Fellow Aspiring Artists MUST READ

This was sent to me by one of my friends; anyone with plans to make a successful living in the art business needs to see this:
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Every day, there are more and more Craigs List posts seeking “artists” for everything from auto graphics to comic books to corporate logo designs. More people are finding themselves in need of some form of illustrative service.

But what they’re NOT doing, unfortunately, is realizing how rare someone with these particular talents can be.

To those who are “seeking artists”, let me ask you; How many people do you know, personally, with the talent and skill to perform the services you need? A dozen? Five? One? …none?

More than likely, you don’t know any. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be posting on craigslist to find them.

And this is not really a surprise.

In this country, there are almost twice as many neurosurgeons as there are professional illustrators. There are eleven times as many certified mechanics. There are SEVENTY times as many people in the IT field.

So, given that they are less rare, and therefore less in demand, would it make sense to ask your mechanic to work on your car for free? Would you look him in the eye, with a straight face, and tell him that his compensation would be the ability to have his work shown to others as you drive down the street?

Would you offer a neurosurgeon the “opportunity” to add your name to his resume as payment for removing that pesky tumor? (Maybe you could offer him “a few bucks” for “materials”. What a deal!)

Would you be able to seriously even CONSIDER offering your web hosting service the chance to have people see their work, by viewing your website, as their payment for hosting you?

If you answered “yes” to ANY of the above, you’re obviously insane. If you answered “no”, then kudos to you for living in the real world.

But then tell me… why would you think it is okay to live out the same, delusional, ridiculous fantasy when seeking someone whose abilities are even less in supply than these folks?

Graphic artists, illustrators, painters, etc., are skilled tradesmen. As such, to consider them as, or deal with them as, anything less than professionals fully deserving of your respect is both insulting and a bad reflection on you as a sane, reasonable person. In short, it makes you look like a twit.

A few things you need to know;

1. It is not a “great opportunity” for an artist to have his work seen on your car/’zine/website/bedroom wall, etc. It IS a “great opportunity” for YOU to have their work there.

2. It is not clever to seek a “student” or “beginner” in an attempt to get work for free. It’s ignorant and insulting. They may be “students”, but that does not mean they don’t deserve to be paid for their hard work. You were a “student” once, too. Would you have taken that job at McDonalds with no pay, because you were learning essential job skills for the real world? Yes, your proposition it JUST as stupid.

3. The chance to have their name on something that is going to be seen by other people, whether it’s one or one million, is NOT a valid enticement. Neither is the right to add that work to their “portfolio”. They get to do those things ANYWAY, after being paid as they should. It’s not compensation. It’s their right, and it’s a given.

4. Stop thinking that you’re giving them some great chance to work. Once they skip over your silly ad, as they should, the next ad is usually for someone who lives in the real world, and as such, will pay them. There are far more jobs needing these skills than there are people who possess these skills.

5. Students DO need “experience”. But they do NOT need to get it by giving their work away. In fact, this does not even offer them the experience they need. Anyone who will not/can not pay them is obviously the type of person or business they should be ashamed to have on their resume anyway. Do you think professional contractors list the “experience” they got while nailing down a loose step at their grandmother’s house when they were seventeen?

If you your company or gig was worth listing as desired experience, it would be able to pay for the services it received. The only experience they will get doing free work for you is a lesson learned in what kinds of scrubs they should not lower themselves to deal with.

6. (This one is FOR the artists out there, please pay attention.) Some will ask you to “submit work for consideration”. They may even be posing as some sort of “contest”. These are almost always scams. They will take the work submitted by many artists seeking to win the “contest”, or be “chosen” for the gig, and find what they like most. They will then usually have someone who works for them, or someone who works incredibly cheap because they have no originality or talent of their own, reproduce that same work, or even just make slight modifications to it, and claim it as their own. You will NOT be paid, you will NOT win the contest. The only people who win, here, are the underhanded folks who run these ads. This is speculative, or “spec”, work. It’s risky at best, and a complete scam at worst. I urge you to avoid it, completely. For more information on this subject, please visit [link].

So to artists/designers/illustrators looking for work, do everyone a favor, ESPECIALLY yourselves, and avoid people who do not intend to pay you. Whether they are “spec” gigs, or just some guy who wants a free mural on his living room walls. They need you. You do NOT need them. Say NO to free art.

And for those who are looking for someone to do work for free…please wake up and join the real world. The only thing you’re accomplishing is to insult those with the skills you need. Get a clue.

If you agree with the above important information, please pass it along. The more people know, the faster we can correct this problem.

Testing something out...

Testing to see how good (or not) a scanner is for taking pictures...

The subject: 1/100 Gundam F90-IIL (not painted yet)

FINAL ANALYSIS: NOT GOOD!!!
The image ended up distorted due to the 3-d nature of the subject...

I'm too broke for a camera though... D:{

how do i made website? \ (0_o) /

I'm trying to get a real website in the works, but it will be a while before it will be ready. Currently I am studying HTML coding and such to attempt to make something that's halfway passable as a website, but there is not enough time in the day to really get into all of that in addition to all the rest of my projects. I would study / practice while at work if I could though...

Some ideas for the website would be:
Subsections for each of my works
Character illustration galleries with bios
A music section
A flash animation gallery, with some of the characters' moves and such
And perhaps a model-kit section as well (this one's debatable, since display of kits of recognizable characters or mecha on a site for my art and stories may be subject to copyright laws...)

Of course, if I had the money I could just hire someone to make the site for me...

The blog lives on!!!

In case anyone was wondering about the lack of updates, I've been working on a lot of different things lately, and haven't had much time to post... or I've just been wasting too much time on things other than what's related to my project, and getting news und updates out to people...

Either way, it's been 20 days since I've so much as even stopped by my own blog page... and I felt that some sort of update is in order.

I've just recently begun showing off massive amounts of preview information for my comic book series "Trooper Blaze;" the write-up on the page is the same one I posted on this blog a couple of months ago. However, I've put in links to several preview images of characters and covers (no pages up yet though; I'm keeping those a well-guarded secret :D ). The Trooper Blaze Preview "homepage" can be found here on my DA account.

In news related to Unholy Paladin, I'm finally working on finishing a few of the character illustrations I've been putting on the back burner for so long... what with the whole laziness thing and all. The picture of Amanda with the Nemesis Deity *should* be finished by the end of the week, but I'm not going to make any promises (I don't have enough time for sleep as is...).

In other news, the chat room on HobbyFanatics has been much more active lately; because of this I've had the opportunity to get to know better a lot of the regular members of the board. It is great fun, though it keeps me from getting anything genuinely important done (lol).


Well, hopefully it won't be another 20 days until I post again; of course I probably will post at around that time (Valentine's day; I won't have anything to do...), but I will try to post more between now and then.

Until next time; now here's some delicious mecha design stuff to make up for reading all of that. ;)

Just something I drew this morning

This morning, I decided to start working on a painting of a transformation scene of Amanda to Avatar Nemesis. The sketch is not yet done of course, but I figured I'd take a break from it for a couple of hours, since I already spent 3 hours on it today.

Comments and suggestions are definitely welcome, and encouraged! I want to know what you think of this picture so far!

Song of the Week: 01/14/07 - 01/20/07

The song for the week is....

Tightrope by Tetsu69

This is one of the first singles by the J-Rock musician Tetsu69, also the bassist of the immensely popular band L'Arc~en~Ciel. This song is great, even if you don't know Japanese. The heavy parts, during the pre-chorus, the high-pitched distant guitars during the refrain; everything about the music in this song is just awesome. If you know what he's saying though, it makes the song infinitely better; especially given its use as the ending theme for the movie "Gensomaden Saiyuki: Requiem for the One Not Chosen."

Hear the song: Tightrope official music video on Youtube (the audio's a bit low, though)

Understand what the hell he's saying (lol): AnimeLyrics.com translation

Meet the artist: Tetsu69 official site (unfortunately the old site's gone, and replace by an ad for his new single...)

Buy the CD: Wonderful World on CD Japan

Credits: Tetsu69, and AnimeLyrics.com for the translation

Some Deity sketches

Finally, an actual update!

Here are some sketches for the Deities Galatea and Echo.

Song of the Week! 01/07/07 - 01/13/07

The song of the week this time is:

Black Diamond by Stratovarius

This has always been one of my favorite songs! Words cannot do this tune justice; one must hear it themselves to fully realize the beauty and greatness of this song. Of course, YouTube quality is still not the greatest, but... THAT'S WHAT BUYING THE CD IS FOR!!! (lol)

Hear the song: Music video on YouTube

Meet the band: Stratovarius official website

Buy the CD!: Visions on Amazon

Credits: Stratovarius

Updates for my DA Page

I'm adding a few of my more recent sketches to my DA page... here is a preview:

...Am I mean for keeping this one from my watchers for so long?


On a side-note, the Members' Showcase section of HobbyFanatics has been a bit more active recently; be sure to check out member bhop's freaking incredible skateboard!

I am quite amused

One of my friends sent me this screencap from one of the _chan boards; it amused me greatly.



Why does this amuse me? Well, for the answer to that, one needs simply to look here. I drew the image which ended up appearing in the thread; and it is so old and lame that I do not care that it was posted, and I find it actually pretty awesome that some people seem to like it. What started out as the product of a bored mind visualizing an incredibly lame pun ended up as a fairly entertaining post. If anyone knows which board it was posted in, I'm kind of interested in knowing (I can't think of any where the /w/ url extension would be anything remotely related except for maybe 7chan, but it wasn't on there when I checked...).

This pleases me, yes...

New Year's resolution time!!!

Hey everyone!

Yep, another new year has begun, and it's time for some big changes around here! I have a bad habit of not keeping my own resolutions for self-improvement, but THIS YEAR WILL BE DIFFERENT DANGIT!!!

*ahem*

Anyways, here is the list of my resolutions for this year:

1. to be more active as an artist.

I've produced maybe 5 finished pieces in all of 2006; hundreds of sketches, but only 5 actual finished works. WTF?! This is why I've mainly been posting old stuff on my DA gallery...

2. to get out more.

Ever since getting my own apartment, I've been feeling less and less motivated to go outside... of course this is not surprising considering I live in freaking Anderson, IN where I have to drive 45 minutes to an hour just to find something worthwhile to do... other than wasting an entire day on teh intarwebz. Which is another reason why my artwork has been progressing so slowly.

3. to get a better job!

I've been a DSL tech for Verizon for almost a year now... the pay sucks; I need to get my Cisco certification already so I can make the big bucks!

4. to get a camera.

I love photography. I build model kits, too. I would like to be able to share some of my work and my passions that cannot be shared with only a scanner. It would also help me fit in a little better on the hobby forums I go to. (lol)

5. to get a girlfriend (and keep her).

Let's face it. It's been 3 years since I've been in a genuinely serious relationship; everything since has been just brief flings. Jeez I need to get my act together...

6. to learn Photoshop.

I need to find a way to become more efficient in doing my finished art. It seems as though everyone's going digital these days... I should probably join them.


So, that's it for me... everyone have a happy and safe 2007!