FREE STUFF! THAT YOU'LL ACTUALLY WANT!

3x3, the Illustration Magazine, is giving away their back catalog of issues! I picked up ever issue offered, for just the $20 postage. What a deal!

If you haven't seen 3x3, the library has a subscription. It's a lovely magazine, and a great way to check out what's happening in the world of illustration.

Draw the Haggis-Beast!

In case anyone, in the hectic last days of a waning semester, should happen to have a spare moment and need something to draw, this might be fun.

Covering Ender's Game

Irene Gallo has, over on Tor.com, posted about the considerations that went into producing a cover for the new eBook edition of Ender's Game. It's worth a read to gain insight into an art director's thought process.

Ender’s Game ebook cover by Sam Weber

Sam Weber's website

Bill Griffith's Top 40

Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead, has posted some fun and useful advice for cartoonists.

Rad How-To

Rad Sechrist, a storyboard artist with Dreamworks, has a really great blog where he posts these amazingly helpful little tutorial sheets. F'rinstance:

Making a pose better.

Balance.

A simple cartoon pelvis.

The indispensable Shape design never goes away.

And here's a great primer on his approach from The Art Center blog: What is drawing?

Painting Procedural

Here's a dusty ol' series of posts detailing my approach to paint. I thought the Illustration 2 students might find this useful as they head into the home stretch with the Invisible City pieces.

This example is using watercolor and gouache, but there's not a thing in it you can't do with acrylic. Except re-wet your paint.

Card carrying card makers

Hey all you Illustration 4 kids! Want to know more about making playing cards? Check out the links below for some neat-o information on rounded corners and actual playing card cardboard.

How to make your own playing cards

corner rounder or kardkutter

Blank air cushion playing card cardboard

Scanning and Coloring

As promised in Illustrated Story 1, here's the tutorial on scanning and coloring line art I posted a few years ago.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

There are probably better ways to do every single step of this tutorial, but this is quick and works for me.