This isn’t a book review. I’m not here to gripe about the story, I’m here to appreciate some good design work.
Book Cover Artist Shout-Out: Cover Art For ‘Six Wakes’ Better Than The Book — Writer In A Hat
Great book covers are hard to come by. Folks say we shouldn’t judge books by their covers, but let’s be honest we all do it. Readers appreciate an eye-catching cover and cover artists rarely get a shout out. That ends now; I’m shouting out book cover artists and the fantastic work they do, and telling […]
Book Cover Artist Shout-Out: The Cover Art For ‘Flood Child’ Embodies Its Concept — Writer In A Hat
Great book covers are hard to come by. Folks say we shouldn’t judge books by their covers, but let’s be honest we all do it. Readers appreciate an eye-catching cover and cover artists rarely get a shout out. That ends now; I’m shouting out book cover artists and the fantastic work they do, and telling […]
Book Cover Artist Shout-Out: The Cover Art For ‘The Last Policeman’ Is Spectacular — Writer In A Hat
I realised it’s been a while since I’ve done an update, even though I’ve been steadily drawing as usual. I’d blame this on my holiday, but really I just forgot.
Anyway, today I’m sharing my drawing of Netflix’s The Sandman AKA Dream of The Endless/Morpheus played by Tom Sturridge. This show was great and original and refreshing. I only wish it was longer!
(And that Tom Sturridge’s cheekbones were easier to draw…)
You can, as always, view the process on my YouTube channel.
Being an artist on YouTube is a special kind of personal torture. YouTube rewards regular uploads, but completing even a half decent work of art is not something that can be achieved daily or, most times, weekly. To do such a thing weekly means you must have a ton of free time, never have a bad drawing (I have plenty), all while leaving yourself time to edit the videos together.
I’ve been told making videos in bulk and then scheduling them is the best way to go about it – the best way to go about any kind of weekly social media update, really. It’s not always easy.
Recently, I decided to do a little cheat and make three videos from one painting. The first video was my Fixing An Art Mistake video, which starred a less than flattering pencil and water colour of the Mandalorian. Later, I uploaded the full time lapse of that. The third video was of Bioshock character, Subject Delta, who happened to be a feature in this painting too.
Viola! Three videos with one art piece.
Believe it or not though, I didn’t actually do this for clicks. Bioshock is literally 15 years old and no one is talking about the Mandalorian at the moment, so these videos don’t exactly scream ideal content. I did it because it amused me. The drawing was a dumb little crossover fan art of two dads in armour with their supernatural adopted children, and literally no one cares about this parallel except for me. The videos were just supposed to add to the fun of it, that’s all.
Regardless, it might be a good technique to try if I want to keep feeding the YouTube algorithm. I might give it another bash, this time with a more serious ‘YT business’ approach or whatever the cool kids are calling it.
I don’t envy other YouTubers for the amount of work they had to put into their channels. I can’t see myself making any kind of money off of YouTube, or on this blog or my other one for that matter. As of now, YouTube is something I’m going for fun. How long it lasts or where it goes is a complete mystery to me.
I’m working on some Mandalorian fan art right now (Yes, again, shoot me) and I had a bit of a mishap with some water colour. Essentially, I applied water colour and it looked really bad and I nearly threw the artwork, the sketchbook, and my paints in the bin. The only reason I didn’t is because my Encanto fan art was on the back and I actually like that one. A classic artist conundrum if I’ve ever seen one.
Messing up is pretty much inevitable since I don’t know what I’m doing.. *ahem* buuut I decided to push on and keep going. And it’s the perseverance that counts right? Art is about not giving up on your dreams or something.
Anyway, this piece is still largely a WIP and I’ll let you know in, uh, a million years whether it actually ended up any good or not.
By an amazing coincidence, both my blog and my Youtube channel hit 10 followers/subscribers at roughly the same time. This is truly an occasion to be marked.
Thanks so much everyone!
Artist In A Hat 