My First SCBWI Illustrator Intensive

I recently attended my first Illustrator Intensive hosted by my regional chapter of SCBWI. For several years I've wondered whether these workshops were really worthwhile. And after some thought, I decided to feed my curiosity and see for myself...and what I found was a mix of both good and bad. I wanted to share my experience with everyone.

But before I go any further, I wanted to quickly go over the general setup of the intensive. Along with an option for a portfolio review, the main event of the intensive were the advanced exercises. Participants were given a choice between two exercises, one by each of the two speakers. Our speakers for our intensive were Loraine Joyner, Senior Art Director at Peachtree Publishers, and Ronnie Ann Herman, Artist Rep at Herman Agency. We were required to start on our exercises prior to the actual day of the intensive, and we would bring our work and get feedback and share with the group. Loraine's exercise involved choosing a story from three selected manuscript and with that, we were tasked with creating character concepts, a 32-page storyboard, one tightly rendered sketch, and finally a finished color illustration. Ronnie's exercise was slightly different, she had two basic scene ideas. For each scene, she wanted characters sketches, a rough sketch, and a finished illustration.

I ultimately went with Loraine's exercise. I thought it was the more challenging of the two, and developing a storyboard was something I felt I could use more practice in. For this exercise, we had about two months to create the character concepts, storyboard, and tight sketch, with a two week deadline to complete each portion of the exercise. As we finished each part, we turned in our work via dropbox our regional adviser with SCBWI. Once we had everything submitted, the work was then forwarded to Loraine and she critiqued it. We would then take her comments as we worked on our final colored illustration. This was presented on the day of the workshop and shared with the group.

Below are my two character concepts for the story I selected. For my exercise, the main characters were a zebra and a lion;

And here is my finished illustration.

The main highlights of the intensive include;
- After meeting Loraine in person, I definitely felt I made the right choice in working with her, I thought her presentation was very informative and she had a lot of useful nuggets to share.
- Loraine gave my work a very thorough critique, and made some really good comments.
- The day reminded me of my time in art school, and I enjoyed the energy in the room. Everyone was engaged and eager to learn.
- The day long intensive allowed for time to catch up with some friends and fellow illustrators who also attended. It's always nice to be able to "talk shop" with other people who know can relate.

On the flip side, here are some things I wish were better;
- Poor communication was a big source of frustration for myself as well as other attendees I spoke to. Some of this blame fell on the shoulders of the regional adviser that was collecting the work. To me, she gave the impression that she wasn't receptive to any questions we might of have.
- For the better part of this venture, I personally didn't feel like I had anyone I could go to for questions. And this almost ended up in disaster! It was unclear whether we were required to complete a finished illustration, and in the end, I had to rush at the last minute to get it done.

All in all, I'm glad I decided to do it at least once. Would I do it again...probably not. I really enjoyed being in the company of "my" people. It was reminiscent of my college days. And though it felt like this workshop catered more for novices and the inspiring, I still walked away feeling recharged and inspired. I recommend these workshops for those who might need that extra bit of  motivation, or for someone looking to get a little taste of an art school class setting. 

A Cast of Characters

Here are some color sketches of characters for a new book I just started working on. The story is about the boy with the guitar and his family.

Creature Comforts

I recently saw the animated film The Croods. It was a pretty entertaining movie and the production was done well. What really stood out were all the creatures the design team developed for the project. And so, I was inspired to come up with some creatures of my own. Fun stuff!

One Happy Family

Just finished up a new sketch for my next promotional illustration. Should be fun taking it to color. The subject...family.

Sketchies

Some new sketches I recently completed. Kind of random stuff, used a toned surface this time, and I must say, I'm a fan!

Jot Touch-y

After only using my Jot Touch for about a month my stylus decided to stop working. Luckily, I contacted the manufacturer and had it replaced. So after about a two week interruption, I was able to finish this sketch I was working on.

Along with simply getting more accustomed to sketching on my ipad, I've been trying to focus my attention on proportions as well as explore and push some new styling cues. Some are more successful than others. Animals are definitely fun subjects to draw, hardest part was deciding which kind of animals to draw, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Anyways, will keep at it...long as this new Jot doesn't decide to crap out on me like my last one.

The Right Kind of Ragged

Trying to figure out some character designs for an assignment I am currently working on. The story is obviously about a teddy bear. But oddly enough, this won't be my first time working with a stuffed bear, this will actually be my third. And so I wanted to make sure this guy looked different. Plus I have the added challenge of making sure he looked like a well-loved(worn and ragged) toy.

Let's Face it!

Done in ArtStudio with a Jot Touch.

I'm back with a quick new sketch I just completed! What made this sketch a bit different is that this all these faces were drawn on my IPad! We all know how versatile the IPad is, with all the available apps for the device, there's a myriad of things you can do with it to help you stay productive(or sometimes nonproductive). So I wanted to experiment with some drawing/painting apps and see which one I can incorporate it into my workflow.
I played with a couple of the more popular sketch/drawing apps out there(Procreate and Sketchbook Pro), and out of all the ones I have tried so far ArtStudio clearly stood out as my favorite for sketching. For someone like myself, who works mainly in Photoshop, Artstudio shares a lot of the same features, which made for an easy to transition. With the key features being the lasso tool and the ability to transform and distort, the biggest hurdle was actually getting reacquainted to drawing directly on the surface.
So far, I'm really happy with the results I am able to achieve. I can see this being a great on-the-go sketching tool...well when I'm not on Facebook or YouTube or Words with Friends or...

In Deep Water...

I thought I'd share this new promo piece I am working on. I've wanted to illustrate an underwater scene for quite some time now ever since my visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Among all the fascinating sea creature there, I was particularly intrigued by the jellyfish they had on display. I thought it would be something new and fun to illustrate, but of course I wanted to add my little twist to these little critters.

One of the things I enjoy about working on these promotional illustrations is the opportunity to pick whatever subjects and environments my imagination takes me. Though sometimes my imagination can get the better of me. Unlike the last promo piece I did, this illustration will have a lot of elements that are new to me, so I'll have to do a lot more figuring out as I go. This will be a challenging illustration...

Out of the Closet

Here's a sketch for my new promo piece! Bit of a time crunch(as always) trying to get this piece done inbetween deadlines. Will post the final when it's done.

In Living Color

...And here's how it turned out.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how everything came together. There is a lot of fun stuff going on, but for me, I especially enjoyed rendering the robo-dino. It's not too often I get to embrace my inner geek, so whenever the opportunity presents itself, I try to make the most of it.

And here's the process I took to get there...

First, I always start with the most general, I blocked in all my major shapes with color. Here I am simply establishing the basic color scheme of the illustration. In the past, when I was still working with acrylics, this step would be a lot more difficult. I'd always have to worry about losing my drawing underneath layers of paint or simply having it washed away from the water in my brush. However, with Photoshop, this problem is no longer an issue. By keeping the colors in a separate multiply layer(Photoshop speak btw.), the lines would not be effected whatsoever, which gave me the freedom to throw color around with abandon. This freed me up to play and explore different palettes without worrying about getting my colors muddy since I could always edit if needed. Definitely a true plus in working digitally. Once I settled on something I liked, I could move onto the next phase.

This meant a quick pass on the main characters and elements of the illustration. I established a bit more of the form and detail to each of the characters, but my main priority was the boy's face. With any illustration I work on, the face is the most important thing, and a major hurdle, so I try to nail those down as quickly as I can. In many ways, this can be the most crucial stage in my working process, cause it can very well set the table on how the rest of the illustration will go. Usually, if I can't get a face to look right,  it meant I'd be fighting the piece the whole time, cause I'd have to go back over and over again trying to rework it. Luckily, in this case, the boy's face didn't give me too much trouble, and I was able to get him looking pretty decent at this stage. And having cleared this major obstacle, I was able to relax a bit moving forward.

Next I gave the background and ground a pass. At this point, my brain is on auto-pilot. There's not much thinking involved here, I simply wanted to fill the back area with "junk". This part took a bit of time, and was a bit tedious, but I felt it was necessary. Obviously, the quickest and easiest solution would have been to put in a blank wall there, but it also wouldn't have added anything to the illustration either. All the stuff back there helped to establish more of the story, mood and interest to the piece, so it was time well spent.

After that, I went back to the main elements in the foreground and gave them a second pass. I focused on the smaller details this time. I cleaned up all the edges and gave it a more polished look. At this point, all my major elements were in place and I had pretty much worked everything out. This is probably my favorite part working on an illustration, once I can visualize the final illustration, I can just zone out and make things look pretty. 

And finally, here's the finished illustration again. After taking a step back, I realized I needed to rework the boy's face and expression. Along with that. I added a couple finishing touches. The lighting effects here and there, as well the the random materials on the floor. All these helped to tie everything together. 

Character Development Part 2

I'm back with a couple more sketches. This time, with the other component of my illustration. He will obviously be the main character of the piece. With his treatment, I kept going back and forth with the amount of fantasy I wanted to incorporate into his design. Part of me really wanted to go over the top with it and give him a steampunk edge, but with the illustration I have in mind, I thought better of it, and decided to root him more in reality. Next stage will be to put everything together and actually start on the sketch itself.

Character Development

Here are some sketches of a robot dinosaur character I did for an illustration idea. Here I'm playing with ideas and different looks for this character. I have yet to really settle on a specific look. I think I like pieces here and there from several, so perhaps the final rendition will be an amalgam of sorts. Though, I typically don't go to these lengths with all my illustrations (especially for just a single illustration), whenever I can, I'll make every effort to try and do so, cause I'm quickly realizing the benefit of it.  Since my goal is to push my character designing, I see it as a very necessary step in the process.

I have another character in need of designing, which means more sketches to come...