my first assignment
Hello illustrator friends. Here are the 2 pieces for Louisville Magazine that I got to do. The article is about the Supreme Court handling a case that will determine whether or not Louisville (and other busing cities) continue to bus kids around to schools. The first one is a full page dealing with the Supreme Court judge determining the kids' fate and the second one is scales that are weighing black and white kids against all the other minorities.
I have to admit I'm slightly disappointed in myself. I didn't resolve the sketch enough, and didn't realize it until I went to finall. After I started working on it I noticed how terrible the hand looks. I had really bad photo reference of the kids so they look really cartoony. I didn't do a value study or a color study. I worked at a size that is almost 4 times what I'm used to working (the big one is about 14x20) and was overwhelmed with the large areas to fill. I had to do it that big because the children are so tiny - even at that size, the kids were really hard to render). I was totally out of my comfort zone and had to work on it all night. I had a breakdown moment at about 5 am when I thought I hated it and I wished I could start over from scratch and I thought I had blown my one chance at success. Then I opened up the blog, checked out Chris' cool portrait, then I popped over to the Illustration Academy website and looked at the Mark English demo on there (of Dracula - it's BADASS) and tried a few things. So I was able to salvage it a bit. What matters is that the art director loved it and I survived. And I learned a few lessons!
posted by Cat Scott at 8:16 PM
5 Comments:
great job on the job. you already pointed out the problems but like you said, the art director liked it and the job was done. now as long as you get more work from them you can knock it out of the park next time. the lessons we learn from each job are the best.
I concur with Chris. And I'd love to hear how the business side of things went. I think that's what intimidates me about it all.
Yay you! You got a lot done in what seems like a short deadline. I'm really glad the art director liked it. I think the concepts on both of them are great. Did you get a lot of direction from the art director, or did she just let you go for it?? Congratulations!
the art director gave me tons of freedom - I did the concepting, although my original idea was a supreme court judge physically placing children in buses and she and the editor changed it to just holding the children.
The business side of things was surprisingly easy, and that was what I was most intimidated by too. After I sent the promos and called her, she called me about a week later to ask if I wanted to do it. I said "OF COURSE". She sent me the article and I did thumbnails and scanned them and sent them to her. She and the editor chose a thumbnail and I did another couple of versions of it. Then I went to final sketch. I blew it when it came to "negotiating" - she told me the budget and I said "sounds good!", cause I was just too excited to have a job at all.
What surprised me was how quickly she approved the sketch. After Sterling being so tough on us all summer "acting like an art director," I was expecting a lot worse, which is why I think I jumped into the final without really polishing the sketch.
Thanks! Man.....I think I would have reacted the same way. "Fifty bucks?! Hellyeah, I'll do it!" I'm sure you got more than that... but you get the idea. I'm with you, sistah.
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