Silver Arts Award - Unit 2 project

An eleven step tutorial done for my Silver arts award.  If you want to use this tutorial click on the picture and you will be sent to my Deviantart page where you can enlarge the image so the text is readable.

Silver Arts Award - Unit 2 project plan

My project is aimed at my friends on Deviant Art who are all involved in illustration and are aged between 13-16 years old. This project is my back up plan as the original project idea was not practical and required funding.

I am going to make an eleven step online tutorial on how to draw human heads, focussing on the eyes, nose and mouth. I am producing this on my own and will be responsible for designing and publishing the tutorial.

I will need access to a computer and tablet. To ensure that the computer does not lose my tutorial I will save a back-up copy onto a pen drive. I will not require help in producing the tutorial.

I will send out a questionnaire to those who have taken part in the tutorial and will collect feedback from it. I need to find out who is happy to take part in the tutorial, publish the tutorial to Deviant Art, send the link to the participants, and compile and send them a questionnaire. Finally, I need to publish the tutorial and feedback to my blog.

Flyer

Progress

When I started the Arts Award my artistic style was very basic. It consisted of simple colouring and thick black lines. It was very Anime and Manga based as this was the style that I was most comfortable with. I did not go into detail and only used very basic shading. I did not like to shade in detail as this was a new technique for me. I used a program called GIMP to draw. GIMP is a good program to start digital drawing with but it is not very good for going into detail.

I then moved on to using Photoshop for my drawings a few weeks into the Arts Award. I started to go into more detail, adding in textures to my artwork. I also began to experiment with different brushes and stamps. I even designed my own virtual brushes and played around with opacity and texture. I then made a brush that, when I tested it out, reminded me of the bold brush strokes that you see when you look at an oil painting. After experimenting a little more I found that I could produce a drawing that looked like an oil painting. I also found out how to remove the thick lines that I had been using. This is my main style now but I do keep going back to my older style too.

I have recently started to draw eyes in different styles. I think that drawing eyes is a great way of showing emotion without words. When I draw eyes I like to go back into the Anime and Manga style I used when I started the Arts Award but I find ways to incorporate my new style as well. Doing this has made me more aware of how much my style has changed. My art style had gone from childish and messy to rather neat and far more mature.

Before -

Now - 

I have recently been inspired by a few people since I started the Arts Award. Here are two of the artists who I know that have inspired me.

http://mdragonheartlove.deviantart.com/ - Someone whose colour choice in her art has inspired me to use more vibrant and shocking colours in what would usually be plain.

http://afrosamurai091.deviantart.com/ - A friend who has supported me with my art and given me much inspiration from role plays that we have done.

I have also attempted some cartoon-style artwork based on Roy Lichtenstein's paintings.

Illustration Agencies

To be an illustrator you need to have the skills that just come with practice but no matter how many skills you have you still need ways to get your work seen. This is where illustration agencies come in. There are many illustration agencies that can assist you in getting your work out there.

Illustration agencies provide a large amount of illustrators with commissions and publicity. Without illustration agencies many illustrators would not be able to get themselves out in the public eye for all to see. For example, writers who want illustrations for their books can just go onto an agency's website and scroll through the artists until they find someone whose art style fits with what they want. Then all they have to do is contact that artist through the agency.

Finding an illustration agency that will suit your needs and provide you with the type of work you want may be hard but there are many agencies that an artist can choose from. A few illustration agencies are Eastwing Illustration, Eye Candy Illustration, Beehive Illustration and Plum Pudding Illustration. These are four very different illustration agencies that all stand out for specialising in different genres of illustration. For example, Beehive Illustration specialise in illustrations for children's publications and Eastwing Illustration specialise in fashion and decorative design.

If you are planning to create a career out of your skills as an illustrator the best way to get yourself out there is through an illustration agency that will represent you and your work for a commission.