July AMA: Answers (Patreon)

 Thank you to all of the $5+ Patrons that submitted questions! Please take all of this advice with a grain of salt as always.

 If you'd like to submit questions next month, pledge just $5 a month (that's less than 2 Starbucks coffees!!) and you'll also get early access to digital art minitutorials!.

I'm just going to jump right in because there's a lot to talk about, so strap in, yall! 

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Erin asks: "My question: Do you have any general tips for cleanliness in your work? Presentation?  (for someone who might have a more rough-around-the-edges approach?)"

There's certainly nothing wrong with being a little rough! For cleanliness while painting, I recommend looking into clipping masks and "Freeze Pixel Transparency" to control your edges. Practice brush economy (using as few strokes as possible while painting) by focusing on how you're making brushstokes: aim for confident, quick, intentional marks while you're painting to avoid muddiness, and always use the biggest brush possible. (I added an example a few questions down.) Don't clean a mansion with a toothbrush!
Regarding presenting your work, my (although not the only) approach is to keep things simple. Avoid noisy backgrounds or crazy fonts on your presentation sheets/website that distract from your work unless it's truly for a reason! Make sure your work gets the spotlight, first and foremost.

Val asks: "My question is how do you even begin to learn how to pick colors that are harmonious together while still maintaining a variety of hues(such as having cool colors in addition to warms without making it look wonky) and not just picking the raw color(like this is blue so let me pick blue)?"

This is a tough one to answer in a paragraph, but my #1 first recommendation is to read Color and Light by James Gurney. The biggest lessons with picking colors is that color is relative and that color is more than just hue. It's saturation (and value) too. 

"Everything is relative" is a confusing phrase until you learn how to use it in practice. It all comes down to this: there are 2 ways to make a color feel vivid. One is...you make it more saturated. The other is you make everything around it more dull! Same thing with value. You make it darker, or you make everything around it brighter. Here's an example with saturation in Ebony's waist accessories:

If you want something to feel very warm in a painting that is blue, instead of making it red, try desaturating it and moving it towards gray. I come bearing GIFs!

And with value:

This answer might have gone off the rails a bit, but just remember that relativity is your friend. The vast majority of my paintings are usually actually very desaturated, which gives the vivid components a big pop. This helps you avoid making a SUPERVIVIDCRAZYCOLORS painting while still having a lot of life and energy. When picking colors, keep story and simplicity in mind.

Sapphire asks: "How do you deal with the eternal impending doom of when youre actually on a roll but have so many ideas and become overwhelmed that you're not creating enough  (if you do) also how do you find a good work vs personal project balance, especially when deadlines get near?"

I obsessively keep to-do lists. Having things written down is an absolute must for me, as well as mentally prioritizing each point. When you're getting scatterbrained and pulled in too many directions... sit down, take a breath, and reprioritize your to-do list. What is absolutely necessary for your portfolio? What were just doing for fun, but getting bored of? Sometimes you just have to tough out a piece because you know it's needed, so just get 'er done and reward yourself when it's completed. Take every little victory and organize yourself as little or much as needed. Obligations that you committed to come first- that is a tough part of doing art as a profession, but take breaks when you can and make sure to create the fun stuff too (even if it isn't your "next perfect portfolio piece") to avoid burnout. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Thorne asks: "What is the best piece of advice you could give to college students building their portfolio for concept art for video games? What should they focus on the most?"

I personally take student portfolios much seriously when the fundamentals are truly demonstrated and, while I don't want to speak for every professional, I know that I am not alone in it.  Along with that:

• Strong technical drawing skills. Photobashing is a timesaver but if you can't draw, photobashing is being used as a crutch. Boring as hell but important exercises include being able to draw in 2-point perspective and rapid iteration (aka showing that you're doing a lot of sketches and thumbnails before rendering out your best design)
• Storytelling! I struggled with this for a very long time and I still have a lot to learn here. I'm not talking about having a 1,200-word description under your image- I'm talking about the viewer being able to understand what's going on from a single look (then seeing creative context in the details!) 
• Professional presentation. Keep a clean, neat portfolio that puts your art in the spotlight. Don't distract from your hard work with clutter.
• Industry relevance. Make yourself marketable. Don't exclusively draw what just comes to your head- demonstrate that you can deliver in a studio context.

Dreadful Sanity asks: "Not sure if it's part of the imposter syndrome or my general depression, but did you have in your beginnings this feeling like "Ugh, I can't do that because I'm to stupid for it" and - if yes - how did you shut it up, which you obviously did ;)"

I have a very deep and long history with impostor syndrome, as many creative/artistic/etc folks do on ALL levels of experience. First of all, know that you're not alone. Lead artists on the top projects in games have impostor syndrome too. Same goes for depression, I've been coping with it for 8~ years now and it's a beast. 

What I have found mostly helpful is to separate my voice from the voice of my impostor syndrome and depression/anxiety. We *seriously* gotta get out of our own heads once in a while, we're so damn mean to ourselves! So often, we look at our own art and think "ugh, this looks so bad." "God, I'll never be a good artist." "I'll never make it into the games industry." Imagine you saying that to your 6 year old self. Just picture it for a second. THAT'S SO SAD. You wouldn't say it to your inner child, so why do we say it to ourselves now? Impostor syndrome is a liar and a sickness, separating yourself from it can help *so* much. Give it a name! Like Bob! Then stick it to Bob, he's wrong and cruel and full of shit.

For a very very long time (aka up until my first day in games) I was convinced I would never work in games. I waited for them to call me back after that phone interview to say they had called the wrong applicant. 

For a very very long time, I was convinced I could literally just never draw characters. I thought something was wrong with me, that I could only draw props, but all I needed was more time and practice.

Find some peace within yourself and remember that Bob's voice is not your own, he's just a crappy little inner demon that does not deserve to drive your decisions and passions for the rest of your life. And draw!!

Kyle asks: " What is a good way/ good program to start learning 3D?"

I am a huge advocate for free shit. It's very good to learn industry-standard software (if you're hoping to go into AA or AAA) like Maya or Max but that stuff is EXPENSIVE when you don't yet know if you even want to *do* 3D. Start with Blender, then move on from there. At the end of the day, all the principles transfer between the different packages. Focus on learning the basic tools, clean topology, basic UV unwrapping, and texturing in Blender (***FOR FREE***) before putting down several hundred dollars if you're tight on resources. I learned in Maya and then learned Max. Start small- learn how to make a Lego piece, then maybe a planter, then a chair. The best way to learn 3D is to find a Youtube tutorial playlist for whatever piece of software you have access to (Max, Maya, or Blender) and just get started!

Snowmew asks: "What are some of the best practice habits to develop early on? What's the importance of digital art vs. traditional sketching? What's the "right" way to study? How do you study even."

1. Create often. A lot. Seriously, like a shitton. The most improvement happens as a result of just pure output. Draw, draw, draw. Draw observationally. Draw from imagination. Mix the two (mostly do this, putting a spin on a preexisting thing is literally the only way I work) to make your own shtuff.

2. Look at other art. A lot. Build a visual library, ideally somewhere online where a hard drive failure won't lose you years of reference gathering. Save what's interesting to you. Save art that has good design or strong colors. Photos of weird trees or houses or dogs or anything that makes you look twice. ORGANIZE your visual library and add to it often. 

3. But also, once in a while, stop looking at other art! It's exhausting. Intimidating. Tires your brain out and makes you feel bad about what's in the sketchbook in front of you. Make habits EARLY to take breaks and rest your wrists and eyes and mind. Don't hurt yourself over art. Go outside and breath In Real Life air. 

4. Make what you're curious about, not what you're Sup  pose d To Mak e. MAKE WHAT YOU LOVE THE PROCESS OF! Do you think trains are cool? Get good at drawing trains. Do you love designing evil characters for animation? DoooOOOOooo it. Don't follow orders from other people that think they are doing you a favor by stomping on what you love. PASSIONATELY pursue what interests you as a human being and research/practice/study the heck out of it. 

Drawing traditionally vs. digitally at the end of the day is up to you. A lot of really incredible concept artists draw traditionally. I found sketching digitally to be really clumsy until I just sucked it up and kept going and  naturally, it got smoother. My big issue is that I was zooming in. Zoom can be an enemy sometimes, it lets you focus on tiny details really early that don't even matter. If you find that your digital sketches are rough, DON'T ZOOM IN. Focus on the big picture.

Studying is weird. I recommend doing a LOT of it anyways. It doesn't have to be clean or perfect, most of my studies are messes. Focus on the principles when you're studying, not the results. Which part of the painting is the most saturated? Turn the painting to grayscale and zoom way out or blur it. How does the artist make sure that silhouettes still read clearly? How do they break up their values? How bright are the brightest highlights? How dark are the darkest shadows? Literally just colorpick those sections and look at the Brightness number in the Color Picker window. Studying observationally sometimes feels clumsy, but it will quietly teach you very important lessons over time if you stick at them.

Natalia asks: "I've got few questions if that's ok! Any tips on clean lineart? Which one is better for someone who hasn't worked professionally yet: Specializing and finding your niche or is it better to have some variety in your portfolio when you're starting out? I'm trying to build up portfolio as a character designer, but perhaps adding things like prop design isn't a bad idea. Would love to hear your thoughts about it! :D"

The key to clean lineart is to be confident in your strokes. An exercise to practice this is below, here are the steps:

1. Draw 6-10 dots on a piece of 8"x11" paper. They should vary from being about 3" to 6" apart.

2. Connect the dots, starting with dots that are closer together. Place your pencil intentionally on the first dot, then drag swiftly, with control, to the second. Pivot at the elbow, not the wrist. Do not "swish" the line, feather the line, or lift your pen until the line is drawn in entirety. Only lift your pen when it is on (or near) the second dot. Place, draw, lift.

3. Slowly increase the distance between the dots. Do not swish, lift early, ctrl+z, or erase. If you are struggling with hitting the second dot, "ghost" the action of drawing the line like a golfer practicing their swing first! I also find it helpful to place my pen on the first dot, then look at the second dot while creating the line.

Here is what this looks like in real time (not sped up):

And these are what NOT to do:

It is okay not to hit the second dot perfectly, the purpose of the exercise is to draw with control and intent. Try to do this for a few minutes every day before drawing. Incorporate the intentionality into your lineart and sketching. You will get faster and work more cleanly.

Re: niche vs. speciality: everyone will give you a slightly different answer for this. It really depends on where you want to go. For indie/small companies, teams need folks that are multifaceted on some level and can pick new things up quickly. For AAA, you're on a larger team and generally doing something much more specialized. At the end of the day, you're probably*** going to get hired for doing a few things very well than for doing everything at a lower skill level. I generally recommend building vertically- getting very good at one (ish) thing- then learning outwards from there. I especially suggest this with character design, as it's incredibly competitive and oversaturated. If you want to be a concept/2D artist, I recommend also practicing some prop/environment design, or maybe UI art or illustrations. Also, make sure that you're doing the "boring" side, too- character turnarounds, expression sheets, research and development. I'm DEFINITELY not saying to not pursue character design- just suggesting to diversify your portfolio so you're more marketable if you need to put food on the table! (Again, this is pretty situational person-to-person and just my individual perspective. Grain of salt.)

Cecil'art asks: "Hello Becca first of all i'm super glad to find you recently, love your stuff and would love to try myself in your style. I try to become character designer. Since may when i quit my job to be a full time artist i'm really really afraid to open commission i'm really new for this and don't know where to begin and if my art is good enough too. If you have some advices for that."

Re: character design stuff, read the previous question's answer.

Commissions are really fun, but there are a few things we often don't know when we're early in our art days and wanting to open up slots. 1. It's hard to find individual folks that want to commission you early on. A lot of artists want to do commissions before their work is ready- which is totally fine- but then they don't get any interest and they get discouraged. This does not make you any less of an artist!! Be patient and kind with yourself as you're growing. Because of this, I really recommend focusing on making art for yourself at first, the stuff that YOU love to make, until your skills reach a strong fundamental level. 2. Commissions don't usually pay well due to the volatile nature of digital art markets online. Due to the pattern as said in my first point, prices for commissions that young artists offer often result WAY under minimum wage, like $5/hour or less. 3. Commissions and freelance work definitely have overlap, but in a lot of ways are categorized as two different things. Freelance (in a traditional sense) tends to be longer contracts rather than working for individual clients looking for an individual piece. Freelance contracts tend to pay better and be more reliable (once you build clientele) than doing individual commissions long-term (for many artists, not all) but it also takes a lot of time to build up the networking and skills for reliable freelance work.

So that's a lot, what the hell am I even suggesting?

1. Create art for yourself. Make what YOU LOVE to make. Explore what you're curious about- fantasy art or sci-fi characters or weapon design- and do a LOT of it. Find your niche (aka what makes you happy! Not what others tell you to make) and embrace it. That will also help you build a more engaged following on social media than if you try to mimic others or cater to what other people like, to be honest.

2. Get good at that thing. You must CONSTANTLY be at least a little outside your comfort zone if you want to improve. Making the same mistakes over and over again will cause you to stagnate.

3. Learn your fundamentals. If you want to design characters, get Andrew Loomis books- study anatomy and how to draw the body. Get Color and Light by James Gurney and read the shit out of it. Draw observationally- this is ESSENTIAL- whether that's drawing in cafes or just sketching what's on your desk.

4. Be patient and make sure you have food on the table. This shit takes time and work. I've been drawing very seriously for 7+ years and painting very seriously for 4+. I started very young as a teenager and was privileged in that I didn't have to worry about what I was going to eat that night. Take rests so you don't burnout early.

Hope this helps!

Tamara asks: "Don't know if this is the place to ask something so specific, buuuut: do you know how to draw rocks that don't look like lumps of angry soft serve? If so, please share your magical knowledge! Rocks are truly the bane of my existence."

Rocks are weird. My main recommendations would be to 

1. Focus on painting light and shadow rather than clutter. Shaddy Sadafi's seaside plein airs are very very good at this, so look up his work.

2. Simplify forms. Instead of painting lumps, paint planes- Top or bottom, side, and side. 

3. Do studies! Look at what real rocks look like. We all think that we know what rocks and hands and faces really look like but we have to do studies before that's true.

Good luck!

Liarus asks: "Have you found that over time you've developed a sort of "Game Plan" for tackling new pieces of work? For example, right now, something that works for me is to approach it like this: 1) Brainstorm the scene 2) Find reference photos for different elements of the scene and make a collage of them to represent what you had in mind 3) Block in values/light based on references for a quick mock-up of the full composition 4) Line sketch over that composition 5) Add little objects/scene details into the sketch 6) Base coating 7) Shading/Lighting/Blending 8) Clean up any fine edges/lines 9) Add small details — I know every project has a different approach, but do you have a general approach you might be able to share that works for you?"

I think the term you're looking for is "workflow!" Mine looks very similar to the one you described, but I tend to do light at the end. I like to figure out my values and colors before doing any sort of rendering/lighting, but I do know a lot of artists like to paint it all in at once. When painting a detailed character/environment/prop, I also like to write down a list in the beginning of brainstormed details and accessories that I could potentially add later to strengthen the story.

Lately, I've been actually skipping clean lineart and going straight from the sketch to the painting stage. I find that it maintains the flow and gestural action of the core idea better than when I stiffen up my drawing with super clean lineart, but that's just me. Try moving around the steps in your process if you're ever looking to try new things! 

Jeremy asks: "I'm forever struggling with how long it takes me to finish a piece. I started at the beginning of the year and wanted to end up with 10 pieces before my first con. I ended up with 6 for my first con at the end of this week. I'm doing the full-time day job, art on nights and weekends thing. Procreate says my pieces take me between 20-35 hours each. How do you get faster?"

That's a toughie. At the end of the day, everyone works at a different pace and with a different level of patience for long pieces. It really comes down to what you're creating and the context you're creating it in.

If what you're struggling with is making decisions while you work- changing a lot of stuff partway through, changing the designs- investing a lot of time early on in the workflow when designing can be a timesaver later.

If you're spending a lot of time "noodling," as in rendering the same tiny little thing over and over, I'd recommend setting an alarm for every hour or two that you're working. Try to be more aware of how much time is passing when you're just pushing around pixels on small details you're going to change later. If two alarms go by when you've been painting a single shoe on a huge keyart character illustration, that's probably an issue. What helps me with that is to 1. zoom way out, stay zoomed out, stay big picture. I work very slowly when I don't see the context of the rest of the painting. 2. Don't render what doesn't need it! Not everything needs to be fully rendered in a painting- Laurel Austin has AMAZING illustrations and controls her level of detail across her work VERY well. The stuff on the edges are just fat, unpolished brushstrokes, and that's intentional! It makes the viewer subconsciously focus on the most tightly rendered parts of the painting around the focal point. 3. I mentioned this earlier, but always use the biggest tool for the job. Don't use a toothbrush to clean a house. Use the largest brush possible- zooming out helps with that.

youngizzik asks: "I'm leading an art help club next year and trying to come up with my weekly plans, so I asked folks in the group what they'd like to learn about and 3D was a really popular option. The terrible news about this is that I haven't even taken a single 3D course yet like I was supposed to, any tips for where to start teaching myself this summer so I can pass along the knowledge?"

Hmmm. To be really frank with you, if it's possible, I'd recommend having a guest speaker that's familiar with teaching 3D rather than stressing out all summer when you could be putting time into your own work! When you're in school, having entire summers to polish your work is absolutely invaluable. Once you graduate, it'll be harder and harder to find your own time to make your own art. It's awesome that you want to help other students, but don't forget that you're paying to be there and to improve your own art. Ask a 3D professor to come speak for a week or two and go over the basics, or ask other artists in your area to Skype in! You could also put together a list of resources, Youtube tutorial playlists and the like, for students to use on their own time. Sorry if that's not very helpful, but I hope you get it sorted out!

3C asks: "So many Photoshop brushes are free online or come free with magazines etc these days that it can be a bit overwhelming especially as I'm still learning. I feel like most brushes I try use feel extra clunky in my hands when drawing.  Do you have any tips for customizing brushes / what kind of settings you would look for in a nice basic brush set? Is there any kind of exercise you run a new brush through to check it's versatility?  I know for brushes it can be generally down to personal preference and I hope to eventually develop my own personal go-to set, but I'm not even sure where to begin."

Ahhh, BRUSHES. I think almost every digital artist at every skill level is very familiar with the feeling of opening a new brush pack with 80+ tools, then tinkering around with a few, getting overwhelmed, and never touching most of them. Too much of a good thing! Too many options out there! This is only exponentially more frustrating when you're early on and...honestly, don't really know yet what you need brushes for.

First of all, know that brushes are just shortcuts. They're tools. The tools we work with are VERY important and I don't want to diminish that, but tools don't make you better at principles. That's why I think it's a little strange to say one is "good at Photoshop." Maybe someone is very familiar with the functionality one has to offer, but artistic principles are what really make someone a strong digital painter.

I saw exponential growth and got way more comfortable with painting when I found this one free brush on DeviantArt and started using it for EVERYTHING. I've bounced around between other tools, but always come back to this one because it fits my style and feels natural to me. I prefer simplicity. When I'm painting and I realize it can't do something I need to do, then I find a brush that can. I grow my brush library very slowly and I do it on demand, not supply. 95% of my work is made with that free chalk brush, plus the default hard round brush and soft round brush in Photoshop. The rest is situational.

I usually test new brushes by taking them into my comfort zone and seeing if the brush makes the process easier or harder. Usually it's a quick character portrait, just making sure that the new tool helps instead of hurts. If you have to wrestle with it, find something else. Use what feels fun, playful, natural, comfortable for you.

If the infinite brush universe is distracting you, seriously- just find 3 brushes that you love and practice the fundamentals with that. What makes for a good, small brush kit? One hard, one soft, one textured. Add more when you need it, but don't feel like you need a huge kit of flashy fun stuff to be an awesome digital artist.

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Thank you SO MUCH to everyone that submitted questions and were Patrons this month. You're all making my life so much more flexible and reducing my stress like crazy by being a part of this big adventure with me. Have a wonderful July!