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Military-Style Pin-Up: "Warrior in the Sign of Power"

Warrior Of The Sign of Power by ~luvataciousskull on deviantART

New piece up! Check it out!

ARTISTIC PROGRESS!

Kinda happy about this:

I've been having a hard time just sitting down at my art desk and drawing for... well, years now. I've sketched like a mad man during that time, but I haven't had many, if any, finished pieces. Last night I tightened up 2 pieces and finished the pencils on another. I plan on starting at least 3 today and may finishing off 2 as well.

On top of that, I'm going to try and finish my web site relaunch.

:)

While You Were Sleeping, The Senate Passed a Bill to Kill Art

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works Opposition: Plan B

SEPT 27 Yesterday, in a cynical move, the sponsors of the Senate Orphan Works Act passed their controversial bill by a controversial practice known as hotlining.

With lawmakers scrambling to raise 700 billion dollars to bail out businesses that are "too big to fail," the Senate passed a bill that would force small copyright holders to subsidize big internet interests such as Google, which has already said it plans to use millions of the images this bill will orphan.

With the meltdown on Wall Street, this is no time for Congress to concentrate our nation's copyright wealth in the hands of a few privately owned corporate databases. The contents of these databases would be more valuable than secure banking information. Yet this bill would compel creators to risk their own intellectual property to supply content to these corporate business models. That means it would be our assets at risk in the event of their failure or mismanagement.

As David Rhodes, President of the School of Visual Arts has said, the Orphan Works bill would socialize the expense of copyright protection while privatizing the profit of creative endeavors. Copyright owners neither want nor need this legislation. It will do great harm to small businesses. We already have a banking crisis. Congress should not lay the groundwork for a copyright crisis.

--Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Illustrators' Partnership

NOW FOR PLAN B

We MUST try to stop the House Judiciary Committee from folding their bill (HR5889) and adopting the Senate version.

PLEASE EMAIL CONGRESS TODAY.
If you've done it before, do it again!

It takes only a minute to use our new special letter.
Click on the link below, enter your zip code, and take the next steps.
Thanks to all of you who heeded the call to action yesterday.

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

For Anyone in a Band That Wants Art, or Any Artist Who Wants to Work With Bands...

GoMediaZine just finished up an awesome article on the 15 Mistakes Made by Designers in the Music & Apparel Industry. It was a really good and interesting series and because I know there's a lot of great artists on this forum, and even more people with bands, I wanted to post this to help just about everyone.

I'll run down the rules and post links to the articles at the bottom:

The 15 Mistakes Made by Designers in the Music & Apparel Industry

• 1. Not Charging Enough
• 2. Ignoring Typography
• 3. Unprofessional Behavior
• 4. Over Promising
• 5. Not Understanding Apparel Production
• 6. Lack of Originality
• 7. Not Following Directions
• 8. Not Utilizing the Medium to it's Fullest
• 9. Lack of Respect for Other Designers
• 10. Delivering Files Before Getting Paid
• 11. Working for "Exposure"
• 12. Failure to Research a Client
• 13. Unclear Communication Up Front
• 14. Letting One Client be 40% of Your Income
• 15. Thin Skin - Unable to Take Criticism

The First 5 Rules: http://www.gomediazine.com/industry-...y-part-1-of-3/

Rules 6 - 10: http://www.gomediazine.com/industry-...stry-part-2-3/

Rules 11 - 15: http://www.gomediazine.com/industry-...stry-part-3-3/

Every illustrator and designer, both starting out and industry pro, has and will make these mistakes. Myself? I've made each mistake happen at least once, especially when I was first starting out. It's amazing that commercial art school, for all the time and money, doesn't teach you a lot of otherwise common-sense things.

One example? I had a job early in my career where I was excited for a lot of reasons, one being that it was a chance to work for someone who could lead to a lot of work. After doing a ton of work and revisions, and sending the original files and everything, I wound up never seeing a penny and getting promised "exposure". In this one job, I had virtually broken all 15 mistakes (save maybe one or two) and looking back, the outcome taught me a lot.

I recently had a client where I actually learn all of my lessons and me and my client came out on top. It was a win-win situation and we're both reaping the benefits of it.

If your just starting out as a designer or an illustrator and dream of working with bands like I did and, in fact, still do, these rules are really good to follow. I know that if I had followed these rules early on I would have saved a ton of aggravation and would have done a lot better.

Bands and musicians, I honestly hope you learn a bit from this before you start hiring an artist. I know a lot of people on here would never do anything to purposely hurt someone who wants to help them, but even when you don't think something you do is wrong, it still can be. I think not understanding the process that's involved can lead to a lot of problems and I personally like to try and help my clients understand it. Don't be afraid to ask any artist you hire how they work or what they're up to; communication tends to be key.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the post. It was a really cool series of articles and I hope I helped both the bands on here and my fellow artists who post here as well.

Art in The 4th Dimension: How Artists Can Do More Through Merchandising

Art in the 4th Dimension is, to me, something that boils down to one simple word: Merchandising.

I can already hear the cries of "Sell Out" and "Commercialism".

When I was 4 years old, I was basically addicted to TV. We had cable in our small 1-bedroom apartment and I was just starting Kindergarten. On weekends I would watch non-stop Nickelodeon. By the time I was 7, I was already doodling, like kids do, but they were ads. Yes, that's right; By the time I was 7, I was drawing ads about how great the Nickelodeon and Pizza Hut partnership was. To some, a perversion of innocence, to others a realization of the world of overt commercialism we have created. To me, it was none of this and, looking back, I knew then that it was because I had just watched a lot of TV and, being young and impressionable, it wasn't much different than a kid drawing Mickey Mouse or Spider-Man and coming up with their own ideas.

Think back, and don't lie to yourself; When you were only a kid, you loved cartoons. You loved them so much that if you could get your hands on any toy, poster, t-shirt, action figure, kids meal toy, sneaker, shock, bed sheet... ANYTHING you could get your parents to buy for you with that character on it, you wanted it. It was, in a sense, a world you could create for yourself based on what you enjoyed.

Now, imagine an artist with that same power.

H.R. Giger is the best example I can give of this. His artwork, as deeply personal and incredible as it is, never was one to shy away from commercialization nor did he shy away from the ability to expand his creation into this, the 4th Dimension. In fact, the climax of this is none other than bars that were built around his art. Yet you would be hard pressed to find someone cry "sell-out".

There are so many artists today who have taken to customizing anything and everything and selling them. Pushead, for example, took his style to new levels and had his work (albeit without permission) made into things such as lamps and mugs.

Merchandising can be less a commercialization of art and more a development and an even more interactive extension of art itself. Creating toys, designing shirts, skateboards, sneakers... going outside what is considered a simple 2-dimensional piece of art on a poster or, in this ditigal age, on a computer screen and allowing people to take it with them, enjoy and apply it to their own lives as they see fit... honestly, it is nothing short of amazing.

My dream has always been to create a personal world where people could be enveloped by my art and creations. Artists will, and always have, dreamt of this. The backlash from people towards this is always in the perception that the artist is most likely doing it only to see an expansion to their bottom line and not what, in their "humble" opinion, is not a true expression of the creators own art and creativity. While this can be the case, for people such as myself, it is the complete opposite.

Desiging t-shirts, skateboards, and sneakers have been dreams of mine and countless other artists for years, and in this modern age of digital and easy reporduction, when seeing an idea go to print no longer requires the same amount of work as it did in the past and anyone with a printer can now become a designer (for better or worst), we are seeing a burst of creativity and people realizing their own personal dreams as well.

First Friday is Coming; Will I Be There?

First Friday: The day all the art galleries on 2nd and 3rd Street in Old City open their doors, and all the artists who can't get into the galleries, or don't want to be in there, head out to the streets to sell their art and try to earn some much-needed cash.

It's always been my firm stance that the scene here suffers from 2 main problems; The fact that creativity is shunned and that fact that there are too many "outsider artists" who can barely draw a stick figure who think they're making a "statement" by selling some idiotic thing they slapped together back in high school and think they can sell to someone as "art".

So talent and originality take a back seat to trends, in short.

Admittedly, I've never been one for "urban art", in a sense. By that, I really just mean modern art done in the last 10 - 20 years. Recently it's been about rehashing old ideas and presenting them as new, and... eh, I won't lie, I'm guilty of it, too. We all are. History repeats itself and all ideas, even the first ones, were based on earlier ideas, perceptions, and concepts.

At any rate, I'm considering going out there myself next Friday. I'm still torn and trying to make up my mind. There's a lot of new stuff, but the things I REALLY want to do aren't even started yet. Let's see where it heads.

New Calendar is Now Out!

OK, finally released my latest calendar! I haven't had one since 2004, so please enjoy! It's a year of great art!

You can see my website here:

Larry West Productions

And you can buy the Calendar here!

http://www.cafepress.com/larrysshop.197058916