Author Archives: dyf5096

Just Give Me an F (and follow me on Instagram)

So. I’ve decided to change directions a little bit.

Since the personal wiki fell flat, I’ve decided my next best, sort of container for information would be an art book. Art books are kind of like the wiki before wikis, before the explosion of the internet. They were a way to supplement material to fans of franchises, and still are supplements to franchises. They are coveted in certain circles, especially the vintage varieties. However, since I am in no position to print my art book, I’ve decided to make it an Ebook, a sort of PDF, scrolling document.

My Haru Ebook  was modeled after several; artbook and fan books I’ve collected over the years for inspiration. The main inspiration for my Haru Ebook was the Akira (the manga) artbook by Katsuhiro Otomo.

A lot of the pages are absent any text or information; it’s composed of about 200 pages of pure images.

This book presents little words and is loaded with images that depict years of artwork for the Akira. I don’t have as many images of Haru but the ones I have finished, I’ve included in my own book. Below are some examples.

Obviously, I am in no way near 200 pages worth of material, not yet. And this Akira book spans across several years and several volumes of the original work. Compare that with my 15 weeks in a semester.

I will say this, however: despite the simplicity of the images, there’s something about them that feels complete and sophisticated. That is definitely something my ebook is missing and a part of me can’t understand why. The images I chose for the book are indeed, cleaned and finished, but they seem immature and, quite frankly obnoxious compared to the silent seriousness and maturity of Otomo’s illustrations. Is it the color? The compositions? The details? Maybe a combination of all three. Mine feel like amateur doodles that I decided to color, even compared to the colored pages of Akira Toriyama’s artbooks.

My rather sloppy presentation aside, the number of images don’t bother me, but the quality. And I spent a lot of time on these drawings; these were the ones I put work and hours into. I did take color and composition, and details into account for these chosen drawings and they still fall flat. I just don’t know why. While I thought they looked fine before, I’m not to proud to admit that they look like crap. Hindsight, am I right?

I think I understand what my professor says when he tells me I’ve never really finished anything. He’s right; I definitely present ideas and images but I’ve never finished anything, even things I’ve claimed to finish. I want to say it’s because I try to learn lessons instead of produce products. And, that’s true— I’ve learned a lot from the project and produced a lot work (drawings), but the ebook is a weak presentation. I like the idea of a Haru Artbook and I presented as much but doing one, but did I really I really finish one? Or present the idea for one? I think I can take a wild guess.

Did I execute my thesis for this last semester? To be frank, I don’t think so. I wanted to market and brand myself but did I? Looking at Toriyama and Otomo, I can clearly identify their brands; Toriyama as colorful, fantasy and imaginative, and Otomo as dark, brooding and serious. Gigi? Gigi’s got nothing. I didn’t build my brand, I just drew Haru over and over and over again. And without a brand, there’s nothing to market, so my Instagram is just pictures of Haru with slight variations (so maybe my brand is BORING?). I guess I thought that THAT was what branding was; being glued to one character as a sort of mascot or avatar and building a world around them. But, of course at the last minute, I realize that that’s not true. Further more, without a brand there’s no narrive and with no narrative, there’s no fandom and no community. I didn’t build a community, not even the fake one as I first wanted to achieve. There, I could even bring myself to make a fake fandom FOR ME. That’s a big fail right there.

Like I said, I’ve learned a couple of things, about myself and my work. I’ve got some semblance of which direction to take (what’s my brand, what mood and tones do I want my drawings to portray? Having a proper identity leaves a center from where a community can build) and I so wish I could’ve presented a coherent and complete project for my last semester. I’m not disappointed, per say bu for the first time in 415, I feel unsatisfied. Go figure. But hey, you can follow me on Instagram to see if I ever figure it out! @creativethumbs!

Link to my very sad ebook below:

Haru e book pdf-1ijf8l3

Subscription Conscription

I’ve forgotten how to animate.

The last time I seriously did, was about a few months ago, a basic ball drop in an attempt to refresh my skills. So why did I add animation as part of my project? I’m a sucker for gifs. Getting back in the swing of things as been a challenge; as a result, I’ve decided to go with more expressive gifs than the standard full body, anime like snap shot that I pictured initially. I want to showcase Haru’s personality through her face and gestures. It’s not complete but it is a start. Like I said it’s been a while.

Another point I’d like to explore is the app subscription model. The app I’m using to animate is Animation Desk. I like it a lot so far; it’s easy to understand and simulates hand animation the way I’d like in a digital format. The only issue is that it’s a subscription based privilege. While the free version gets the job done, I am struggling with whether or not I should subscribe for about $10/ 1 month. As a creative, I hate subscription based tools; I’d rather pay out right. So that’s where I am with that.

Let’s get back to Haru

I’m tired of Haru.

Well, let me rephrase. Over the last few weeks, creating content for my project, all centered around Haru has become exhausting. I’m not afraid to admit that. I’m tired of her and feeling confined to her image and her image alone, left me, for a while, blocked. I literally spent weeks on ONE digital painting and it came out horribly. That’s where the mandorty fanart I already discussed becomes a blessing, I suppose; it provides a well needed break. And of course, by the time I actually get back into the flow of things, it’s time to present. Go figure.

At any rate, I want to officially introduce Haru, the main character of my project.

Name: Haru

Age: 21

height: 5’0

occupation: street fighter, restaurant worker

goal: she wants to find the demon mail worker, Win

I wanted a sort of phony wiki page for Haru, like the kinds that are found on the fandom wikis. I was introduced to PBworks as an alternative. I registered and created an URL, but in the end it wasn’t what I wanted  I’m sill on the lookout for a one page template. I used to copy and paste from the fandom wikis themselves when I was younger but that won’t cut it here. I may simply copy the format/template here on sites at final presentation

Haru Gallery:

  

 

Fanart, Spam-Art

I’ve never liked drawing fanart. I have nothing against it, I enjoy it as a viewer. But creating it myself is something I rarely do. I imagine it’s because I am very particular  with the shows and media I consume, and perfect show is perfect and obviously doesn’t need the stylized imput my fanart would bring. That’s why you’ll never catch me drawing x character doing x thing.

Until now apparently.

I came into to this project wanting fanart revolving around Haru and I have done some. But that doesn’t get eyes on my work. Haru is unfamiliar to the world and putting her out there has her contending with the millions of other OCs swimming around in the internent. Fanart= familiar. Iconic characters that people have invested emotions and opinions about. Draw that, and the fans will come. Some of the most popoular art accounts on Instagram are fanart accounts. There are various reasons why and I have my own opinions on it but it doesn’t change the facts.

If I want to build an audience, my best bet is to start with fanart. UGH.

I’m bad at it; I’m bad at fanart. I’m not very creative with it. It’s very stifling to me and since I’m a nit picker, I tend to need a lot of research to make sure I do the franchise justice; i.e, it’s very time consuming. I don’t like it. But it has to be done.

A progress report using UNUM

Lite. I’m using UNUM lite. I wanted To make that clear as there is a pro subscription based version, with features such as follower feedback and sentiment. I don’t have use for such features yet but should I ever find a use for those features, I would seriously consider subscribing. It is is good tool for those who want to seriously brand across social media— a goal of mine.

So, I have created a seperate, 2D based Instagram account: creativethumbs. It was a difficult decision simply because it felt like starting over and my main Instagram isn’t popolaur at all so adding a seperate account was a little daunting and seemingly useless. But I’ve got 33 followers thus far, and it’s been about two weeks. I think that’s a strong head start. I’d like to set follower goals but I dont want to end up disappointed because that’s somthing completely out of my control.

Another realization I’ve come to is now tha I have the creativethumbs account, is that I have to post something at least. That is not something I’m used to. That’s real accountability that I’m not prepared for. That’s a lot of drawing, and while I’m grateful for the experience, it’s a lot of pressure (for seemingly no reason, nothing is real, time is a social construct). I’m adjusting but it’s clearly nothing going to happen overnight.

Luckily, UNUM keeps the stats I need to understand when the best time to post on both of my instagram accounts. It tells me my most popular posts, hashtags, and— best of all— the best time to post! Mine are: Tuesdays at 5:00 PM, Wednesdays at 8:00 PM, and Fridays at 11:00 PM. All evening deadlines that work for me, as a student. I’m excited to see how these will change as I posts more polished works on a daily basis.

The Instagram Conundrum

Like almost everyone on the planet age 45 and under, I have an Instagram account. Underwhelming, low quality and until recently, set to private. A part of this project is to use this very useful social media platform to sell Haru and her image (that sounds worse that what I actually mean). However, the biggest step I’ve taken was setting it to public. Groundbreaking, I know.

I’ve been researching what makes a good Instagram account, well, good and how to get that follower count up. I’ve looked at other much more prominent art accounts on Instagram and the first thing I notice is that those accounts publish only art. High quality, polished, finished art pieces and illustrations. Clean and professional, even for WIPs and sketches. So the first thing I have to do is created a seperate account, strictly for my own creations.

Next I looked at Instagram themes. This isn’t the same as Tumblr themes, where I can go in and change the HTML code myself but theme from a design perspective. I found a website which lists useful apps and tools for this very purpose.

My only concern with starting an entirely separate account from my personal one is directing people to that account. It’s not a big concern; it’s not like I have a million followers or anything (and if I did, redirecting wouldn’t be that hard anyway). I suppose the only thing that can remedy this is time and consistency on my part. Other concerns I have include how to curate my work and what goes where. What I mean by this is because I’m uploading my art on the internet, it’s on the internet and in this day and age, a major concern for creatives is CREDIT. In the age of CTRL + Print Scrn and cropping, images get posted and reposted without credit to the original poster. Sometimes that can cost them money. One can get an A on a test bid their name isn’t on it…

Personally as a child of the internet age, this doesn’t bother me so much, mostly because I don’t post my bread and butter on social media. The works that I plan to take seriously, I don’t post on the gram—  I post those on my professional site where I know it’s protected (I don’t HAVE one yet but I digress). Art theft doesn’t really SCARE me and it doesn’t hinder me. No one is scrolling through  my itty bitty account, looking for ideas to steal. I’m not at a stage where I have to worry about that and when that time does come, I just have remind myself to sign or watermark my stuff (something I always forget to do…). Unless it’s totally egregious, art theft is the last worry on my list. Naïve? Perhaps. But I can’t let fear hinder my progress. Heaven knows, it has thus far.