I've been mentioned!

The book I helped illustrate was reviewed, and I'll be damned, my art was specifically mentioned! No, really, I'm damned. Because he pointed it out for being terrible. Sigh.

I suppose he didn't say terrible, he said 'suspicious.' You can read the review here.

EDIT: Since the website doesn't work for everyone, here's the quote:

"One picture bothered me quite a bit, it was a picture of a man and a woman at a shooting range firing at overly large insects. If you follow Shadowrun, you know bugs are a big problem. What was so bothersome about this picture was that I swear I’ve seen this shot as a photo and it looks like the man and woman have been transposed and the bugs inserted into line art. The fact that both people are wielding current day firearms rather than really cool Shadowrun era firearms makes me even more suspicious."

Basically, he's saying that I cut and pasted some photos. Honestly, I'm a little hurt. But this isn't the first time something like this has happened. When I was in highschool, I made this:

See that hand coming out of the drawing? I sculpted it out of clay and fired it. I was really proud of it. I would lug it everywhere to show at college portfolio reviews. One teacher looked at the drawing, hefted the sculpted hand, and said, "This is great. I love the imagination, but what if you sculpted the hand, instead of casting it? Show us some other talents?"

I was dumbfounded. "I did sculpt that," I said. The man shrugged it off with an "Oh, okay."

Fast forward to sophomore year of college. The teacher is trying to get a feel on our particular talents, and assigns a drawing. One figure, beyond that, the drawing could be whatever you liked. So I made this:

When the projects were passed back, mine came with a sticky note attached. "See me, bring your photo reference." I showed my teacher the drawing and the photo side by side, and he shrugged, "Okay, sometimes kids will trace their photos to try and impress me. I can see you didn't. Nice." 

I got a B+.

Maybe I'm too sensitive, maybe my artist brain gets haughty and dramatic, but I'm proud of the work I do. Especially when I burn through hours of painting. Saying 'this is too good' is something of an underhanded compliment, and one I don't take lightly. Of course, the reviewer mentions other tidbits that I honestly dropped the ball on: the weapons aren't Shadowrun weapons. I should have looked into the arsenal instead of filling in what I knew. Whatever, let's get to it.

I was going to wait until later to make a post about how much trouble I go through to get reference. But, teacher, you wanted to know if I traced.

It starts with the thumbnail.

Then I try to line up some photos as nearly as I can to the thumbnail.

Sexy, right?

Yeah, that's an Aperture Science jacket. Be jealous.

My sister Ruby is lovely and the best and is super helpful. These are three out of more than twenty that I took making sure everything was right.

Once this is done, I gather other elements to paint off of. I was given some 'spirit bug' reference that I used, I looked up crabs to see the shape of their shells, and I grabbed some shooting range photos. I have a lot of sandy/grassy fields on my computer now.

Now you get to compare:

Obviously, I'm not going to post every time I get a negative review, but I go through great pains to achieve some semblance of realism in my work, and I pride myself in the fact that I don't take shortcuts. In that area, I'm always more than happy to defend my practices.

Those guns, though? Yeah, my bad.