Rad How To

Portion of Image from Rad How To by Rad Sechrist

This week's highlight is Rad How To! If you're an artist wanting to break into the film industry, this blog will be a big help.

Rad Sechrist is a storyboard artist at Dreamworks Animation. He created his blog to share some ideas and concepts he has learned about drawing. In no way does he say his techniques are the "right way" in doing things. His techniques are only some ways of accomplishing artistic challenges.

I love this blog because it's updated very often, and it has valuable information about drawing. Do you want to know how to draw the "Disney nose"? How can you improve your character design just by improving your shape design? Are you confused about the 180 rule? Have you even heard of the 180 rule? Rad goes step-by-step through concepts for comic book pages, faces, and even character anatomy. The cool thing is that Rad is very down-to-earth in his blog. He says that he didn't have that gift of drawing that some people are born with. Like most of us, he had to work very hard to get to the level he's at right now. The key thing to do is practice. You won't get good unless you practice. It's the only way to get good enough to break into the industry and work on projects like Dreamworks Animation's How To Train Your Dragon.

2P START!

Portion of Image from http://www.2pstart.com/2009/12/09/blueprint-for-success/

This week on Artist Prestige, I asked some of my roommates what artistic blogs they like to follow. The result? 2P Start! If you love video games, you are going to love this blog. And if you're like me and only know about Mario Bro., you'll still find this pretty funny.

2P Start is a comic blog that likes to play around with parodies of video games. Like I said, I don't play video games that often. But anyone that knows anything about Nintendo will appreciate this blog. Tim Harding writes up the comic while Ray Hargreaves draws up them up. Ray uses Adobe Illustrator for the most part. I like this blog because it's very simple and crisp. Ray likes to use different styles using the same medium.

Just like how Ray experiements with different styles, so can all types of artists. It will build up a wide variety in your skill library. Everyone can learn from all sorts of artists!

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Jed's Sketch Emporium

Portion of Image by Jed Henry http://jedart.blogspot.com/

This week's highlight is Jed's Sketch Emporium!

Jed Henry is a BYU Alumni that directed Kites, a Student Emmy winning short film. Even though he graduated with a bachelors degree in Animation, he now works as an illustrator. His blog is more than sketches. It's all sorts of illustrations using mediums from pastels to watercolor. I like this blog because his work has a strong cultural influence. He lived in Japan for a while, and it showed in his earlier pieces. Of course like a growing artist, he's moving along to different focuses. He has pieces from when he visited Hawaii, watched his wife's volleyball team, and when he was in the Las Vegas Airport. He drew from all around him. Drawing from life is a very good way of improving your skill.

I like how Jed has played with a lot of different mediums. For his children illustrations, his pieces are very simple, soft, and childlike. His sketches are very loose and free. And his watercolors are very expressive. But the thing that's neat to see is that he has a distinct style. Even though he has played with all sorts of mediums, he is confident with his style. That's a difficult task for a new artist. That comes with constant consistent practice.

Jed Henry's blog is interesting to visit because this is a regularly updated blog of a budding artist in the professional world. For those new are experienced, all of us can take a page out of Jed's book and learn something different.

The Sketch Club

Portion of image from The Sketch Club. Marcelo Vignali

Well, let's start this off right with one of my favorite blogs: The Sketch Club

The Sketch Club is a group of artists that picks at lunch a 'mark,' a person of interest, to draw. What makes this so interesting is they won't draw the mark until they come back from lunch. The reason why I like this blog so much is because you get to see a variety of styles. Even though the artists are drawing the same person, each will have a different focus and take on the person.

Those that are new to sketching should notice how the artists play with the characteristics of the person. They don't try to make the sketch look exactly like the person, but find the essence of them and make it visually appealing.

My favorite artist on this blog is Marcelo Vignali. I like how he changes his style up but still make his sketches amazing. His characters flow well and have a variety in line. For all those that are searching for some inspiration should look at his work. All of us can learn from him.