Wassy

This reminded me of some posts from James Gurney about using photo reference.

If you haven't poked around his blog before, I highly HIGHLY recommend it. I seriously don't know how the guy has the time to do it, but he posts at least once a day, if not more. And he still keeps producing so much illustration! He may actually be some sort of robot. With a bird on his shoulder.

Just to check, LD, is the character from one of those groups referenced in your sig?

I would just like to do a quick chime-in (as I have in the past) and say that doing things like master copies also shouldn't be confused with reference use. Copying master works is INVALUABLE in the learning process. It brings vast levels of understanding to study in-depth the process of a great artist, and to ingrain the skills by physically replicating them.

Unfortunately, I cannot qualify this entry. Marker was one of the materials I said was off-limits in the original post, even though you can find them in kindergartens. I didn't allow anything you'd still commonly see in professional use (I realize probably not the same brand, but still goes against the point of the theme).

Well, if you read fast and have a dirty mind, it takes on whole other meanings...

Miss Frost, indeed. Bwahahahahaha

Heh, I never said the entries had to have kindergarten-appropriate themes, just material!

These are probably just from public schools ^.^

If anybody wants to volunteer to put up the voting thread for April, I would love them forever. It takes way longer than you'd think it would with all the copying and pasting URLs for the clickable thumbs.

I won't have this issue at the end of May. I'm just swamped now. I've got a crapton of board cutting, painting, sketching, and researching to do all weekend. Oh, and getting some flowers so I can photograph them as they die.

FYI to participants, don't begrudge me if the voting and new theme take a little longer to go up this week. I'm absolutely overwhelmed with schoolwork at the moment (the deadlines went from busy to inhuman in April). I may have actually died a couple weeks ago and am now some sort of zombie. Waiting for the test results on that one.

I'm not ignoring anything, it just seems like every time I turn around, days have somehow gone by. I've taken to planning every second of my day in iCal, or I'm quite likely to forget what year we're in and what state I live in.

Juggy didn't have to be thrown out. Your hot chick could be another featured Most Wanted... or even an awesome Juggy side-kick featured with him in the poster ^.^

I don't know of any that particularly specialize in them, but I think its definitely a good idea for you to get a good one done. I vastly prefer model sheets to screenshots... and knowing all your notes, you're in dire need ^.^

Oh! Your mentioning of pulp stuff just reminded me of something you might be interested in.

Latest issue of Illustration Magazine

Dunno if you seen it yet, but neato banditos, I say.

Yeah, I had to shell out some coin for a scanner decent enough to not make me boil with rage over what it did to pencil work. Had to get a good DSLR to handle my large format stuff, too.

Tax laws to finally make school supplies a write-off FTW.

That I do. I usually only have the time to make it to the Post Office once a week.

Contrast means different values next to eachother, or colors that will bring one another forward and back (a cool background will push a warm foreground further up). Also, stronger lights and darks.

Modeling means really using your shadows and highlights to describe the forms, making them turn in space.

Whoops! Sorry, you didn't put your name with your address when you gave it to me, so I thought I was remembering it right from the PayPal notification =P

Well, you don't HAVE to use crayon. Fingerpaints FTW!

Yay! Glad some people will take the time =)

I have a good portion of it chosen, and have to work on shooting. I have to get one piece photographed at the photography shop that I go to (too reflective, but they do a lot of copy work and can compensate in ways I can't with just my DSLR), bug a teacher to get one piece that was in the student art show back, and see if I can bust into the VP's office to get a better photo of another piece that was chosen for the college's collection.

And now Larissa's is set

I'm looking for help from the helpful artistic types on the forum. As some of you may know, I am aiming to get into Syracuse University's Illustration program after getting my Associate's in Illustration next May. Because I want to get in on their early decision deadlines (even though I'm a transfer student and can actually transfer at any point, I don't want to fall into the "space available" decision groups), I'm going to be applying early this fall. This means I'm starting to finalize the portfolio that I'll be submitting for consideration now, so I have the summer to strengthen it in any needed areas.

This means that I'm looking for a lot of feedback so I can make it as awesome-sauce as possible. I've got the GPA, honor society stuff, and extra curriculars all covered, so the portfolio can really stand on its own and not make up for any academic holes. I can has critique?

SU has general portfolio "we want to see this" on their website, so I would post that along with my portfolio selections. I'm going to have my choices as well as my secondary portfolio with other options that might be considered.

I am (obviously) getting this together with help from my professors, but I would also like viewpoints from those of you around here who I know have been through this process and/or are knowledgable in this area of study. Different people can see different things, and I figure it can only help to get a good consensus.

So once its up and running, would anyone with good insight be able to spare some time?

I already disallowed use of fire for Bubba. I didn't think that was in any kindergarten appropriate ^.^

Though for a non-official entry, yes, I think he should do that!

Looking cool, Bubba! I like how you tore up the sticks to make fingers. This is exactly thing kind of stuff I was hoping to get out the entrants by doing a media-specific battle this month =)

Well fine! Hopefully this is acceptable...

So I'm working on finishing up Jophiel's Pachamama sketch. There are many neck chains.... that take forever....