Artists...?

[gloomy-optimist]

Is there anyone in the art business/ working towards that end?
I'm thinking about heading in that direction, and I kind of want to hear some thoughts on it :/
Especially involving how to break into the art world in areas of animation/ cartooning/ comic drawing.

But any info would be really appreciated :B

 

[Kyrielle]

With animation, cartooning, and comic drawing you are going to probably want the following:

1. A strong portfolio that shows you can:

a. Draw things correctly in perspective, proportion, and with adaquate detail. I cannot stress enough how an accurate and realistic (in that it looks like a believable space) background ends up solidifying everything else in the drawing.
b. Draw people with simplified lines and forms.
c. Draw the same people over and over and over quickly and efficiently with a myriad of poses and expressions.
d. Compose images and figures such that they are interesting and dynamic.
e. If you are interested in colouring and inking, you'll want to show you can do that reasonably well, too.

2. A website. Doesn't have to be super-freakin awesome. Just make it clean, navigable, professional, and with an easy-to-remember domain name.

3. Go to conventions. Sell some of your artwork and/or talk to some of the art directors there. I have been told that others have found work by making something like a postcard that has a little bit of your artwork on it and your website/contact info. The point is to start networking (I hate this word) with people in the field.

4. Find other people who want to do/are doing the same things you're doing. Get to know them. Help each other. There are websites and forums where people post things... conceptart.org is one of these, though it might not be what you're looking for specifically. It will give you an idea, though.

5. Learn how to make submission packets. Information for how to do these is different for every company and they usually have guidelines for how to send in artwork. Comic Book Company Addresses this website has a nice list of companies. List of animation studios

6. You will need a standby job until you get rolling.

7. You could try starting a webcomic. This seems to be the way a lot of cartooning and comic strips are moving lately. Warning. Your comic will probably suck at first, but then it'll eventually get better.

8. Take a business class or five somewhere. Learn about different contracts and how to manage your own business. Even if you don't end up freelancing, this is invaluable information! Learn everything you can about legal stuff. If you decide to freelance, learn about marketing and advertising. If you decide to freelance, don't quit your day job until you are sure you can make as much money freelancing as you do at your day job.

9. Be amicable.

That's about all I can think of that I've sort of gathered from others. It, like all things, takes time. Remember that no one is going to come and sweep you off your feet and give you that magic job. You're going to have to work your ass off to get it or make it yourself.

Having said all that, don't let yourself be daunted by the details. You can do it. Just take nice, small steps.

 

[Jack Flak]

Used to be. I work toward no end whatsoever now.

 

[gloomy-optimist]

With animation, cartooning, and comic drawing you are going to probably want the following:

1. A strong portfolio that shows you can:

a. Draw things correctly in perspective, proportion, and with adaquate detail. I cannot stress enough how an accurate and realistic (in that it looks like a believable space) background ends up solidifying everything else in the drawing.
b. Draw people with simplified lines and forms.
c. Draw the same people over and over and over quickly and efficiently with a myriad of poses and expressions.
d. Compose images and figures such that they are interesting and dynamic.
e. If you are interested in colouring and inking, you'll want to show you can do that reasonably well, too.

2. A website. Doesn't have to be super-freakin awesome. Just make it clean, navigable, professional, and with an easy-to-remember domain name.

3. Go to conventions. Sell some of your artwork and/or talk to some of the art directors there. I have been told that others have found work by making something like a postcard that has a little bit of your artwork on it and your website/contact info. The point is to start networking (I hate this word) with people in the field.

4. Find other people who want to do/are doing the same things you're doing. Get to know them. Help each other. There are websites and forums where people post things... conceptart.org is one of these, though it might not be what you're looking for specifically. It will give you an idea, though.

5. Learn how to make submission packets. Information for how to do these is different for every company and they usually have guidelines for how to send in artwork. Comic Book Company Addresses this website has a nice list of companies. List of animation studios

6. You will need a standby job until you get rolling.

7. You could try starting a webcomic. This seems to be the way a lot of cartooning and comic strips are moving lately. Warning. Your comic will probably suck at first, but then it'll eventually get better.

8. Take a business class or five somewhere. Learn about different contracts and how to manage your own business. Even if you don't end up freelancing, this is invaluable information! Learn everything you can about legal stuff. If you decide to freelance, learn about marketing and advertising. If you decide to freelance, don't quit your day job until you are sure you can make as much money freelancing as you do at your day job.

9. Be amicable.

That's about all I can think of that I've sort of gathered from others. It, like all things, takes time. Remember that no one is going to come and sweep you off your feet and give you that magic job. You're going to have to work your ass off to get it or make it yourself.

Having said all that, don't let yourself be daunted by the details. You can do it. Just take nice, small steps.

I basically love you right now.

 

[blanclait]

I highly , no that isn't the word. You MUST AT ALL COST learn life drawing if your applying to animation. And be very experienced at it.

if you haven't yet, rush over and find the nearest/best life drawing studio.

Kyrielle pretty much covered the rest.

And depending on which area of animation/cartoon,etc you want to tackle, it will not be a bad choice to learn japanese.

good luck~

 

[Kora]

I wanted to be illustrator and art teacher. Yet my choice of career is not Arts anymore, I still enjoy drawing and that stuff.
Since I'm still an amateur can't give you too much advice, besides the classical 'practice'. And try to find your own style. If you do something too typical you may be succesful in DeviantArt, but not in real life.

 

[gloomy-optimist]

I have been working more towards life-drawing lately; I can hold my own when it comes to drawing from photographs, and I would love to have more time to really get into sketching from life; that's definitely on my to-do list.

I wanted to be illustrator and art teacher. Yet my choice of career is not Arts anymore, I still enjoy drawing and that stuff.
Since I'm still an amateur can't give you too much advice, besides the classical 'practice'. And try to find your own style. If you do something too typical you may be succesful in DeviantArt, but not in real life.

Yeah, I've seen that trend. :/ I'm trying to kind of get my own style; I've gotten pretty far on dA with very little fan art and a pretty experimental range (although I do have a lot of manga-try drawings; I still try to make my own "style" of it >.>)

 

[StoryOfMyLife]

I wanted to be illustrator and art teacher. Yet my choice of career is not Arts anymore, I still enjoy drawing and that stuff.
Since I'm still an amateur can't give you too much advice, besides the classical 'practice'. And try to find your own style. If you do something too typical you may be succesful in DeviantArt, but not in real life.

Aww I have a DeviantArt account --- though I guess it depends on what you mean by being successful there -- coz my pageview count isn't exactly fantastic

Anyhow, I am working on a comic myself. The more correct term would be manga, I suppose, though I am not Japanese, nor do I live in Japan-- it's just Japanese style art [I'm a huuuuge anime fan-girl so... ]. If you're doing comic art- definitely get to know your characters. Changes will apply until you're completely satisfied. I changed the look and names of my main characters so many times that I would even get confused as to what my current 'settled' name was. [I'm all set now, though!]. Development of story ahead of time might be a start, however, go with the flow... improvise..something might come to you, hit you like...the dawning of crystal clarity of where a story could go. The possibilities are endless...haha [which is sometimes what makes it so difficult to not just throw your hands up and say 'I quit!' because you just can't decide on what you want...].

Otherwise...that list Kyrielle put up is spot-on. Conventions are GREAT for selling art. I haven't done so [yet] but the Artists' Alley at Anime Central is always so packed and there are almost always potential buyers. It's a good way to see who you interest, too!

Much luck to you!

 

[gloomy-optimist]

I really want to get into conventions and stuff I'm never really done anything in that area, so I'm not really sure on how to go about it, but I do want to someday~
And yeah; we're really exploring our characters right now, and I have the luck to be working with two other insanely creative people on the plot and character development. We're actually loosely basing the characters off of real people because that's how we started (making up stupid comics of our friends), but now it's such a big undertaking and the plot's so weird that it still takes a lot of work to get the characters right :/
The planning's coming along well, I think, but the next step seems to be the difficult part >.>

 

[StoryOfMyLife]

I really want to get into conventions and stuff I'm never really done anything in that area, so I'm not really sure on how to go about it, but I do want to someday~

Depending on where you are located...most conventions have a website up with all the information you could possibly need listed there. There is usually a section meant for vendors and such and within that section should be a choice for 'Artists Alley' ..or the equivalent to that [it is called Artists Alley' for most convention websites I have seen..]. Usually you can do something like reserve half a table or a whole table for one weekend fee [not including the price of your convention pass]. If there is more than one person...that might be situational, some cons charge extra, others don't care if you share tables so long as they get paid Then what you do is make copies of your best works to sell, offer up quickie commissions for a low price to spark interest, and be...as informative as possible, I suppose, to anybody who might have questions about what you are trying to do. A friend of mine has a brother who set up a booth and actually sold copies of the first volume of his comic for about 2 dollars apiece..it worked fairly well.

The next step is difficult I've found my characters, but my plot is still very up in the air. I suppose maybe take things a 'chapter' at a time? If you can plan out or script the first few chapters and leave it at a point where you must get your heads together to think of what would make sense to happen after...unless nonsensical is what you're going for That could be plenty fun, too! [Look at Nabeshin's work if you dare...he's the creator of anime such as Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemy...it's CRAZY stuff, but so hilarious!]. In any case-- something will pull together for you-- with creative, brilliant minds working together, it ought to Basing characters off of real people=smart! It's so much easier to work with what you already know and then build up from it to create interesting characters

 

[gloomy-optimist]

I might look into getting a table sometime, then I think it'd be an excellent way to network; the hard part is actually getting out and doing it, I suppose ^^;

For the most part, I let my sister work on scripting; she's great with keeping on track and getting things done (ENTJ). We all work together to decide what's going to happen, though; we already have the plot basically laid out.
Basically, I would start with an outline of where you want to start and where you want to end; then, fill out the middle. Work with the big picture before you concentrate on details. That way, when you start getting the details together, you know exactly where they need to end up and how they have to fit in. From there it's a lot easier to begin scripting