Let’s face it; all of us, whether we consider ourselves illustrators, high-brow artists or mere cartoonists, would love to be able to make a living doing only what we want to do. But the fact is that my graphic novels only have a cult following among my friends and are never likely to sell enough so I can retire to that yacht in the Caribbean I’ve always dreamed of. Instead, we’re forced to pimp our talents out to the highest bidder, dressing up in business suit and pretending professional to secure corporate contracts.
Much as I love writing my own graphic novels, and of course reading the classics like “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta”, I have a lot of respect for those artists who have the talent to create an entire story in just one picture. Throughout history there have been dozens of artists who had that talent, from Hieronymous Bosch and his visions of Hell in ‘The Garden of Earthy Delights'to modern artists like Paul Horton and Beryl Cook. The subject matter may have changed since the 15th century, from religion and images of heaven and hell, to modern-day men and women on a night out in unnamed northern towns, but the ability to sum up a story, or even one person’s life, in a simple snapshot is a talent that I don’t think I’ll ever have.
I would love to be able to say so much in such a small space, but garrulousness has always been my problem! There was a short story competition at my school when I was younger with an impressive top prize of £100. The limit was 500 words; my entry came in at a whopping 3,000 and would have won if I could have stuck to the rules. The problem was that I had so much to say, I couldn’t bear to take out any of my carefully-chosen words.
And it’s the same with my graphic novels. I put so much love and effort into creating each frame that it seems harsh to take any of them out! So the idea of reducing a lovingly-created comic strip into just one frame that can sum up a story or emotion seems completely bizarre to me. Why do you think I always have such trouble creating my front covers? It would be great to go back in time and get some tips from Bosch on how to create the ultimate one-frame story. Even if the results were a bit insane. If you’ve ever seen one of his paintings, then you’ll know what I mean!
Here’s a question which I’m sure many of you will be familiar with: how many times have you needed to convert a file and found the whole thing to be a pain which takes ages? OK, so it is what us illustrators do as our job, so we have no reason to complain, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to save some time in our busy days, right?
Enter Vectormagic.com – one of the best, if not the best, web-sites for converting images into that beloved of illustrated things…the vector! Here’s a quick run-down of how it works (and yes, we all know that you can do this in Illustrator and other programs, but the whole point of this little puppy is to considerably cut down the amount of faffing about. Something which can only be a good thing).
you get 2 free conversions with your email address, so it’s not as if it’s a hassle
Let’s presume you have some hr management software to illustrate for. Now, although you’re very proud of the design, you’re very aware that in illustrator this is going to take FOREVER. What you need is a quick and simple solution which will take the image and simplify it – that would be perfect.
While perusing the web with the question How to convert Jpegs into vectors fast? You come across Vectormagic.com and to be honest, this site – which will happily convert Jpegs, GIFs and other formats into vectors which you can save as PDFs if you wish – just seems too good to be true. But what the hell, you decide to try it out. After all, you get 2 free conversions with your email address, so it’s not as if it’s a hassle.
You try it out by uploading your image and then the site does its business. It takes a minute or two but the result is a fine vectored image with unlimited resolution. Brilliant. All that is left to do is to register your email address and you can get the image onto your computer!
Great, eh? And there really is no catch. It’s actually that simple.
If you adore the program then you can even subscribe monthly to it, so that you never have to go through complex head-scratching format-changing action ever again. I, for one, think that’s pretty damn fantastic! (Or, if you’re feeling a little bit cheeky you can use a few email addresses to do a few more free conversion. Careful, though, this is not unlimited. The site will recognise your IP address and only allow you a few free conversions.)
For more, this time on converting Bitmaps into Vectors, there’s a handy video below…
A good illustrator will always be in high demand. The increase in popularity of internet all over the world is only accelerating this process. If you are good at what you do, you will be flooded with work from all over the world. In such a scenario, you may find that quality of work can easily come down as you take up more demanding jobs that have to be completed within a specific deadline.
When you mention comics most people think of Superman and Batman, or the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-man. Perhaps some people think first of Amazing Tales and Weird Tales. These are all classic titles from the Golden Age of Comics, but the modern version, usually given the more up-market name of ‘graphic novel’, is far different. Modern graphic novels are usually aimed at adults, not at kids, and can be dark and gloomy, even tragic: think Art Spiegelman’s Maus, about More
I was at a store looking through some homeware when a feature on cartoonist David Cockrum came on the television in the store. I remember him from a while ago so I looked up his bio.
David Cockrum passed away on November 26, 2006 at the age of 63. He was a comic artist, and his most famous creations include Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus from X-Men.
Painting is a very prominent art around the world. Some of them are very expensive and the appreciation of a good work of art varies by people and culture. Paintings are also very expensive as the price of a good number of them runs into millions of dollars. Their expensive nature forces kit insurance especially for ardent collectors. The following paintings are not in the list by the reason of what they cost but by ordinary popularity. It is also More
Any artist or illustrator will know exactly how difficult it is to ‘get noticed’. And it can all seem so damned unfair!!! Everywhere we go there are animations, advertisements, posters or exhibitions… yet a lot of the time we know that our own work is equally as good, if not even better! More
Color is an integral piece of any art; whether you work in animation, fine art or even just design the new range of Pantone espresso cups! But what a lot of people might not realise is that the choice of color isn’t just a visual or an aesthetic one. Certain colour choices in art, particularly at different times in history and in different countries, actually have some kind of symbolism attached to them. In the western world colours can More
In the pub at the weekend, we got onto one of the really weighty art subjects, and spent many hours (and many pints) furiously debating the various points of view; who is the best cartoon character of all time? My attempt to be intellectual and nominate Caroline Shotton ’s marvellous “cartoon” cows were shot down in flames, so I sunk to everyone else’s level pretty quickly.
We debated artistic merits, obviously, wondering if cartoon characters that were essentially badly drawn More
