Am I really that out of the loop?

[kingdom warrior]

okay, I'll bite.

What furshuluggin industry could you possibly be talking about where a "Big Account" client accepts something hand drawn as a deliverable outside of initial design and conceptual stages? Most luxury product these days are photography based... Just look at the world around you in billboards and magazines. Big accounts like Cars, Travel, Dining, cosmetics, clothing, shoes, movies, food... Photoshop rules the roost. Packaging, fonts, logos, typography... All digital. Even traditionally illustrated stuff generally gets passed through illustrator and photoshop before delivery.

If you're talking about illustrations for licensed product... The busiest guys up here (who are also a comics company) are delivering coloured Digital To their clients even if the original art is hand drawn.

and the straw argument of what if your computer goes down honestly holds about as much water as what if you spill coffee on your drawing. At least you've likely backed up remotely online if you are a professional, and we live in a society where we are surrounded by computers.

Edit******

Sorry Ed, I wasn't clear with my thoughts didn't explain it properly.....

Oh and FYI I've been working in advertising as a Freelancer for 20 years, I don't need advertising 101 but thanks for throwing all that info for those who are not...... are you in the biz?

He does it to guys who's ports are questionable as you may know, in the first stages of commercial work. a comp is done by hand or done digitally. I know I do them....and Idea starts with an idea from the art director a comp is then drawn before you bring in a photographer to shoot a clients product....or you do an in house mock up ad.....time is money you don't pay a photographer to do the grunt work he shoots what the art director tells him to do.

Really????? all artist back up their stuff? you know that for a fact? you'd be surprised how many artist don't do that. I hear my Art Director tell everyone to make sure they back up their work when doing it on the computer and how many times they forget to do it........artist are poor little bunch who are lucky if they have more than one computer.

and No not every household has two computers.......not everyone has it like that....


Steve.

[enyawd72]

This thread kind of derailed from my original intent. I wasn't trying to start a debate about computer vs. traditional art. That said, I do find it humorous when someone looks at my work and asks what program I used to create it.

Personally, I've never been able to embrace computer art. To me it's just not the same because it lacks that human touch. It's impersonal. Look at animation. Today's animation is so slick and perfect, but it doesn't inspire the same kind of awe that looking at a Fleischer cartoon, or a Disney film like Snow White.

I collect Bowen statues and busts, and you can see a difference in the statues Randy sculpts by hand vs. some of his team that do digital sculptures.
The digital sculpts are perfect. They're slick and symmetrical. They are also often soulless. I can't even describe what they lack, but something's just "off". It's kind of like digital music. A lot of it sounds sterile. It just doesn't have that richness of sound you get from old recordings, flaws and all.

Guess I'm just old.

[Brazoo]

I think it goes hand in hand, if you're an artist you should take photography 101
I can here my College professor saying Reference! Reference! Reference! don't act like you know how to draw something look at it and take a picture of it, if you don't have a photographic memory.....lol

Alex Ross's career took off once he started working from his own photos so did painter Olivia and Patrick Nagel..........

Ah okay - so we're specifically talking about painting and drawing though.

Like, I think it's probably valuable for a photographer to go through the motions of learning analog photography for the discipline of it - but there's little question that this idea is going to be very quaint one day soon. The same way NOBODY today is saying you 'you need to learn to make daguerreotypes if you want to learn the fundamentals of photography."

Anyway - maybe I'm loosing my own point here...

okay, I'll bite.

What furshuluggin industry could you possibly be talking about where a "Big Account" client accepts something hand drawn as a deliverable outside of initial design and conceptual stages? Most luxury product these days are photography based... Just look at the world around you in billboards and magazines. Big accounts like Cars, Travel, banking, toys, Dining, cosmetics, clothing, shoes, movies, food... Photoshop rules the roost. Packaging, fonts, logos, typography... All digital. Even traditionally illustrated stuff generally gets passed through illustrator and photoshop before delivery for either major or minor revision, and they certainly don't go to print or live online on their own.

If you're talking about illustrations for licensed product... The busiest guys up here (who are also sometimes a comics company) are delivering coloured Digital To their clients even if the original art is hand drawn.

and the straw argument of what if your computer goes down honestly holds about as much water as what if you spill coffee on your drawing. At least you've likely backed up remotely online if you are a professional (dropbox) and we live in a society where we are surrounded by computers.

I agree - and I also want to compliment you on your MAD speak!

[kingdom warrior]

It sounds to me like your real problem is with lazy, naive young artists looking for shortcuts. agreed!

YUP!!!!!

[kingdom warrior]

Personally, I've never been able to embrace computer art. To me it's just not the same because it lacks that human touch. It's impersonal. Look at animation. Today's animation is so slick and perfect, but it doesn't inspire the same kind of awe that looking at a Fleischer cartoon, or a Disney film like Snow White.

I collect Bowen statues and busts, and you can see a difference in the statues Randy sculpts by hand vs. some of his team that do digital sculptures.
The digital sculpts are perfect. They're slick and symmetrical. They are also often soulless. I can't even describe what they lack, but something's just "off". It's kind of like digital music. A lot of it sounds sterile. It just doesn't have that richness of sound you get from old recordings, flaws and all.

Guess I'm just old.

See, back in the olden days (old man voice)when the Fleisher/Famous studios and Disney studios did animation, It was ALL hand done, the rotoscoping was hand done so yes there was a human element, they were under pressure to do it right because on the big screen you can see mistakes very clearly. Disney made sure he got many top guys of the day to paint the backgrounds so there is a lot of love behind that work that many of those illustrators took pride in doing. Disney did a Great job in recapturing that magic when it had it's great run in the 90's

I kinda marvel at how the Superman cartoons done in the 1940's by the Fleisher/Famous studios still have never been topped by any of the modern incarnations of Superman cartoons. the WB Superman of the 90's was good but no where near as good as the 40's version.

[Brazoo]

This thread kind of derailed from my original intent. I wasn't trying to start a debate about computer vs. traditional art. That said, I do find it humorous when someone looks at my work and asks what program I used to create it.

Personally, I've never been able to embrace computer art. To me it's just not the same because it lacks that human touch. It's impersonal. Look at animation. Today's animation is so slick and perfect, but it doesn't inspire the same kind of awe that looking at a Fleischer cartoon, or a Disney film like Snow White.

I collect Bowen statues and busts, and you can see a difference in the statues Randy sculpts by hand vs. some of his team that do digital sculptures.
The digital sculpts are perfect. They're slick and symmetrical. They are also often soulless. I can't even describe what they lack, but something's just "off". It's kind of like digital music. A lot of it sounds sterile. It just doesn't have that richness of sound you get from old recordings, flaws and all.

Guess I'm just old.

I completely get what you're saying. Of my friends I'm known as the curmudgeon who hates technology. Seriously, my closest friends nicknamed me "Pops" - and these are people my own age!

I'm the last person to advocate that you change the way you work, but in the old days painters had to take photos and slides of their paintings to show galleries their work - without tons of photography skills and expensive equipment or the help of a photographer you couldn't get good results. So in this case the digital technology is cheaper, the quality is better, and the artist (even one with limited basic skills) has WAY more control.

I don't see a downside.

In the pre-digital days if you did a painting for a publication you'd still have to create work within certain specifications. You'd still need to learn a few technical terms. If anything with computers you need to learn less terms. Besides, pre-digital colour management sucked.

[Brazoo]

Please don't get held back from doing what you want again - feel free to PM me with questions. I'm sure others on here feel the same way!

(Though, I do caution you about entering a lot of contests - as samurai pointed out.)

[samurainoir]

Edit******

Sorry Ed, I wasn't clear with my thoughts didn't explain it properly.....

Oh and FYI I've been working in advertising as a Freelancer for 20 years, I don't need advertising 101 but thanks for throwing all that info for those who are not...... are you in the biz?

He does it to guys who's ports are questionable as you may know, in the first stages of commercial work. a comp is done by hand or done digitally. I know I do them....and Idea starts with an idea from the art director a comp is then drawn before you bring in a photographer to shoot a clients product....or you do an in house mock up ad.....time is money you don't pay a photographer to do the grunt work he shoots what the art director tells him to do.

Really????? all artist back up their stuff? you know that for a fact? you'd be surprised how many artist don't do that. I hear my Art Director tell everyone to make sure they back up their work when doing it on the computer and how many times they forget to do it........artist are poor little bunch who are lucky if they have more than one computer.

and No not every household has two computers.......not everyone has it like that....


Steve.

Steve, the short, honest answer is "I'm in recovery" and hope never to have to work with an agency ever again. It's also probably obvious at this point that my multi-computer household and office is pixel-ly buttered with digital bread.

I personally would never show clients anything as a purely hand-drawn conceptual for sign-off because generally I find that they can't make the leap across that chasm and life is so much easier if I didn't need to turn them into Evel Knievel. If it's inevitably a photographic solution, our mock-ups are always comprised of stock photography because it's ridiculously easy to source and we can assemble something much closer to the final quickly in the Adobe Suite before heading into the shoot and then it's as easy as dropping it into an already existing template to fine tune for presentation/sign-off/delivery.

I have had the unhappy job of firing production managers/artists/designers/programmers because they did not back up their digital assets and/or follow my obsessive compulsive alpha numeric project archiving system which ensured everyone on the team had access, and as a result it cost us $$$. The only excuse for an artists' computer going down I have ever accepted was that huge blackout that took out most of the East Coast. Illness is a much more common and acceptable excuse. We live in a city filled with internet cafes open all hours, 24 hour kinkos, and they have access to the office which is filled with workstations (again, blackout would be the only reason why they would all be not working). You can even autosave at versioned intervals in Dropbox or similar (your computer goes down... it's backed up online, ready to access at the next workstation)... Cloud Computing has existed for a few years now at this point, we're past the point of excuses for not backing up, really truly. samurainoir1.0 was very draconian and you crossed him at your peril.

samurainoir2.0 however, is a much more relaxed person today, and through some odd osmosis, finds himself lucky enough to have acquired members of the Mego Museum community as clients, lovely people all.

In this new mobile world order, we do find ourselves often running out to the 24 hour walmart in the dead of the night to acquire random laptops, smartphones, and tablets because it's required to stay current and we evolve or we die.

[samurainoir]

It sounds to me like your real problem is with lazy, naive young artists looking for shortcuts. agreed!

But these have always existed, not just in the age of digital. We tend to look at the Golden/Silver/Bronze age comics and see the cream of the crop, but let's face it... most of them were drawn by naive young artists looking for shortcuts. Particularly given the status of the form as quick, cheap and disposable children's entertainment... ephemera. A majority of them just don't have a degree of high quality art by any standard if you take an across the board survey of all the ones that made it into print.

Are there going to be naive young artists looking for shortcuts today? Sure, just like there have always been. It's not like someone like Rich Buckler was any different with his kirby swipe file and lightbox. And we see the lineage of swipers/tracers all the way back to Bob Kane!

If someone believes that the majority of comics art today sucks, well that might be true, but the sad truth is that the majority of all comics art has generally sucked across the past century. It's not unique to the digital age. (heck, we can say that about ALL forms of art across the ages... music, literature, cave paintings... most of it sucked and that's why most of it does not survive).

Check out Neal Adams interview at word balloon, his opinion is that there is a higher quality of artist working today because when he got into the game, most of the artists weren't very good, and no wonder given the low pay vs other forms of lucrative commercial work available to an illustrator at that time. People with talent and ability generally did not stay in comics (himself included eventually), and he claims that was why it was so easy for him to climb to the top. (again, his opinion).
Word Balloon The Pop Culture Interview Podcast: Comic Books Past Present And Future With Neal Adams and Tony Akins


As for animation... how can anyone watch a Toy Story or Finding Nemo (or insert your own favourite Pixar film) and consider it "lifeless" just because human hands haven't touched it? Does it make the characters any less compelling or unable to illicit an emotional response? Are they just lazy and naive and taking shortcuts because everything isn't hand-painted or drawn, but rendered via mathematical formula and programming language? Audiences of millions disagree.

[kingdom warrior]

Steve, the short, honest answer is "I'm in recovery" and hope never to have to work with an agency ever again. It's also probably obvious at this point that my multi-computer household and office is pixel-ly buttered with digital bread.

I personally would never show clients anything as a purely hand-drawn conceptual for sign-off because generally I find that they can't make the leap across that chasm and life is so much easier if I didn't need to turn them into Evel Knievel. If it's inevitably a photographic solution, our mock-ups are always comprised of stock photography because it's ridiculously easy to source and we can assemble something much closer to the final quickly in the Adobe Suite before heading into the shoot and then it's as easy as dropping it into an already existing template to fine tune for presentation/sign-off/delivery.

I have had the unhappy job of firing production managers/artists/designers/programmers because they did not back up their digital assets and/or follow my obsessive compulsive alpha numeric project archiving system which ensured everyone on the team had access, and as a result it cost us $$$. The only excuse for an artists' computer going down I have ever accepted was that huge blackout that took out most of the East Coast. Illness is a much more common and acceptable excuse. We live in a city filled with internet cafes open all hours, 24 hour kinkos, and they have access to the office which is filled with workstations (again, blackout would be the only reason why they would all be not working). You can even autosave at versioned intervals in Dropbox or similar (your computer goes down... it's backed up online, ready to access at the next workstation)... Cloud Computing has existed for a few years now at this point, we're past the point of excuses for not backing up, really truly. samurainoir1.0 was very draconian and you crossed him at your peril.

samurainoir2.0 however, is a much more relaxed person today, and through some odd osmosis, finds himself lucky enough to have acquired members of the Mego Museum community as clients, lovely people all.

In this new mobile world order, we do find ourselves often running out to the 24 hour walmart in the dead of the night to acquire random laptops, smartphones, and tablets because it's required to stay current and we evolve or we die.

Ah ok, now I totally get where you're coming from Ed, sorry I came at you my apologies. Totally understand now.