[Lunatique]

I've been working on a painting and I'm stomped. I had imagined the wolves would be the hardest to paint, with all that fur, but that was relatively easy compared to painting the girl's dress! OMIGOD I swear I'm about to tear all of my hair out over it!

Here's the piece(it is UNFINISHED! Don't look at all the unfinished ugly spots!!!):



My problem is that I want the material for her dress to look like satin/silk, but I've looked at references, studied how light bounces off of my wife's satin/silk clothing, analyzed Sargent's paintings where he depicts that kind of material with just a few friggin' simple brush-strokes(!!!)..etc etc.

And I'm still stuck. I THINK I know what the formula is, but I'm UNSURE.

I just want to get some feedback from you guys on this tricky matter.

Here are some examples of the kind of look I'm after:

[Ian Jones]

Nice painting!

Silk / Satin... hrm I have never tried painting it before, but the first thing I would say to you (because you have some knowledge of 3D, I think?) is Fresnel Falloff! Maybe a similar approach of thinking is neccessary.

I just went and had a look at my boxer shorts to see the effect. I couldn't quite see the falloff idea working in reality, but one of the most important other things I noticed was that just like a highly specular surface (eg metal) the highlights are quite sharp. The highlights were also quite intense and saturated. Within the highlights I saw many many more highlights as I looked more closely at the individual threads of fabric. So, like painting snow I think you should add teeny little 'sparkles' into the highlighted areas to simulate this effect. These 'sparkles' will need to be pretty regular in size, otherwise the effect will be destroyed by obvious changes in spec size, so perhaps using the 'noise' filter rather than painting specs may be a better approach. Maybe you could even say that these highlights were 'anistropic'. Check http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/aniso_ref/aniso_ref.htm for a definition of anistropic (but you probably already know anyway)

I think you have done some really great folds in her clothes already! It has a smooth feeling, which is a good base to improving the silk / satin further. Try and find a real life example of the material... I find those two reference photos a bit hard to figure out and maybe no thte best examples. You almost need to see the way light moves across the surface as the material moves to see the whole effect. Anyway... I hope this helps.

Maybe Spooge will just waltz in here and say some magic words... good luck!

[Giant Hamster]

I'm probably no help here, but....It seems what makes the fabric look like the fabrics supposed to look like is:

Anything that's angled from where you're looking is darker. so, in your drawing, the back would be darker, as would ontop of her shoulders, and such. and in the dark recesses the details of the fabric should show - the embroidery. the lighter portions are just kind of flat.

Also the fabric looks pretty blotchy too. so, random splots all over. =P

ehhhhh, yeah - *vanishes*

[Lionel]

Well if you want to look at artists that paint satin I would sugest looking at ingres as he is possibly closer to your style than sargent is and paints cloth sooo well.

http://www.artrenewal.com/images/artists/i/Ingres_Jean_Auguste_Dominique/large/Ingres_Baronne_James_de_Rothschild.jpg

http://www.artrenewal.com/images/artists/i/Ingres_Jean_Auguste_Dominique/large/Ingres_Vicomtesse_Othenin_d-Haussonville.jpg

I think the main reason that your image seems to be having problems is that you are thinking to much about how the cloth reflects light and not enough about the properties of the colth itself. Satin and silk don't streach. In your painting that fabric is drum tight on the figure and is reacting more like lycra. For me that is what is spoiling the ilusion. Look at the way the fabric flods in thouse ingres paintings and see how it always looks to be lose around the figure and where it bends it crumples then look at the back of your figure and see how the fabric looks streched.

You are making you life very hard by painting dapled light to . Not saying you shouldn't but that is one of the main reasons you will be finding it so hard to pull off. Lastly thous photo refs also look very hard to follow as they have paterns that are woven into the fabric which are changing the way that the fabric is reacting to the light. They are very priety but damm hard to copy . These fabric has a very high spectacular highlight and the pattern is dulling the highlights and putting false highlights into the shadows. I would really try to find some photo ref without pattered fabric like the painting above. Lastly when doing faric is is useful to bear in mind that there are a few folds that all fabric falls into here is a link to ilistrate.

http://www.studioproducts.com/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=3;t=789;hl=wall

I hope you find some useful information somewhere in my ramberlings

[AndyT]

I'd try to add some color. I think there would be some blue because of the sky?
Well I just think so because of the metal/snow comparison and because of the example images.
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[Lunatique]

Lots of great feedback. Thanks!

Ian Jones-- Ya, I know some 3D so I get ya.

Giant Hamster-- I noticed that the highlight from the folds don't always follow the lightsource. You noticed that too?

Lionel-- Excellent feedback. Ya, painting dappled sunlight was...suicide...
I followed your link to studioproducts forum, and I found that thread where Rob(the moderator) belittled Craig Mullins' work
http://www.studioproducts.com/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?s=dd6039fd451b30f3833417e6ebad12b3;act=ST;f=3;t=524;st=0 How did you feel about that? I'm sure Craig's dealt with similar attitudes in the past. I wonder how he feels about it.

AndyT-- Definitely. The painting's not even 70% finished, so lots of stuff to add!!

[Frog]

This is a very quick overpaint but I hope it helps you

Try to think of the form as a whole, the girl is essentially a cylinder, so I painted her as one and worried about the details of the folds later. I painted a big highlight going down the side, just like a metal cylinder might have. You can have few or many folds, I don't think that matters, they can add interest when they catch the light. However don't make the dress too tight or she will look like she's trussed up in rubber

There should also be some dark areas to contrast with the highlights, I didn't have time to do this, but most reflective surfaces have quite dark shadow areas as their diffuse values are often low. Sharp edges on the folds will also give a sense of a reflective surface, although the reflection itself will be fairly blurry and indistinct seeing as the surface is nothing like a perfect mirror, but it does reflect brightly.

Also it helps to give the dress some colour as this gives something for the highlights to stand out against.

As I said my overpaint is rough, but I think it conveys the idea

[/b]

By the way, the wolves are great
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[Lionel]

Lunatique: As to that link about Rob belittled Craig's work it I certainly don't agree with him and I don't think he has looked very carefully at Craigs work and has jumped a little to quickly to his conclusion. I can see where he is comming from so I think it is probably best to bear a few things in mind before one follows ones gut reaction and goes into flame mode .

Firstly Rob is old. This is a very important as his atitude to art is going to be very different from all of us younger artists (even craig is young compaired to Rob). I mean I don't like the same things as my parents and it is hardly suprising that he doesn't get excited about pictures of robots and big brested women in the same way that we do (a bit of a crude example I know and not a reflection on craigs art). I beleve his comment is that craig has the tast of a 13 year old boy which is a bit rude but you need to realise that a lot of craigs work is aimed at people our age.

The second thing is Rob is a phenominally good illistrator with a lot of experience and nothing to prove. He doesn't judge people on their technical ability as he is so good tecnically himself so that is not the thing that is impressive in a painting for him. This means that his criteria for great paintings are not going to be the same as ours. He will judge painting purely on composition which in a lot of cases is an unfair thing to do with a lot of craigs painting as with the matte shots a lot of the time it is somebody elses decision what goes into a shot and with the concept art these are not paintings for the sake of painting but they are there to show locations that game modles can be constructed from not beautiful paintings.

The third is who Rob is judging criag against people like sargent and zorn etc. It is not suprising that when you compair criags work to the greatest painters that ever lived he is not at the top of the list. Criag is certainly my favorate digital painters but that doesn't mean I wouldn't rather own a lucian freud or a sargent over one of craigs works.

The fourth thing is Rob is very Opinionated. If you read through that forums you will see him piss an aweful lots of people off. It is very easy to read through his messages and as soon as you find something you pasionatly disagree refuse to listen anything else he says. I think there is quite enough intolorance in the world and while I might not agree with his ramblings (Especially his politics!!!!) that doesn't mean I can't see that he is a brillient illistrator with and aweful lot of very good information on illistration.

The fith thing is as a general rule Rob doesn't like scifi ilistration and fantasy ilistration which encompases a lot of Craigs work. His point as I see it is most fantasy ilistration uses a lot of cheep tricks to give pictures a big punch. Think of it as sprinkeling monosodum glutimate all over your food. Rob has done a lot of illistration and knows all these tricks and is more concerned with the subtalties of composition rather than getting punch as he sees that as much more of a chalange and the goal of great art. Think of it this way I enjoy listening to stadium Rock and own lots of Aerosmith cds (I can't beleve I just admitted to that :/) I do however understand that the great musicians of the world are the clasical composers who write their songs with a lot more subtalty. I how ever like like punch in my music just as I am sure you all like punch in your art.

With all thouse reasons I think it is easy to see why Rob holds the view that he does and I don't think it is a completly unreasnoble view even I I don't agree. The reason for this is I think that Rob is unfairly judgeing Craigs work based on the work he does as illistration for companies. Since Rob is judging criags stuff by composition it seems unfair for Rob to make a snap decision based on much of the work on that web site which is done for companies who want some very specfic painting (look at the sketches that Criag got for the fantisy sketchs he did a while back to bais his paintings on). I think if rob based his judgement on the stuff Craig does in his free time I think he might come to a different conclusion. Rember that Rob is not dismissing Craigs skill but his choice of subject and composition and in most of the work on Criags web site is out of his control.

I reallise that saying Craigs work is not great art in this forum is like showing a red flag to a bull and I hope that people don't write of Rob and have a good read of that forum as there is an aweful lot of really good stuff there. From a personal point of view the more I think about what Rob said the more I find myself agreeing with him about some things. A lot of what is on Craigs site may not be great art and I doubt will it be apearing next to people like sargent, caravagio etc which is how Rob is judging it. This doesn't mean that you can't enjoy it after all I enjoy my aerosmith and thouse calsical people can keep their mozart but this doesn't mean I will be trying to clain that aerosmith made the greatest music ever. I do think that Rob is writing of Craigs work to lightly and I see him createing a lot of really interesting stuff recently that I think has a lot of real artistic value. It is interesting that as Craig gets older he creates art that leans more and more towards Robs taste in art with more subtal compositions in stuff like his life paintings. Prehaps there are some things that we can only see with experiance.

Sorry if I offended anyone as I understand that this is going to be a very sensitive issue.

Lionel

[Matthew]

Hello
Some very interesting thoughts there Lionel.
As what I think is that Craig has found a very unique style with his Digital painting and that most of his work is very cool. As compared with many other artist Craig has the Courage to post even his Bad pictures which is in his Bad Gallery ( according to him) which I think contain very nice pictures too.

Keep the Brush in the air
Matthew

btw - nice picture Lunatique can�t wait to see it finished, I hope you will post the finished one.

[Anthony]

Mmm, interesting problem with the satin. Perhaps you should first ignore the lighting, and apply it after you've gotten the angle of incidence shading correct. Which would mean her side, the side of her breast, etc, would be lighter, and her stomach/back would be darker. The wrinkles in the dress would be defined by a lighter streak running the ridgeline of the wrinkle, and darker on each side. It'll be extra important to really understand the shape of the figure though, since you have basically two shading models going on at once.

As for Rob, Everybody's welcome to his opinion, but elites tend to be just as blind as complete novices, caught up in the technical aspects of the art - and that's what it really is when you start talking about the composition, subject matter, etc. Its like looking at a girl's face and judging her beauty on the curvature of her nostrils. There are many combinations of features that make beauty, many of which would look out of place or even ugly in another set of features. As Shakespeare said, How absolute the knave is! If you've ever read of Godel's theorem, its ultimately impossible to assign a formal system that can cover all contingencies. In the end its up to the individual's intuitive senses that will say whether this piece of art is great or not. Art's elites have been able, in some cases, to convince the general public that a certain artist is worth having on the wall, because his art is "great," even when the person may not even like the image, or likes it solely because he's told its great. This is madness, but its the shell that art's elites have built up over the years. I'll trust in my own intuition on whether I like a piece than trust in some person intent on seperating himself and those of like mind by trashing everything that doesn't fit their formulas.

That said, I do enjoy looking at composition in a piece, and I love the classics, and don't like modern art. I also love logic systems and looking behind the scenes at the theme parks, to see what's making that river flow. But that's for me to like, and the next guy to dislike. This is art, not mathematics - and to try to reduce it to mathematics, and find some rapture if 2+2=4 is cheating yourself of what's great in art. Its fine to find pleasure in that side of it too, but its far from everything, so if you only see that side of it, you're blind.
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[Lunatique]

I updated the pic--except I haven't done anything more on the dress yet.

Frog-- Hehe, I thought about a more saturated color too, but it wouldn't fit her personality(there's a story to this piece). I dig the overpaint you did. Maybe I ought to paint it without the dappled sunlight first, then add the dappled stuff in after I've worked out the overall feel for the dress.

Lionel-- You know, I agree with a lot of what Rob said too, but what I couldn't forgive was how quickly he dismissed Craig's work. I bet he looked at less than 5 images before he typed his rude comments. If he had bothered to look at majority of Craig's site, and read some of the text, he would've been more understanding of the nature of Craig's work, and that he's not JUST about robots and guns.

Then, I read in another thread where he's talking people's ear off(while being insufferably condescending) about how art is about imagination, creativity, and doing what YOU, the artists wants to do--unrestricted by reality and rules..blah blah blah, and art is not just about copying a photo or copying from a life model..blah blah. Sounded like he contradicted every reason he didn't like or respect about Craig's art.

And WHAT is so wrong with having the taste of a 13-yr old boy? It's the young that are the dreamers, and with imagination and a hopeful heart-- that slowy dies as we get older. Seems to me he's one foot in the grave already.

Anthony-- ya, that's what I'm going to do. Thanks.

[Frog]

OK - without the colour

The crucial thing is that the main form of the dress has a large highlight to suggest that it's made of a reflective material like satin. For the dappled light I would suggest taking out a chrome kitchen implement outdoors under a tree and see what happens. Or even a satin dress for that matter.




As for the other debate, this won't win me any friends but I'm with Rob. I think Craig's style is fantastic but I hate the subject matter. This goes for Sijun as a whole too, and Eatpoo and CGtalk. Great technical resources but I'm sick of seeing the same old sci-fi and fantasy work over and over again. It's just too ... adolescent.

I can say in all honesty that this forum has changed my life, I never thought of painting in Photoshop before stumbling in here just over a year ago. I make my living from drawing and coming here has added an awful lot to what I can do, I've learnt more than you can imagine from this place and the artists who post their work and knowledge here. But at the end of the day all I can get from this place is technical stuff, cos I just don't like fantasy, sci fi or manga - it just all seems like cheese to me. I wouldn't mind it so much if there was a bit more variety, but it's all the same and seems to be self reinforcing, the only people who offer a breath of fresh air are Phil Williams and Socar Myles - and thank god for them.

Sorry to anyone this has offended, I'm not out to hurt anyone's feelings I just want to put forward a point of view, hopefully it won't make me too many enemies...
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[Lionel]

I agree with you that Rob must have looked at about 5 images and that he would probably have a different view. I can simpathise as I find fantasy art a bit unstimulating at the best of times and if you pick the wrong pictures I can see how he quickly gave up. I did have a go at getting him to look harder but he didn't seem interested :/. Well I can't say I mind it is his loss .

Like I said earlier Rob is very opinionated and can be rude and very condersending. I find it very hard to read the stuff he has posted about politics without feeling a deep need to shout and scream my objections . I have to say I do find most of what he has to say on the subject of art to be sound. I agree with a lot of what he has to say about fantasy art and most of his comments on composition are sound. My impression of Rob is he is a bit of a troll something I have been acused of. He does like to say contrversal things (about which he is usually correct) and have a good argument. His atitude is to tell people exactly what he thinks and not try and not spare peoples opinion as he feels that is the way that people improve the quickest. For example with maths your teacher doesn't look at you wrong answers and say well if you look at it from this point of view you are kind of right wheras there is a really bad habit of people doing this with art. Don't get me wrong I think he could do with being a bit more polite but at least if you ask him about something he may be rude but you will get an honist answer which for me counts a lot. The other important thing is that he feels that if you insult somebodys art you are not insulting them. I agree with them. If somebody tells me my painting looks like it was done by a 8 year old I don't fell that they are telling me that I am a bad person. Your message sounds like you have got very anoyed but thouse comments. I would say that he is not trying to insult Craig personally all he is saying is that he doesn't care for the artwork he has seen (he does say craig has excellent technique) . Don't let that upset you it hardly matters if he likes the paintings as there are more than enough of us who do to make up the numbers . There are many things in life worth getting worked up about but the comments of a random person on the internet isn't one of them . What I am trying to say in a very round about way is don't get upset with Rob and his rather tackt less way and ignore that forum and all the great information it contains. For example this link here contains more useful information in it the most of the art tutorials I have read put together.
http://www.studioproducts.com/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=2;t=182

As to what Rob means when he talks about all that imagination. creativity etc He doesn't mean just making things up but it is something much deeper than that it is trying to use the paint to create images that give you more of a reaction to them than just a plain old photo. I am not saying that Craig doesn't achive this I am just saying he means something a little deep than making up cool designs and pictures from your head.

As to what is wrong with having the tast of a 13 year old boy I am with you there is nothing wrong with that at all. It is a bit depressing to say that ones creativity dies as we get older I would disagree and say that as you get older you develop a more refined taste. I love hollywood action moves I fully expect to move onto a more intelectual class of moves as I grow older this doesn't mean that I will become a better more meaningful person it just means I will change. I am sure that I will enjoy films the same amount before and after. Some change isn't bad or good it is just different.

[Giant Hamster]

Craig is great and is able to make something enjoyable with minimal detail.

I personally think art should be fun to look at. Just as music should be fun to listen to...and food should be fun to eat. Rollercoasters should be fun to ride, sports should be fun to play, and I think we all know where this is heading. If the art isn't visually appealing - I don't care how well you did it, how difficult of a technique you used, how correct your angles are, how correct your composition is or how highly you're praised.

arf - 4:30 am and I'm tired of typing already...goodnight.

*enters even more childish comment mode* lucian freud sucks fat sweaty balls. Craig rocks, hardcore.

Oh, and Luna: Yeah, I noticed that. =P anything facing directly at the camera will look flatter...and stuff that's tilted away from the camera is automatically darker ignoring all light sources. kind of how tinfoil reflects - which also might be something good to stare at for a while.

[Lunatique]

Updated. FINALLY it's starting to look half-way decent.

[Frog]

Hehe, much better

Only crit would be to have a brighter highlight going down the very edge of her back, and also the thing where her sleeve meets her arm looks a bit odd.
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[spline]

I don�t think the dress is such a big problem. I think its good. And its a very nice picture, but I think it needs more contrasts with much darker shadows and more color, here skin also needs darker shadows...

[Anthony]

Dress is looking good now Luna. I did a quick color paintover to show one way you might go, to liven up the image a little. Not better, just another possibility.

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[Dr. Bang]

listen to Anthony on that repaint Luna!
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[balistic]

Silk is nearly metallic in how it reacts to diffuse falloff:


(50kb two frame anim, be patient)

You might try getting another band of dark/mid-dark in there, as I've done with a quick masked levels adjustment. You can almost treat silk like a blurry chrome, or brushed metal. Nice piece, BTW.
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[Impaler]

The problem with digital illustration is that traditional artists outnumber us 100 to 1, and until that ratio becomes a little more even, we'll always be seen as amatuer hobbyists with a novel toy. This is evident in the attitudes of most of those artists on the studio products board. What they don't realize, however, is that most serious digital artists work extensively with traditional media as well.

As for subject matter, arguing that painting pastoral landscapes or old sailboats in a New England harbor is somehow more aligned to the purpose of artistic expression than painting anything else is fallacious. The claim that painting lizards or gundam robots makes you any less of an artist is some sort of erroneous assumption that art is objective. If it makes the audience (or client) happy, then it does its job. Otherwise, it's a bunch of art critics inventing deep insight about something that is artistically devoid of thought.
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QED, sort of.

[Lunatique]

This is what I ended up painting. The fur collar/sleeve aren't painted yet, otherwise, the dress is pretty much finished.

[Dr. Bang]

looking good so far aznpryde
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[Socar MYLES]

Looking awesome so far, Lunatique.

Funny, how folks are talking about Mr. M. here in this thread, though, as though he weren't even here. With the amount of time he spends on this forum, I imagine he's seen this.

As far as fantasy art goes...what a lot of illustrators and artists who've already made it fail to realize (or deliberately ignore) is that fantasy is the biggest damn market out there right now, and therefore the easiest to break into. Personally, I haven't the slightest interest in fantasy. I don't read it, I don't write it, and I don't go out of my way to find it in art. But if I'm going to pay my rent, the easiest way is to paint sf&f illustrations--that and pet portraits, which I doubt that fellow would "approve" of, either. Cute animals and fantasy--that's where the money is.

My actual ambition is to be a comic-book artist and draw horror comics all the time. Horror would probably be considered as childish as fantasy in many circles. But I think any genre can be much more than its stereotype. The only problem is getting the freedom to break genre, the freedom to tell a real story, sort of thing. People don't usually want to pay for what I like to paint. My comic story proposals usually get turned down (only just got my first one accepted, and it's only ten pages). So, yeah--until I get rich and famous enough to paint whatever the hell I want all the time, I paint fantasy...and so do most people. Unless you're a damn genius, it's pretty tough to make a decent living in illustration without paying your dues to the sf&f machine.

Fine art is often a whole different ball game, and it's difficult even to compare the two. Setting up a gallery show is absolutely NOTHING like working with an art director--I've done both, and they have very little in common, except that you've got to paint a bunch of stuff, and there's a deadline.

So, yeah. Dude saw the fantasy art on goodbrush.com, and didn't like it. There's some lovely landscape stuff on there too, though, plenty of non-sf&f illustration. I suppose it's easy to condemn, however...blarr. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth, artists bashing at one another. Piffle.
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[merlyns]

socar- there is nothing wrong with making money with fantasy art, even if your ambition is still somewhere else, we have to pay rent and bills to.

-david
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[Frog]

Socar, not wishing to pick a fight with you - at all actually - but I don't think your facts are necessarily right.

Fantasy perhaps is the most obvious market to those that frequent places like Sijun, but in the illustration world it is a small and relatively insignificant niche. There are quite a few professional artists here, but most work in-house at games firms or effects houses and there are also a couple of comic book artists. Apart from Craig, Imphead, Philip & yourself I have seen no other freelance illustrators here. As a practising and succesful freelancer I can assure you that there are loads of genres that are more important than fantasy, sf etc...

This isn't an attempt on my part to belittle you, or make myself sound important, it is just the simple truth. If you go and look through an illustration sourcebook that actual real world commssioners use to find illustrators you will not see any sf or fantasy art, because in the main markets that source illustration there is no demand for it. The sourcebooks I mean are things like American Showcase, Workbook, Contact, Images, Directory of Illustration etc... I know Spectrum has fantasy stuff in it but I'm afraid that is a niche product, not a mainstream illustration sourcebook.

In reality the majority of illustrators make their living from editorial, publishing and advertising. When's the last time you picked up a mainstream magazine and saw fantasy art in it? Or saw fantasy art on packaging? The truth is there a many markets for illustration, and there are many more styles and genres than the very narrow range we are exposed to here.

This isn't meant as a personal attack, I realise it all sounds harsh but I really respect you and your work Socar. I'm just trying to set the record straight here and point out the realities of the much wider world beyond Sijun. These exist whatever one thinks of any one genre or another, and obviously I've already made my stance clear regarding fantasy art but this point has nothing to do with my personal taste, I'm just talking about the reality of the marketplace.

There is of course a place for fantasy and sci fi, but despite the fact that this is the stuff that dominates the internet it isn't what the vast majority of illustrators actually make their living from. Out of the 20 or so illustrators I count amongst my personal friends here in London not a single one does fantasy type work, in fact the only people I know who do that sort of work are full time employees for games companies.

To illustrate my point I think the best thing is to post some links to some of the biggest illustration agencies in the UK, these will give a true reflection of the illustation marketplace:

The Artworks

The Central Illustration Agency

Folio

Illustration Limited

Meiklejohn

New Division

Debut Art
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[Socar MYLES]

I am aware of these markets, Frog, but they just are not as easy to break into as fantasy illustration--believe me, I've tried, with no luck whatsoever. Fantasy illustration doesn't have quite such a high standard for acceptance, so a lot of artists these days DO have to start there.

I'm not trying to say there ARE no other markets out there, but for a beginner in the professional world, fantasy/sci-fi is often the only place one can easily break in.

I mean, look at it this way--a page in Spectrum is twenty bucks. A page in American Showcase is, what, $500? $1,000? I know a lot of the mainstream sourcebooks are DAMN expensive to get into--you pretty much need to have an agent to put you in there. And guess what? I haven't been able to find an agent who's remotely interested in me, either. As I said in my post, my main interest isn't fantasy illustration at all. I'd rather be drawing comics--and, for fun, painting things which would certainly fall outside the sf&f niche. However, that's the easiest place to make money right now.

I can't remember who said it, but I heard some quote floating around--it came from a literary source, though (a publisher, I believe), not an artistic one: "Fantasy IS the mainstream these days." It may be a niche market, but it's a BIG niche market, where it's extremely, EXTREMELY easy to get work. For a lot of illustrators who haven't got the skills to get into editorial illustration yet, that's all there is.

(As a side-note to that, I always find myself in an annoying position: publishers of sf&f products are forever saying to me "Well, it's nice...but it's not really fantasy, is it?", when they look through my portfolio So I don't even get the prime assignments in THAT market.)
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[Frog]

hehe, going seriously off topic here (did someone say satin?)

A couple of quick points:

I don't think editorial is that hard a market to break into, it's just whether one has a suitable style. Also it's not about standards really, or skill.

I think the best thing about fantasy artists is their technical excellence, there is no doubt to me that the people who post here often possess a great deal of skill and craft. There are many illustrators in the worlds of editorial or advertising who have very abstract and "arty" styles and very little technique or craft in their work - but who are very succesful.

So don't think it's about standards, it's mostly about style and content. If for instance you were seriously trying to get into a specific market it would be crucial to tailor your work towards that market. No point in approaching Vogue with drawings of spaceships, that's not what they would want to see. I'm not aiming this at you personally by the way - it's just a general comment.

I do have a couple of comments that I would make specifically towards you though:

You say you've tried to break into certain markets and have got nowhere, well that is a common experience but don't let it put you off. It takes most people years to build up an illustration career and rejection is part of the game. The only difference between those that succeed and those that don't is perserverance. You have something special and with time you cannot fail to find your niche. Most illustrators spend thousands on self promotion, my advertising budget for next year is about �5000. And yes, a page in American Sourcebook costs $2300, but I am going to be in it by sharing the cost with others and taking out a joint page, ditto with the Workbook and also a couple of others. You need to spend that much just to be visible to commissioners, and success depends on doing this sort of promotion.

You also mention agents, well in my opinion they aren't necessary. Most agents are only interested in people who are already very succesful, and most illustrators have to build up their own careers first before getting an agent. What's more most agents aren't even that good, the truth about representation is that agencies have a few star illustrators who get most of the work, and the rank-and-file sometimes only get 2-3 jobs a year from their agents. So even with an agent most people still have to look after themselves to survive.

You don't need an agent to promote yourself, you just need some commitment and determination. It is expensive but again if you're determined then it becomes just one of those things you have to do.

I hope this isn't sounding like a lecture (although I'm sure it does!), you don't really need my advice, but I thought it might be interesting to explain what I feel are the realities of the business side of things. I still stand by my statement that fantasy is a niche genre, I don't deny there is a market for it but it is definitely a small one. Part of my motivation for these posts is really just to explain how much variety there is, and potential. I think it's too easy to come to places like this and think that everyone wants to see orcs and monsters, but in fact in the real world there is an infinite amount of other subjects that artists and audiences alike are far more interested in.
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[Socar MYLES]

I realize that rejection is part of the game--the whole point I've been trying to make with my posts, though (although, I'm very tired, probably not being too coherent) is that in the sf&f market, you don't need to worry about rejections--you just don't get that many. And one does have to live on SOMETHING while waiting for something with more substance to crop up.

I haven't tried to break into editorial illustration specifically in a long time--I've been more trying to tailor my style to portrait-painting, scenery-painting, costume design, wildlife painting, et cetera. Of course, when I send a portfolio to a specific publisher or client, I make sure I send something that matches what they're already buying--but it seems that so far, in every genre that isn't sf&f, someone else is already doing it better.

This year, I haven't spent quite as much as you on promotion--I spent more like $5,000 US--print ads in pet magazines, mostly--damn things cost a fortune. I was not aware that American Sourcebook and Workbook offered joint pages, however...that is good to know. I had only heard about the astronomical page costs--I just don't have that sort of money to throw around. However, I've certainly sent out my share of portfolios, and I have enough work that I haven't had a day off in yonks...the only problem is...it's not quite the kind of work I had in mind.

Of course, I can hardly complain. I just got into professional illustration a couple of years ago. I know only too well that these things take time.
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www.gorblimey.com - art

[Frog]

Hehe, I did say you didn't need my advice

Rant is over, sorry to those who fell asleep.
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