September AMA: Answers! (Patreon)

 Thank you to all of the $5+ Patrons that submitted questions! Please take all of this advice with a grain of salt as always.

If you'd like to submit questions next month, pledge just $5 a month (that's less than 2 Starbucks coffees!!) and you'll also get early access to digital art minitutorials!

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kulbit asks:  i recently found out that it's better to work on bigger canvas so there's more pixels to work with so what do you think is a good canvas size and dpi 

The optimal size for your canvas entirely depends on the purpose of the piece. Generally, it's better to go bigger than smaller. The size of a 11"x17" poster and the size of an image that will only be viewed on a small screen will differ. 

First, here's the long answer:

For small posters or prints, make sure your PPI (pixels per inch) is high, like 250 or 300, so that the print is very clear. The PPI for larger posters or prints can be a bit lower, but the general recommendation is to never go under 150 PPI. So- if you're making a mid quality print that's 11"x17", the pixel dimensions will be 11*150 by 17*150. That's 1650 by 2550 pixels. (Keep in mind, I don't do a lot of prints. Perspectives on this vary.)

For images that will only be only viewed on a screen, keep in mind that the majority of monitors are 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels. We're expanding soon into higher resolution monitors (4K), but for now, that's pretty standard. Anyone viewing your image on a monitor probably won't zoom in and want to see every little pixel, so you can stick to a smaller final image size around that 1920 by 1080 pixels limit if you'd like.

You generally actually want artwork that will be viewed on an image-heavy page (like a portfolio page that has a lot of pieces on it) to be smaller so they load faster. If you have a bunch of 4k x 4k images on a page, it'll take forever to load and people will move on. All of the pieces on my portfolio are actually within the 1920x1080 constraint.

The TL,DR answer: printed images need to be big, often 3000+ pixels on the long side. Digital images can (and ideally will) be smaller so they load quickly.

My preference? 

For the sake of simplicity, I always work in 300 PPI, and I always work big. My default is to open the New File menu and go to the US Paper preset, which is 8x11 at 300 ppi. It's just what I'm comfortable with.

The benefits of working big:

1. You can almost always downsize. You can't scale up without colors and edges getting REAL weird.

2. If I want to do a detail callout or show off a small section in a separate image, even smaller details will be at a high resolution and therefore legible. 

3. Sometimes you don't expect to want to print something, then later you realize you do. It just provides a lot of flexibility in how the image can be used.

Keep in mind:

1. Whatever size you go with, make sure to use the whole image. Some folks will do a tiny drawing in the corner and then have 80% white space, which is visually wasteful. Keep composition in mind:

2. Working TOO big can make it really tempting to zoom in REALLY CLOSE on the tiny details too early, so sometimes it's good to downsize. Having a few less pixels to work with can help you focus on the bigger picture rather than every little hair on the arm of a werewolf. 

Good luck!

kulbit asks:  also do you have any tips on connecting with other artists. also thanks for taking time out of your busy schduel to answer these questions 

Absolutely! If you have a community of artists nearby, I definitely recommend dipping your toes into that...but we don't all live in cities, and online communities can be super constructive too.

To find out if you have game art communities nearby, I recommend checking out meetup.com and eventbrite.com for game dev events. You can also check out IGDA's website to see if they have a local chapter that meets regularly or other nearby organizations. Go to whatever you can find and don't be afraid to put yourself out there! Everyone at game dev meetups are a little awkward and super nerdy. We're all there for the same reason...to meet other artists and developers! Bring business cards, but focus on having genuine conversations rather than having as many conversations as possible. The personal connections that you build are really important and far more enriching.

If you don't have local communities closeby, get active online. Twitter, Polycount, Facebook groups, and other forum sites all have really active communities that are just as valuable as in-person ones. Participate! Comment on other people's work. Ask questions. Add to the conversation. Do itch.io game jams with folks online or join a Discord for artists. Whichever communities you quickly connect with, focus on those. Don't feel like you have to be on every form of social media and comment on every single thread in a forum in order to be included.

Natalia asks:  I'm curious, how do you approach studying to expand your "visual library"? How to apple these studies well to create your own designs? Thank you as usual!

Ohh, great question.

First of all, a visual library is just a collection of images that you can pull from for reference and inspiration. I personally like to use Pinterest because I can save images from *anywhere* with their Chrome extension, it's easy to organize, and it usually links back to the source URL of the image. Visual libraries can also be compiled by saving images to your local drive or however is easiest for you.

Things to keep in mind while putting one together:

1`. Stay organized. Make individual boards/folders for each topic sooner rather than later. It's better to have more categories than less, trust me.

2. Save whatever is interesting or exciting for you, and categorize it by that factor. If you really like a character design but it's composition is what drew you to it, maybe put it in the illustration or composition folder instead of the character design folder...or both!

3. Focus on saving high-quality images. That means focus on professional-grade work, but also to save the highest resolution version that you can find. Saving tiny 300px by 100px images isn't helpful.

When I'm starting a new piece or design, one of the first things I do is go to my visual library. I use it to develop the pose of a character, the facial features, the hands, the silhouette, the body type, whatever is an unknown to me throughout the design process. If you don't know how to draw something...go find someone that does!

Spooks asks:  Do you think it's wise to attempt networking before one's too confident in their skill? I don't mean in the sense of impostor syndrome, or that artists always want to be better than they are, but rather risking getting your name out into the world before you're industry level. Is there a risk that people see your art and dismiss you? Is it a waste of time relative to just improving? 

I think networking is valuable at all levels. You don't need to have a ton of experience under your belt in order to participate in the conversation and benefit from relationships.

There are always going to be some sort of risk when you're putting yourself out there to be honest, especially early on. Labeling yourself as a professional too early can send a strange message, but undermining your work can push people away. I generally recommend avoiding using labels that set an expectation for where your work will be- putting "aspiring game artist" on your portfolio communicates that you're underexperienced and putting "professional game artist" can be interpreted that you're compensating for something. Not everyone agrees with this and I empathize with that, I'm only speaking from my own experience regarding this.

My suggestion? Just call yourself a game artist. Or environment artist, or concept artist, or whatever that role is. Let your work speak for itself.

This goes for both your portfolio and networking events. When you're in a conversation with people that are much more experienced and want to keep talking to them but don't know what to say that they haven't heard before, ask questions! People in this industry are often generous because we know how hard it is to get in. Ask about their experiences or advice, then relate with that.

If people see that you're less experienced and change their tone so that they're talking down to you, they don't respect the journey you're on. People that are dismissive as soon as they think they can't benefit from you aren't worth your time. Focus on the conversations with people that appreciate you.

Sam asks:  Photoshop question. So you said make your keyboard shortcuts so you never have to move your hands. What are yours? 

Hell yeah, okay-

Just to clarify context, I recently tweeted about keyboard shortcuts and how important they are. I'm a huge advocate for setting up your workflow to minimize how much time you're looking away from your screen. This means:

1. Avoid looking at your keyboard

2. Minimize hand movement as much as possible (so you don't have to look at your keyboard)

I work on an old medium-sized Wacom Intuos Pro and am right-handed. My left hand is always on my keyboard and my right hand is always drawing on the tablet. I don't use my right hand for the keyboard, although I do use the right click button on the pen pretty frequently. I don't use the buttons on the tablet because there aren't enough to be useful for me, though some people do prefer the tablet buttons and that's totally fine.

Here are the shortcuts I use, most of which have been changed from Photoshop's default settings. All are very close to each other on the left side of the keyboard for the sake of comfort and ease.

The core shortcuts:

• Right click on canvas while brush or eraser is active = open brush menu
• Q = eraser
• W = eyedropper
• E = brush
• R = decrease brush size
• T = increase brush size

Navigational shortcuts:

• G = rotate view
• Space + click and drag (same as default) = pan across canvas (must be zoomed in)

 Image manipulation shortcuts:

• Y = lasso tool and polygonal lasso tool
• Ctrl + T (same as default) = Free Transform tool
• Ctrl + X  = Flip canvas horizontal
• Ctrl + U (same as default) = Hue/saturation adjustment menu
• Ctrl + M (same as default) = Curves adjustment menu

Copy/paste shortcuts (all are same as default):

• Ctrl + A = select all of canvas
• Ctrl + C = copy
• Ctrl + shift + C = copy all visible layers
• Ctrl + V = paste

These are literally 90% of what I use in PS. The rest is super situational.

3C asks:  I notice a lot of people online post their work once the NDA is lifted. However I'm wondering if this is something that's automatically ok to do, or is there something in a freelance / in house contract that you need to look for that allows it. I guess it's along the lines of retaining some of the rights to your work maybe? As I noticed some artists selling prints of their published work or the original oil painting they did etc. Would you be able to shine the light on this a bit? 

The answer to this is very situational. The only universally right answer is to ALWAYS ask a manager or producer before posting *anything* publicly. 

Some contracts allow the artist to sell prints/pads/other merch of the art within a certain set of guidelines, like for MtG illustrations. Other contracts specify that the artist can't even post the completed work at any point for the sake of keeping industry/production secrets private. The level of privacy and scrutiny vary by company, project, and contract very heavily.
  

youngizzik asks: As a student, we just started our first week of class. Understandably, its been the most frantic and busy and I know through the semester there will be less busy and more busy weeks, but I still wanna make sure I make time for my friends and partner and still do my homework and plan for a club? Do you have any tips about time management/scheduling? I already have a whiteboard calendar thats been a life saver but if there is something you do that helps keep you on your deadlines?

Having a whiteboard and a physical to-do list are definitely my #1 recommendations. Juggling your schedule is really tough during college, so I think it's really important to determine the level of priority for the things you need to get done. Also- declutter. It's better imo to have lower stress and just focus on a few things that are important to you rather than commit to *everything.* It's healthier, plus it teaches you how much you can squeeze into a week!

As you're getting more experienced, you'll get more familiar with how much time different tasks/homework/extracurricular activities take. In college, I liked to specify a few days in advance what I would work on each day- not just write down deadlines.

When you're feeling overwhelmed, take a few minutes to breathe, relax, and reorganize your thoughts. Write next to each to-do item how important it is to spend a lot of time on it, how much time it would take, and when it needs to be completed by. Try to do this sooner rather than later, too! It's better to spend 15 minutes to calm down and reorganize than it is to spend an hour stressed and unproductive.

Philip asks:  Hey I’m close to the end of my first Art contract and it’s been amazing. I’m hoping they hire me on full time, but I‘m trying to keep my options open. My questions is do you have any tips about finding contract work or how do you go about managing current work while looking for  

I'm actually putting together a post about how to find work online which I'm hoping to share in the next week or two, but I'll share a bit here to summarize what that will be covering.

When seeking contract work, I focus on 1. being super active on social media 2. emailing companies directly and 3. applying to open jobs. Social media has *always* been an essential part of finding work for me, even moreso than reaching out to companies or applying to openings. Having a presence on Twitter specifically has led to the overwhelming majority of the gigs that I've landed, so I definitely recommend participating in art hashtags and other methods to build up some exposure. You never know if a company will respond if you're emailing them out of the blue, but when they reach out *to you*, you're in a good spot.

It's also super important to make yourself easy to find and easier to get in contact with. It doesn't matter if someone wants to work with you if they can't figure out how to email you. Put your email address or website url on your images and make it clear where they can see your work!

Matt asks: I deal a lot with over-work crushing my will to do personal work when I get home from a 12 hour day. It means I haven't really updated my portfolio in 2+ years. Any suggestions for de-stressing at the end of a long day so that I can work on my own art would be welcome! <3

This is definitely a toughie. Juggling a job plus art is a different challenge for every artist, and making it work is no small feat.

In order to multitask, it's important to have enough energy. Make sure that you're eating well, taking care of yourself physically, getting rest. I've found a little bit of exercise throughout the week helps me stay focused and put a few extra hours in. The other side of it is finding the time, and for a lot of people, that requires some perseverance and sacrifice. Simplifying my schedule has historically been a very important thing for me to do in order to maximize productivity- it's very hard to get anything done when I'm being pulled in several different directions mentally. 

There is definitely a "you just gotta power through" element to improving your art while working a day job, but I recommend keeping your energy and passion up by really focusing on projects that you *like* to do. If you are excited to work on something, it's MUCH easier to set aside time and energy for it. Pursuing what you're genuinely curious about is essential for perseverance. 

I hope this helps! 

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Thank you SO MUCH to everyone that submitted questions and were Patrons this month. You're all making my life so much more flexible and reducing my stress like crazy by being a part of this big adventure with me. Have a super September!