Challenges and Contests to improve your skills!

"We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us so the sooner you get them out the better!" - Walt Stanchfield

If you're an artist their is a 90% chance you've heard this before in school, from other artists, in many many many art books... it's everywhere. It's true. Not everything you draw is going  to be your masterpiece. Not everything your favorite artist ever drew was a masterpiece. It takes work to get to be a great artist, it takes practice.

Contests and Challenges are a great way to hone your illustrative skill!

They're also a pretty good way to network. I recently read that the difference between a starving artist and a paid artist most often isn't artistic skill, but networking ability. We all know it's true. You can sit here and post the best art in the world to your blog, deviantart gallery or facebook page and never get a single commissions or visits. If people can't find you, they'll never hire you.

One place to get your artwork seen is "Illustration Friday." It is fairly well known, and has a huge variety of illustrators that participate. It also hosts an illustration forum for creative inspiration and camaraderie!  Speaking of inspiration, you'll definitely find a lot of it if you browse previous weeks!

Anyways, my first actual entry (done on time) is up! The theme for this week is "Silent." When I mentioned this to my friend, his first thought was "Silence is Golden, Duct tape is Silver." Well that was all it took, I couldn't resist a more... frightening take. I hope you all enjoy Silence!

A new site to find a challenge!

Just a small post to update you guys on a find I just made. I'm probably a bit late to the party and half of you already know about this little gem, but just in case you don't!

Illustration Friday!

I discovered this site last night as they were wrapping up their weekly challenge with the theme 'stripes'. Unfortunately, I discovered it an hour before it ended, and so was not able to formally enter it, but I still cooked up a fun Illustration!



This also represents one of my new vector illustrations. This was created in Illustrator in probably 4 hours, I'm just learning! About a half hour of that was in Photoshop inking the original for live trace ;)

The next one (announced today) is silent! You will see an illustration for that in a later blog.
I've completed this, My illustration for silent!

Learning Vector for Stock Illustration

I've signed up to sell illustrations with iStockPhoto. This of course means I will have to switch over to Illustrator because they require vector and the filetype to be ai. This means learning a whole new workflow! I'll admit this seems rather daunting, and Illustrator is no breeze to learn. However I'm plugging through a lot of tutorials and I think I'll have the hang of it soon.

Reasons I chose iStockPhoto

• They have been around a while and I don't see them going anywhere in the near future.
• Someone I respect and admire has already chosen to sell designs there.
• After asking around they seem to be honest and reliable.

Signing up

To sign up for iStockPhoto you must pass their test. It's a pretty simple readthrough, if a little long, but important. You read through it and you answer the questions. You can have the page open on another tab if you need and look up the answers directly. They want to make sure you know the info. If you don't, and you upload something incorrectly, they'll reject it.

After passing the test you then have to submit THREE examples. I've made two of my 3, but they want to see very different styles, so you should put careful thought and consideration into it.

Vector Gator Love

Here is one of my examples

I'd love any critiques you guys have!

"Reimagine Yourself" Art Competition, Win autographed Tony DiTerlizzi merchandise!

Tony DiTerlizzi "Re-Imagine Yourself" Art competition!

I currently operate the facebook fan page for Illustrator Tony Diterlizzi. When I first joined facebook one of the first thing I did was look around so that I could "become a fan" of my favorite artists and illustrators. I found many there, Gris Grimly is really active on his! I looked though, and Tony just didn't have a page! So I made one. It was the first page I created. I now run one for myself and a couple for ventures I am working on. I've been trying to keep up with it, and it's been growing in size. I post fairly regularly updating when he updates his blog, or when an event is coming up, book is released (WondLa 2 is coming out soon!), or anything else of interest. Well one day, I happened to notice that Tony is among those who "like" the page. He sent me an email thanking me for running the page and then sent me a ton of good stuff (most autographed) to give away! Well I was pretty jazzed, and came up with (naturally) an art contest!


Anyways, the "Re-Imagine Yourself" art competition requires participants to "Re-Imagine" themselves as a character in something illustrated by Tony. (Spiderwick, WondLa, Planescape etc...) I received a lot of amazing entries, and I want to share them here.

To vote go to http://www.facebook.com/TonyDiterlizziFan and click like! Then click on the entry that is your favorite, and cast your vote! Voting has ended

I will be adding artists' websites/blogs/gallery links when I receive them.

Celina Guajardo

Ernesto Lomeli

Jason Karecki

WINNER: 3rd Place

Lisa Anchin http://lisaanchin.com

WINNER: 2nd Place

Sarah Elizabeth

Wendy McDowell

Ray Mera

PaulSapkowski
Winner: 1st Place

Aren't they amazing? Let the artist know what you think! Check the page out. They really deserve some appreciation for all their hard work.
http://www.facebook.com/TonyDiterlizziFan

I will be giving away more prizes, so if you keep an eye on it you might just be the winner! :)

Commercial Art: Business Cards and logos

I do occasionally create art for practical reason. With the exception of game art this is probably the most likely type of thing a person is looking for when they contact me. I thought I wouldd post a couple examples of something I've done lately.


Here's a bizcard I made for a local handyman. Isn't he cute?

Here's a couple Sun and Moon logos, I entered for a contest. I did not win (Someone provided a better typography) so these illustrations (and the text if you chose) are for sale if anyone is interested.

The sun/moon dichotomy has always been a favorite theme for me :)

Art At your Feet and other nonsense

Art at your feet was a blast. It only sprinkled once, and we (my sister and I) managed to keep our art dry! For those of you who haven't been following the blog, last year we were rained out!

There were lots of amazing pieces entered in, though many were reproductions. I completed a completely original piece inspired by "The Tell Tale Heart." My square featured Poe himself as the narrator, and Virginia Clemm as the body below the floorboards. I thought it appropriate considering her impact on his life. Her illness and her death, had such a profound effect on his life and works. In the background are the three "officers of the law" peer down upon him with a lantern. Around the outside edges were key lines from the story.  I tried to keep it rather PG since it was a family event, people were definitely mixed, but they all seemed to appreciate the detail and originality. I had a wonderful time creating it!
 

I've been helping to remodel my mothers new house, and that has really drained a lot of my time. I have created a lot of charcoal and ink pieces, but haven't been creating too much digital work. I will try and post some of my traditional work here in the next few weeks! Here's one example, a painting I made for a friend for her wedding.

Contests

I signed back into digital point and am having a little fun in the contests circuit. It's been a while since I entered them, used to be a lot of GD stuff. I found one good illustration contest though, this is my entry!

I brought the dragon indoors as well, so I'll be working on the body over this labor day weekend!

Walking with Dinosaurs

I haven't posted here in two weeks! That's far too long, but, unfortunately, it was a bit unavoidable. My mom is moving into town. As the family member with a truck, I'm on call for any moving that needs to be done. So I've been pretty swamped the last week or so. That doesn't mean I haven't put a little work/play time in. I hope you guys love this like I do!!! An animated dinosaur scene to compliment the dino images I uploaded last!

A prehistoric pack

Some dinosaur images I made for an online card game. I am sending them to my sister Cameo for coloring, I'll add a link to the colored versions once they get in her DA. The Jack is played by a Velociraptor, Queen Triceratops, King Rex (of course) and the Joker is a Dilophosaurus, because while they're a bit intimidating, they're also a little hilarious!

Sea Serpent!

I have 2 adorable nephews, Cartier who is in those terrible twos (which really aren't so terrible) and Kash who is almost one. It's been pretty wonderful having them around the house. Working from home means I'm the number one go to girl for babysitting, which is mostly well and good as long as I don't attempt to get any work done. Anyways, my other sister Alisa (who I share a house with) and I gave them their own playroom in the house. It has an ocean theme, a mural is being painted in it and it has soft flooring down. The room naturally had this wood paneling wainscoating, so we used that to our advantage. The theme is "Out at Sea" and we are decorating the room as if they're on their very own ship. Not pirates, I'm gonna try and teach them to like being the good guys ;) They look out over the railing of the ship (wainscoating) at an amazing ocean scape. There is a brilliant yellow orange sun smiling down from one corner, swirling clouds overhead, an island in the distant mists and dolphins and sea gulls swimming in their wake. It's going to be a wonderfully fun room!

Anyways, all that was leading up to the purpose of the guy I'm about to post. It's a work in progress picture of the sea monster that is going to be attacking the ship! We're going to mount him coming out of the wall and hanging over the ceiling on pulleys so he can be moved up and down. He'll even have a baby monitor in his throat so that he can roar and maybe even talk to the kids as they pretend

He's been sculpted out of foam, I have a huge roll of carpet padding I bought for just these sort of sculpts! So far I had only had occasion to make a couple of masks, and some Audrey 2s out of it. Now though I'm using it to it's full potential and enjoying every bit of it. A lot of learning is going into this, what sort of adhesives to use. Hot glue and spray glue work pretty well, though since it's a thick cardboard, a few nails don't hurt either.

Anyways, I'll have more to show you later!

If you guys have any questions at all on how it's done, definitely ask. At the end of the sculpt I'll probably make a post of helpful hints and tips for creating your own.

Promotional Materials 2011

A little late in the year, but here you have it, my 2011 promotional materials! I have postcards and tons and tons of business cards. The postcards are from MyPostcards.com and the biz cards are from Vistaprint. Looking at the prints, I prefer the colors on the VistaPrint products because it's closer to what I sent him. The biz cards arrived a lot faster than estimated. So I think I'll be sticking with them for now.

Ink and Wash

Alright so I've been playing with my dip pens the last week or so, trying to get a handle on them. While I'm not totally happy with it quite yet, I have created some pieces I really love. Meet Kin, he's from Wytheria.com, which is, alas, still down.

He will be for sale at 'Art at your Feet' along with several other drawings and some pastels from my sister. It's in Blissfield Michigan September 10.

http://www.blissfieldmainstreet.com/events/aayf.html

Hopefully I will see some of you there!

Oh oh oh, my postcards are also in. I'm going to take a couple pictures and I'll post them here!

Business Cards 2011!

I have ordered 1000 business cards. They should be here in 14 days. I'm so excited about how everything is finally coming together!

I ordered from Vistaprints... back and forth on how I feel about them though. In the end they are cheaper then staples and a lot of the other major brands. That said, I think most of my savings was because it was my first order with them. They do tend to hit you with some high shipping and extra little fees. Such as, uploading your own images cost an extra few bucks in each instance. They offered free post it notes, but then it's an extra 7 dollars to add your own images. 7 dollars for one custom pad? Not a good deal.
The basic shipping is 21 days! Then they move down to 14, 7 and 2 and the prices jump up!

Maybe I'm just an impatient person, but I can't stand waiting sooo long especially considering the price to ship.

I will let you know when these come in!

Postcards for 2011

I have sent my 2011 postcards to print. These are to showcase my illustration style, so that I can send them out to magazines and publishing houses. They should be in soon and I will certainly post a picture.

  

I'm sooo excited! I can't wait for them to arrive.

DesireeJoy.com is LIVE!

I know it has taken far too long, but lo and behold, I have hunkered down and made myself get to work! DesireeJoy.com is finally live.

It's not as full as I'd like it to be quite yet. Is anything ever really done?  I am working on it though! Expect to see new flash examples to come (as soon as their respective owners get them released) and more illustrations!

If you have any comments or critiques (or suggestions on how to fix that annoying half link active banner) please let me know! I'll be updating it every day or so, so you can also keep checking back.

I also want to show off a piece of art my sister created for me. I love it!!!

Fellow Artists!

This is a post for some of my fellow illustrators. I have a few resources to share!

http://www.posemaniacs.com/  - an excellent tool for gesture drawing. PM uses 3d models twisted in a variety of poses so you can practice getting the gist of an image, and they're timed! Great drawing practice. They also have a hand gesture tool.

http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php - This is similar to PM but it uses real photos. I'm not sure if it has as many poses as PM but it allows for gestures exploring body tone and has some really beautiful photos.

http://www.colourlovers.com/ - A wonderful place to go to be inspired by beautiful color palettes, and if you'd like you can submit your own!

Feel free to share any cool links you know of as well!

Want autographed Tony Diterlizzi goodies for free?

You do!?! Great!

When I joined facebook I immediately went about looking for my favorite Illustrators. Tony D was at the top of the list. Long story short, there was no page to become a 'fan' (it was fan at the time of Mr. D, and so finally I made a page.

I've been updating it for a little while, and now it has a 600 fans and is actually a lot more active then most pages I've liked. Tony D and his wife Angela were silent watchers of the page for a while. However, last Thursday to tell me he appreciated the page, and to ask if he could send me some "swag" to keep and some to giveaway on the fan page!

I wasn't too certain what 'swag' was but I was definitely excited! I mean, how awesome is that, I was just having fun with that page, and bam! Email from Tony DiTerlizzi. I'm sorry, I'm still pretty jazzed about that.

Ok, the point.... (didn't do too well with that long story short bit, but trust me, I could have gone on!)

Sitting on my table next to me is the 'swag' in question. I have two copies of the limited edition WondLa sketchbook (this is the coolest for us artists, I think ),several autographed bookmarks, autographed magic promo cards, Meno stickers, Spider and the Fly bookmarks (very awesome),and some autographed promo brochures for Mr. D.

So if you're interested in winning any of these awesome items.

Go to the page, like the page, and watch for my giveaways.
If enough artists join the page, I might even be able to hold an art competition!

[link]

Check it out!

Magazines

I don't know if I've ever mentioned that I live in a pretty small community in Michigan, certainly a limited amount of serious artists around town. So finding magazines like ImagineFX, HOW and PRINT to purchase are not so simple to locate and very expensive to order. I thought I'd take advantage of my local library and see if they could possible order any of them for me. It turns out HOW is completely available online through the Michigan E Library. This is a money saver for a beginning designer! Of course career mag subscriptions are a tax write off, so it might be wise to invest in one or two.

A stylized sketch of Ink for fun, inset is a rendering
by Cameo Anderson!

Flying Fish!

It's been far too long since I've checked in with my readers.

Family life has been taking over a lot lately. My little sister recently announced she's pregnant with her third little boy. As I speak her other two are playing in their play room at my place. I spend a lot of time watching the boys for her while she's at work. Accordingly, my older sister and I are renovating a small bedroom into the kids room. It has unfortunate wood paneling wainscoting but we've used that to set the theme. Nautical!

There are fish lights flying above, an old puppet theatre with labels for "Brig" "Captains Quarters" "Mess Hall", a mural of the sun sky and some waves, nets for toys, and soon to be a usable captains wheel mounted on the wall. Expect pictures as soon as it's finished!

I've been keeping myself going with some fanart for Pitch Black and Infamous. Just some fun doodles while I work up my submissions postcards. I'm going to be sending out a round of postcards to magazines and publishers. I've got to get back to the grindstone!

Autumn Breeze Retirement Home

These are a few characters I created to inhabit the Autumn Breeze retirement village. A group of imaginative people, living in a beautifully imaginative home, with some completely unimaginative staff.
All names are subject to change

Fun with Age 2!

A few more oldies but goodies! The man on the left doesn't fit in stylistically, but I figured I'd share him anyways. He'll probably be reworked to be a little more of a caricature. Odds are you'll see him again.

Fun with Age

I've been inspired lately by Zimeta's (of http://zimeta08.deviantart.com) old people contest! The idea is to create an aged character of any species, it can be a dinosaur for all she cares, oh and it can be written as well. This is so we can get some practice at drawing the aged. Of course, I've drawn a few older persons in my time, but lately I've been on a little bit of a kick. Who knew they were so much fun!! Here's a preview of some of the sketches I've done. You will see more!

She's got it going on.

Space Travel

 

This is a painting I created for my friend JJ. She has a million and one interests but some of the big ones are Einstein, Dinosaurus (specifically Apatasaurus here) space and Fallout 3! She has excellent taste ;) So here I tried to combine several of her interests into one conducive painting. I like how it came out, though I'm always looking for critiques!

Better with Age

There's a contest happening at DeviantArt to draw some more elderly characters. Most of the art you see there is the typical 20-30 somethings. So it's a good chance for people to get out of their comfort zones and flex their artists muscles.

This is my entry, my character Joel (who is usually 50 or so) as an older man, round about 70 I'm thinking. I dearly love this character.

The Prince

No not Machiavelli, and thankfully this prince isn't quite that bad ;)

  

Prince Aldaign is a character from one of my many story projects. His name is not set in stone, but it's at least a working name. :) Hopefully you'll see more of his family up here soon.

The bottom right is his battle gear (minus the cloak cause you'd have to be an idiot to go to battle with a cloak on, it's just for warmth, and easily shed.)

Apeliness

The Design a Character club on DeviantArt has issued a profile challenge for this month. The profiles are supposed to be "ape-inspired." So I took my friends and ape-ified them.

 

That challenge apparently left me feeling inspired in an ape-ly direction. So I spent 10 minutes whipping this out!

Since you all know how reserved I am with color this was pretty fun to do. I also haven't done much painting lately being bombarded with item work to do. x.x

Expect to see more personal work from me up here!

A fallout gift

It's the 21st birthday of my friend JJ! While I usually don't celebrate birthdays, this one's pretty much a landmark (especially for a college student at a party school, eh JJ?) Anyways, so since she's my fallout buddy I totally painted this for her. She's rocking the armored vault suit with her favorite companion Jericho!

Hopefully she likes it!!!

The Wasteland Traders

Fallout 3 has some really wonderful trader characters. You've seen the preview of Doc Hoff and if you watch my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/AnimatorDesi you've seen the preview of Crow. Well here's the full pic with all 4 traders! Hope you guys enjoy. :)

In a clockwise direction starting at top left there is Crow, Doc Hoff, Crazy Wolfgang and Lucky Harith.

Joel Turnaround

 

Joels a quiet guy that lives in a rather large semi trailer.

He was already 40 when he found himself suddenly having to escape the city. Being an extremely creative type it worked out pretty well for him., and being quiet and shy helps him stay out of the way of trouble He's devised himself a heating and water system and in spite of limited food, he's doing pretty well.

FO3 Traders Preview 2

To add to the preview of Crow (From the traders of the wasteland pic I'm working on) here's Dr Hoff.  

"Let's see what the good doctor has in his magic bag, shall we?"

If you'd like to see the preview of my favorite trader Crow you can visit my facebook page for the preview I only released there!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/AnimatorDesi

Sketchun :)

Well here's a sketch of a lil Mecha Bird from a place called Ellyria. It was invented even before Wytheria came to be, but I incorporated it a little into the  last version of W, and I think it might just be incorporated into the next.

Some fallout 4 doodles

With a little Holly and Vance sneaking in there from FO3 :)

King of the Hill Doodles

I love this show. :)

 

That is all.

Baby Shylock

Here is a concept for a baby Shylock. Shylock is one of the shadow caste from Wytheria. (Yes Jaq, I said Shylock :P)

What do you think?

New Vegas Companion Meme

I tried to make it through this meme but Oh My Gosh!!!! How do people make it through them!?! Anyways, I managed to get all but one frame done.Anyways, I made a small collage of my favorite doodles.

If you wanna see the full meme check it out!
http://desiree-joy.deviantart.com/art/New-Vegas-Companion-Meme-193116408