how to approach an illustration

[omer-n]

hey guys,

in the last few years i've been self studying and practicing drawing painting and visual art in general.
i find it now when i have more knowledge in composition, prespective, value, form etc, that when i approach an illustration task (like the community challenges for example) i'm really stuck because instead of using intuition i'm starting to think with my left brain more about all the "ingredients" of the illustration. i don't mean that i'm feeling limited because of all these "rules"
but on the opposite- kind of limitless, i can try all sorts of prespectives or compositions now that i have knowledge of them , i'm suddenly thinking like a director but without being able to juggle all aspects to get the work flow, my approach is changing from doing without thinking and from random to planning and thinking beforehand. i should also mention the infinite amount of reference, ideas and other works of artists that are instantly available on the web that can drive you crazy to insane...lol.

up until now i approached illustration beginning from random (without any prior meaning or intention) which i found problematic as the final result would not be understandable to audience or it wouldn't tell the story or idea that it should.

i guess what i'm trying to ask is how do you approach an illustration, especially a storytelling one, whats your workflow? do you work from random or do you have some sort of a picture in you head before you start that you try to realize? and how do you deal with the overload of information available....


appreciate your thoughts! :-)

[J Wilson]

You say you feel like you have limitless options, and that is good. Explore them all, although in a simplified manner. Do thumbnail sketches, none should take much longer than 5 minutes to create. Take your favorite few and do a quick value study with them, then decide which one feels the strongest. Boom, you've narrowed down limitless options to your best option.

[DavePalumbo]

just jot down some thumbnails. Work out a few really rough ideas, expand off of those, play around with it. In the end, there's never going to be a "best" way though, only good ways and not so good ways. If you have a handful of good ways, choose your favorite and take it from there. If you let yourself get too bogged down in unlimited possibility looking for the perfect solution, you're probably going to lock up and get nowhere. Eventually you just have to dive in.

[Ilaekae]

An illustration serves a specific purpose--it communicates, or supports text that communicates. It is NOT something that comes about randomly. It exists only as a valid message.

All the "rules" you think are interfering in the process are NOT all equal in importance. Some are carved in stone--must be reproducible (mass printing), must be ON topic (appropriate to the "story"), and if there are more than one required, they should look like they superficially belong together. Things like that. Probably the primary rule in this group is to "satisfy the client" because the client is god in illustration (You ARE getting paid, after all...).

Beyond those obvious points, all hell can reign. Realistic, abstraction, sculpted, photo-inclusive (like a collage or montage), cartoonish--done in any media from oils to finger paint to manipulated rust stains and crayons or mud.

"up until now i approached illustration beginning from random (without any prior meaning or intention) which i found problematic as the final result would not be understandable to audience or it wouldn't tell the story or idea that it should."

Then you weren't doing an illustration, Doofus. You were "painting" or dabbling for your own edification. That ain't illustration--no how, no way, ever... You can't begin an illustration without having a problem that needs solved first. "Why the hell am I doing this?" Even as a portfolio piece, you MUST first have a problem of communication that needs to be solved before you can begin doing an illustration.

That means the first thing you do is THINK. Just sit quietly and imagine how you'd solve this little problem--is it too specific to allow me to go to more graphic or abstract approaches? Is it so abstract a concept that it almost completely rules out a realistic or traditional approach? Maybe a combination of the two would be the way to go? Who is my audience, and will they be attracted to this and understand it? Will it help make the message more understandable?

This is when you begin to realize generally what you're going to do--approach, subject matter, composition and color and stuff like that. NOW is the time to begin thinking about what reference you might need, and where to get it. NOT BEFORE. Can you spell "SENSORY OVERLOAD" and do you know what it means? It's what happens if you get an enormous pile of shit to go through BEFORE you know WHY.

From that point on, you're on your own. Do what you do (paint/draw/sculpt/sew/manipulate), the best you can, and don't get distracted from the original reason you're even doing this piece of shit in the first place.

[Elwell]

"up until now i approached illustration beginning from random (without any prior meaning or intention) which i found problematic as the final result would not be understandable to audience or it wouldn't tell the story or idea that it should."

Then you weren't doing an illustration, Doofus. You were "painting" or dabbling for your own edification. That ain't illustration--no how, no way, ever... You can't begin an illustration without having a problem that needs solved first. "Why the hell am I doing this?" Even as a portfolio piece, you MUST first have a problem of communication that needs to be solved before you can begin doing an illustration.
Quoted for emphasis.

[arttorney]

Your "especially a storytelling one" comment shows me that you are aware of the problem you are trying to solve. The whole point of Illustrating is that story. Otherwise you are designing wallpaper or something. Dave already mentioned thumbnails (as did JWilson). Ilaekae points out that there are various ways to reach the illustrative end, but that you can't get lost on the way.

All I have to add is that until you actually draw and get some feedback you won't necessarily know which of the various approaches is working for you and which is not.

As an example, I know I can be esoteric to the point that I am incomprehensible. Since I make perfect sense to myself, I would not be aware of my incomprehensibility if it weren't that I have posted things I thought were obvious and had people tell me they couldn't see the sense of it. You can't take such things as a personal attack. You need to get people to tell you what they are missing out of your illustration so you can do better next time. Then you will be happy to have a lot of tools at your disposal. Put down the one that doesn't work and pick up another one.

[Ilaekae]

I din't unnerstand a single werd you just said...are you a lawyer or sumpthin'?



:P :)

[arttorney]

Ha ha! I'm a kind of attorney who is all about left brain stuff.

How does that left brain stuff inform the illustration? Let's see. Take the current CHOW about Stilgar, a leader of a warlike desert tribe where water is so valued they wear suits to reclaim their own bodily fluids. Would we draw Stilgar as fat? No. Would we draw him in a tutu? No. Would we draw him with a bunch of gold bling on him? No. (except that he has a bunch of rings about his person that are the counters of how much water he owns. I doubt if he wears them openly because it is hard to sneak through the desert when a bunch of rings are clinking on you.) The story behind that drawing causes a lot of possible approaches fall away as irrelevancies. Thus, by thinking about the story as you draw you can focus in instead of getting lost. Don't be afraid of your left brain. It can help you. Just don't rely on it when you are executing the final piece.

[Grief]

i approach my images from the front.

i dunno what the hell everyone else is talking about. :shrug:

[omer-n]

hey, some great advice given here, thanks all for taking the time to respond.

J wilson , i think that's a really good way to handle the problem. but now i find it hard already in the thumbnail stage , usually it's kind of a spontaneous process but when i start to consider the drawing area as a 3d space with staging considerations vs 2d composition space, or starting to think of poses and emotion in the characters i'm starting to get confused, i guess i need to rethink this process of exploration. the thing is, as i see it there are two ways to approach an illustration. one is to go from chaos to order, find the meaning as you go along, let the ideas flow, happy accidents etc which i find much easier for me to do, i can always find new forms and designs in abstract shapes for example. the problem here is ,again,as i mentioned before, when you need to illustrate an idea or story its hard to get very clear which leads me me to the other approach is to plan ahead and work more like solving a puzzle i guess, or like a director works, this approach is new to me and i don't know if its mandatory to know or that i need to accept that my mind tend to work like in the 1st approach.

kiera, thanks for the detailed explanation, it really gives me a clear idea of a working process which is good. i find the reference stage sometimes as a drawback as it gets you out of focus but it also has a greater quality because only when i use reference i get originality in the work (i don't copy)

you said "I know exactly what you mean, you can probably draw and paint good enough too do everything you want to do.." well that's far from truth. there are ALOT !! of areas for me to cover which i haven't yet, and i think one of the basic ones is the subject of this post. i also think that you need to know which areas you are better at and more enjoyable to you and focus on them because there are so many aspects to illustration a, which is what i like about it, you can approach it from so many angles, or wear so many hats.

dave, you're right about diving in- that's not a problem when there's deadlines involved i guess, but for more personal work it's sometimes harder to do hehe....

Ilaekae, do you know of any books or websites that teach that? i guess that if you go to school you get illustration courses that focus on the approach from this angle of solving a problem and working with a clear intention, but i haven't seen any material on that for self education. that whole "why" thing is what i find hard to do i guess.

arttorney, lol, "esoteric" (i had to find that in the dictionary)
you said "Otherwise you are designing wallpaper or something" that is so true now when i think about it. you're also right about getting crits, actually getting crits for works is part of what brought me here to ask this question because i realized i don't really illustrate but just designing.

[Ilaekae]

omer-n, you don't really need an instruction book or website. It's a simple thing to do all by yourself.

It can be as simple as flicking through a magazine and looking at the various articles on new fashions, for example.

Problem: Nice outfit. How would I use it as the central theme in an illustration that seems appropriate to it's style (date-night/work/sports/travel/etc.)?

Problem: New game. How would I "sell" this with an illustration?

Problem: Kid dies from poison. What would I do that appeals to kids (or parents) that would force them to think before they do something stupid?

Problem: New murder mystery about a nun who's a detective. What would I do as a cover illustration that would attract attention on the book rack?

Problem: Ugly building with huge bare wall in urban renewal area. There's gotta be a way to come up with an illustration idea that would make the building look better and help the community if it was applied to the building.

Problem: My daughter is dancing with her ballet school tonight. Wouldn't it be neat to design a poster to promote it just like a real pro event. And that last movie I saw was really good, but the poster/promotion/adds sucked. What would I do instead?

Problem: Wouldn't it be nice if the holidays were more than just excuses for huge stores to make a lot of money? What could I do that would stress the more personal or authentic reason for those holidays that people would like and learn a bit from? A calendar/set of posters/postcards or greeting cards/etc.?

Problem: I admire Mr. XXXXXXX. How would I show others why I think he's worth that admiration, or show them something about him?

Problem: I think XXX is a nice place to visit for a vacation or just to tour through. How would I get others to want to go there?

Problem: Everywhere I look, I see things that aren't all that good, like supermarket packaging and posters, ugly book covers, textbooks, movie posters, instruction manuals, walls in schools and other public places, store/garage/bar/fastfood signs and promotion that are just so bad I don't want to even look at them. How would i do something better with an illustration that could be applied to make it better.

The problems exist all around you. They all involve something ugly, not very enticing, not very informative, not very useful, not very clear, not very desirable, not very well done, etc. What would I do to improve them using my illustration abilities? Remember that an illustration is a "decoration" used for a purpose--usually to sell/promote awareness/announce/inform/support something else. It can also be the central selling entity unto itself, like greeting cards/calendars/posters/wall decorations/clothing decoration (like on T-shirts or dress/upholstery fabric)/etc.

Show what you think space is like, how it is to ski, why I should like my kids, why I should buy one book over another, what a religion is like, what happened in 1754 in Latvia, what a Roman viaduct is, what my grandmother looked like and how she lived...it's a big job, but somebody's gotta do it...

Hell...why stop there. Let's think big. The world sucks. How can I save it by convincing others to recognize what's wrong and how to make it better.

[Chris Bennett]

Hell...why stop there. Let's think big. The world sucks. How can I save it by convincing others to recognize what's wrong and how to make it better.

Ah, that's easy - do what Hitler did and give up painting for politics.
What a minute, that didn't work either....
I know.
Become a nurse, or engineer.....that is stone wall certain to help.

[omer-n]

Ilaekae, been doing some more research and looking for material on the subject of approaching an illustration from the analysis part, and what do you know....
andrew loomis book "creative illustration" is touching this exactly-
chapter 4 "telling the story" and chapter 5 "creating ideas" in particular

here's a link i found where you can download the pdf:

http://acid.noobgrinder.com/Loomis/


...

[omer-n]

and to add something else - i found this post in a blog about my
favorite artist ,frazetta. it's about his intuitive approach and i think it can prove that imagination and intuition can work (hell yeah) also without too much planning, of course not everyone in a frazetta....

http://frazfritz.blogspot.com/2008/05/frazetta-creative-moment.html






...