done a few covers in the past, but mostly for comic books, though the process isn't really different. The client has an idea, I sketch it out, he asks me to make changes until he likes how it looks, from there I paint the cover, turn it in, he asks for a couple minor changes, I fix it, and it's done!

I'd like to talk about how to get cover work. Most publishing companies nowadays like to save money, so covers are no longer painted, but are badly Photoshopped photos (or the rare good Photoshop job). They do this because it's cheaper and faster mainly. I have nothing against photo-manipulation at all. I see it as an art form in itself. It takes talent to do good, and it is used in almost every feature film you'll ever see. But for us illustrators, it's taking our jobs away. So some publishers are now seeing the value of digital painting. It's not as cheap as a quick Photoshop job, but not as expensive or time consuming as commissioning an oil painting. Don't get me wrong though, some publishers will commission an oil painting for a cover and I'm glad they do, because traditional illustrators need work too! All of the above applies mainly to novels and other books like that, not comics. Comic companies hire nothing but artists, from traditional to digital almost 100% of the time.

If you're looking to being a cover artist, there are a few things you should keep in mind. They say "You can't judge a book by it's cover.", not just because we shouldn't, but because we do all the time and were almost always guilty of it. Of course, after reading the book things change, but a cover that catches our eye pulls us to one book over all the others on the shelf. That's power. Power that you now have. Sadly, a cover could make or break a book. Major companies pay millions a year to make sure that their sign, logo, ad, commercial, etc. catches the eye and attracts customers. Publishing doesn't normally have that much to spend, so they'll usually just hire an artist that's good. Though, they do hire great editors that have an eye for what's good and what will sell a book.

One big that that separates some covers is color to no color. If you're going to be an illustrator, work with color. Or collaborate with someone who does. The color scheme alone could sell the cover. So know your color theory and study other covers to see what they do that looks good.

Another important thing to remember is it has to be finished. And what I mean by that is, the cover should not be a sketch. It should not be too messy. If it looks unfinished it will feel unfinished and the human eye will skip right past it. Think in details. Don't leave any important details unfinished. But also, you don't want to have too many details. A lot of times you'll paint something big, add the details, and it looks great, but when printed small, the details are lost and it just looks muddy. Also, too many details could confuse the human eye. You don't want them looking at your cover for too long trying to figure out what it is, but you don't want them looking at it too short so they lose interest and go on to the next book. You have to find a nice middle ground that makes them want to look at it, but still be able to tell what it is from across a room. The best covers are simple enough to understand right away, but complex enough to be intriguing.

Lastly, composition is VERY important. Always make sure there's room for a title and author credits. Some authors like Stephen King like their name REALLY big and the title, almost as big. So make sure there's room for that. Make sure the artwork flows with the title. In the west we read left to right, top to bottom. The same applies with art. In illustration, a lot of times we have to combine text with art. A comic page or a cover are no different. The art will catch their eye, but they'll read the title before looking more at the art usually. Make sure the art reads left to right, top to bottom (though it doesn't always have to). Make sure the composition shape and framing suit the book. Apply the rule of thirds whenever you can (for anyone who doesn't know what that is, it's a photography technique. I'll create a tutorial about it later one, but for now you can always Google it for more information.). Art is a universal language, but a language none the less. You have to be able to read it. You have to be able to see everything going on, but it should flow nicely. And by flow I mean your eye shouldn't be jumping randomly all over, it should go from one thing to the next. One trick to that is detailing only the important objects in a piece, and having less details in the unimportant parts. So your eye stays at the detailed parts longer, then moves faster across the undetailed parts to get to the other detailed parts. Little things like this you'll figure out and learn along the way.

There's a lot of money in covers and a lot of great illustrators make a career out of it. If that sounds like something that suits you, practice what I've mentioned above. Study other cover artists and see what they're doing that's working. I'd love to go to a book store and see more artwork on books. So keep drawing!


Here's a quick tutorial of the cover I did recently.

Improvement Calendar

This is my improvement calendar for 2011. I recommend all artists do this. It not only gives you a look back at the year to see your mistakes and what you learned. But it helps you plan for the future. Also, a lot of times with our art we think were going nowhere and it can be frustrating. But if you really look at each month or each year side by side, there's almost always tons more improvement than you realized. So for the new year, make an improvement calendar. If you make one, link it here, I'd like to see it!

This was a good year for art. Lot's of epiphanies with my art, process, portfolio, and the way I was going about breaking into the industry. 2012 is gonna be great.

 

January- Inspired by Feng Zhu. wanted to start the new year off with some mattepainting practice. Somewhat successful for a real first attempt.

Febrary- Attempting realism with zero reference. Discovering that realism lies within lighting more than anything.

March- Trial and error with painting realism.

April- Decided that I needed to go back to traditional. I was getting much better at painting than I was with ink and I didn't like it so I put digital aside for a couple months.

May- Took a comic art class with Robert Atkins. Learned a lot.

June- Decided to take my career seriously and hit up my first convention without the Hell Paso crew. Master Inker Ben Jones helped me a lot at my first con as an independent artist.

July- Got some good freelance work and did a couple of tryouts on books.

August- Started painting again. Somehow improved even though I took a break from painting. I started realizing more that my painting and use of color was much better than my inking and I shouldn't try to avoid it. It's my niche and it's something I have that's unique and rare. So I made a decision to rebuild my portfolio from scratch and showcase my painting and color use and try to break into comics as a digital painter.

September- Reworking my painting process. Trying to find something that works best for me. If I'm gonna paint sequentials, production paintings, covers, etc. I want to have a process that's not trial and error so I never get stuck and I'm comfortable with what I'm doing. Used the upcoming EPCON and the Gears of War contest to help me with that.

October- I got a 21UX Cintiq for my birthday! I'm able to paint much more accurately and with much more detail now. Spent this month testing the level of detail I could get with this Cintiq. I had been using a Wacom Graphire since 2006. I'm much more comfortable with the Cintiq. No wrist cramps. Comfortable posture. Accurate lines. Etc. I'd recommend it to anyone serious with digital art. Though you don't need it to be good.

November- Trying multiple painting processes. Finally figuring out one that could work best for anything I do and is very comfortable.

December- Finally testing the new process on a sequential comic page for The Darkness contest. I now have belief that I can paint sequentials. I used to never thing I'd be able to do it very well.

 2009 and 2010 Calendars

 

And to that I say Happy New Year to everyone! Let's make 2012 a great year for art!

-ZhouRules (Chris Shehan)

Digital Art Is Not Art!! (Part 2)

See Part 1

For those that think digital art is not art, tell me this. Is your favorite writer/novelist/screenwriter not really a writer at all because they typed the whole book/screenplay on a computer? Think about how ridiculous that sounds. And make sure not to comment here, instead write me a letter and send it to me through the postal service. Or I wont take you seriously for typing your comment. Doesn't that sound silly? Then why is it so easy to say digital art is not art. Hell, I use a tablet and hold my pen the same way I would a pencil or brush. I pick and mix colors the same way I would traditionally. I sketch things out the way I would traditionally. If anything, the people who paint beautiful digital works with a mouse should be given an award! But oh they used a mouse? Not art..

One intelligent response I did get was that with oil paint the light reveals the brushstrokes and textures of the painting, and you can't light a digital piece. This is true. But if I'm displaying artwork online, the only light on the art is coming from inside your computer monitor. So an oil painting, watercolor, or digital painting make no difference. You say you can "undo" in digital art, but not in traditional. Ever paint with oils before? That stuff takes hours to dry. You make a mistake and you can very easily wipe it away. Is that a cheat? No. It's just a tool. In digital art you can color pick from photos. You know where that came from? Gouache painters back before digital art used to match colors from photos to make interesting photo-esque color palettes. It's faster in digital. But is that a cheat? No. It's a tool. Before paintbrushes were invented we used sticks to paint and scratched artwork onto cave walls. Are paintbrushes a cheat?! They're a tool. What makes a tablet any different?

And for those who think digital art is easy.

My very first digital painting. 2008. Crap. 

 Recent digital painting.

If it was easy, that first one would look much nicer. Right? I actually had to practice, learn about color, learn about lighting, etc. The same exact stuff you learn with any kind of art. It actually takes skill and practice. And learning oil painting actually caused me to improve drastically with my digital painting. And knowing digital painting made learning oil painting easily. Different tools. End results are still art.

My first traditional painting

My first oil painting

My second oil painting

I hope this helped those of you digital artists who have gotten ignorant comments like this before. And I hope for all the ignorant digital art haters, I hope you learned something about this art form. :)

-ZhouRules (Chris Shehan)

Digital Art Is Not Art!! (Part 1)

For all my digital artists out there, do you ever get this? And for everyone else, are you one of the ones that agrees with this? I seem to see this a lot and I was finally pushed over the edge when one of my favorite artists, Ryan Ottley, posted on Twitter "What's worse, burning original art or drawing digitally?! Haha!". For those who know, Ryan has been doing his layouts digitally lately. Which I assume is why he asked that. It's the response from fans that got to me. Most of them replied saying that drawing digitally was WORSE than burning original art. Being primarily a digital artist as of late, I was a little offended at how many people don't consider digital art to be art.

I've gotten this multiple times, "This would look great as a real painting.". Uh.. So does it not look great as a digital painting? If I painted the exact same thing with oil paints and it looked exactly the same, how would it look better?! It'd look the same. The difference: I didn't make a mess and I didn't waste my time or money. I've also gotten "What medium is that?", I'd say Photoshop. Then silence. "I'd be much more impressed if you used real paint." WHY?! Most people can't answer why. And the ones who do usually say "it's harder to paint with real paint". Is it? It takes longer yes, but is it harder? Are you not using the exact same skills? Ok so some people, a lot of people, will cheat when doing digital art. It's just a fact. Cuz they don't want to take the long hours it takes to really learn. But for the real artists out there, most of us learned to draw with pencil before ever even knowing what a tablet is.

Tell me this. Is watercolor not art? It can't be. Because oil painting is much harder than watercolor. And oil painting is real art. So watercolor can't be. Doesn't that sound stupid? A tablet is a tool! Just like watercolors, crayons, colored pencils, charcoal, ink, oil paints, acrylics, clay, etc. Some are easier than others. Some are harder. THAT is all based on opinion. Doesn't dismiss it from being art. It's just another medium. My too favorite mediums are ink and digital. Though I've tried almost every medium there is. And because I have the skill, I can produce decent work with each. Give me some oil paints and I'll paint something and make you think it's digital. Give me Photoshop and I'll fool you into thinking its traditional. Because it's the end product that matters. Not what you used to get there. It's art. The end product is art. Whether it's a logo design, a photomanipulation, a painting, a sculpture, a 3D rendering. It takes skill and creativity. And the end result is enjoyed by people. Anyone who questions the process used to make the final product needs to reteach themselves what art really is. It's creating. That's it.

Continued in Part 2