jack of all trades

[monkey0306]

Hello, I bought a book on how to draw cartoons(like the ones in cartoon network)and how to draw human anatomy, of these two appeal to me. And now I feel there is a conflict between the two, I grew up playing dungeons and dragons and read comic books I'm immersed in this kinds of drawings and for cartoons I still love samurai jack, okay so my problem here is it bad if I end up like a "jack of all trades master of none" person? I mean everytime I browse the internet I see great comic book illustrations and digital paintings and then sometimes I end up in vector sites with cool cartoon like illustrations and man I want to be like all them, yup I'm pretty messed up here.sorry about this but I have more questions(or complains lol) I think those questions could go on to a blog or something, but I would'nt get any opinion from there.:yayca:

[Farvus]

I personally think it's good to be jack of all trades at the beginning. Later you can always branch off that in any direction you want if there is some need for that. You can be both flexible and specialized.
I got that problem of doing too many subjects, styles and moods. At the same time I would quickly get bored if I did only one thing all the time. I'm glad I'm aware of this fact beacause I'll less likely burnout while being professional artist.

[dose]

Welcome to my life.

Being a jack-of-all-trades can be a great asset- particularly in some industries like casual games where you might be working for a smaller company doing a wide range of smaller projects.

It can also be a detriment for the usual reasons- people who have specialized are generally better at one thing than you are at any one thing. But that's not always true. The trick there is just to be really good, and be intelligent about how you learn.

It can also be a challenge if you'd like to do illustration. For the most part, art directors are scared by jack-of-all-trades. They like to know what they're going to get when they commission something and prefer to see a single consistent style across a portfolio. There are some exceptions to this, of course, but it's not the norm. However, it's not stopping some people these days from having multiple websites for different styles. Some people go so far as to have pseudonyms.

One of my favorite things about the jack-of-all-trades approach is cross-pollination. Ideas from one type of art can influence and improve other types of art. People specializing in either of these might never get this cross-pollination- particularly if they've become dogmatic about the type of art they do. For example, some people decide (usually due to the influence of a strong-minded teacher) that either short poses or long poses are a waste of time. Certainly for different industries one might be more valuable than the other, but both are ultimately valuable approaches and inform each other greatly.

The toughest part, though, is being honest with yourself and making sure you're not just bouncing from one thing to another out of frustration. Learning is done best through experience, and you really need to put the sustained hours in at something.

[J Wilson]

It's hard to bring yourself up to a professional level in art. It's harder still to bring up to a professional levels several different styles. It can be done for sure, because once you know the basics they apply across many different looks, but each style you do has to be meaningful to you (if you want it to have any passion behind it), and interesting to others, and that takes some work. Odds are, focusing mainly on one approach will get you to a higher level than trying to be good in several.

[vineris]

"And now I feel there is a conflict between the two"

I don't know why. If you don't know what a normal human being looks like, what their proportions are and where the muscles go, how are you going to stylize them properly? How will you know if you're exaggerating a muscle that's really supposed to be there or just making random bumps and hoping they don't look stupid?

[vineris]

Double pooost!

[arenhaus]

Speaking of which, good cartoons are always grounded in good anatomy. They only seem different, but the difference is in adaptation, not the basics that matter.

Realistic drawing and cartooning are in no way mutual exclusives. The opposite: practicing realistic drawing improves your cartooning.

[dpaint]

Focus on quality and forget about style. Cartoons are exagerations and simplifications of reality, focus on that and getting it to be the best you can make. They are not separate things, good drawing is good drawing. Learn what makes something good and then work to achieve those standards in the genre you want to be in.

[Pigeonkill]

The more styles you dip into, the more time and effort it will take to learn them all.

So if you don't have much time to practice each day, it will probably not be a good idea to go wild with too many styles. It would be better to focus on fewer to actually get good at it.

[monkey0306]

thanks guys for the advice especially the cross-pollination,learn anatomy for better cartooning and focus on quality, hell i can't even draw a car or a horse at least i haven't tried yet, there is so much to learn and this has been great help.

[monkey0306]

To say the obvious the more styles you dip into, the more time and effort it will take to learn them all.

So from practical standpoint. If you don't have much time to practice each day, it will probably not be a good idea to go wild with too many styles. It would be better to focus on fewer to actually get good at it. But if you much more free time to invest. Then you have more time to get good at more styles.

yes sir I'm pretty much a bum right now lol and there is no art college here I'm living, I have to travel far to attend one, so I'm learning by myself I have like 10 hours a day.thank you.:yayca: