Convention Reality Check

[zubkavich]

A friend of a friend asked me for some portfolio advice before they headed off to San Diego Comicon. I looked over their artwork and wrote them a critique/reality check so that they'd know what they were getting in to. I wasn't originally intending to reprint it here, but they came up to the UDON booth at the show and warmly thanked me for the

Comments

[madmanofprague]

Uhh... speaking of which, can you take a look at mine, if you ever get some free time? I was the mohawk dude at TCAF ^__^

www.chrishuth.com

EDIT: link fail : (

[kayjkay]

Well written. When folks ask me for a critique I try and point them owards the Andrew Loomis Project, since most people think Hogarth is great for anatomy without any other artists to go by.

I wrote up a guide on anatomy on deviantart which folks found useful and toss it about when folks ask about life drawing (while actual in class drawing is the best, knowing which are the best teachers is still helpful).

Watching portfolio reviews at conventions is cringe inducing, I totally agree. My art director gave a gal a very gentle critique of her work, and she absolutely fought him tooth and nail on every point.

"But they're my characters! I posed them dressed them, put lighting on them!"

"Yes... but this is Poser. Poser models that someone else created. If you want to be a modeller then you have to model them yourself."

Ah well...

[gygaxis]

as for helpful anatomy/life drawing stuff, George Bridgman is also really solid and amazingly cheap, Gottfried Bammes is incredible for anatomy for an artist probably as good as you'll get for illustrations, though his texts are only good in the import only german language ones. I prefer both over Hogarth to a reallly large extent especially since hogarth didn't understand editing anything out.

Also saddened by artists that try and argue their whole crits and don't understand that they are being critiqued because someone who knows what they are talking about is trying to take time out to help them get better.

[kayjkay]

Oh I am a major Bridgman fan, as well as Glen Vilppu :)

I'll have to look up Bammes. Yeah, Hogarth is good for folks who have a solid knowledge of anatomy, as his illustrations were primarily meant to exaggerate the musculature. My other quip is that folks get into human anatomy but never have good books or teachers for animal anatomy (which is why I always advise getting Joe Weatherly's book on animal anatomy and Ken Hultgren).

[gygaxis]

Weatherly's stuff is really solid, he's a great painter too, there's another animal illustrator I like that's more character design oriented than Weatherly too but I can't think of his name for the life of me. Bammes' stuff is kinda hard to track down, I know it from school but the english language books are just trash they're like a smattering of student studies instead of Bamms' illustrations =/

I'm not terribly big on vilpu but less for artistic ability and more for some hearsay around my campus about some rather uncool stuff he was upto at the time he taught there. And Vilpu's stuff is primarily the same Bridgman -> hogarth and a few other art instructors -> This generation of life drawing instructors too so artists like Kevin Chen cover almost the same work (kevin's stuff at characterdesign.com is actually really really good.)