Need help with my drawing portfolio.

[Dire Sloth]

Right, so, here's the gist. I recently met someone "in the biz" and after some e-mailing back and forth, they told me that if I had a portfolio of my art and drawings to show them, they might consider using some or something along those lines.

On the plus side:
-I'm self-taught, and have drawn since I was young.
-I have taken some basic drawing and art classes, both high school and college, so I'm not a complete stranger to different methods or mediums.
-*While I was scanning my pictures, I just realized... hardly any of them are my own creation. Just a bunch of sketches of game characters. Guess I should work on some originality.

The not so plus side:
-First off, I've never made a portfolio before. What exactly does one need to consist of? Do I have to have so many of people, animals, landscape, etc??? What makes a decent portfolio?
-I grew up drawing the shit out of Sailor Moon, and now anime in general is the style I just can't seem to NOT use. Nothing against the style. It just feels like at this point everyone can draw anime. -shrug- Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to get off at nearest stop.
-I can draw alright, but I am so fucking awful at coloring in my pictures; paint, watercolor, markers, you name it. Also shit at shading.
-I have never used any sort of digital design programs. Ever. Paint shop pro, photo shop, Maya... no idea. (I am saving up for a computer that can actually run Maya though, so I guess I'll dabble in it soon enough.)
-I'm overall really happy with my drawings, but then I see the concept art of others and just... wow. Sometimes it makes me wonder, "Why do I bother???"

I'm really freaked out that I don't have the skills or whatever it is this person is looking for. They haven't seen any of my stuff yet, and they didn't give me a deadline. They just said to make a portfolio and show them. What worries me the most I think is that... this just FEELS like some kind of once in a lifetime chance, and if I miss it, I'm gonna be stuck in retail and working multiple jobs for god knows how long.

Here are my... better quality drawings. No particular order. Not much to say about most of them. Feedback much appreciated.

Necromorph

Spoiler

This is a sketch I did a day my mom talked me into going to church with her, obviously.

Alice: Madness Returns

Spoiler

Drew this on one uneventful night of working at Jimmy John's.

From my cold dead hands

Spoiler

This was on of the images in a book I read called "Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection".

Harley Quinn Unfinished

Spoiler

I actually really like Harley. When I first got to college, I met someone that I was, of course, madly in love with (vomit). Like Harley, I would have done anything to make him happy, and the thanks I got was not much more than the feeling of being used and put down all the time. I could connect. Wish I would have finished this one. Another day maybe...

Wolf Creature

Spoiler

This is one of those drawings that just sort of happened. No idea what I was wanting to put down, but I kind of like what came out of it regardless.

Bayonetta Unfinished

Spoiler

Bayonetta is definitely a favorite. I'm really disappointed I didn't finish this one. I thought the idea I had in mind was really neat.

Sonic

Spoiler

When Sonic Generations came out, all I could listen to was the Escape the City Classic remix. Seriously. That went on for HOURS. And thus, a hedgehog was drawn.

Look, Daddy! It's You!

Spoiler

Bioshock is hands down one of my favorite games. I'm so pleased with this picture. It's not perfect for sure, but I did not think I would get anywhere NEAR my original idea, and voila.

Err...

Spoiler

This is just a lot of nothing. But it was a fun lot of nothing.

Uhh.

Spoiler

Again. Fun nothing.

Zombie Guy

Spoiler

Nom nom nom.

Skull

Spoiler

Ok, I actually was asking a friend of mine who goes to school for animation about some drawing tips. She told me to draw bones; skulls, teeth, rib cages, fingers, spines... Well, here's a skull anyways.

Faces

Spoiler

I bought myself a book on drawing human heads and faces as part of the "breaking my anime habit". These guys happened.

Kynnedi

Spoiler

This is my project at present.
This past July, my sister had a baby, but she was really sick and passed away after about a month, so she's sort of been my inspiration at this point.

 

[Batou667]

You're not bad but as I'm sure you're aware, your stuff so far is very stylised. In a portfolio you'll be trying to showcase a range of styles, mediums, and prove that you're familiar with anatomy, form, light, and so on.

Can I give some harsh critique?

- Your line quality is very scratchy and not very confident. Some of this is due to drawing in pen, but try to make your lines more graceful, flowing and controlled.

- The anatomy is good in places but only implied in others. Practice drawing nekkid people!

- This site is a great resource to try to address both of the above http://www.posemaniacs.com/thirtysecond The idea is to blast out a series of "lightning sketches" as a warmup exercise - try to spend more time looking at the screen than the paper (you'll start off drawing disembodied dross but this trains muscle memory) and aim for form above detail.

- Shade! Learn to love and loathe shading to the fullest! Get yourself some nice soft pencils, say 6B, and try to express the full range of values in your shading - everything from pitch black to pure white. A great exercise for this is to draw a plastic bottle of water or a glass of white wine - liquids throw out all kinds of crazy, unintuitive shades and highlights and you'll be forced to draw what you see rather than what you THINK a fluid looks like.

- More life drawing in general. 3D construction guides are valuable but nothing beats real-life observation. Failing that, try to draw portraits from photos, and from a variety of angles.

- Lightly plan out your drawings in stickman or boxed-out form before you commit to detail. Make sure everything looks proportional before you go for broke with the shading and final linework. Your otherwise very nice Bayonetta is a good example of this: her face is slightly skewed and her eyes are too high. Also, don't forget that long hair has volume! It doesn't stick to the head like a cap.

Overall, best of luck with your art. From what you posted I think you have a lot of beginner's mistakes to iron out but I think you have good potential and something of a natural affinity for depicting expressions and relationships. Regarding the portfolio, perhaps it would be best to just out-right ask your industry contact for a rough guide on what format they'd like to see your work in (digital or traditional), how many examples you should include, if there are any particular themes or subjects they'd be interested in , and so on.

Heck, perhaps if any fellow Escapists are in the industry, they could provide some tips?

 

[Dire Sloth]

Thank you. I appreciate your honesty and advice, and now I don't feel so stressed about it like I did earlier. Guess it's just been one of those days. I've also been a little worried about whether or not I should find a school and get a degree or anything. I went to SEMO for a couple of semesters, most of which I completely tanked. Now my GPA is shot, I'm pretty much broke, and I'm afraid if I were to try to transfer to a school that actually specialized in the arts I wouldn't be able to get in because of my poor grades. I don't know what happened. I just got so damn lazy. But again, thank you.

 

[Batou667]

No problem!

Just a quick follow-up about art school: it's not necessary. There are plenty of people out there with arts degrees who can barely draw, and also plenty of people who taught themselves, practiced hard, and managed to work their way up in the industry. From what I gather a lot of art courses will be free time set aside for students to practice and do portfolio work anyway, so you can do all this at home. It's probably a good idea to do some investigation into the content an art degree would usually cover, and the kind of skills employers would expect, and then you can work on getting most of those bases covered.

A bit of self-study is vital, but you can get the basics nailed down by getting a few decent books from eBay or your local library (for example I can recommend the introductory books by Andrew Loomis, they were written in the 30s/40s but still stand up brilliantly today).

There are plenty of good online resources and tutorials out there (like Darryl Tank's http://www.fivepencilmethod.com/ which is a really inspiring site if you're interested in improving portraiture and graphite shading. Naturally he's trying to sell products but he also has a lot of free tutorials, both on his site and his Youtube channel). Also Posemaniacs which I linked to before.

And finally, try to get frequent "reality checks". There are some good online communities out there and also some terrible ones. Do NOT get a DeviantArt account as it's worthless for critique. A community like 4chan's /ic/ will give much more honest feedback, even if they are rude and abrasive about it. Conceptart.org is perhaps a nice middle ground, but seems to be more geared toward digital art. Anyway, have a search around and hopefully you'll find something that works for you.

Good luck!

 

[SinisterGehe]

When it comes to portfolio, you need to show your skill set as broadly as you can. Bit of anything you can do, styles, methods, mediums, colors... etc...

You got a good grip on the basics of drawing but you need to learn to refine your style and drawing. Study anatomy and line drawing a lot. And you need to practice broader line, braver drawing and less sketchy style, I the viewer must be able to understand the picture without having experience on field on art or know what the subject is.

Also... Anatomy you can NEVER study it too much. Some under skilled artist whine and complain how it ruins their style. But if you want to do any pictures that has any grip on reality, you must know how the animal/human/thing is built, how it moves, what it can do and what it can't do. Also if you want to do surrealism it is easy when you know what the being cant do, and then make it do it.

Also you should learn to let the drawing starting to live, let the picture to come out of the paper itself instead of you forcing it out. Let the drawing live itself and see what it does.


You should do what I did when I had to practice a lot. I did 1 min sketches, 30 sec... etc. 20 sec was the lowest and I did filled 100 A3 pages.
-Erasing is not allowed
-Pages must be fitted with as many drawings you can
-Every work must be finished or worked on until time runs out.
-Do not review the pictures while doing this, just continue to next one.

You just go to draw and draw - after you get sick of drawing, draw some more.
And after that put all the drawings away, take a nap or good nights sleep and after that when you next got time, review all your drawings, find faults. etc.

If you want more help contact me via Deviantart SinisterGehe or Twitter @sinistergehe (I am not that original with my handles)

 

[Beautiful End]

It depends on what you're shooting for as an artist. In my case, I was a Graphic Design student so for my portfolio, I added a lot of variety and I'd say it should be about the same.

I'll agree with the people here, though. You got some good skills so far but there's always room for improvement. I'd suggest looking at pictures of random people (If you can't find a model) and sketching them. The point is to learn to draw the human body more or less as how it is. Honestly, fantasy characters are not the best models because they're all incredibly and unrealistically well proportioned.

I suggest you also get a small pad and carry it around with you and draw random stuff whenever possible. It doesn't have to be perfect or pretty but it will help. If you see, I don't know, a cool-looking car, make a quick and crappy sketch. You can play around too; maybe sketch the shadows only and no lines. Or the other way around. The point is for you to draw enough so that you get "loose" and are able to draw more comfortably in any situation and with any object, if that makes sense.

When you're more comfortable working with shadows and all (they don't have to be perfect; I got my degree already and I must admit I haven't mastered them yet), you can move on to color. Again, you'd have to develop your own style too. Using a fancy program is not necessary; you can even use something like Paint Tool Sai or Paint.net and buy a cheap Bamboo tablet just to get your started. Again, it's not as hard as it sounds; it's just a matter of getting the hang of it.

Going to an art school is not required. For example, I couldn't afford to go to one so I went to my local university and studied Graphic Design with a minor in Drawing. I chose Graphic Design because they still teach you about layouts and balance and designing stuff and your portfolio and Drawing complimented my skills too. Shadowing, learning about new artists and styles, drawing live models, shading, line quality, etc.

The key to being a good artist is being observant. Try to learn about quality of colors, shadows, shapes and everything every time you go anywhere. As an artist, you'll never stop learning.

As far as your portfolio, I say just submit what you have. You may not have a deadline but they're not gonna wait forever either. Just tell them you're working on your technique and portfolio. I'd say you need at least 15 good works that you feel show your skills accurately. They just wanna see how well you can draw and if your style is adaptable to whatever they're looking for at the time. Like with any other job, you gotta plead your case.

And yeah, a DeviantArt account is good for displaying your stuff in an organized manner in case sending a folder online or physically is not possible. But don't expect any good critique from most of the people there. Everyone is always tryin to be nice and don't give you any real criticism, just some polite" That's nice" and "Good job, looks great!".

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

- Your line quality is very scratchy and not very confident. Some of this is due to drawing in pen, but try to make your lines more graceful, flowing and controlled.

There is an alternative method for that, mind, which is to do all the sketched 'rough work' in light pencil (4H was my preference) and then when the basic sketchwork is complete to lay down dark, solid lines with either a 2B pencil or a fine tip (0.5mm) felt pen. Pencil on pencil allowed for shading work with 4B and 6B pencils, while ink on pencil allows you to erase the sketch lines and give crisp linework art.