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<title>The Flog</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/</link>
<description><![CDATA[Fantastic Portfolios]]></description>
<image><title>The Fantastic Portfolios Blog</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/</link>
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<title>Pinterest&amp;#039;s Prickly Problem</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/24</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:27:41 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[If you&#39;re familiar with&nbsp;Pinterest, online discussions about Pinterest&#39;s copyright issues have been heating up recently, and (I believe) I may have mentioned the site on the Flog before. Pinterest is a website and online tool that lets you "pin" images online onto a virtual pinboard on your Pinterest account, and you can create unlimited boards (and pins), amassing (essentially) galleries of images grouped by theme, media, colour, or subject. It&#39;s fantastic for idea-gathering; whether you&#39;re working on a room design, party plan, or for that matter, a painting or character design. But lately the argument has come up that the site hurts artists and crafters. I&#39;d like to examine that in today&#39;s Flog entry.    When I first started using Pinterest, I mostly pinned photographs of interior decor I liked, public domain paintings by dead artists, interesting photo textures and colour combinations, and catalog photos of dresses and fabric I thought were inspiring. (In fact, on one board, I pinned pictures of kimono fabrics and gowns because I planned on putting a fairy in kimono-inspired costume. The end design was my own.)    I still find Pinterest a fantastic tool for artists--if you play by the copyright rules. That is, that you only pin images that the creator has said are OK to be pinned, and if you are using reference photos, the copyright holders of the photos need to be OK with you copying the photos wholesale (or the figures more or less wholesale, in the case of models modeling for artists). Keeping in mind that expressions of ideas in photography, art and writing are automatically copyrighted (whether or not the fancy &copy; sign appears) by the creator, ideas themselves are free--so this applies to things like mood, "feel", colour combinations, and even style--so if you want to paint modern figures in the method of Alphonse Mucha, go for it! I&#39;ll stick to my original guns that Pinterest is a useful tool for gathering inspiration in a very organised and accessible way.The problem Pinterest poses for artists, crafters and photographers is this: Not everyone who uses Pinterest (or indeed, anyone who uses the Internet) is versed in copyright law, and while it&#39;s always been impossible stopping anyone from saving your images on the Internet, now Pinterest is essentially letting them take a picture and republish the image on Pinterest--whether or not your website has a "Pin It" button, and whether or not you allow such distribution and say so explicitly on your website. (Pinterest allows anyone to install a "Pin It" app in their browser.) Now, all pins provide (after a bit of careful looking) a link to the original source of the image. But the ease of "re-pinning" an image already on Pinterest means an image of yours can get a fair amount of distribution and re-distribution on Pinterest without any clicks going to your website, when one of those clicks could become potential revenue. It&#39;s like Google Image Search, but without a person having to go to your website at all to view the full-size image and become a potential buyer.  I get this argument. If you&#39;re on Etsy, know that Etsy now has a "Pin It" button on every Etsy product page, and the cry from some vendors is that they&#39;ve found their Etsy product photos on Pinterest, at the same time visits to their actual Etsy store (and their sales) have been going South. "Pin It" definitely does not work to an Etsy seller&#39;s benefit the way the Etsy "treasuries" do, in which clicking on an item in a Treasury brings you to the product&#39;s buying page. (Pinterest doesn&#39;t discourage Etsy sales either, but it does put the purchasing page an extra click away. I don&#39;t think that&#39;s too much of an impediment for someone who wants something, but can imagine a casual Pinterest user not even bothering to check out the original source.)  And yet, I&#39;m also familiar with the phenomenon of getting lots of views and few buyers--not only on Etsy, but many artist gallery and sale sites like Fine Art America, RedBubble and (so I hear) DeviantArt. Personally, I think someone who&#39;s out to buy will not be looking on Pinterest. They&#39;ll be shopping on their favourite shopping site. It&#39;s the casual browsers, impulse buyers and freeloaders that are potential lost sales, in which case (1) the freeloader will rarely buy anything anyway, and (2) the casual and impulse buyers CAN still be hooked--if the pinned photo makes clear (1) there&#39;s a product to be had, and (2) there there&#39;s a place to go to buy it.  Copyright text and small print on your website may make clear that you don&#39;t want your images on Pinterest, but not every Pinterest user is going to read or heed that small print. So don&#39;t let your images out onto the Internet without identifying information or watermarks. (The one place this is difficult to apply, alas, is art gallery and print sites on which you upload the print versions of your images--ie. no watermarks--and the web-view images are displayed online without your preferred copyright text or watermark. I&#39;ve already found an image of mine like this on Pinterest, yoinked from RedBubble. Time to ask them for help on this!)  If you run your own website for your art/portfolio, know that Pinterest provides a "no pin" code for you to place on your pages so that none of your images can be pinned--remember however, that even with lots of code and protection, any determined art "fan" can still download your art with just a screen capture. But if you&#39;re against your images being pinned,&nbsp;use the no-pin code.&nbsp;My best recommendation is to show the copyright information of on all yours images CLEARLY (text on a "screen" or "multiply" layer in Photoshop), making sure your full artist name and website or Etsy store address can be easily read. Who knows? With this info, who knows, having one&#39;s images on Pinterest may actually work towards more sales and visits! I predict tutorials for artists and photographers on how to capitalise on Pinterest appearing in the not-too-distant future. If you do run into any of these, send me the link, or maybe just remember you read it here first. ;)  Related Links:  What You Should Know About Pinterest and CopyrightPinterest&#39;s Copyright Problem and How It May Hurt Brands&nbsp;How to Use Pinterest and Still Respect Copyrights]]></description>
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<title>Drawing Tutorials and Exercises</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/23</link>
<pubDate>Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:07:57 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[Just a collection of links today while I recover from some (more) traveling undertaken this past month. These online sites will be especially useful if you&#39;ve had little or no formal art education--you&#39;ll get a taste (or reminder) of the exercises that students of drawing do. First one is the most nifty:Figure &amp; Gesture Drawing Tool(Yeah, it&#39;s the online equivalent of the drawing exercises done with a live model.) Before you think it&#39;s just hours of bliss copying a nude girl&#39;s likeness on your canvas, know that that isn&#39;t the only point of figure and gesture drawing. The great thing is, the page itself explains gesture drawing exercises, and you get a choice of BOTH female and male models.Still here?&nbsp;  &nbsp;Wings on Humans Art Tutorial&nbsp;  &nbsp;(found via Elizabeth Barrette&#39;s blog entry,&nbsp;Wing Tutorial Art)I wish I could credit the maker of this tutorial, but am having trouble finding the original source. If you know, let me know!Fantasy Art Study on NingThis group combines drawing studies and exercises on both drawing and rendering techniques (mostly traditional media) and subjects of fantasy art. So if you think you need the basic lessons, but still want them focused on fantasy art, this is a great site! Regular "study group" exercises (using Andrew Loomis&#39; Figure Drawing for All It&#39;s Worth and Peter Stanyer&#39;s The Complete Book of Drawing Techniques) are posted on the site, and the comments section is where members can respond by posting results from their own practice. It&#39;s a place which encourages participation because of this semi-formal format where you read the tutorial, then show your own work.]]></description>
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<title>Getting It Done</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/22</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:57:38 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[  During my casual surfing on the web, links get bookmarked into my "to blog" list sometimes, and I delete them from the list as they get blogged, tackled or decided against. (It&#39;s a handy way to tackle surfing and a to-do list in one.) Now, that "to-blog" or "to-do" bookmark list isn&#39;t really today&#39;s blog subject (but if you found that tip useful, you&#39;re welcome), it&#39;s that there was a certain link that sat on the list a long&nbsp;time because, well, I thought linking to it would look like I was advocating smoking, and rudely. (I&#39;m not.) Here it is:&nbsp;7 Lessons Smokers Can Teach Us About Getting Sh*t Done.  The seven tips really apply for those who are mums, or working day jobs, or juggling those two things on top of playing caregiver for older relatives, or night classes, whatever situation you may be in that keeps art from becoming a full-time vocation. And while I&#39;ve always appreciated artists and creative people who post photos of their work spaces online, I also have resented those lucky gits who don&#39;t have to share their work spaces, or have to clear it all up when it&#39;s mealtime (I paint at the dining table) or have to stash paintings under the wardrobes to dry where they will (hopefully) not be found or disturbed by the toddler. Sometimes after all the precautions I take, accidents still happen (like soup being tossed and landing onto a painting three feet away), but if one is determined, one can make art (or smoke) anytime and anywhere. Painting on-site for location paintings and speed-portraits has pretty much cemented this lesson for me.If you&#39;ve got a sketch or an idea to work on, but find yourself surfing or watching TV instead, put a pencil and a sketchbook in front of yourself&nbsp;anyway and see which activity wins. That&#39;s all this week!]]></description>
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<title>Book Review: 100 Ways to Create Fantasy Characters</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/21</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:36:47 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[100 Ways to Create Fantasy Figures&nbsp;Author/Artist: Francis TsaiPublisher:&nbsp;Impact    Francis Tsai wasn&#39;t a name I immediately recognised picking up the book. But he is a talented concept artist and freelance illustrator who&#39;s worked for all the big companies, and who didn&#39;t start out in traditional art school. On that fact in the introduction alone, I was immediately intrigued and encouraged. He draws a distinction between design-based art education and illustration-based art education, and if concept art is an industry you&#39;re aiming for, he makes clear that it&#39;s beneficial to have the skills taught in both. (Design helps in effective visual communication and problem-solving, while illustration/fine-art training focuses on observation, documenting and reproducing visuals in various media.) Chances are, unless you&#39;re in a course specifically for concept art, you probably have a grounding in one field, and would need to be practice the other on your own. (Or if you&#39;re like me, you&#39;ve got to work on both all on your own!)    It&#39;s practical, thought-provoking advice like this that makes clear this isn&#39;t just a book of examples and tutorials. It&#39;s a book that reveals, from experience, the art skills needed to become a concept artist, or a book, comic, or media illustrator, and how to go about getting and honing those skills. Observation and constant sketching is a must (which made me realise that joining the local urban sketchers wasn&#39;t as "useless" to me as I thought), as is gaining a visual vocabulary, learning the problem-solving approach to designing characters, places, AND the final art pieces. This book is not just for browsing through; Francis Tsai goes from the "big picture" advice and long-term strategies for a striving artist, before going into the 100 ways of creating fantasy figures.    So we come to the 100 ways, and if I hadn&#39;t already been impressed with the preceding stuff, the bulk of the book is packed with inspirational techniques and strategies to stretch and strengthen one&#39;s art. In many ways, I think the book should have been titled toward this end, as the 100 tips aren&#39;t JUST for fantasy figues, but artwork that balances figures and/or monsters in their environments and in the art. This book is a keeper: you can always open it randomly for a new technique, or use it more systematically, say, when you need to create a sympathetic character or conversely, a monster; and when you need inspiration, a "hook", or just to climb out of a rut. &nbsp;    So, there are no walkthroughs in this book, but it&#39;s packed full of art examples, good tips and advice. It&#39;s not a style you&#39;re going to learn how to recreate, but it&#39;s a guidebook on how to develop your own style, and how to add to your drawing and design skills, and how to make art directors happy (or, happier, at least). Highly recommended.]]></description>
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<title>It&amp;#039;s 2012!</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/20</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:30:00 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[      I have been a bad, bad blogger; I went on holiday and let myself succumb to the post-holiday slump. Anyway, now that&#39;s over, welcome back, and into a new year: 2012! I&#39;m not even THAT late, because if you follow the Chinese calandar, the new year (the Year of the Dragon, if you were curious) doesn&#39;t actually start until January 23rd! (Ha!)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  If you were worried your errant blogger wasn&#39;t returning, or had run out of topics to cover, have no fear of that. First up: Spectrum, that yearly anthology of gorgeous contemporary fantasy art, is&nbsp;accepting submissions&nbsp;for their next compilation until January 27th. I&#39;m going to admit: I think I have nothing up to snuff (yet. There&#39;s always next year!) but if you&#39;re feeling good about your chances, get your butt moving on your entry!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  Next: An epic post on the silliness of girls&#39; poses on fantasy book covers was posted recently by the fabulous fantasy writer, Jim C. Hines. (I&#39;m linking to&nbsp;his LJ entry&nbsp;but it&#39;s mirrored on his site too.) After you&#39;re done laughing and wiping the tears from your eyes, catch&nbsp;his follow-up post, in which he provides links (some of which I&#39;ve also provided on this blog). This one, however, I must highlight:&nbsp;Men&#39;s Versus Women&#39;s Poses&nbsp;        Last one for now:&nbsp;Small Business Resolutions Worth Keeping. There are a few tips on the page, and my favourite is the one about prioritizing and limiting distractions. Having a timer on one&#39;s FaceBook/Twitter/surfing time sounds excellent. As is having daily/weekly/monthly goals. (I have a monthly goal to finish at least one "big" painting per month. And this year, a modest but doable goal, I think, to post at least once per week at Fantastic Portfolios.)&nbsp;&nbsp;  See you next week!&nbsp;]]></description>
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<title>Preciousness, Red Lines and Miscellaneous Links</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/19</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:22:03 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[          When I was in secondary school (in the British Commonwealth, this is the name of school you attend between ages 13 to 16, after primary school), I was certain my art teacher was out to get me. Sketches I&#39;d loving tickled onto the paper with my timid 2B pencils would return to me with corrective lines gouged into the drawing, sometimes in what looked like 8B charcoal. Every art student got them, but with my work it&#39;d always seemed more heartbreaking because I&#39;d had widespread assurance the originals were so pretty. Yet, my drawings would still receive more corrective lines than others. (Thanks, Mrs Ong.)    With age comes wisdom, albeit very slowly. When you&#39;re starting out, everything you make with your hands is dear and seen as precious. Every pencil mark and paint stroke is done with a lot of sincerity, and having it ripped to pieces is, well, heartbreaking. Years and years down the line, you get jaded: Sketches and drawings are discarded, revised for the client&#39;s liking, taken in directions you hadn&#39;t expected, and after producing literally thousands of pictures, you may get used to seeing your own work more critically, clinically, and start to anticipate criticisms--and then heed or disregard those in your work according to your emotional and financial needs at the moment.    The lesson that comes with time: What may be dear and precious in your work to you may not be apparent to everyone else. But then again, if you&#39;re lucky enough that your work starts off hugely popular maybe this won&#39;t be a hard knock you&#39;ll have to deal with! But if your art has weaknesses, red lines (or in my teacher&#39;s case, 8B pencil) on top of one&#39;s work help open your eyes to your pictures&#39; problems and solutions. And sometimes, because you&#39;re getting better at art over time, you start being the one applying the red pen to your own work.&nbsp;    Here&#39;s my own recent example:&nbsp;Tangled (Revisited)    While Lori McNee at Fine Art Tips has several drastic examples:How I Destroyed a Painting to Make it BetterGive a New Identity to an Unsold Painting!Rework an Old Painting &amp; Make it Sell!&nbsp;I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. --Jackson Pollock  On to miscellanous links:    The Art Order has issued a new challenge:&nbsp;Levi&nbsp;&nbsp;    This is a delightful article:&nbsp;The Schweizer Guide to Spotting Tangents  A tangent is when two or more lines interact in a way that insinuates a relationship between them that the artist did not intend.        I didn&#39;t know this problem had a name! But it is something I do look out for when drawing. Having come across other artists&#39; images that suffer from the problem, this article explains very thoroughly what to look out for, reasons to avoid tangents, and easy solutions.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;    And this is a HUGE tangent that is NOT art related, but a hilarious comedy sketch, sort-of related to the preciousness of our artistic talents:&nbsp;Talent Dredge from Mitchell and Webb&nbsp;&nbsp;    I do love British humour. Till the next post!]]></description>
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<title>Paypal, Occupy, and the Little Guy</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/18</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:41:13 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[I had a happier post lined up, but thought I&#39;d talk about businesses and ethics for this one. There was a little tea-cup storm on the Internet over the last few days that you may have heard about: The Regretsy vs Paypal Debacle that had many Paypal users (businesses and buyers alike) up in arms; the story even made it to CNN.&nbsp;Regretsy, a site I know I&#39;ve linked to on here, was taking Paypal donations for a toy drive, and long story short, had its&nbsp;accounts frozen for a made-up reason, before public pressure and petitions made Paypal back down and admit (inamumblemumblefashion) that they had made an error.    When I first ran into the story, I&#39;ll admit this, I was trying to quell a mindless rising panic when Paypal&#39;s exchange with Regretsy included an insistence that the "Donate" button was only for the use of non-profits and "worthy causes". The Paypal Donate button is the button you&#39;ll see on blogs, artist sites and webcomic sites. Sometimes it&#39;s called the tip jar. The Paypal Donate button lets the person who uses it decide how much to give, and if the money is going to the artist--well, here was my conundrum: Was I a nonprofit? Did I have to register as a non-profit? Was I worthy cause? Was feeding an artist a worthy cause, or did I now have to give up painting and get a "real job"? What about the thousands of other little people and businesses out there offering services and tutorials and e-books with a "pay what you like" model?    Turns out of course anyone could and can continue to use the Donate button for any reason (and Paypal always takes a little cut from each donation). But April Winchell, when&nbsp;this was still playing out, said something really cogent about Paypal&#39;s (and indeed, a lot of corporations&#39;) actions:&nbsp;    We are all working very hard in a bad economic climate, and every cent we spend really matters. And corporations continue to treat us like they&rsquo;re the only ones who are hurting.We see the erosion of customer care in every sector. No one knows your name. No one makes eye contact. No one thanks you. Even doctors are practicing a completely different kind of medicine now. They have to see so many people to make the same money they used to that they&rsquo;ve become more like mechanics. They forget your cancer is attached to a person. And Paypal forgets your fees are attached to people who are trying to make a living, or facilitate something good for other people.&nbsp;    Wading into politics and social responsibility is not something I planned for the Fantastic Portfolios&#39; blog, but I do believe we seem to be living in a climate where it is accepted (nay, expected) that corporations put money before people. (It&#39;s capitalism, right?) Corporations don&#39;t say they put money before people, of course, but their actions scream it: they report profits even as they announce "downsizing" measures; workers&#39; productivity keeps going on up (ie. they work longer hours and bear more responsibilities) but salaries don&#39;t (unless you&#39;re a CEO). When you buy products that say "made in China", think about the companies that have moved their productions there so that they save costs--were those savings really passed straight on to you, or are you (and your society) paying now in other ways? Corporations, as part of their legal definition, are "people" and thus they&#39;re quick to scream this in defence when anyone want to take them to task for their socially irresponsible actions. Add to the mess that politicians and corporate donations (and CEOs for that matter) are so deeply and inextricably entangled in some industries (healthcare, agriculture) that it truly makes all ignorance look like bliss.    By the way, if you&#39;ve been foggy about what those Occupy Wall Street "bums and hippies" have been railing about, that&#39;s it. Corporations and government being in cahoots, forgetting their responsibilities to PEOPLE. Real people. Not corporations pretending to be people in the laws.    Paypal is a terrific example of a corporation that has almost life-and-death power over thousands of small businesses and craftspeople and freelancers that depend on it to make a living. It&#39;s got the monopoly on online transactions. No other online payment processing service comes close to having Paypal&#39;s international reach and relative ease of use. (I have looked.) Regretsy was essentially bullied by Paypal, and Regretsy was lucky to have gotten their accounts unfrozen--the site had clout and media attention, and it was CHRISTMAS. No corporation wants to be seen as a grinch. It&#39;s bad for profit.    There&#39;s no answers I can provide in this little blog post, but just some awareness I think is good to raise for artists and all small businesses--educate your customers as much as you can, and just as you&#39;d like to be supported, support "the little guy" (family businesses, other artists, farmers) as much as you can afford to as well. (In cash or barter, if possible.)&nbsp;    Have a happy holiday season.]]></description>
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<title>Housekeeping &amp;amp; Recommended Links</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/17</link>
<pubDate>Sat, 03 Dec 2011 19:53:55 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[It&#39;s December! Wait, what? December? We&#39;re almost into a new year, and I&#39;m honestly having trouble keeping up with how fast time is moving!&nbsp;In site news, blogs have been disabled on artists&#39; portfolio pages as certain RSS feeds have changed and were causing hang-ups when loading those pages. I&#39;m still looking into it. (And giving LiveJournal the evil eye!)     I do have a couple more substantial blog subjects lined up, but getting the time to sit down and write has been hard to come by, so this is a bit of miscellaneous post.    If you just missed December&#39;s Sketch Fest (which happened December 2nd and 3rd), the ongoing themes you can find and participate in elsewhere are "Brigade" for this week&#39;s&nbsp;Illustration Friday, "Dragonflies" and "Steampunk" for the first two issues of next year&#39;s&nbsp;EMG-Zine, and "Circe" for&nbsp;Enchanted Visions Art.]]></description>
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<title>Artists Helping Artists</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/16</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:36:07 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[In the free-wheeling and dealing world on the Internet, it&#39;s always been interesting for me to note the wide range of artistic styles and abilities out there that are still quite dazzling to me, who managed to live the first 17 years of my life without it. Prior to the Internet, my exposure to art was in the form of books, stationery, art classes and museums. Even with regular exposure to the widest variety of books, it was still looking at art through the filters imposed by industry experts and book editors. It wasn&#39;t bad (on the contrary, it was all good stuff) but it was rare to find rough sketches or pictures of work in development outside of biographical books about artists. Even in the early days of the Internet, scanners weren&#39;t common, digital painting was (more or less) in its infancy, and the artists to be found online were probably just a fraction of a percentage of the artists you can find online today.&nbsp;&nbsp;  Recent explorations on the Internet revealed to me that it isn&#39;t just artists of various abilities flourishing online, but the tutorials written for artists of varying levels by artists at varying levels. It really shouldn&#39;t have been a surprise to me, because some of these tutorials have been the subject of hilarity in some of the forums I roll in (frequently, tutorials by obviously young-male artists trying to teach others how to draw ladyboobs). Maybe it&#39;s just the Thanksgiving spirit getting to me, but I had an epiphany looking at these tutorials yesterday, even some of the ones I know I&#39;d have written completely differently: It&#39;s all artists trying to help other artists. And this motivation to help is found at all levels of ability--which is brilliant.&nbsp;&nbsp;  Now, I could end here after pointing out that we could be grateful for this alone (and I&#39;ll also provide links to general tutorial sites at the bottom) but I&#39;d like to take it further. Sometimes I find stuff on the internet alluding to artists behaving badly, whether it&#39;s stealing (not cool), being flaky (as artists, we&#39;re allowed some slack being "creative types", but not too much), ungrateful, jealous, not good at sharing,&nbsp;et cetera. I&#39;m not going to be schoolmarm here, because I&#39;ve hardly been the model for any type of moral behavior for much of my life, but I will share something: It&#39;s definitely no fun being in an insecure place, and being in so deep that looking at other artists gets you down. And after looking at so many tutorials, I wonder if the trick to coming out of negativity is to turn it around, recognise one&#39;s strengths, and use them for helping others (this includes other artists). Because everyone starts somewhere. No one is born Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci right out of the womb. There are art teachers, there are informal art teachers, and there&#39;s art by tons of other artists we look at everyday, and all and every one of them is going to affect our own art, whether we&#39;re conscious of it or not.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  OK, so some artists may look like they don&#39;t need help anymore (if so, good for them; but remember there was a time they did); they&#39;re still vastly outnumbered by other artists and beginning artists looking for encouragement. And giving encouragement is something that will keep you in a positive place--and grateful when it&#39;s returned!&nbsp;  (Disclaimer: Not all generous acts of helping others will be received with 100% glowing gratitude--like these flog entries--but that&#39;s OK. ;) Do it to potentially help or to just feel good without expectations of things you may not be able to control. Easier said than done, but this is a disclaimer for you.)&nbsp;  Besides art-hosting sites and artist&#39;s personal websites, art tutorials can also be found on sites expressly for providing tutorials and help for various subjects. And last by not least, there&#39;s always YouTube.  Art tutorials at:     Fantasy Art Workshop  Squidoo  HubPages  Drawing and Sketching at About.com  Painting at About.com  YouTube&nbsp;(requires some further hunting of your own)  Have a great weekend!]]></description>
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<title>Perfect is the Enemy</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/15</link>
<pubDate>Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:02:50 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[          Pfshaw, has it really been 10 days since my last blog post? I am shamefaced. A lot has been going on, and I suspect that many other artists as well have been taking advantage of this time of year where Christmas shopping (or, Christmas selling) is the top priority of independent shops and artists. What a handy excuse! And handy blog topic.              The title of the post may come from advice you may have heard before, commonly "Don&#39;t let perfect become the enemy of the good". Or: "Perfect is the enemy of the good," which, I am again ashamed to find out, originated from Voltaire, who wrote one of my favourite books ever, Candide. (That guy? Genius.)                        Perfectionism, it has taken me a long time to figure out, really is a flaw. Here are the excuses I used to run through in my head, to avoid selling my work (and, some of them I&#39;m still using): My portfolio isn&#39;t good enough yet. I haven&#39;t got my prints of this picture just right, I can&#39;t offer them for sale! There&#39;s a stray dot on this picture that&#39;s bugging me. My web site isn&#39;t ready. I don&#39;t have photos, or good enough photos, of this product. I don&#39;t have a story or description of Shakespearean standards to accompany this product.&nbsp;        "Not good enough" is an excuse that rears its head constantly, and it&#39;s just a delaying tactic. It&#39;s used to deliberately place an obstacle between oneself and the Test--Will it sell? Do people want it? Will people pay for it? Deciding not to sell ("yet") yields the same financial result as not having people buy it, but the former lets us keep our ego, while the latter brings on a whole host of disappointments and questions ("WHY?") and may necessitate us working harder to sell, when all we want to do is create art.&nbsp;It&#39;s really understandable. But also counter-productive.&nbsp;                        Any job--every job--has bits of it we don&#39;t enjoy quite as much as other bits of it. Selling isn&#39;t as much fun to me as creating, but until the day I can afford a marketing department, it&#39;s a necessity, and perfectionism (useful as it can sometimes be in art-making) shouldn&#39;t come into it if it stops me posting services or items for sale. Good enough is good enough. All I need to do to convince myself of this is to visit&nbsp;Regretsy&nbsp;from time to time, and see some truly weird and questionable products that are offered for sale (in various places, not just etsy), accompanied with photos taken in the semi-darkness, and descriptions written in ALL CAPS or wth hillarious spelling errows [sic].                        Of course it may be disappointing to spend time crafting an auction, or an etsy posting, or Craigslist posting, or a new product, and get no responses, so start with creating or listing items and services that take the least effort. Those may yield something! And then work up to those that take more investment (time, money, or materials-wise).&nbsp;                        Happy selling!                        Recommended links: IttyBiz Confessional: What if I&#39;m not awesome enough?]]></description>
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<title>Growing as an Artist (Part III: Learning to See, Making It Work)</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/14</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:02:18 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[      Tim Gunn (most often seen on Project Runway) has more or less immortalised the words "Make it work" in his voice, and I&#39;ve often been amused how the designers who hear it will step back, see their creations anew, and yes, try their hardest to make them work. It seems like such an inexact science though; fashion (and art) have always suffered from a wishy-washy reputation--how, it&#39;s only for the people who live in their heads, look at things a lot, once in a while go aha!, snap their fingers, fiddle about, then it all suddenly Looks Good, and Art Is Accomplished. I&#39;ve often run into people who seem to have this idea of art and design, and some of them were (this is what surprised me) artists.      Much as I love the words "make it work", I feel they are too vague to be useful, and they are time-wasters. Art isn&#39;t magical, isn&#39;t wishy-washy, and doesn&#39;t need to be vague. Even the Greeks found it possible to establish the Golden Ratio, the loveliest proportion (you may disagree) of length to breadth of any rectangular shape; the Greeks basically settled on some mathematical principles on how one proportion generally looks nicer than others. And loads of people since the Greeks have found ways to describe and quantify aspects of art and paintings. Observe: contrast, composition, flow, colour choice, colour intensity, key (low or high), drama, dynamism, tension, pattern, movement, texture, energy, proportion, scale, mood, interest, articulation, line, detail, complexity... the list goes on, and not all those words mean the same things, though some seem similar.&nbsp;       A painting is always more than what it shows literally. It is always more than the sum of its parts. There are, truly, ways to "make it work". That&#39;s where seeing comes in--breaking a piece down into as many different ways as possible, so that it works in as many aspects as the artist wants, to create a whole that works for what the artist wants.&nbsp;       An artist or an art buyer who can only see art for the literal subjects depicted isn&#39;t seeing half of what there is to see in it. They may feel parts of a picture subconsciously, like its colours and effect on his/her mood, its energy, or strength of composition. If something is "off", they may not be able to spot or articulate what it is. Conversely I feel that many paintings look good and become popular not just because of subjective taste, but also because that piece got a lot of aspects or elements in it quantifiable-y right, or stayed close to principles that are historically and culturally (even biologically) established as beautiful. Wonderfully, art and style is still diverse because humans are diverse. But do works of art that work (by common consensus) usually have some things in common? I think so.      I was challenged in this lesson not too long ago when a fellow artist showed me two of his pieces of the same subject. They were portraits of a woman holding some flowers, and they were "the same picture": same pose, same composition, same woman... except one of the portraits was in colour, and the other was in graphite pencil. "Why," the artist asked in mild frustration, "does one look better than the other? Why do I like the black and white one more?" (When he had spent more time on the colour?) I wasn&#39;t the only artist present, but I was the only one who could articulate that the graphite portrait had better contrast and hence more interest, and a stronger composition (because of the contrast and center of interest) and slightly more texture and variation in tone than the colour portrait, which was all a bit washed out. I got stared at in amazement for making it all sound so "scientific". (And not once did I need to venture into talking about style or subjective taste. I had only pointed out why the black-and-white "worked better".)&nbsp;      Aha. So, I hadn&#39;t gone to art school (as you now know from the previous post), but I did have something to show for the years and years of drawing on my own, getting criticism when I could, reading TONS of art books, books on aesthetics, books on seeing, and books about how different artists approached their work. I HAD BIG, SCIENTIFIC WORDS!            Well, that was a bit of a joke. I didn&#39;t have just those. But I did have the vocabulary that came with understanding more concepts and ways of looking at art, more ways of describing it, and more ways of solving problems in problematic pictures. (And, it&#39;s still a lifelong, ongoing learning process.) More important than what materials or software to use, the biggest, most important additions to an artist&#39;s toolbox may be new eyes. Or, to be more precise, new ways of seeing. They help an artist&#39;s drawing-from-life skills, picture-planning skills, and do make problem-solving more of a science than a woo-woo mystery. They give an artist added consciousness of the choices they make in art-making that add to their strengths, instead of, well, creating duds occasionally/often/too often, and not knowing how to fix them. (E.g. Do you draw human eyes like the CBS symbol because you&#39;re aiming for a childlike style, or because you don&#39;t know how to draw eyes any other way? More questions like this are asked of oneself as an artist progresses.)            Anyway, there you have Part III of this topic, and it&#39;s the last installment! Growing as an artist is a big deal to me, and probably unsurprising as a topic on Fantastic Portfolios because this site was set up to help artists get better with help from other artists! Individual "seeing" exercises or posts on ways of seeing may come up in future. In the meantime, why not flex your art muscles with a&nbsp;Sketch Fest? Draw something new you&#39;ve never drawn before, or experiment with a new art-ing method. But above all, have fun and...       Make it work!]]></description>
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<title>Growing as an Artist (Part II: Hearing Criticism)</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/13</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:24:47 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[  I didn&#39;t go to art school, for a lot of reasons that were unique to my background and experiences, but when I did take art classes up to college (nothing beyond the 101 level, alas), my art teachers were supportive and encouraging. I do wonder what it would have been like to be an art school graduate, but I also loved the crazy college ride I took (Journalism and a whole smattering of art history, literature and philosophy classes)... and, er... gosh, what was the topic of this entry again? Oh, right--growing as an artist.        The few years I got to attend GenCon (when it was still in Wisconsin!), I made sure to sign up for the Portfolio Review slots offered by Wizards of the Coast art directors. I recognised this was the best, immediate way to show my work to the people I wanted to work for (one day), and to hear how I sucked. (OK, I&#39;ll grant no one ever wants to hear how they suck. But if you accept already the idea that you suck, even in the smallest way somewhere somehow, it becomes easier to hear it spelled out.) The slots always had the first name of the art director available to crit your work, and by the time I was signing up, all the slots by A, B, and C had been taken up, and only slots by art director D were available. I shrugged my shoulders at the time, and signed up for a slot with D.        Chances are there may be readers who will one day read this and figure out who D was/is, and I have nothing but respect for this person, who gave me very kind but also objective, well-balanced and helpful feedback, and at a level I could understand at the time (because at the time I was really, in terms of technical level, a n00b). I was enlightened on my strengths (two) but also my main problem areas (also two), and the person really was kind, because I definitely had many weaknesses, some that took me years to figure out. (Maybe art school could have sped up the process.) But I was given just two things (contrast, anatomy) to work on after the review. And I walked away feeling a little disappointed in my work and its reception, but also (mostly) positive, with goals to aim for. Then I tried to share with another aspiring artist at the con my portfolio review experience.        "Who did you get?" was the first question asked of me. I replied, saying it was D.        "Oh no! D is mean! No one likes D. I&#39;m sorry." Or words to that effect. It didn&#39;t take me long to realise that there was a reason D&#39;s slots were the only ones still available when I signed up. I said D hadn&#39;t seemed mean, but had pointed out a lot of flaws.        "Yeah! And that was what D did with me. Kept pointing out the bad stuff! That&#39;s why I don&#39;t review with D anymore."&nbsp;        I am, of course, paraphrasing as I can only do 10 years after the fact. Anyway, having seen this artist&#39;s work, I could easily imagine, even then, what D would have said about it. I kept my trap shut. But I realised while I had gotten out of the portfolio review exactly what I&#39;d expected and needed (knowledge of what I was lacking, ie. reasons why my dream wasn&#39;t yet reality), while this other artist hadn&#39;t (same dream, but who knows what expectations). He wasn&#39;t alone; I could only conclude all the other artists who hadn&#39;t wanted a review by D didn&#39;t want to hear bad stuff either.&nbsp;    &nbsp;    The point of this long story (there is one!) is that bad stuff, or criticism, whether provided by others or oneself, is necessary for growth. Anyone who&#39;s only ever showered by compliments, or who only wants compliments, may have flaws they&#39;ll never know. If they don&#39;t get off their own beaten path, not even to risk a few knocks to the ego, it&#39;s a slim chance (or a very slow process) that their work will progress beyond what they&#39;re comfortable doing. But if growing and improving is part of an artist&#39;s aim, then venturing out of the comfort zone is necessary. Hearing criticism is necessary. Listening to that criticism is necessary. Work is necessary--there aren&#39;t shortcuts.&nbsp;        The growing artist has a choice: their "growth energy" can either be put into tearing down critics of their art, or working on understanding the criticism(s) and making their work/style/methods stronger for it. Understanding, and learning to see with the critic&#39;s eye is crucial to improving one&#39;s art. I will not be the first artist to put forward that learning to make art is a long process of learning how to see.&nbsp;        Learning how to see will be in the subject of next post in this series.        ]]></description>
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<title>Growing as an Artist (Part I)</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/12</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Nov 2011 02:02:09 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[  OK, so there&#39;s a bit to be suspicious of my tackling this subject when I&#39;m not exactly at the top of the art heap (is there an art heap? how do I get on it?), but this occupies my mind a lot: How to get better at making pictures. This might actually be the easiest part of being an artist, compared to challenges like how to make money, how to make a living, how to find your audience, how to keep going, how to balance painting with marketing... you get the picture. Trying to become technically better looks (almost) straightforward.        Except I know it isn&#39;t, because all artists have different reasons and processes as to how and why they make art. Some may be in it for relaxation, self-expression, pleasure, or all that in any combination. Growing as an artist isn&#39;t something that comes up until.. well, the day you&#39;re looking at your own work, then at your inspiration (a photo, a live portrait sitter, or masterpiece you&#39;re emulating), and wrinkling your brows and wondering: why do I suck? (Or, why doesn&#39;t my work resemble that?) The more varied and good art you look at, the more you may start, annoyingly, to discover your weaknesses: likeness, or composition, contrast, use of colour, design, &nbsp;painting skills, or anatomy, or dynamism. (Though, at the same time, you may also realise every artist has strength and weaknesses. It would just be nice to have more of the former than latter, and have the strengths be really awesome, and the flaws invisible...)        Sometimes an image occurs to you that makes you say: I want to make that, but I don&#39;t think I can. It&#39;s too hard; I don&#39;t have the skills or patience. Those images are important. Those images are the ones that must be attempted. Over and over, if need be, because they are the ones that help you grow. Whereas the ones you churn out with all confidence, or that you KNOW you can do... it&#39;s not that they&#39;re not worth doing (and they may help pay the bills), but if, even before you start, you know that you know every step of the process and what the result is going to be, that&#39;s a strong sign that art-making has become rote-work instead of trial and discovery.        There&#39;s a story I often think about (likely fictitious!) about a Chinese brush-painter who was commissioned to do a large brush painting of a mountain landscape. After the art patron described the painting he wanted, the painter considered, and said, "Come back in a year." One year later, the patron made it back to the artist&#39;s mountain studio, and the painter said, "One moment." Before the patron&#39;s eyes, he proceeded to paint, his ink brush creating forest-covered mountains and valleys and rivers and mists and clouds, just as the patron had asked for, a year ago. The painting was completed in no time, and the patron accepted it in amazement, then suspicion. "If it only took you this short time to complete this, why did you ask me to wait a year?" In answer, the artist brought the patron to the back of the studio, where stacks and stacks of earlier and clumsy attempts at the same painting lay in evidence of the artist&#39;s one-year toil.        Personally, attempting the same painting 365 days in a row would drive me bonkers, but I love the story. There&#39;s modesty, perseverence, the pursuit of excellence (or at least improvement), and pragmatism in it. Modesty in that the painter knew he wasn&#39;t capable of the image he wanted to produce yet, persevering because in time he knew he could be, and pragmatic because, &nbsp;hey, one year is a pretty generous deadline for any one image. Would that we could all be hermit painters living in the mountains with endless supplies of paper.        The "Why do I suck?" question always precedes improvement--so asking it is a good thing. But learning something new requires treading into unfamiliar territory, which often isn&#39;t a comfortable process. Compliments, on their own, rarely tell us what we need to do to get better--yet criticism alone isn&#39;t enough either. It also takes courage, loads of it, and yep, perseverence.        I&#39;ll talk about venturing out of comfort zones in my next post.]]></description>
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<title>The Drawing Month</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/11</link>
<pubDate>Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:08:44 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[Whew, I almost forgot that I&#39;d promised to post a reminder! November is knocking on the door now, and you can read my last post on&nbsp;NaNoDrawMo&nbsp;about, well, the drawing equivalent for National Novel Writing Month. It explains itself, really. But here are the links again:        NaNoDrawMo on FlickrArt Every Day Month on Flickr&nbsp;(info and sign-up&nbsp;here)If you&#39;re taking part, give a shout in the comments!  ]]></description>
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<title>Some Speedy Fantasy Sketching Tips</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/10</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:37:44 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[                                          EMG Sketch Fest for October is just over, and the results are now available for&nbsp;checking out&nbsp;(and in some cases, for purchasing). A quick explanation of how it works: During the 24 hours of the Sketch Fest, any member of the public can post prompts for the artists in the form of phrases, a suggested title, or even links to photos and videos. Artists take up whatever prompt they wish, but are limited to 1 hour of work per sketch, and they are encouraged to post their work to the site. They are also free to complete the work after Sketch Fest and upload the finished work as Finished Work. (Simple, eh?)                                                With the EMG crowd, you can bet most of the images are in the fantasy theme, and because the artists are drawing from imagination (mostly), I find the rules of fantasy drawing/sketching are always slightly different from ordinary drawing and sketching, because the image you have in mind isn&#39;t one you&#39;ll find in real life--readily, anyway. So regular suggestions for drawing don&#39;t really apply: Using a viewfinder for the best composition? Pfft. Only if you&#39;re talking about the viewfinder in your head. Drawing and referencing what you see? When what you see is only in your mind&#39;s eye, capturing that ephemeral idea isn&#39;t so easy, not to mention ideas can sometimes benefit from further development. Drawing from real life, in comparison, is easy.                                                But (did you know the "but" was coming?) a fantasy artist will always still benefit from at least the practice that comes from drawing from real life. Personally, I find my sketching speeds up if I do have a reference photo (and during Sketch Fest, the clock is ticking), so, I wind up using my reference photo folders more often during Sketch Fest than not. I could try drawing without visual references, but I always those drawings of mine harder to get right--either proportions will need to be corrected (again, losing time), or the light and shadows would be less interesting than if I had used a photo for inspiration. So, tip number one:                                                1. Amass folders of reference photo (settings, interesting/dynamic compositions, colours, costumes, poses, people, animals, textures) . If you have time, try a sketch that doesn&#39;t use visual reference. But then try another sketch that draws from your photos, and see if those using references doesn&#39;t result in better pictures. To save time, keep a small, changing folder of favourite and really inspiring photos.                                                2. Now, those regular drawing/sketching tips can apply: Trees and foliage, done realistically, shouldn&#39;t look like clouds or cotton candy on sticks. (See the examples here: Common drawing mistakes and suggestions. I do recommend Artist&#39;s Complete Problem and Solution Handbook by Trudy Friend, as a valuable resource for any artist, fantasy or non.) Draw more masses, not just lines. For looser lines, hold your pencil higher up on its length. Watch your hatching techniques, and make them work to capture textures, not just values.&nbsp;                                                3. Because this is fantasy art, know the rules, then break or go beyond them: Pose a figure upside down--because they can fly, or they&#39;re in zero-gravity. Tilt the picture plane, because you can! After you&#39;ve used negative shapes to help draw your central figure, fill those same shapes with a faraway landscape, or more story-telling details. Put in fantasy sources of light: glowing bubbles, tiny fairies, dragon fire, magic. Do the stuff that makes fantasy exciting, but (ideally) get your fundamentals right first, like anatomy, perspective and composition.                                                If you&#39;re curious how to go about getting reference photos without flouting copyright, stay tuned! That will be the topic of a future (though not necessarily the next) post.]]></description>
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<title>The Stuff of Nightmares (Part II)</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/9</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:52:26 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[    (Note: This is a post that, if the blog works right, will be posted automatically to the Flog during Janet&#39;s absence from Oct 15th to 20th. Comments posted to this entry will be moderated on her return.)            So maybe marketing isn&#39;t your weakest skill, and you&#39;ve actually got lots of customers lined up for your art, hooray! Writing these posts, I was tempted to call art-freelancing "being your own boss", but we know that once you&#39;ve got a client, sometimes that isn&#39;t the case; you&#39;ve now got a customer to please, and we&#39;ve all heard the saying that "the customer is always right". But is that true?            If you found yourself rolling your eyes a little at the old nugget, well,&nbsp;I can&#39;t&nbsp;blame you. In fact, this two-part post was inspired by the recent reminder that we get&nbsp;difficult clients&nbsp;sometimes, and often face&nbsp;ridiculous pre-conceptions&nbsp;about our chosen line of work. But luckily there are artist communities sharing information on especially tough clients who either stiff artists on money, or who ask for too much for too little money, or who break, or refuse to even sign on the simplest of artist-client contracts. I won&#39;t link to the communities here, suffice to say easy for artists to find and join, and they are usually moderated to prevent the offenders themselves barging in.            I find contracts a must when working with new clients, and even a description of the terms/your package in email in bulleted points can count as one, as long as it&#39;s in a form that your client can read and agree to in writing. Should an especially large project make you nervous, however, then by all means print up an agreement and get signatures on it--any refusal or reluctance on your client&#39;s part to do so should send up a red warning flag. (You can find&nbsp;templates&nbsp;online&nbsp;or in books at the library.) Know your rights as an artist, and know that while publishing rights can be negotiated, copyright is not something you give up without express writing and&nbsp;huge financial compensation. (Extra reading:&nbsp; Creating Art on Commission Without Getting Burnt: A Short Guide for Artists)            Contracts and artists communities can&#39;t protect you 100% from nightmare gigs, of course, but knowing your rights (and the best ways to deal with tough clients) can make it easier to know when to walk away and how to cut your losses.]]></description>
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<title>The Stuff of Nightmares (Part I)</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/8</link>
<pubDate>Sat, 15 Oct 2011 23:44:11 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[    (Note: This is a post that, if the blog works right, will be posted automatically to the Flog during Janet&#39;s absence from Oct 15th to 20th. Comments posted to this entry will be moderated on her return.)Marketing is my least favourite part about being a freelance illustrator, and I bet I&#39;m not the only one. I know it&#39;s&nbsp;part of the job, but it can be rather boring compared to working on new art (especially for oneself), so it&#39;s one of those things that get shoved to the back-burner and only brought to the fore when bringing in money starts looking of paramount importance. I&#39;m still the worst person when it comes to marketing, but it&#39;s at least still easier to write about than actually do. (Like, I know about the Artist&#39;s and Graphic Designer&#39;s Market [book,&nbsp;blog]&nbsp;but I&#39;ve never used it.)                    One of the most regularly updated blogs about marketing art and craft is the&nbsp;Etsy Seller&#39;s Handbook. If you&#39;re on Etsy, you can choose the option to be updated about the latest articles through their newsletter(s).&nbsp;            Another blog I&#39;m fond of, though it is a more general blog about small businesses, is&nbsp;IttyBiz&nbsp;(Marketing for Small Businesses Without Marketing Departments). It covers topics like creating products, dealing with different types of clients (more on this later), and sometimes just the difficulties of running a small business. The posts can be brutally frank sometimes, which to me is perversely comforting, because once in a while, I think, we need confirmation that freelance art (or freelance anything) is tough. (The recommended posts are&nbsp;How We Killed Social Media&nbsp;and&nbsp;When You Feel Like a Raging Failure.)            Escape from Illustration Island regularly does&nbsp;business-related posts, and one of the more eye-catching articles I found myself reading recently (since social media is big now) was&nbsp;How To Manage 70 Online Profiles. You know how you probably have 10 galleries on different artist or portfolio websites (including this one)? Yep, this article is for you!In the next post--The Stuff of Nightmares (Part II)--I&#39;ll talk about difficult clients/commissions and what we love to hate about them. But before I go, this post would not be complete without some (ahem) pushing of products from our sister site, EMG-Zine. Check out the&nbsp;Art of the Business of Fantasy Art&nbsp;anthologies!&nbsp;            Till the next post!&nbsp;]]></description>
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<title>NaNoDrawMo</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/7</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:07:06 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[    I thought I would post this before November so readers and artists would have time to plan for it: NaNoDrawMo! Most people should know about NaNoWriMo by now (or&nbsp;National Novel Writing Month), during which writers challenge themselves to start and finish a novel (good or bad) within November--because, you know, getting it done&nbsp;is the hardest part about writing. (I think. Not that I know it from experience or anything, she says.)Artists need not feel left out, because November is also NaNoDrawMo, and all you need to participate is a blog. Optional: A Flickr account. And maybe Twitter. And if you really want to make it official, like to be on a list of artists and stuff, check out&nbsp;Art Every Day Month. The Flickr group is&nbsp;here, and the hash-tag for Twitter is #aedm2011.&nbsp;            (If you want to check out the Flickr group for NanoDrawMo 2010, it&#39;s&nbsp;here, and I&#39;ll keep my eyes open if another one specifically for 2011 pops up. There&#39;s also&nbsp;NaNoDrawMo on LiveJournal, but it looks like it&#39;s been sleeping since 2009.)          If you think you are going to participate in NanoDrawMo 2011, let us know in comments, and if you&#39;d like to be featured on this blog during November!]]></description>
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<title>Challenge Accepted!</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/6</link>
<pubDate>Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:47:01 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[    Pardon Barney Stinson&#39;s favourite phrase for the title of this post, but it is about online art communities that share a regular theme for members to work on (whether weekly, monthly, or haphazardly). If you&#39;re the kind of artist who needs to look for ideas, or just likes a regular challenge, these communities and themes are wonderful ways to get the creative juices flowing for the theme of the week (or month, or [insert time frame]).                    Illustration Friday&nbsp;is a well known (multiple-genre) illustration site that recently featured&nbsp;Sam Weber&nbsp;for their artist interview (I love him, so he gets a tangential link in this post) but also has a weekly topic revealed every Friday (hence the name of the site). Artist participants (any genre, any medium) just have to submit their image related to the topic during that week--they can either create one just for that week&#39;s topic, or submit an older work, as long as it&#39;s appropriate. The only technical requirement is that the full-size image should be hosted on a static, dedicated page already (blog posts OK). IF&#39;s community is friendly and encouraging, and the multi-genre nature of the challenge means lots of different media and styles can be seen for each theme.            If you&#39;re on DeviantArt, there&#39;s&nbsp;Theme of the Week&nbsp;(that despite its name, actually posts a new theme every other week).Enchanted Visions&nbsp;is project that boasts a new theme (and gallery of art) every month for its members. It is regular as clockwork (almost!) and is concentrated on fantasy, fairy and mythological art. You are not limited to the current theme and can work on its current or older topics. The only rule is that the artwork created is for the Enchanted Visions theme, not an older work "retrofitted" to an existent theme as convenient!            For "haphazard" art challenges, ConceptArt.org has a&nbsp;Challenges and Collaborations&nbsp;area in their forum, and Jon Schindehette at&nbsp;The Art Order&nbsp;posts challenges as he comes up with them (and&nbsp;the new one&nbsp;is a doozy!). Elfwood&#39;s Thomas Abrahamsson also has an art contest from time to time, which you&#39;ll have to check on Elfwood&#39;s&nbsp;Site News.&nbsp;            And the last one is a personal fave, though it probably qualifies as "haphazard" and provides way more than one theme or topic at a time:&nbsp;EMG Sketch Fest! Once a month, 24 hours are designated for that month&#39;s Sketch Fest, during which members of the public are invited to submit text or photo prompts, and artists submit interpretations of those prompts created during the 24 hours. The rule? Each sketch created should not take up more than an hour of the artist&#39;s time. Artists are of course free to complete the sketches after the Sketch Fest and upload the finished versions for the gallery of finished work.            So this is a sampling of websites that have regular (or not-so-regular) art challenges, and in a range of styles, media and abilities! Got more? Share below.&nbsp;]]></description>
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<title>Steampunk Art</title>
<link>http://www.fantasticportfolios.com/blog/5</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:06:06 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[Tor.com&nbsp;is in the midst of Steampunk Week, and illustrator John Coulthart shares his collage technique and inspiration for steampunk art in&nbsp;Crafting Steampunk Illustrations. Collage isn&#39;t a technique commonly seen in fantasy art, but seems to fit steampunk to a T!For those of us creating illustrations "from scratch",&nbsp;How to Draw Steampunk Machines&nbsp;is still one of the best online (and free!) tutorials I&#39;ve seen. Flickr has thousands of wonderful photos of steampunk costumes (and gadgetry, and jewelry, and whimsical inventions) for inspiration, but if you&#39;d just like a blog that show you the highlights of steampunk art, I can recommend&nbsp;Steampunk Costume.        Have a favourite steampunk visual resource of your own? Feel free to share!]]></description>
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