@jvartandillustration I actually really appreciate that, because I was thinking the same thing. What percentage of people will actually put out money when you start the campaign? I was getting pretty stressed about it not funding and telling my husband he might have to swoop in at the last minute. I think I’m leaning toward making a physical copy of the book for my dad. (That’s all it was going to be in the first place anyway. ) And then doing a soft or hard cover “print on demand” through Ingram Spark. It’s lower risk for me, but still makes it available if people actually want to buy it. I could tell my local book store too. I’ve been friends with them forever and they have some of my art in the store anyway. They might want a couple copies on their local authors table. 🙂

@NessIllustration Agreed that storage is less important, as there are alternatives to where you can keep your artwork. RAM is more important for me. That dictates how many layers you can have, and what kind of apps you are able to run. Apple made it so you have to purchase the models with higher storage in order to get the most RAM.
If I were just doing static images, I wouldn’t need to buy a more expensive model because I usually merge my layers as I get closer to the end of a piece, but I opted for the iPad with more RAM this time because I’m trying to do more with animation, and I’ll need more layers.

I'm needing the help of you amazing people. In one of my graphic novel Facebook groups there's a writer looking to collaborate with a cartoonist/illustrator, but they only want someone who lives in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. Anyone interested or know of anyone in the area?

@StudioLooong Thanks! And thanks for the suggestion!

@agathe Is there an update on this? Was it legit?

@kirsten-mcg your mood board is actually shockingly close to what mine would be 🤯
I also wasn't allowed to watch tv but also watched all the movies on your board (except my little pony)

Have any of you done professional work for Bunny Studio before? Looks like they connect artists and professionals with clients who need work. I just found out about them today, so I don’t know what their reputation is or how they treat their artists. I’m hoping some of you will have some insight! Here’s the url to the website, if that helps. https://bunnystudio.com/

@Blitz55 Haha! It's like a test... Who's going to mention the ones on your list... 😆
Yes! I'd forgotten about Into the Spiderverse. Must watch it again.

@Michael-Angelo-Go haha yeah, I had the same thought. I'm pretty sure when we're communicating via email they would't even need to mention being hearing impaired lol!

Hello Tom, it is not easy to answer, since it depends on the work you do. I assume it is difficult to give in depth advice if there are for example only 3 images and all are completely different style wise. But if you consider your work to have at least 10 artworks you really like (and maybe some additional sketches too?) it should be good to go. I had a similar amount of images to discuss in my critique and although it was not much, it worked well in my case since the overall style was very consistent and so we could explore things that already work pretty well and then focus on the areas where I need improvement. They also suggest to upload up to 10 images OR give a link to a website or instagram etc. So 10 images is a good number to start with, I guess. Hope that helps a little bit.

I've shared my hole experience with the critique in a new topic today. As soon as it got released/approved you should find it here in the forum. Maybe that is also interesting for you and helps you in your decision making.

Have a nice day and take care,
Lissy

@mag @willicreate thanks for the reply 🙂
funny I had a few agents say to me say that I would do well in middle grade but I always assume a children's book agent would get that kind of work for me maybe I need to apply to a different type of agency?

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me, I'm so bad though cause Im like but what if they wanna see that one picture of this or that and I get a bloated portfolio XD so that sounds like a great but scary exercise haha.

I will check out those books to sounds like a really good idea. gotta admit i don't have a lot of heart-warming stuff so this could be a great help .

also just typed in middle-grade art agent and there are so many agents and publishers I had no idea! wish me luck

thanksssss 🙂

@Geoffrey-Mégardon thank you for your detailed feedback and suggestions. I think your interpretation is spot-on. I did fear that I made the front character look too evil, whereas I really wanted him to be more selfish and impulsive (rather than mean). The character I have in mind really is just excited and doesn't know how to control himself. I will work on a variation to try and capture that concept a little more accurately.

@Geoffrey-Mégardon it's pretty spot on!!! And my computer is not the greatest, I'd imagine it'll be even better when I upgrade my computer.

@LauraA This is very helpful. Yes, I was thinking of a print-on-demand service so I wouldn’t have to print it at home (I don’t have the best equipment for that). Thanks a bunch!

I don't have any first hand experience with photoshop on an iPad. But I do know that photoshop was always a behemoth of a program and tended to like to be a bit of a resource hog. This is why I feel like I never hear anyone raving about using it on anything other than a PC.

It would be nice if it did run on iPads smoothly though, I've got decades of experience using photoshop but recently dived into the world of iPads and went right to Procreate because that and a few others are the ones I hear people going on about the most. And I can't help but think if photoshop did run well on it, you would hear it listed as a top app to get for artists on iPads, and that just doesn't seem to be the case.

@Griffin-McPherson And another thing I thought of, is just seeing all the art and different interpretations of storytelling. 👍

@patricialamas I've recently heard a talk from a programmer/designer who theorizes that AI art might actually get worse from here instead of better - because bad AI art is being harvested and put back into the algorithm, giving it bad data!

AI companies could develop a system to be able to recognize AI art in order to stop it from joining the dataset, but if they create this technology it would be a huge self-own, because other people could then use it to point out which images in the wild have been made by AI.

On top of that, the free Glaze tool by the university of Chicago was JUST completed and released, and allows us to "cloak" our images with invisible, tiny pixel-level variations that makes the algorithm read our style all wrong. If they feed your glazed images into an AI to replicate your style, they'll be getting Van Gogh like swirls instead 🙂

Glaze: https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/

AI bros are already reporting (complaining really) that it works as intended and that "the least we could do" is watermark our images to indicate they have been glazed because now, these images are poisoning the data and making it misidentify images. Boo hoo!

This reminds me of someone stealing their roommate's food then complaining that it's been laced with laxatives.

c55edfff-5dc9-4fb4-9994-958543dcfa4d-image.png

Anyway, the future of artists is looking bright!

@Geoffrey-Mégardon I really like your website! I viewed it on an iPad and everything was super easy to view and navigate. Well done!

@Mike-Babich I have this one https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-27UK600-W-4k-uhd-led-monitor
But I got it a couple years ago so I don't think you can buy it new anymore at a reasonable price.

If I were to get an LG today I'd probably get this one
https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-32up83a-w-4k-uhd-led-monitor

But I think the ASUS monitors you've chosen have alittle bit better specs than that one

Hi folks,
For those of you interested in the AI issue, the Guardian newspaper here in the UK has just published a headline article called The Stupidity of AI, by James Bridle (a writer, artist, and the author of Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence). The article is a deep dive into the history and issues of AI art.

You can read it here:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/16/the-stupidity-of-ai-artificial-intelligence-dall-e-chatgpt

Lots of love,

Adam 🙂