Pa's first commission: debrief

[Pa_Hsia]

Last Friday I was planning a quiet weekend working on Ghoul of Flame (amongst other things), when - out of the blue - I got a phone call. A colleague at work had recommended me to his old teacher who desperately needed an artist to come up with a character design, an illustration and, ideally, a map for a funding pitch for his new game/webisodic animation series. My name got dropped and my weekend was thoroughly ninja'd.

[Images removed - sorry]

Things I learned this weekend:

• Photoshop's Pen tool is not as evil as I had suspected. The illo took a full 20 hours of learning, swearing and seeing Bezier curves every time I closed my eyes. After that, the characters took a little less than 2 hours each.
• You should read the crits for all the art posted - even if it isn't to your taste, you never know when a client is going to ask for something in a style you've never tried before and, in this case, the thick outline/thin detail lines trick is not something I would have picked up from the art brief.
• Speaking of art briefs, don't limit yourself to one style; try several or - failing that - at least expose yourself to the widest variety of styles you can, and try new things all the time. I strongly believe that art should be hard, because if it isn't, you're not developing.
• Keep your portfolio up-to-date, and include a CV and your skill-set. I got hired on the basis of having a variety of art styles on display, a degree and listing Photoshop as one of my primary skills, although the ridiculously tight deadline probably helped too (commissioned Friday lunchtime, deadline was Sunday evening).
  Portfolio tips
• Character descriptions really can read something like the Seventh Sanctum character generator, but much less concise.
  They may also be self-conflicting (angelic steampunk golem empaths, anyone?) or three words long.
• Creating Characters with Personality is an invaluable book. It has proved itself a dozen times this weekend. Additionally, 100 Ways to Create Fantasy Figures is good for general character design, not just fantasy.

In short, ninjas beat zombies. No word on pirates, although angelic steampunk golem empaths would beat anyone

Have some 'first commission' cake.

[Professor Az]

You should read the crits for all the art posted - even if it isn't to your taste, you never know when a client is going to ask for something in a style you've never tried before and, in this case, the thick outline/thin detail lines trick is not something I would have picked up from the art brief.

Personally, I would love to see those.  It's always interesting to see other folks point of view.

Have some 'first commission' cake.

Don't mind if I do!  Congrats!   

[Pa_Hsia]

You should read the crits for all the art posted - even if it isn't to your taste, you never know when a client is going to ask for something in a style you've never tried before and, in this case, the thick outline/thin detail lines trick is not something I would have picked up from the art brief.

Personally, I would love to see those.  It's always interesting to see other folks point of view.

Sorry - bad phrasing. I meant I wouldn't have twigged the line weight thing if I hadn't read through critiques on other people's work here at the OMU (your crits on Ybot's work, for example).