natrowlandart

[natrowlandart]

A conversation.

#throwback thursday

[natrowlandart]

Ruh oh

[natrowlandart]

I am delighted to share this now fully digitally coloured series of 32 4-koma comics with the world.

Who doesn't love cute wee Halloween critters?

🦇💖😈

[natrowlandart]

This spooky sprite is a treasure. https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/78294432

Find it on various Red Bubble goods, from hats to cushions!

#ghost halloween #redbubble #illlustration

[natrowlandart]

#absolutely a childhood inspiration

[natrowlandart]

It's here-!

https://natrowlandart.etsy.com/listing/1530175124

#playing cards #illustration #fantasy art #fantasy #Spanish suit #only two left

[natrowlandart]

Something shiny coming soon. ✨

#illustration #card game art #card games #playing cards

[natrowlandart]

How Do I Do Stuff

The question was phrased a little strangely, and I don't want to embarrass the person by posting exactly what was said, but I'll answer it and hope this clears everything up.

I do almost all of my drawing by hand. No, I don't trace in Photoshop. Not a judgment on those who do, but I come from a generation of artists who did not use Poser programs or other digital tools. We learned to draw using a technique called the Sight Size method. I know a lot of people assume everyone - including the old masters - traced everything using optical tools, but while it is true some people did, it is just as true that most didn't, and you can draw with great accuracy if you learned how to draw the old fashioned way.

Sight Size breaks everything down into its barest components of geometric shapes and you build from there. Once you learn it, you never forget, and it applies to everything you will ever draw.

I learned it using a set of Famous Artist Course books my mom had since she was a kid, and they are still the gold standard. They're often on ebay. If I were you, I'd buy them.

I actually find using figure reference really annoying because I like exaggerations and modifications from reality in my final work.

This page from Neil Gaiman's Chivalry was drawn and painted without figure reference of any kind.

I don't know why people assume I trace all the time. If you were to try to use photographs to replicate these figures, you would find they are slightly off. There is no tracing here.

This is not to say I never use reference. This page, for example, was referenced from a photo of my mother. Isn't she pretty.

But this page of Sir Galaad was drawn and painted without reference.

He's pretty, too.

If he were real, I'm sure a lot of people would be very happy about it. But he's not. And had I reference, the art would have gone a lot faster. I had a time trying to nail this face that is very alive in my head but doesn't really exist.

Back in the ancient days, all cartoonists had to learn to draw and paint extemporaneously because reference was limited and digital tools didn't exist. While some high end artists had photography studios and professional models with costume and sets on hand, small fry like me were limited to what was in the house or available at my small local library, which was no bigger than a few rooms of my current house.

Artists kept extensive "morgue files" or "swipe files" which were collected from magazine clippings and photographs so we would have as much of what we might need on hand for quick reference. These ephemera collections could get unwieldy. I have thousands of photographs I've simply never sorted. I finally dumped most of my files this past year.

Have I ever traced anything? Of course, especially if I have to re-use a shot or setting over and over. Making extra work for myself is just silly. It's my job to make pictures, not to perform magical feats, like copying one shot after another over and over without making a mistake.

However, for almost 15 years of my career, I refused to copy or trace anything, and did not even own a lightbox. On the one hand, that forced me to learn to carefully examine what I saw. On the other hand, it was a stupid hill on which many deadlines died.

Only after I realized many professional artists had lightboxes and overhead projectors did I finally break down and get one.

The one thing I use my lightbox for more than anything is for tracing my thumbnail sketches to the final drawing paper. Instead of trying to capture the liveliness of the original sketch by copying what I see - only bigger - I blow the thumbnail up to the size I want the final art to be, then I trace over the thumbnail using a lightbox onto the final drawing paper.

Here's a look at thumbnails from the graphic novel Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples.

I enlarged these on my computer to fit onto 11"x14" paper, and traced the thumbs before finishing the art which was drawn in pen and ink and colored in Photoshop.

While I obviously made some changes, the essence of the thumbs is there in the final work. Tracing my thumbs retains some of the looseness of the original sketches, which is often lost otherwise.

So, there is a valid purpose to tracing at times, though in my opinion, too much tracing can weaken drawing ability, substitute for developing skills, and make the work kind of stiff.

If you want to, I'm not your judge. But it's weird to me that people think I must be faking my skills in some way.

Ironically, the word cartoon comes from the Italian word cartone, which is a large heavy sheet of paper - also, the origin of the word carton.

Preparatory sketches were made on this paper which was then transferred to the final work surface via either tracing or by stamping little holes in the paper through which dust was sprinkled, recreating the contours of the drawing for the artist to follow.

So the origin of the word cartoon comes from a process often used...for tracing.

#illustration #really interesting #insight into process #not by me

[natrowlandart]

Images only, link to original Twitter at the bottom of post.

Full🧵 here:

#watermarks #much easier to read on Tumblr

[natrowlandart]

This is a screengrab from Findaway Voices (the big audiobook distributor everyone who is not Audible exclusive basically uses) Rights Holder Agreement. The Rights Holder is generally the author (sometimes a publisher) but almost never the narrator.

SO. This is a Big Fucking Yikes from me. AI-generated audiobooks are a Thing that Apple is now doing - they sound horrid because they don't give the intonation or emotion that a human narrator can - and this agreement is an absolutely naked rights grab for rights that the author doesn't actually possess. That is, the right to use the narration to train Apple's AI to do better narration, and, incidentally, the right to use the WRITING to train the writing AI's to replace authors too. Double fucking yikes. As a narrator, I'm absolutely fuming. You have to choose to opt OUT - or rather, the authors I have worked for have to choose to opt out FOR ME, because apparently I don't even have the rights to my own voice in this situation. Well, you can bet I posted this in the big narrator group (8,000 members) on Facebook and I'm putting it all over Twitter as well, because Apple can absolutely fuck all the way off.

#signal boost #artificial intelligence

[natrowlandart]

Not me, remembering several days after the Chinese New Year that I have a cool rabbit drawing available on my Redbubble. 🐇🐰👕

#illustration #drawing #rabbit #year of the rabbit #bunny

[natrowlandart]

Arte

#paint #satisfying to watch

[natrowlandart]

I've still got some of these special bundles left 💕

#illustration #artists on tumblr #zines #birthday card #watercolours

[natrowlandart]

😲⭐✨🌕✨

#oil painting #artists on tumblr #fantasy art #fairy #night

[natrowlandart]

Art desk pre-baby and post-baby.

It's a work in progress. 🤣

[natrowlandart]

Aaah knitted textures, what a challenge. 💪

#watercolour #artists on tumblr #painting

[natrowlandart]

How do you like your strawberries?

#illustration #watercolour #strawberries #Redbubble #notebook