Magazines added to Recommended Resources

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I’ve added three magazines to my Recommended Resources link at Amazon.com.

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Communication Arts is a quality art magazine for creatives. It’s an expensive magazine printed on thick glossy paper, but it has a lot of good content. Several issues are themed around “annuals” (Design Annual, Illustration Annual, Photography Annual, etc.) which means that a big chunk of those issues contains the latest and greatest work being done in that media (at least, as judged by the editors). Lots of good content in the articles too.Read More

HOW Webinar Series

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HOW Magazine is a leading publication in the art and graphics community. If you don’t subscribe, you should. There are a ton of great articles on both the creative and business aspects of being a commercial artist.

Recently HOW started offering a series of online “webinars”. (A webinar is a seminar broadcast over the web.) These webinars are designed to help creative types improve their business skills so they can land more jobs and grow more successful. Read More

My Studio: The Nickel Tour

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After yesterday’s links to studio tours, Guy Francis (a very talented illustrator with a fun blog) asked me to post a photo tour of my studio. Far be it from me to disappoint my legions (*cough!*) of fans, so here goes…

My studio is actually the master bedroom of a 3-bedroom house I purchased when I was still a bachelor. It’s a starter home from the 1950’s. No basement, but plenty of room for a single guy. Bedroom #1 became the studio, bedroom #2 became my storage room, and I slept in bedroom #3.

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Since then I’ve met and married my lovely wife (Jennie) and had a baby girl (Anna). I now live in the incredible shrinking house. Bedroom #2 became Anna’s room, so I had to toss out some of my junk and move the rest into my studio, which was a tight fit. Then Jennie started a part-time job working from home, so I bought her a desk and wedged it into the studio as well. The house is feeling awfully tight. The upside is that it has forced us to live “lean and mean” and get rid of a lot of junk we didn’t really need.

The studio is L-shaped, which makes it difficult to stand back and get a good picture. These pics were all taken with my iPhone (which has no flash) so they aren’t real crisp, but they should do:Read More

Touring An Artist’s Studio

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It’s always fascinating for me to see the studios of other artists. It can give a lot of insight into how they work. Recently I found online studio “tours” (with photos) of some artists whose work I admire. Fun reading. So grab your ticket stubs, buckle yourself in, and no flash photography please:

Scott Kurtz
Creator of the online comic strip PVP.

Funnypages Productions (scroll to the bottom)
I worked with these guys on 3-2-1 Penguins. They were terrific.

Tom Richmond
Parody artist for MAD magazine. I worked for Tom one summer in college.

John Byrne
This one’s not really a tour, but hey, it’s John Byrne. One of the all-time great comic book artists.
EDIT: More photos from John Byrne’s studio can be found here. Thanks to Bryn Hendrickson for the link.

Also, someone (I think it was Charlie Griak) told me about this link to the studio of illustrator Bob Staake.

If you know of any others, leave a comment and let me know.

Stuff I Recommend

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I’m a huge collector of reference books. Among the dozens and dozens of books in my studio, there are a select few that I would highly recommend for any professional illustrator/character designer/animator to own. If you make your living drawing, this stuff can inspire you, boost your skills, maybe help advance your career or even increase your income. As part of my goal to make this blog a truly helpful resource for my readers, I’ve created a list on Amazon.com that organizes them under various headings. Categories include:

—Character Design
—Artist’s Reference
—Art Instruction
—Business/Freelancing
—Animation
—Color Guides (for artists like me who struggle with color)
—DVD
—Misc

A link to the list will be permanently displayed on the blog sidebar.

In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that if you buy something from my list, Amazon.com will toss a few coins my way. I’m certainly not going to get rich off of it, but maybe it will be enough to buy a few extra cans of Monster Low-Carb.

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While we’re on the subject, you may also have noticed the Tip Monkey that showed up on my sidebar a few days ago. I post new content every weekday primarily because I enjoy it. But it does take work. I want my blog to be a fun place, so no pressure. But if you visit regularly and if you’ve truly benefited from it, I certainly wouldn’t mind a small tip now and then. Either way, I’m grateful to have you reading.

Here endeth the sales pitch. Look for new, fun content again on Monday!

Surviving a Blackout: Get a UPS

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This article is primarliy aimed at two groups of freelancers: Californians who have been experiencing massive power outages, and Minnesotans who live in my blackout-proned neighborhood.

In recent months I’ve had three major power outages lasting several hours each, plus a few minor ones. Twice, in order to meet deadlines, I’ve had to pack up my computer, drive across town, and set up a temporary studio at my mother-in-law’s house. She was very sweet for letting me impose on her, but it was an enormous hassle nonetheless. (Untangling a rat’s nest of computer cables in the dark is not what I would call fun.)

After the third outage in two months, I’d had enough. Read More