SPA Studios Art and Process Video

Lately I've really been digging the art coming out of The SPA Studios (SPA stands for Sergio Pablos Animation). They're an animation and visual development company based in Madrid that has contributed to Despicable Me, Rio, and the independent feature Klaus that's been getting a lot of hype in animation circles.

Szymon Biernacki

Dany Fernández

Sergio Pablos

I pulled all of this art from their excellent blog (which I highly recommend following), where they also post process videos once in a while. I had to share today's step-by-step of a painting by Marcin Jakubowski! Enjoy.

The SPA Studios. Some tips and tricks from Marcin Jakubowski. from The SPA Studios on Vimeo.

I'm currently enrolled in CGMA's Color and Light class (more on that later hopefully), and as I start down the road of moving beyond sketches to attempt more full-scale illustrations, videos like these are invaluable. I'm learning there are many ways to tackle a painting and everyone must find their own way of doing things, but seeing a roadmap laid out so clearly like this does much to demystify the process... I stop hyperventilating and start thinking maybe, just maybe, I can do it too.

© Gina Florio Sous 2016

Wedding Art

I've been wanting for some time to do a post on all of the art I produced for our wedding this past September. I particularly enjoyed designing our Back to the Future themed invitations as well as our program, which surprised me, considering they were more graphic design than illustration.

By the way, all professional-looking photos in this post were taken by the illustrious Mary Costa, a fantastic L.A. based photographer as well as a friend.

 

I also did a number of 'fictional couple' illustrations to use as table markers to showcase some of our favorite films, books and videogames - Dave and I share a strong love of good stories!

 Finally, I made a Calvin-and-Hobbes-style illustration as a Thank You card. I used Photoshop to mimic watercolor, an experiment I'd been wanting to attempt for some time.

Bonus actual wedding photo! It was truly a happy day.

© Gina Florio 2016

Noah Bradley

Like many other people on the internet, I spend too much time on Reddit. I've had this AMA with concept artist/illustrator Noah Bradley bookmarked for some time and today I finally got the time to read it. Some of Noah's art:

The AMA is great - there's lots of good advice in there to start, but it ultimately led me to his blog and finally to this post called Stop Whining, Start Working. (It's on a similar subject as my earlier post about Letting the Learning Get in the Way.) I'll repeat his text here, as I felt like it was speaking straight to me:

I hear it all the time:

Am I talented enough? How much should I draw? Am I studying right? What’s the best way to use XYZ book? Art school or no art school? Do I need a degree? How will I know when I’m professional? What should I draw? Should I do more studies or finished work? What are the best materials? What kind of paint should I use? What pencil should I use? Are pencils or pens better to draw with? Should I draw big or small? Is it bad to draw from photos? Should I paint digitally or traditionally? Am I too old to start learning? Is Photoshop or Painter better? What’s the best way to hold a pencil? Where should I find inspiration? What do I do if I’m not inspired? How do I get through “artist’s block”? How long will it take to be a professional? Why does it feel like I’m not improving? Should I get a Moleskine? Is art dead? What is art? How do I do backgrounds? What are the best tutorials? What resolution should I work at? How do I come up with good ideas? What do I do if I stop enjoying art?

Well, I have the answer to all of your questions: it doesn’t matter. Really. It doesn’t. These questions are excuses, plain and simple. They are used by people who aren’t drawing or painting that want to get wrapped up in petty minutiae at the expense of their own work.

The fact is that if you want to make art, then you need to make art. I could answer every single question on this list and it wouldn’t make you the slightest bit better at drawing.

Now, I should qualify these statements before people start chucking rocks: these are mostly valid questions, with equally valid answers. They’re worth discussing at times, and are things that you’ll eventually figure out. But by and large, you’ll figure them all out for yourself by working. Notice a pattern here? Don’t be afraid to ask questions and research things, but be sure you’re not doing it at the expense of actually learning things.

So shut up, stop whining, and get to work.

Thanks Noah. And now I'm going to get off the internet and do some drawing. :)