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By Timothy Piotrowski, March 23, 2011 5:08 am

So, the last entry, I showed some goblins standing in a field near a forest. I thought the illustration was done, and sent it out to some friends for opinions. For the most part, they agreed it’s there, but that I could push it a little more. So I did. Here are the two versions, and the second version, I agree is much better.

However, The top one is closer to style of this illustration:

I wanted to stay closer to this flatter style of illustration. I did find myself getting more and more detailed as I worked on the goblins. Take the sleepy goblin in the back on the right hand side, he’s leaning against his spear. I had to go back and flatten his face some, because the level of lighting and details I had on it were more realistic in style then say the goblin sitting on the rock.

And I certainly feel that the grass moves much farther away from the style below.

Not that I think the after version is a failure. I love it. I’m glad I took those extra steps and pushed it even more. The far right goblin, picking his nose, I think his feet and legs are awesome. They have a real sense of space, direction and shape. I love the sitting goblin, his face, the legs. I feel I managed to really make each goblin have character.

What is lacking is any sense of story, as they are just standing around by some trees. So, now I have an idea to do a second drawing of these goblins around a camp fire, as if bedding down for the night. It will also let me do some lighting from a strong source, as I’m working to expand my skills and learn something about light and coloring.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, March 20, 2011 7:24 pm

The background was far harder to get right then each Goblin was. In fact, the Goblins were easy compared to the background. I had an idea of what I wanted in my head, but getting there took a lot of experimenting. I redid just about every aspect at least once, the tree trunks took about 4 tries to get to the stage I wanted them. First they where too tall and thin. I finally got the shape, size and texture right.

The foliage also took a lot to figure out. At one point the foliage and trunks were blending into each other. So I thought, lets darken the top of the trunks as if being shaded by the leaves, which lead to the thought of dappled light. That took a bit to get right. Eventually it all feel together.

I really learned a lot working on this, the background in particular. I had thought to try and do something different, like putting them inside a cave, as that would be easier, but I stuck with my idea, until I worked out a solution I was happy with.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, March 10, 2011 11:19 am

One hurdle we often face as artists is how to get better? It’s hard to look at your own work subjectively sometimes. You might have an idea and think that’s good. And then later say, Oh, wait, lets do this! And you have a better idea. Then you show it to others, who offer much better ideas, and you think…man, this sucks compared to what it could have been…

The fact is, we all have to make our own choices on the road to the final piece. I’m working on some illustrations for myself, as a form of practice and skill building. Recently I sent this to a few friends to get some feedback on it.

From those three friends I got 3 different kind of feedback. All valid too. It’s my choice on how much of that feedback I use and incorporate into the piece.

I then posted the image on a site that has a monthly crit of work either finished or in progress. And I got some more feedback, some of it similar and some of it different. All good and valid. So this work will have some tweaks done and some parts reworked in more major ways. But hey, since it’s for me, that’s fine!

Right now, though I had another idea I wanted to get down on paper. A goblin raiding party.

So, here are the first rough pencils:

I just wanted to get the different characters in place and a general composition set up. After I went and did tight pencils of each of the different goblins. First I did the axe wielding goblin in the back.

I knew he needed a much more action ready pose then what I gave him. Then I moved onto the goblin mage to his right. This one, man is that boring, it looks like he’s just doing parlor tricks and is about to ask “is that your card?” rather then blast you eldritch energy. But he took a while to get something I liked. First I thought I would make him more sinister, but also frail. Wasn’t to happy with that, so I made him less frail. Then I decided, it’s partly the direction he’s facing. I imagined he was the kind of mage that delights in his craft, and cultivates an air of mystery by being devious. So he might hide what he’s going to do. So I turned him away from what the group is looking at. It added some variety to the com as well, so that not everyone looks like they are holding the same pose.

I like this set up much better.

So, on I went, with each character. What were they wearing, what features in their face made them different from another goblin? In particular the Rat Master was fun, since I decided that he’s kind of filthy and particularly smelly compared to your average goblin, he does after all, sleep with the rats he trains. After I had all the characters penciled in, I tweaked their positions, as I had a few spots where I had bad tangents, where several elements meet that become distracting. For example the Squatting goblin, the archer and the one rat all meet up and made it a confusing mess, it wasn’t clear what was what.

So here is the tight pencils as they stand now. I will not start on the final version till later, so I can go back in a day and look and see if there is anything I want to change.

For example, I think the lower leg on the squatting goblin is too short compared to his upper leg. So I will go back and fix that. I’m also not sure about his hair. Maybe he just needs to be bald and an eye patch. His dagger will certainly have a poisonous  The goblin mage needs bigger hands. Maybe a few animal skulls and feathers and such. These aren’t quite savage enough right now. Perhaps the archer needs to have his cowl down over his face more. The warrior and rat master I think are at good where they are. The rats are certainly what I want.

After heating some good feedback on the first illustration, I took those thoughts into developing this drawing. And before I start on the final work, I’ll get some feedback on that as well.

If you don’t know any artists personally or professionally, I suggest finding a site that offers a forum for posting work and getting feedback.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, February 18, 2011 7:33 am

I’ve talked about the difference between having talent and developing that talent into skills. It’s hard to divide the two clearly. A person could have a natural talent for something like color arrangement, while someone learns it as a skill. Both may be equally adept at it, and it would be hard for a person to know that just looking at the finished work.

Below are some drawings I did over the last few days.

The final art however, were these illustrations:

The drawing displays my talent. I have a natural talent for drawing. (which can be seen in some of the other figure drawing I’ve posted in the past).

The illustration (And there is a difference between drawing and illustration), shows the skills I’ve developed over the years. With drawing, it’s more of letting myself free to work and to see what happens. Many times when I’m drawing, I will be really loose, and see what lines or shapes come out, and then go back and hi-lite those lines and shapes that I find help create the image. Some of my favorite characters have come about this way.

But when I go to take it to an illustration, There is much more thought up front. I find that if I spend time thinking about the final illustration before starting it, I get much better results. Often I will do a tight pencil drawing in between sketching and illustrating. This gives me time to think about the different aspects, how to approach them, what’s the best way to achieve the results I want, and more details just start filtering in.

The tight pencils are a blend of using my talent and skills. I let myself the freedom to explore with the pencil, but I also keep in mind the composition, what colors I might want to use, and more.

By the time I moved into doing the final illustration, I would say I’m mostly in the skills side of things. It’s skill that lets me get the shading how I want it, the texture of surfaces, and more. Is there some talent there? Yes sure, but I would say it’s in the passenger seat instead of driving.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, October 25, 2010 8:44 am

Recently, a fellow cartoonist and I (C. Edwards) meet up for drinks and to talk shop. He told me about his plan to take his comic, Able Boddy to the level of a daily webcomic. That’s pretty ambitious. It takes a lot of pre-planning, because the trick to having a daily comic, is to have episodes ready to go in advance. That means write out your story arcs, and do the strips in batches.

What I like most was how C said if it doesn’t take off, that’s ok too, hell just move onto something else. I know people that don’t want to draw unless they know it’s going to go somewhere, or when they do, they really hope that this is the one that finally clicks. It always gives me the feeling that they are more concerned about what happens after, then about doing the art.

Edwards view was that if he does it, it doesn’t work and he moves on, he will take everything he learned and bring that with him to his next project. That’s a great attitude, and one that I have. Just do the work, and see what happens. Be true to yourself.

Just do the work.

Make no excuses. To often artists let themselves get tripped up in issues outside of doing the work. Recently I said, “a good artists always sees how they can improve on the past, but uses it to create the future”. Someone responded to that saying when they make mistakes, they get so frustrated they don’t want to make a new piece of art.

That makes me wonder if they really are interested in making art or creating or whatever. The only way you get better is by doing, and all that entails.

If you want to be a freelancer, you need to work on that just like you would your art. Website out of date, schedule time to update it. No excuses. If you keep it simple, it should be easy. Are you a designer? Then don’t worry about having some amazing design that makes people go HOLY SMOKES! Have a design that people go HOLY SMOKES when they look at the art on your site.

Just do the work. It might take time to see results, but you won’t ever see results if you don’t do the work.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, October 15, 2010 7:00 am

So, NYCC has come and went. I shared a booth with several friends, and even did my first panel, which turned out better then I hoped. It was at 6:30 Saturday, we walked over around 6, and got there 15 minutes early. There was a large crowd waiting to get in. We asked if they were here for the panel, and they were, and I got nervous. It was a lot of people. So many in fact, it became standing room only, and people got turned away.

But everything turned out great, and I got some good laughs, and after people said I was really funny and did a great job.

I had decent sales for the show. Last year, which was actually in February of 2009, I sold more books in less time. I made the cost of being in the con back and then some. So another good thing.

A person who works for Diamond distributors asked if I had any thing more then Kool Aid, because she thought my sense of humor was really great and wicked, but that mini’s are a hard sell for them. Which I totally understand. She gave me her card and said when I have something ready, to get in contact with them.

I didn’t get to go to the Marvel party for freelancers, it was invite only, and I didn’t know the people you had to talk to personally to get an invite. Besides, having only done one 8-page story, I might have felt like a gate crasher, with more experienced freelancers there.

The week after the con has been good too. I got several direct orders for Kool Aid, one of which was because it was reviewed on Pop Candy. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the orders where because of that site, since they all came on the same day, the day the review hit. I will send her a thank you, as it’s important to let people know what they did had an impact.

I also got another re-order from a store for Kool Aid. I love reorders, it means the store feels they can keep selling them.

And then X Magazine asked if they could get a copy of KAGF to review in their magazine. I said sure, and asked if a PDF would be better, which they said yes, because it helps them with tight deadlines. So wooosh! Off goes the PDF. Note to people, have a decent but manageable file size PDF of your work that you can send for just such a thing.

I would have been happy to send a printed copy, I do set so many aside just for that. But I always offer a PDF. One it makes it them not have to wait for the actual book, there is no postage, and if they want to run art, they can use the actual PDF for some decent printable art.

So if you don’t know how to make PDFs, I suggest finding a friend or person that can, and asking them for help, and then offer a little something, because setting it up correctly and all that, takes time.

I do love doing these shows, to see what comes out from them, other then sales. If you are doing these shows to make money, prepared to be disappointed much of the time. If you do them for fun, or a little vacation if you travel far, then whatever you get out of them is a bonus.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, September 30, 2010 8:14 am

NYCC is coming up next weekend, and I will have a booth with 3 other friends, next to Tim Fish’s booth. So we are booths 449 and 451. Showing with me will be Monica Gallagher, Mike DiMotta and Jeff Krell. I will also be on a panel about gays in comics, which will be my first panel ever. So we shall see how that goes.

I will have mugs, t-shirts and prints of Kool Aid getting drunk at the bar for sale, along with my book. Hope to see you there.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, August 15, 2010 9:16 am

Recently I went to GenCon, the best 4 days in gaming! It’s a total nerd-fest of gamers, and is a lot of fun. I went for the fun, but also to help out my friend Marc Scheff who had his first booth in Artist Alley. With us was Jeff and Caroline Himmelman, and Aaron Miller.

I sat there amongst all these awesome fantasy art illustrators. I was a little apprehensive at first. But that didn’t stop me from talking to them. Marc, Jeff and Aaron all introduced me as their friend and as fellow illustrator.

More then anything, that meant a lot. I’ve been calling myself an illustrator for the past two years, with confidence. No, I’m not fully supporting myself yet doing just illustrations. That’s probably several years off. It’s actually how I see myself these days.

When I got to meet other artists and talk with them, I was able to talk with them on the same level, a professional illustrator, and all that goes with being an illustrator, getting work, where to look for work, how to deal with clients. When you are a commercial illustrator, there are lots of area that are common, regardless of what kind of illustration you do. And I was able to say, I do editorial illustration and that was cool with everyone, there wasn’t any sense of “oh your not a fantasy illustrator…”

I gave out several copies of Kool Aid Gets Fired, and got a really great response towards it. Saturday, I got a text from fellow cartoonist Monica Gallagher, saying “Dude, I’m in a comic book store right now and this guy is totally gushing over Kool Aid!”. Then about a hour later, and email from someone that picked up Kool Aid from Midtown comics, telling me how much he enjoyed it (and how sad it was at the same time).

I left GenCon feeling really energized, and I wasn’t even there to promote myself or get work, though I did leave my comic with several art directors. You never know when a game company does a silly game and needs whimsical illustrations.

It also reinforced that being an illustrator is something you have to pursue actively. Marc was there to get his work seen, and hopefully sell some prints, which he did. For a first GenCon, I think he did pretty well. He got great reactions from people to his art. In particular to his animal prints. Sales are always great, but sometimes feedback is better, even though it doesn’t have any bankable value. Feedback guides you to make better choices.

Marc got to talk to lots of art directors, getting direction and possibly some work. We both got to talk shop with each other, and other artists, and it felt great. Actually it felt amazing to be honest. For me the moment that stood out most was one night (I can’t remember which night), before going to sleep. Marc, Aaron and I shared a room. It was late and we were just sitting around talking, and it wasn’t about art, just guys sitting around being guys (I’ll spare the guy talk details). But under that we shared the bond of having the same struggle and goals.

While a lot of the time was socializing, hanging out, watching Marc take his first nerd steps (He’s totally into Magic, the card game, thanks to Jeremy Jarvis), it was still networking.

Now, here is a list of the awesome artists that I got to meet and talk to besides the ones mentioned above.

Chris Seaman, check out his new book, inkBloom with the talented Jim Pavelec.

The Mohrbachers, Ania and Pete. They traded a very nice print for a signed copy of Kool Aid.

John Stanko, Eric Deschamps, Paul (the Prof) Herbet, Chris Burdett (rawr, I’m a monster!) and Grant Cooley were just some of the many artists there, but I actually got to talk to them the most.

While sitting at Marc’s table, I did some drawings, so here is a couple of them.

Kool Aid Goes to GenCon

Rascal Pile up at the dice bins

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By Timothy Piotrowski, August 1, 2010 6:16 am

When I started out trying to make money off my talents, I was very unprepared and lacked a whole world of knowledge. I’ve learned so much in the short time I’ve been in New York, and most importantly having networked with other illustrators.

So I feel I have to pass that information on when others starting out ask for it. I try and tell them what I would have needed to know when I was starting out.

PORTFOLIO
Make one. Really. Any way you can. The simple fact is that people are hired based on what they have done. Even the best art director is looking for some one that can already create the art they want.

A portfolio contains completed successful pieces. I think the key words are completed and successful. The project should clearly be finished. Not a sketch or missing elements. And it should be successful. It doesn’t have to be something you did for pay, only that it works as a final piece.

For years I never had an organized portfolio. If anyone came to me asking to see it, I would have to scramble to get something together. And I would always have to put in pieces that were not complete or that I wasn’t entirely happy with. And I’m sure it came across. I’m sure it also stopped me from getting work.

All the illustrations I did for Son of Kool Aid were done for myself. Each one is complete and successful. I feel I can show any one of them as part of my portfolio and feel it stands up on it’s own. They never fail to get a good reaction from people when I show them.

When you finish a piece, consider if it’s portfolio worthy or not. A piece might be successful and just what the client wanted, but it might not always be something you want to show to other prospective clients. I do a lot of maps for a boating magazine, to show the different locations of places one might visit in the area. I don’t put them in my portfolio because they don’t represent what I am as an artists. I’m not embarrassed or anything, they just don’t work as portfolio pieces.

I’ve got what I call my general portfolio, that I show for people coming to see what I can do. I then have other pieces that are my second wave. All of these are as good as anything in my general portfolio. If a potential client wants to see more, I know I can show them more, and not worry it doesn’t measure up.

Or if someone asks me to send examples of work, I can customize what I want to show them. Perhaps they use more painterly illustrations. Maybe they like simpler drawings.

This doesn’t mean you need hundreds of pieces. But around 15 would be a good start. If you don’t have those, Get to work. One idea is to take illustrated work, and ask yourself how you would have handled the illustration.

Get feedback. And accept it. If someone says you have some weak pieces, find out which ones, and why they seem weak. I suggest finding other artists or art directors. Your friends will probably just feed your ego over giving you honest feedback. And don’t be discouraged. Once I had an illustrator who I really liked suggest that I would make a better designer then illustrator. It hurt, but I didn’t take it to heart.

Feedback should guide you to making better choices, but not change your direction.

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By Timothy Piotrowski, July 26, 2010 5:38 pm

Here is a link to an interview I did for Midtown Comics Podcast.

My interview.