Apr 03 2008
We have fan art!
I liked this fan-art of everybody’s favorite mutant alligator.
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I love both belts, and the title is excellent.
It’s okay, if you like that kind of thing.
Just joking, I think it’s great. 
I did a sketch of a monsterified Jacob, but it kept getting funked up, because I tried to style it out too much.
What! Jacob is far creepier than Agent Orange. Jacob’s demonic transformation should look nightmarish and horrifying.
I thought Agent Orange looks most like the dragon from Jake Long, which is a pretty innocuous Disney cartoon. Calvin and Hobbes and the TMNT are also on the back of my mind. I think there are more than a few examples of these sorts of characters working on a completely wholesome level for a completely mainstream audience.
However, I am aware of the possibility for the audience to mistake him for one of those bipedal animals. (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, trust me that you don’t want to know). If he looks like one of them, I need to fix that sooner rather than later. Any suggestions on how I can keep it closer to mainstream?
Since I’m good with aliens and abstract cartoonism, I may try my hand at Catastrophe. He seems like he’d be easiest for my style. And I love purple skin (see Sketch).
Thank you. I’d appreciate that.
I’m in desperate need of some type of formal art training. About now I can really see how my lack of knowledge is hurting my work. Even though I don’t want to learn realism, I need to learn anatomy and perspective. I can hardly even shade. My crazy, abstract style is really just an excuse for my lack of competence (i.e crappy neck, huge eyes, lack of noses).
Anybody know any affordable training? School has been ruled out, because of my stupidity in my freshman year I have to make up for it as a senior. Do internet guides really work?
Dangit. I can’t see it. (again).
You can take art classes at college as you pursue a degree in something completely different. For example, I took Intro to Drawing as I was getting my political science degree. I doubt a typical university will teach art quite as well as an art school, but there are some universities with phenomenal art programs. In particular, my art professor was impressed with Yale and Berkeley.
Until then, I think internet guides are a good supplement to practice. But I think that you’ll get more out of the practice than the guides.
I like it. He even has his tongue stuck out!
RB, to practise shading, I would study othe works that use it. I’m not too good at shading myself, but we’ve covered it in art lessons. You should probably use a HB pencil until you get more confident with it, then you can move on to 4B or even 6B. Alternatively, a biro pen gives a surprisingly nice shading effect. You don’t get many, err, shades, but it can work for a darker piece. I wish I had some examples to show you.
When you shade, you should sort of flick the pencil away from you. I can’t describe it better than that, I’m afraid. Also, if you’re not confident with judging your light sources, you definitely need something to refer to (one of the few things I AM confident with is judging my light sources, so I manage). Otherwise, your shading will be all over the place. But yeah, it takes a lot of practise to perfect. I know several amazing artists and none of them like shading very much. It’s significantly worse than their other media. (To put this in perspective, one of these amazing artists won a design competiton with a 10 minute sketch. Yeah, they’re scarily awesome.)
I’m assuming you mean shading with pencils here, by the way. It’s um, a little different for watercolours/paints.
Oh, and I like the fanart.