warm ups before we pack the car

I know I know.  You don't "warm up" before you get in a car and drive 6 hours to San Fran....  But I love drawing LOOOVE ITT!!!!  So here you go.  A couple of Venoms and a scene from the city.  I'm doing thumbnail quickies for the GN

I made one brush and made all of these.  Here's The Brush, try it out lemme know what you think. 
1 lil brush  I've been told it's incompatible with anything but CS5.

New Prints

New Art Prints available in the store and at the con this weekend!!!!

CLICKY CLICKY

Wonder Con Booth number and info

Wonder Con is Next Weekend!!!!!!

 Artist Alley Booth AA-080

3 Art Books to choose 

All signed with a sketch,

"That's crazy", you might think

So excited you might wretch

Jewelry from the Blue Pig

for you or your girl,

Images so cute

to make the toes curl

Art Prints to frame

of otters, giraffes, and more

Robots, spies, and galloping flugnuts

Stuff not in the store

Card games of squirrels chasing nuts,

And Monkies throwing Poo

 A portfolio to peruse

Originals and a commission or two

So come on down

and support the art

it's quite a good weekend

quit being a lazy.....person

Jonny on the Spot

From Last weeks Drawing Club costume figure drawing club of coolness.  The other artists and info can be found here

Morning warmup

This mornings warm up inspired by these crazy photos

Nyiragongo Crater: Journey to the Center of the World

In June 2010, a team of scientists and intrepid explorers stepped onto the shore of the lava lake boiling in the depths of Nyiragongo Crater, in the heart of the Great Lakes region of Africa. The team had dreamed of this: walking on the shores of the world's largest lava lake. Members of the team had been dazzled since childhood by the images of the 1960 documentary "The Devil's Blast" by Haroun Tazieff, who was the first to reveal to the public the glowing red breakers crashing at the bottom of Nyiragongo crater. Photographer Olivier Grunewald was within a meter of the lake itself, giving us a unique glimpse of it's molten matter. (The Big Picture featured Olivier Grunewald's arresting images of sulfur mining in Kawah Ijen volcano in East Java, Indonesia, in a December 2010 post.)

Caved In

I liked this one so you's gets a bigger version of it.

From last weeks drawing club.  I forgot to post these whoops.  View the fantabulous unforgettable flamboyantly fantastic Figure drawings by other artists here

morning warm up

Morning warm up.  1 hour and 5 minutes.  Man I went over by 5 minutes...trying to keep these to an hour.

GET BEANED!

So I've got a new art store up and ready.  Check it out!  I will have more Prints and jewelry soon from Blue Pig Design House after Wonder con.  THE ART STORE

morning warm up

Another warm up.  I think I'm hitting a mix of Betteo and Loish.  2 excellent artists.  I realized I really wanted to draw women and take notice of how women draw women.  There's a strength, beauty, and nuance that a ton of men painters never grasp and just make too gratuitous.  I like capable and strong and still beautiful and sexy which I see women paint.  Makes sense in my mind that women will paint women better.  Not always the case but I like the way they portray "themselves."

quickie

Gnomon Class Demo last week

A bit Fishy

Took a red pencil sketch to the finish.  Bout 2 hours total. 

Freelancing from the POV of the freelancer: Extreme Edition

"Practice is the difference between having to take a job and choosing a job to take."

Freelancing from the POV of the freelancer

Freelancers, there are a lot of us.  Some taking commissions, some full on 9 month “extended stay” contracts but all share a common need for information and general guidelines.  Here are my observations in my time spent doing this.  Many clients over many finished and started ideas; hopefully the freelancers out there can gain some insight from this.  Hopefully this guide will help you avoid missteps, problems, headaches, and general misconceptions of clients and our industry.

These terms are for Generalists and some Specialists.  Generalists have a solid foundation across the board regarding designing characters, environments, color and light and general know how.  Specialists have more prominent foundations and sometimes excel at one defining type like a character Artist or genre specific artist (medieval, sci fi etc).  Know who you are and what you bring to the table.  Some freelancers might be able to do everything, but if all they have are pinups to see, don't blame the clients for second guessing you.  If you hate unicorns, don't put any in your portfolio because you should assume that's what the client will ask for. 

Freelancers need to be responsive and Agile, a winning personality, know their limitations, need to leave their egos behind, and be a great communicator. I will breakdown each of these steps that I think are necessary.  There are of course more and I will write more journals if necessary, but for now these I think are the most important ones.

Responsive:  Every project, problem, and let's face it, personality is an individual snowflake of awesome sauce and frustration.  In the game world they call this process agile development.  Agile means that the ever changing landscape and scope of the project changes often; which happens.  Not necessarily in card game art or manuals and commissions but in games, film, and TV things can change quickly.  Your responsiveness to change will be rewarded with continued work and a good reputation which you want.  Can you wrap your head around a steam punk remake of the Matrix and then turn that around and create steam punk Care Bears because the "moneybags" got scared of Sci fi and thinks kids are stupid?  This is a dramatic, and to me traumatic, change but it's happened.  Your ability to work within their guidelines and issues will help you drastically.  Practice and preparing for these issues will enhance your chances of success and more freelance from this client.  You will build a solid foundation of knowing what they want and they will be confident you can achieve big picture items.

A Winning Personality:  The difference between an amateur and a professional is a professional only complains on the inside.  DO NOT GET DEFENSIVE.  When someone is paying you and they ask for changes, sending an email about why you made your choices or why you think you are right is juvenile and silly.    Deal with the ego, it's there project and that's why you have your own so you can have an outlet.  We all get frustrated.  Slamming another artist, professional, or producer is disrespecting and all pride driven.  We’ve all shared in bad art, we’ve all made bad decisions so I caution you not to throw your own stones.  (What was their time frame?  Who were THEY answering to?  There’s just so much happening on any project everyone just does there best.)  Here's what I do, I type it all in email form alllll the things I really want to say.  I read it and then delete it.  I usually keep the first and last sentence as they are both generally nice and warm.  We all have bad days, but a professional works through it and figure a way to make it work.  To a client which all he sees is artwork, ask for changes, and changes to make it look the way they want it, that's a winning personality and will get you more work.  (By the way, this is really hard)

Limitations:    Limitations come in all types.  We can speak of limitations of the project (budget, game type, etc)   If the characters you are making is for an IPhone MMO you now have limitations on what you can make.  Working within the games guidelines is essential to making it work.  You can't just start putting tentacles on it because you like that freaky deak stuff.  If there are only 4 bones in a character or only 5 props to make, how do you fix the problem given the limitations?  A different limitation is introspective and less about the client. Where are you at?  Do you see the other people doing what you do?  Are your prices competitive?  Are you actually able to provide what your client asked you for?  Did you bite off too much?  If you have never done textures, don't take a job until you feel like you've earned the right to be paid.  Artists generally have a hard time assessing where they are.  It's a harsh reality to know there are 1,000's of us who can do it.  Stay competitive, practice, and work hard on your inconsistencies and weak points.  This will help you in the long run, maybe not the short term.  But at this point we're talking career not job focus.

I am going to break this up into 2 types of communicator; both are needed for you to thrive as a freelance artist. 

Great Communicators:  Artists are generally not good at communicating real information.  We can all nerd out on our favorite TV shows, ask why Hellboy 1 and 2 were so vastly different, and who shot first?  Artists tend to believe that this is communicating.  Most freelance clients out there are necessarily nerds.  They are driven and focused people and although can hold their own in a Plants Vs Zombies conversation on who would REALLY win they are in that position because of professionalism.  Know when to talk straight and when to joke.  They are separate but both needed.  Great communicators, especially over emails, know what questions to ask.  Asking about expectations, laying out how you will work together, if the client came to you ask what images grabbed their attention and disassemble why THEY liked it.  Was it color choices, style, or Pen and ink?  They could like the character because he's cute but not want anything to do with the heavy ink lines you used.  This is up to the freelancer to hear the client and determine what they are after.  They are paying you and that's the deal.  They pay, you do your best to make them happy.  Its art, but it's a job as well and figuring out what your client wants, understanding THEIR needs, and applying it will be a better reputation and will mean more work.  Communication on what both parties want to see.  I cannot stress this enough to understand what the relationship will be is effective communication.  (I call it a relationship because that’s what it is.  It’s not one sided.  You need to trust they will take care of your needs as well.  When you talk that first time, it’s awkward.  Do you like each other?  Should you call back, no, wait 3 days right?  Don’t look eager….  It sounds like a new relationship to me.)

 You need to understand the client, you don't have to agree, love, believe in the client’s project but you HAVE to understand them and vice versa.  (Some clients want you to love their idea and that’s up to you if you feel like acting/lying or telling the truth.  I’ve lost jobs from speaking honestly but I don’t like lying/ acting).  They have to know what to expect from you.  Show the client a Breakdown how you work and don't leave anything to chance.  Clients will always ask for more and more and unless you state how you work and what you provide it's your own fault if you get dragged down into working that many hours for that little pay.  That's the world; people will get whatever they can for what they need it for.  You have to be a bit of it yourself.  The only way to do that is be up front and truthful and it will serve you well.  A good friend of mine said the most powerful word a freelancer has at his disposal is the word, “No.”  It may cost you that job but that is shortsighted and you’re in this for the long haul.  Most clients will meet you in the middle.  Standing your ground and not being walked on is also part of the relationship, boundaries (Nice tie in I know).  This is a soft rule as some clients are wicked awesome and if you like them do favors, have fun etc.  Just know that you have to communicate effectively or burn out, fatigue, and general malaise will set in of you continually get abused.  A disheartened artist is of no use to the world. 

Stay happy and stay sane.  Good luck and I hope this helps at least one person out there.

“Be happy with how far you’ve come, but not satisfied with where you’re at.”

                                                                                                -Brett “2D” Bean

Nuts Cards

Just a smattering of the artwork from the new card game Nuts!  It's getting positive reviews and again I want to reiterate the awesomeness of Matthew Grau, Mike Vaillancourt, and Sandstorm for all their hard work and devotion to these type of games. 

Gnomon School of Visual FX class update

I just accepted teaching at Gnomon School of Visual FX Character Design class full time. I was subbing for Advanced Character Design but they offered me the opportunity to teach character design 1 .  It is taught Wed. nights and Sunday mornings.  Here's a link to the class although I think it's already sold out.  LINK

Another Spy and quick video tutorial

I did another spy from the drawing session last thursday and did a quick tutorial online.  Videos are on the right side under video tutorials or this link

Random drawings this week

Spied On (Costume Design figure studies)

Some highlights of the night last Thursday.  I may have a 2nd set soon.  Might set up a new tutorial on it for vimeo.  Check back!

Wondercon is just a few short weeks away!

Con Time again ladies and gents!

The Bean Team will be at Wondercon all 3 days with new art prints, new jewelry from Blue Pig Design House, card games, and books to peruse.  Come on by, say hi and let's look at some awesome art, sneak peak new movies, and have a great weekend! Here's a link to the site for tickets, schedule, and other info on the Con.  IMA LINK

A guide for Freelancers (From the Clients point of view)

I will be writing some guides for the interested parties about our industry.  I receive lots of emails and questions at cons so I will try to say as much as I've learned here.  My first guide

A guide for Freelancers (From the Clients point of view)

I have noticed a lot of smaller companies are emerging and that means a lot more freelance work available for people like me.  I also know that a few people follow this blog that are thinking of starting out a company or have already.  Hopefully this guide can help shed some light on what you, as the client, can ask for along with important misnomers, word usage, and feedback guidelines freelancers and concept artists look for. 

These terms are all for Generalists and not Specialists.  Generalists have a solid foundation across the board regarding designing characters, environments, color and light, and general know how.  Specialists have more prominent foundations and sometimes excel at one defining type like a character Artist or genre specific artist (medieval, sci fi etc).  Be careful whom you choose as they may be above excellent in one area but suffer because of neglect in another.  Both directions are pertinent but when choosing your freelancer, this is good to know.

Some Definitions:

Concept Artist:  A beginning stage in pre-production.  Concept Artists (which I call Designers because that's what we really do is design)  are the most affordable and quick way to help realize a game, elevator pitch, or general idea you might have.  They develop the look and feel, establish designs for character, environments, and props.  Character turnarounds, call-outs, and color keys should be available to you by the concept artist.  Other words people relate to this are Visual Development artists.  More often than not from what I have seen, visual development artists are in the Movie/TV type and Concept Artists tend to fall into Games and Live Action.  This is in no way a "Hard rule."  Concept artists generally use pixel based art programs like Photoshop/Painter.  This will be important later down the road as a small developer.

Illustrator:  This is the person you want to make the box art and any pieces to "wow" a potential moneybag or "investor".  They make high quality finished 2D art pieces for book covers, cards, kids books, manuals, and posters.  Many concept artists are illustrators but not enough clients in this growing field are differentiating these classic groups.  Bigger images take longer time and are more intense.  More money is usually spent on these images.  Illustrators can be concept artists but I've noticed a trend of illustrators making a ton of concept art that makes no sense, no real design work, etc.  Some illustrators will not help you in your visual development from start of an idea to ready to build in game.

Game Artist:  These are 2D or 3D game artists that are production ready.  Mostly specialists in a given genre (Pixel artists, 3D artist, flash, UI designer etc)  Not a "hard rule" but I rarely see a pixel artist working in 3D o a flash animator messing ina  pixel based game.  These people know the limitations of a program, an engine, or design.  Some of the other types of artists get that but these people are used to working with constraints.  They take the vis dev art and concept artist renders and make them final assets for in game.  If you are making a flash based game make sure you look for game artists that make art you like in the means you make it.  Just asking someone to make the art they make in a completely different format does not bode well for either of you. 

Here's a good time to explain the difference: 
Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level.
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based on mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics.
Vector art can be scaled with no loss while pixel art looses fidelity when manipulated.  There are always ways around this but this is just a general rule.  FYI CSI Miami you're wrong, you can't enhance a pixelated image, doesn't work and it's stupid.

Feedback:  clients tend to fall into 2 different categories.  Directors and "Wristers".  A general rule of thumb is determine who your director or feedback person is going to be.  Don't bounce around with your freelancer.  Keep it to one person to build a rapport and "language" between them.
Directors are the right way to work with freelancers.  They direct the game, pitch, idea.  They find what the strengths are of the artist and use them to the highest ability they can muster.  "The head is too big, smaller hands, punching up the contrast or adding a shadow are all within the boundaries."  They orchestrate on many different levels between disciplines.  Try to remember that even though you are paying for it, abuse is unwarranted and you will end up with art that could be better if the artist felt comfortable.  Just type the words "great, can we just add this this and this?  Looking great but this could change."  It's not a lot but I guarantee you that the artist is willing to work harder and longer for someone that didn't beat them over the head with negativity.

"Wristers"  I don't think I made up this word, I apologize to whoever told me and receives no credit but I like it.  These are clients that want you to do exactly what they want how they want it.  They don't want the artists brain or ideas, just their wrist.  Paint this like this because I can't.  Make my game like angry birds so I can sell it.  I can't pay him so you do it like them. Wristers are tiring to the freelancer and can demotivate.  If you hired them, why take away the one thing that made them desirable in the first place (the individual)?  Do not confuse this with positive feedback to make something better (Like I really like the way Cheeks does his shapes, can we push it further? or I really like bunnies, can we add a bunny?)

Prices vary and remember you get what you pay for.  I use hourly rates as well as sliding scales dependent on amount of work and length.  Every job is a snowflake so don't expect a hard answer when all you ask a freelancer is how much to make stuff for me?  Is it a complex game?  Iphone?  MMO? all these can effect the price.  Hourly should not.  Hourly is Agile as well.  Games change but if you signed a contract for Sci Fi gerbils with ninja swords and then ask them to change over to Project Gollum racing you may have issues.  With hourly you can cut losses quickly and stay in budget.  Generally speaking a breakdown can go like this.  A certain price will get you this for an image:
Thumbnail and one major revision- get approval
tightened pencils/inks and one major revision- get approval
color comp and one major revision- get approval
finished color and one major revision- finished

Design for character environment:
Thumbnails and explorations- get approval or back to start until ready
Tightened pencils or ink- get approval

color comp- get approval
finished color- finished

You want structure so there is no backtracking.  If each stage is approved with a major edit everyone should be on the same page and happy.  You don't have to get to stage 4 and then say hold up.  Wasteful on both ends.

Hopefully this helps.  I will be posting a section for the freelancers point of view in the coming days.  By all means this is not a definitive statement or a done deal.  Just observations in the industry.  Comments and civilized discussions are always welcome over email or comment section.

UnforBrettable

UnforBrettable

So after the con I decided to do a small comic strip about the lead up to the con.  An inordinate amount of "stuff" happened leading up to Emerald Con so I am going to put it in pictures. 

New book is available at the store OLD ONES ON SALE!

the new book is ready. $15 for 100 pages, full color, 5x7 signed.  Observations at the coffee shop.  If I normally see you just send me a line and I'll bring it when I see you.  As a special introduction of this book my other 2 books are on sale right now for a limited time!!!!  Once the others are gone, that's it, no more.  Collectors item for sure!

Emerald City Comicon

Some highlights of the con pics.  Sitting and talking with Graham Annable was great ( I spoke earlier in the bog about Grickle).  Scott Campbell was a fine fellow next door as well.  Camilla d'Errico was as pleasant as always.  The con was excellent and as icing on the cake I got a chance to shop talk with Sean Cheeks Gallaway, Skottie Young, and Sparth.  I hope to see them all at Wondercon and find time for a beer.  Please click on their names and see all the great stuff they make as artists.  And to all the people, thanks for coming down and meeting me.  I do not take it lightly that I get to do all this awesome stuff and isn't possible without the good people in the cities to come and see us each year.  You make me laugh, you make me continue to work, and you make it all worth doing. Thanks for stopping by on a continual basis and supporting 2 artists on their journey.

-Brett and Julie Bean

Shipyard

Still establishing the look and feel to my universe.  Here's a study of the wasteland/ skyline from the City.

An experiment in art printing

I am trying a new idea for the first time at Emerald City Comic Con.  A limited edition art print.  Only 100 and only at the con.  Signed and numbered.  9*12.  Here's a small version.  I just remember going to the Seattle Supersonics games with my father and we always passed the same thing every time we went.  So the Seattle print is my memories of Seattle through my youth.  I'll see you there.

Nuts n Poo!

I am soooo excited.  I finally got my hands on the new card game Nuts!  Wildfire LLC and Sandstorm sent me a care package of both of the games.  The reason I'm so jazzed is I did all the illustrations for the game.  I love monkeys, I love squirrels.  One throws Poo, the other steals nuts.  I will have them at the Con.  Sandstorm did a superb job on the marketing and presentation.  Matthew Grau made a brilliant set of games as the designer and Mike Vaillancourt art directed the projects.  As I was freelancer I can't name anyone else but I'm sure more people had plenty to do with these games.  Here's some pics of the fun.  good for most ages 2-6 players. 

Video game rant

Ok, I play games.  I spend a ton of time enjoying them, and a ton of time dissecting and "ughing" them as well.  A trend I am seeing, mostly a company that I won't name but start with Call and ends in Duty, I've got a beef.  Games have always been in love with movies and so they try and recreate the tones, scenes, and violence they depict.  I do believe there is something about the violence in games issue here as some of these companies are making you do things that only Jack Bauer does and I can sit back and my conscious is clean.  Games are missing that key element when I can watch a horror movie and go "aww, none of that I have to do".  I'm clear.  Bioshock gives you choice, help the girls or destroy them.  I always saved but have no issue when others don't because I got to play the way I play.  Playing off of consequences and peoples decisions is a powerful tool.  GTA you can  play an entire game without killing hookers or the innocent.  I am talking about when I don't have a choice and the uncanny valley merging.  These games are now making me put a piece of glass in a person mouth then repeatedly punch him in the face until he talks.  The last game made me shoot civilians in an airport.  I played that stage 8 times dying each time because it wouldn't let me play the whole level without killing people.  I tried, lord I tried.  And then I sold the game immediately.  And that's the deal, taking away my right to choose is forcing me to play these games their way, the opposite of what makes games different then movies. And I'm not talking games that revolve around "Saw" etc.  Notice I'm not talking about the violence as I knew what games I pick up.  Bad guys shoot at me, I shoot back.  If these games were called Black Ops Jack Bauer edition or Splinter Cell: interrogation head into water faucet Theory I couldn't have complaints. The issue is torturing without the ability to decline and killing innocent people because I have to to keep playing in games that aren't about that. This is lazy design.  It's not edgy, it's not taboo, it's lazy.  Give me choice.  k, done, I'll post art later.