five lessons from the academy

(I am posting this whole goddamn thing in its entirety because IT IS IMPORTANT DAMNIT but if the images are not showing/getting cut, it is also available to read in its original format on my blog.)

I've been sitting on my experiences at the Illustration Academy for almost a month now, carefully turning things over in my head and trying to make sense of all the amazing that I had assaulting me for four weeks.  I  don't think I've even begun to understand what I was taught there and it'll continue to take weeks, months, years, decades before I truly see the whole picture.

And this gives me something to look forward to every day.

But I thought I would share some of the main lessons I learned at the Academy, or the things I already do but figured out why they're important.  I feel like I'm like, giving away trade secrets or something by doing this.  (Don't kill me John!!)  But um, in my defense, I'm also repeating them more or less for my own sake, so I don't dare forget.

Also, I mistakenly drank caffienated tea after not touching the stuff for three weeks and I'm absolutely wired now so what else is there to do but write sappy blog posts at three am okay /vibrates

Anyway:

Lesson 1: Know Thy Roots.  The Academy has caused me to examine exactly where I am coming from, not just as a person, but as an artist--who I am influenced by and who is out there that I should be getting influence from.  Granted, I'm still very much in-the-dark when it comes to knowing the history of illustration and the visual arts, but I absolutely understand the importance of it and I'm working every day to fix this.  History repeats itself, quite simply.  Also, I will waste so much time trying to solve a problem in an illustration when there's someone out there who has gone and solved it for me already.

Because chances are, whatever I'm doing, it's been done before probably a hundred different times.  They're out there, whether I realize it or not.  But it's not a sign of unoriginality or bland creativity--it's a tool for you and I to use.  Someone else out there has already solved the problem of your composition for us!  Use this! These days, when I'm starting a piece, I'll sit down and jot down a list of terms, historical eras, artistic styles, artists, etc. that might be relevant to my final piece.  And then I get lookin' and see where that takes me.

I think it also takes a healthy mix of knowing illustration history and where current illustration trends are coming from, inspiration-wise.  So when you look at your favorite artists in the field today, don't just pour over their work--look into where they are coming from.  Who are they referencing?  Who are their references referencing?  Who are their references' references referencing?  It'll open up whole new avenues into amazing work that you've never seen before, and if you keep looking, the cycle will just keep repeating itself endlessly until your head is ready to explode from sheer inspiration (see: George Pratt's insane five-hour presentation oh my shit).

Trufax: I've met some very special artists before that have claimed they're completely original and don't take inspiration from anyone and--it's bullshit.  Complete bullshit.  Bullshit so flagrant it's probably illegal.  I could show some of these particular artists' stuff to a walking encyclopedia like George who would then instantly spout of like five artists who worked similarly off the top of his brilliant head.  You don't live in a vacuum, so don't pretend your work exists in one.  It's more likely that these types haven't taken the time to sit down and try to understand where they pull inspiration from.  Or they're afraid to admit it, for whatever stupid reason.  If you put together a group of people and have them each draw an image of an apple, they are all going to interpret this apple differently based on their experiences and their understanding of the visual arts and the world.  But it's this particular combination of all the sources you're pulling from that is your thumbprint unto the world--completely your own.  The more and more sources you have, I believe the better your understanding gets.

So people need to get the fuck over being "100% original always" because what does that even mean, but this is really another rant for another day whoa I'm already off track.

In short, this is what the Academy teaches you right away: know who has come before you.  Know what these people have done.  Know what you can learn from them.  Know how to apply this to your audience.

Also, just because it's not what you make doesn't mean you can't learn from it.  You will find things in other genres of art you dislike; maybe you'll find a lot of things you dislike!  But if you really look, you will also find something in that you do like, I promise.  I really do.  Take that step and find something you like in a genre of art--be it in illustration or in fine arts, design, animation, comics, video games, music, performance, anything--you've previously sworn off looking at or whatever.

Even within illustration, just looking at styles (I hate that term; I use it lightly here) the most opposite to yours is going to throw you for a loop sometimes.  Watching Jon Foster work through a demo was eye-opening because I slowly realized parts of his process were eerily similar to mine--yet, with radically different results.  (And his results are also way more eloquent and gorgeous than I can ever hope mine to be, aghh /awed by amazing)  I'd known his work long before the Academy, but I never knew what was behind it that made something so far outside of my usual line of thinking really click with me until I saw him work through it.  (Not to mention that later, as he talked about his life and all his experiences and where that led him to where he was, I was just floored.  It was so much like hearing my own life being spoken back at me that I was a little freaked out!)  It's something I can learn from because I relate to so much of it--yet will continue to do my own thing at the same time.

So putting blinders on to certain genres/styles/whatever of art merely on the principle that they're not "similar" enough to yours so therefor, you can't learn anything from it, is the simply worst thing you can ever do to yourself.  Because you'll never know what you'll find you have in common if you do.  I know I will fall back on this particular moment every time I find myself doubting if someone like me can make it in this industry--and I wouldn't have this support to lean on and learn from if I hadn't kept my eyes open.

Lesson 2a: Reference ...  I really don't understand the stigma going around for younger/beginning illustrators that using photographic reference is a Very Bad Thing--like it constitutes "eyeballing" or "tracing" or "unoriginality", which are wildly different concepts.  It's simply a matter of knowing how to use it properly and not leaning on it like a crutch.  I've been using photo reference for all my illustrative work for years; my time at the Academy only cemented that piece into my process further.  Especially shooting reference for yourself, which is something I'll continue to work on.

It's definitely preferable that I get multiple shots (especially stuff that I've shot myself) rather than borrowing heavily from one single photograph.  Gives me a better sense of volume and understanding of the figure/composition if I do.  Also, with my own photography, I'm far more likely to get the right angle, position, lighting, and gesture than I would get, say, browsing a stock archive.  But at the same time, I don't hesitate to pull an arm from one photo and a leg from another--mix and match.  Get whatever I need to make it work.  No one should feel like you have to go through hours of work just to compose the entire scene for the one reference photo you shoot--in fact, I think I would advise against it, if my advice is worth anything.  If you compose something perfectly in your reference shoot, what's the chance that you'll get exactly that same balance in your illustration?  In most cases, I shoot figures separate from background elements, and multiple figures as separate shots.  Dividing these things out makes it easier for me to process and cleaner to read.  For "Road Rage", I took a few where the scene was close to what I had in mind (see below) but the background figure I ended up using was more heavily based on a separate image I took of the driver.



Plus, by taking your own shots, you get lulzy images of your friends that you can later tag awkwardly on Facebook.  Better than drunken party pictures, these.

Then the background elements are from various other places and that great ol' thing we call imagination.  That car is a combination of old New York cabs and this sweet beast we happened to pass by in the parking lot of a local diner.  The traffic light and lamp post are based on the ones in this photo.

Picking and choosing.  That's all it is.  Reference is awesome, I don't even care what other people say.

I go shooting/hunting for reference as soon as I settle on a thumbnail that I like.  Whenever I'm looking at my photo reference, I'm mostly focused on gesture and shapes--so that's what I'll focus on nailing when taking them.  I'll generally have an idea of what pose or position I want, but with the attitude (or even the limitations) of the model (be it animate or otherwise), the pose often changes a bit.  Reflects a more natural state of being.  If I can, I shoot/gather separate reference for lighting if I need something specific.  And if something comes up mid-process and I need more reference, well, I just go grab my camera and start shooting some more!

Still, there's room for reference libraries, here.  George, in particular, has thousands and thousands of reference photographs of not only for work that he has done and is working on, but also had things that just interest him and could later use someday.  Plus, it's amazing when he would just whip out his iPad and dive into the crapton of vintage World War photographs he had just hanging around.

Lesson 2b: ... It's Merely That.  The problem, I think, is that most people wind up being slaves to their reference and get caught up in over-rendering and copying the composition/image exactly as they see it, rather than using it as a jumping point and adapting it to how they draw.  I avoid feeling like what I see in my reference pieces has to be exactly as I render it in the final.  In fact, a lot of times I just go, "pffffft perspective" and draw things that fit compositionally, rather than going for absolute accuracy.



But look!  No matter how simple the final, I'm still using reference!  Also, notice my subtle file-naming scheme.

For figures, I often don't have access to a model with exactly the body type (or even the gender) that I need; in many cases, I'm using myself.  This is okay!  Like I said, I mostly look at gesture and shape.  With a bit of extra lighting, some ambiguous clothing tricks, and that auto-timer on my cheap point-and-shoot, I can get all the quality reference I need from the comfort of my own studio.  In other cases, I'll just ask friends or my studiomates if they'll quickly pose for me.  This is where having a very distinct sketch and idea in mind is important: if you know what you're doing, it'll take no more than five minutes.  If you don't, you'll be wasting both your time trying to figure out what you should've done beforehand.

Additionally, reference real life before referencing other illustrations.  It's why those life drawing classes are so bloody important, even if you're "just" drawing abstract figures or anime or whatever it is you like to do later on.  I mean, come on guys, my shit's not exactly the most realistically rendered stuff ever and I still swear by my reference.  If you reference other illustrations, you're referencing their reference without seeing the reference behind their reference and oh god I think I just turned into Xzibit.

Anyway, I'm also not going to get into my anime-referencing-anime rant, because it will make this painfully long if I do, but just remember Lesson 1: other illustrators have probably solved some of the problems for you.  But you will need to figure out the rest yourself, which is where your understanding of reality comes in.  That's the whole point of making anything at all.

Lesson 3: Dark Shape On A Light Shape On A Dark Shape.  If I learned anything at the Illustration Academy, it was this little mantra.  I'll be sitting there working away on something, wondering why it's not looking right, when Brent Watkinson's voice eerily echoes through my head...

Harvey Dunn was a master at using white as a focal point--all because he knew this rule like the back of his hand.  In order to get that shape to pop forward, he surrounds the white with mid-dark tones.  And I may or may not have borrowed this exact concept when working on "Road Rage".



This is what I was talking about earlier (see Lesson 1).  I tried something that, gasp, has been done before.  (By a master of illustration who was far greater than I can ever hope to be!)  O, the unoriginality!  The horror!  But hey, it saved me a helluva lot of time knowing this while trying to figure out how to make that background figure really jump forward.

Still, this image is mine and not a Harvey Dunn painting, amirite?

Knowing this idea really cements the importance of creating a greyscale/tonal study before jumping to the finished piece.  I've been working my digital work, at least, up in full greyscale before I even start thinking about color but always felt I was a little odd for it.  So, if anything, this bit of advice only validated this part of my process for me (yay validation!).

I've always been of the mind that if I can get something to work in greyscale, then color is achingly simple--so long as I stick to my original plan that I mapped out in tones.

Something they really hammer in animation is the idea of a silhouette: can you read the figure if even if it was a solid black shape without any inner contour shapes?  When composing an illustration and roughing it out in greyscale, I now take this idea one step further: if you squint at it, is the composition still clear?  Does the entire form of the object/figure read or does it fade ambiguously into the background elements?  This might not always be the route you want to take, but whatever you settle on as being the focal point should probably follow this rule.  Otherwise, your reader will miss it completely.

Also, I probably look like I'm legally blind, since I squint at everything I look at now to see how it works.  I am going to have crow's feet by the age of twenty-five, thanks guys.

Lesson 4: Tracing Paper Is My New God.  Goddamnit, Gary Kelley, look what you've done to me.  Now I've gone and taken up a religion.

I really, really wish the video I have of his tracing paper demo was out on Youtube or something.  (It's on the VLP, which is free to high schools if you get your instructor to sign up!)  But in lieu of visual aid, just try working with the stuff sometime: when you're working out your final sketch, use it.  Make it do what it does best and layer the crap out of it.  Stick tape all over it.  Put every element on a separate scrap and move them all over the place.  Photocopy these pieces and make them larger or smaller to make them fit.  Draw things over and over and over again.  Make sure everything is exactly where and how you want it to be before declaring it "the final sketch", then slap another piece over it and trace everything to make your final.  It's analog Photoshop, but somehow far more satisfying than using layers and a tablet, I've discovered.  I don't totally understand why I love tracing paper so, but I know it's tactile, it's receptive, it's simple, it's understanding, and no matter how many times I screw it up and toss it out, it still loves me unconditionally.

And I love you back, baby.  /kiss kiss

Lesson 5: 90% Of The Work Is Process.  The other 10% is sweat, the tears of small children, and several small sacrificial goats.

If time allows (which it doesn't always, but does if you manage it properly), I like to spend most of said time fussing with my sketches, browsing for inspiration, finding good reference, doing value studies, and developing a color palette.  A lot.  Don't feel like every drawing you do has to be The One And Only (and this is something I struggle with constantly, myself), but at the same time, you should be solving a lot of your compositional/color/value problems in these process steps--not as you are rendering the final image.  None of these sketches are perfectly rendered and have every single detail in it (what would be the point of doing a final, then?) but it should be understandable enough to you that it does what they're designed to do: solving the problem.

Sure, there isn't a lot to show for this time spent, aside from folders of images/links on my desktop and a ton of tracing paper all over my desk.  But all of this legwork will save me time (plus tons of frustration and additional votive livestock) in the end.

At the Academy, the schedule follows a weekly routine: you have precisely one week to complete the task given to you on Monday afternoon.  Thumbnails are generally due Tuesday morning, but besides that, you have the entire week to make something.  It's a generous amount of time to create an illustration, sure, but it's still a routine that my panicky all-nighters during school can (and will) learn from.  I'd get to spend the weekdays doing all this preliminary stuff, getting feedback from my marvelous professors/studiomates and solving all my problems along the way.  If something really stumped me, then I had the ability to just walk away and come back the next day with a fresh mind simply because I had the time structured in to do so.  (Can't do this if you're starting something from scratch the night before, y'know.)  So then, after everything is figured out, I could sit down to draw out the final the day before it's due without so much as a hint of a panic because I knew exactly what I was doing.  When I get to the actual part where I've booted up Photoshop and have begun to draw in over my final sketch, creating the final piece becomes mere execution.

---

These are simply a few of the experiences I gained at the Academy, basically what my professors told me being spat out through my own filter of incoherent words and mush.  Things that everyone must know so much so that I absolutely had to share them.  A free taste!  But just licking the tip of the iceberg here, really.  As for everything else, well... you'll just have to go to the Academy to see it for yourself.  It's a priceless experience, one that no list of lessons learned can even begin to sum up.  I gave up a lot to attend and I regret none of it.

(Other useful life skills learned include: how to open beer bottles in door jams, how to ford flash floods without losing my oxen, how to make eggs defy gravity, and how to hit on ladies in Mexico.  Truth.  This is what you are missing by not attending.)

I feel like I've become a walking advertisement for these guys because this is practically all I talk about to anyone within earshot these days, but that is okay by me.  I'm absolutely serious when I say that I will look back in ten, fifteen, twenty years from now on that one single month of June and say: "This was a turning point in my life and my career."  It was that important.  I have never experienced anything even remotely similar to the Academy--not with my artist friends, not at my college, not anywhere on the 'web.  I went in not really knowing what I was getting into and I came out treasuring everything I had learned... all the wonderful relationships I had made with my professors and studiomates.  Even though a lot of the faces and lessons will be the same, I still achingly want to go back next year because I'm sure I missed something in this windfall of an escapade.

Plus, I loved these people.  All my studiomates were there to honestly and openly learn everything they could stuff into their heads and it made them simply the greatest, easiest people to get along with.  We could share honest critiques without someone scoffing in rebuttal or thinking us pretentious.  (Anyone who has ever sat through a university critique: you know exactly what I'm talking about.)  The Academy brings together from people not just around the States, but all over the world, and with them comes their inspirations and their experiences that everyone is so happy to share.  (And this is where we get lovely things like Diegoisms, ahaha.)

And all the professors involved in this program are not doing it to pay the bills like the x amount of your university are, no.  They do it because they want to.  Because they know how to succeed from decades of experience doing so and they want you to succeed at it, too.  They teach simply because they want to teach.

Art for the sake of art.

Not to mention these professors were the most diverse bunch of personalities I've ever seen put into one room.  While they are each unique at what they bring to the table, they all had one thing in common: they want to teach, and they will do so in the most achingly kind way ever that it will just blow your mind that artists this successful, yet this humble, still exist.

Short of going back or somewhere starting a studio with these guys (BEST IDEA EVER Y/Y??), the chance of me finding this sort of atmosphere anywhere else again is utter nil and this fact is the most depressing thing ever.

It's frustrating to come home and try to explain this all to my friends and my parents and whoever I can get to listen, only to be met with confused smiles and "oh, that's nice".  I don't think anyone but the people I attended this with understands what exactly this adventure did to all of us, but goddamnit, it will not stop me from trying to share it.  It's why I am writing this!

Here I am now, a month later, missing it all horribly and just tearing up at the memories, but determined to make something of it.  Lest it all go to waste.  Seeing as I had an eight-hour drive back home by myself, I had a lot of time to think and reflect (read: way too much time).

But during that time, I made a promise to not just myself, but everyone I met there: I swear I will not let these guys down.