CBPro Plus - How finished does dummy need to be?
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I'd love to take CBPro Plus but I'm not sure if I'm ready. Has anyone taken it? Would you mind sharing how well-prepared your dummy, character sheets, etc were before the course began? I want to make sure I will really benefit before making such a big investment.
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@Angela-Sagues HI Angela, Yes I felt the same and just decided to join for the year and see how I did as my subscription started the same time as CBPro.
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@PenAndrew Thanks for your reply!
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@Angela-Sagues CBPro Plus is a brand new course, so I don't think anyone has taken it yet!
I did sign up for it, though. In answer to your question, the day before the course came out I was trying to get all my dummy pages to the level of clear, though not entirely refined, drawings. That can mean different things to different people, but my idea was that a non-artist should be able to tell what's going on and things are positioned more or less correctly on the page. For me, this means about the second or third pass, because I like to work out the anatomy and perspective so that they are fairly accurate. But I do a lot of passes, so depending on your style, it may be different for you!
Anyway, now that I've signed up, I've stopped working on the drawings, because I may end up revising some of them after critique. When I took the original course last summer, I didn't have time to do the assignments as they came out, so I never followed them all exactly, though I did so more or less. As a result, I have four finished spreads (including the cover) and no finished pages or spots. My character sheets remain in sketch form, and style creep happened during the dummy process. So, we'll see! But after working so long on this thing, I want to make it the best it can be, so I signed up.
You could also write @AustinShurtliff about any doubts. Hope this helps!
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@LauraA Thanks, Laura, that's a wonderful answer and extremely helpful!
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@LauraA May I ask whom you signed up to work with? I've been trying to figure out that, as well.
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@Angela-Sagues I sent you a message!
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Hi everyone! Good questions here and Laura did a great job answering it. The dummy needs to be finished enough to where we can tell what is going on and the scene has been fairly locked down. But it doesn't have to be rendered out or anything like that.
It should probably be more than the story board phase, but does not need to be a finished illustration. Here's a page with a few different levels of finish for a dummy from This Pretty Planet. The ones in the lower left are too loose and undefined. The ones in the upper left are starting to get to that sweet spot that we need for this class. They are fairly accurate to what the finished layout will be, you can see the characters fairly clearly, although the characters DON"T have to be specific or on model at this stage. The upper one is BARELY at the level we can use. You can see the overall shot and where the characters will be, but it is borderline. The one under it is pretty good I think.
The ones on the right are for submission and yours don't have to be this level yet.
Hope this helps some! I'll try to find some more examples from students
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
@Lee-White Oh wow! This is really good info, and it tells me that I probably should have stayed in the thumbnail stage for longer, because now I've gotten farther and I feel like my dummy pages lack the punch they could have. But I sort of have to get them far along before I can tell whether the details are going to hold as I move along. Well, we'll see!
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@Lee-White Thank you! That info is outstanding and just what I needed!
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@Lee-White One more question - if you happen to see this. I'm taking the CBPro class that is just wrapping up now so I'm in a bit of a scramble to try to complete things if I were to take CBPro Plus. When would we need to submit our dummies? On May 2nd, when the course begins, or on Wednesday the 4th, when the first assignment is due? I'm more likely to get mine to the right stage with a few extra days. I know you're offering CBPro plus at a later date but darn it, I'm so into the flow NOW!
