@Adam-Thornton I've been a member of SVS learn since October 2019 until now I didn't follow nearly enough courses and definitely didn't practice enough and I worked about 30h a week but with a longe commute. The world being on pause for now it forced me to reevaluate things so I made myself a syllabus in an excel document like I had in school allowing time to listen to courses and time to do the work each week. I checked how long was each course and allotted the x number of hours of free time I had per week. So a course that takes 5 hours to listen to and I estimate 10h of homework i know that I will need to plan it over a couple weeks so i can have time to just draw for fun too.
I planned until next October we'll see how it goes.
Make sure to leave space for things you might not have expected and be realist with yourself of the time you really have.
Hope it helps 🙂

When I did my first book (self-published through Amazon by the author), the author put in the text themselves, but it didn't look as good as it could have. The second project I did with the author, I offered to do the typesetting myself in InDesign. MUCH more difficult. While I'm glad the author gave me an increase in pay (and was happy to do so), adding the type myself was hard and tedious. I wish there had been an opportunity to work with a graphic designer to help with the text rather than my doing everything myself. On the one hand, I felt more in control over the quality of each page. On the other hand, it increase the stress of working on pages (and I had the lovely task of having to fit both English and Spanish translations of huge paragraphs).

So I'd say, if you haven't discussed text, and especially if it's not in your contract, politely discuss this with your client. Hopefully they'll be understanding.

I just don't see what the advantages are though, like the ONLY reason I use a mac is literally the day-to-day tasks like moving and working with files, managing windows, backing up, etc are just faster.

@Kiddo said in Ellipses, cylindres, 3D shapes [beginner]:

@gavpartridge I thought so too, but Jake advises against it, I guess it just gets more difficult to get rid of the ruler in the future if you start with it in the beginning.

In art there are many paths to the same location. I can say from experience that it is not hard to ditch the ruler.
Not saying that Jake is wrong. His method worked for him. But I would second the advice to start with a ruler and a nice sharp pencil.

@sigross Thank you for sharing these!

Hi all! I’m brand new to SVS and am struggling to illustrate a few children’s books that have been on my To Do list for years. The task seems very daunting and I feel I am lacking in skills. What advice would you give? Perhaps a mentor or coach to help me along this arduous and exciting journey????

@LauraA Hi Laura, thanks for your comment. Actually I have a PayPal account, but is not a veryfied one. Yes, is a chaotic situation we have here, but is something to deal with. And I´m VERY happy for this experience.

Hi SVS community...I´m learning to use Invision Studio, and I started to practice with Adobe XD. And I was thinking about create an interactive story, as an app, using these design softwares. Am I crazy?...I don´t know. Also, I am thinking to open a MIRO board, to create a board and share ideas, notes, comments, maybe create a collaborative project...what do you think? Would be lovely read your comments and opinions... Thanks!

@Sophie-Lawson Hi there! Our classes are best viewed using the following browsers:

Desktop:

Chrome Firefox Safari Microsoft Edge

Mobile:

iOS Safari: 11 and up Chrome Samsung Internet

Internet Explorer is not supported on our class platform, and it looks like Microsoft is in the process of phasing out Internet Explorer in favor of Microsoft Edge, so it might be a good time to switch!

As for the issues with your tablet, I'm not very technically savvy, but when was the last time you updated your browser and operating system?

@Nyrryl-Cadiz said in First buys for How to Draw Everything Course:

@Christian start with pencil and paper. You’re still beginning so you don’t need any of those materials

@Adam-Thornton said in First buys for How to Draw Everything Course:

Hi Christian,
I started in a similar situation to you at the beginning of the year. As Nyrryl said, you really only need a pencil and paper. I'd also recommend you buy a rubber and a pencil sharpener. The pencil would be best as a softer one. I have found a 2B best. The paper does not need to be expensive. Cheap enough that you can use a lot of it!
Although it is tempting to want to buy everything Jake says, there is definitely something to be said for having just the basics because it will get you to be more expressive with what you have got.
Another thing is that you will find that as you progress with the Foundations Curriculum, you don't use the Copic coloured markers. Most of the teaching on the following courses on the FC are done on the digital tablet. It was a challenge for me to follow along with pencil and paper, but I have been enjoying it a lot since I just accepted that was the way it was.

Good luck!
Adam.
UK.

@demotlj said in First buys for How to Draw Everything Course:

I agree with @Nyrryl-Cadiz and @Adam-Thornton A 2B pencil, sketchpad, eraser, and pencil sharpener are all you need at the beginning. If you want to try inking, a couple of different sized liners (the Copic multiliner he lists) would be fine but the course, if I remember correctly, is more about constructing images than rendering them as finished art so you can wait on the pens.

Thank you all for your great advice. I was afraid a lot of the course material would use all these supplies and I would be hindered! I have a few pencil (2H, 3B, 4B and a regular one), sharpner and eraser so I guess I am set!

Hi @krcart, start here: https://graphicartistsguild.org/the-letter-of-agreement/

Thanks everyone for the input and help! Moved forward with the author today, really appreciate all the advice!

@Coley I think give it a go to see- is it you recorded or live? Recorded you could always go back and look.

The video of Lee's demo will be added to the 'Jump Into the Studio' course by the end of the week: https://courses.svslearn.com/courses/jump-into-the-studio

This is the course will be uploading all the recorded live event that are part of the Jump series. Recorded videos are typically added a week after the live event.

@Coreyartus thank you so much. I will check them out.

Has anyone taken any classes via the Highlights Foundation? I'm looking into the author/illustrator course. Thanks!

@Neha-Rawat thanks, it sounds like it's probably just missing because of the crazy times and people all working remotely now.

My pre-production process is almost all internal. If I don't have an immediate, flash "oh, I know exactly what I'm going to do" reaction to a prompt, I'll spend a day or two letting it simmer on the back burner of my brain, and not trying to force anything. I think a good approach to repeating prompts (like Inktober 52) is to pick an overarching theme or project (for example, each Inktober drawing for me is an animal character solving problems using some technology of some sort. That will keep you from feeling like you have to reinvent the wheel every day or week. If I still feel stuck after thinking for a bit, I like to talk out ideas with a friend or my kids.

Once I select the direction for a prompt, that's when I pick up the pencil or pen. If it's for just character drawing (like I do Inktober), I might do one rough sketch, but I usually just jump to the final sketch, while having some reference images up on my computer. For a bigger prompt or client project, I'll write a brief synopsis of how I see the illustration, including what tools I'll use and what style will best fit it. Then, I'll do 1-3 thumbnails of about storyboard size and quality so that I know where everything needs to go on the artboard in terms of proportion and spacing. I don't want to overwork or overplan too much in the thumbnail/rough sketch phase, so that when I move to the full scale, final sketch, there's still room for creation and improvization.

Yay! That’s awesome 😁

Thank you @carolinedrawing and @TessaW I’m trying again. I changed the pixels. I hope that works. Thank you. I guess I need to do research more so that I can professionally load images. Bogging down after creating art is a bummer!