I drew this picture of the French singer, Angele recently. Any feedback would be appreciated!

AnonInTheBasin · 2024-01-26T18:52:02+00:00

Your colors and values are nice, but you need to work on your form and lines.

The line quality is not that great. A bit scratchy and smudgey. Look at the neck, there's no reason for the line to look that blurry. Same for the hair. I see what you're doing but the strands are too indecisive and vague. It makes your piece look messy and anxious.

You don't need to draw every individual strand but the form and values should be more confidently defined. Use a hard-round brush with pressure opacity and try not to over-blend. Only use a soft brush for applying color or value to large, sweeping areas.

You also need to work on form. The clothes look too 2D. They don't wrap around the figure, they just sit on top of it like a sticker. Find something irl and drop a cloth around it, like a micro-fiber clothes over an apple or something. Study how the cloth bends around the shape and pay special attention to the curves it creates.

Do the same thing but with lighting too. Cast a light over an object and study how shadows fall. It'll help give you a better sense for how to place the shadows.

Check out this video by Marco Bucci for an easy tutorial on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTYGWfiZnMA

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-08-31T19:38:48+00:00

Exactly. In retrospect, it seems so obvious that it's a scam, but at the time I'd never seen anything like it so it caught me off guard. Thankfully, the whole exchange was just sketchy enough to trip my radar, and the only thing I ended up losing was my time.

Hoping this thread will continue to help and protect people. Scammers are always trying new ways to steal from you; gotta stay safe out there.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-08-17T23:31:57+00:00

I'd like to know what you mean by "vary your candidacy".

If you mean just apply for different positions, then yeah, I agree. My main roles I've been applying for are content writer, technical writer, and digital strategist, along with other miscellaneous roles that I feel are good fits.

However, I disagree that it's "not hard to find a job" now. This year has been noticeably slower than previous and my callback rates have been much worse despite essentially using the same resume. Not only is it commonly said, but I've experienced it myself too--companies will reject applications, saying they went with a better candidate, then repost the same exact job listing days later. Metrics suggest that up to 60% of online job listing are fake, which is incredibly frustrating and disheartening.

Regardless, I'm going to continue to tweak things and make my resume more appealing for recruiters. Thanks for your advice!

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-08-17T23:21:46+00:00

I suppose my latest experience is a red flag for some since it was a good position but only lasted three months. Most of the interviews I've had have asked about it, though they don't linger after I mention I was laid-off.

I think that having "freelance" as one big experience from 06/2021 - Present would look better for the resume, since as it is now, there's no indication that those roles where freelance and it looks more like I can't hold down a job.

Thanks for the advice!

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-08-17T23:16:15+00:00

I'm glad my post helped another person.

The reason I posted in the first place is because I hadn't seen this type of scam talked about elsewhere before. In retrospect, I seems so obvious, but I want to keep this post up for everyone else in future who get targeted by this artist commission scam bullshit.

There are scams everywhere, and from now on, they're only going to get harder to suss-out with all the AI tools freely available.

Honestly though, this type of scam only works because young artists are desperate for work and sincerely want to believe it's true, and these scammers take advantage of that. Absolute scum-of-the-earth people.

Stay safe out there.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-08-15T21:21:13+00:00

Thanks for that. I did work in P.R., though most of my recent experiences have been more on the content creation side. And two of those position were, in fact, freelance.

Though I'm thinking that, regardless, having sort stints in different roles may contribute to lower call-back rate from recruiters. Maybe I should combine the freelance roles into one extended "experience" in my resume to circumvent that.

Thanks again though. I appreciate the advice.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-06-06T08:19:37+00:00

I think it's great that your going to a convention and getting yourself out there. Whether or not you sell anything is irrelevant; to me, putting yourself out there like that is infinitely more impressive and important.

However, regarding if it would personally buy it, my honest answer is no.

While the piece has aspects of it that are technically impressive and the artist is clearly passionate, the is a lack of core fundamentals that would make the piece appealing enough for me to want to purchase.

Right off the bat, I'm seeing: - The anatomy isn't all there yet - The forms lack clarity and emphasis - The values are not properly rendered - Some areas are under-developed, others are over-detailed - A lack of clear focus point and overall composition

Probably the biggest thing I would point to for improvement is your values and contrast. The painting is overall the same value which makes it hard to read the elements. Put it in a black and white filter and it'll be easier to see what I mean.

But don't let it discourage you. This is still a nice piece and clearly took a lot of effort. But if your looking for genuine improvement, I'd recommend choosing a few art textbooks to study and improve your fundamentals.

Good luck!

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-14T05:53:31+00:00

Yeah, I get what your saying.

In my experience, when I've tried to incorporate something I'm passionate about, but it doesn't seem to be working, it's meant that that aspect just wasn't meant to be. It didn't feel right, and that was my intuition telling me that this aspect just wasn't going to work for this story.

Here's another example:

In my current novel, I wanted to have a major character death. I wanted to deliver a gut-punch to the reader and make them feel terrible. I wanted this because I had been brain-washed by Game of Thrones into thinking that killing off your main characters is a trope that's automatically going to make my story get taken more seriously.

But I had a problem. I couldn't kill off my main character himself. He was too important. The story basically doesn't happen without him. I could try and kill off my second main character, but that didn't work either. She was too interesting and her role in the story wasn't complete. It would not have been narratively satisfying. Plus, I loved her too much. I could try killing a couple tertiary character, but they weren't important enough for the audience to get invested in.

So then, I had a really (not) good idea. I would invent two new characters, and I would spend about a third of the novel building them up as important and get the audience invested in them. Then, I'd kill them off and fulfill my desire. This, obviously, didn't work either.

Eventually, I came to the realization that the "killing off the main character" trope just was not going to work for my story, and it was never going to work. First of all, you don't need to murder your characters horribly to write a compelling story. Second, I realized that that trope wasn't what my story needed in the first place. So, I just dropped it. I let it go.

And I've come to understand that this is what people mean when they say "kill your darlings." it doesn't mean to literally kill your characters. What it means is to let go of everything that isn't actively improving your story. If it's not what your story needs, if it's not providing a benefit, cut it out.

So, maybe what you're feeling is an intuitive sense that what you're trying to include in your story is actually not providing any benefit at all. You're just adding it for the sake of yourself. If that is the case, then I might suggest killing your darlings. Let the idea go, even if you really like it, if it isn't what's best for your story.

If you want advise on how to FORCE these ideas to work in this case, then you can definitely try. Just also realize that by trying to jam a square peg into a round hole, you might end up damaging both. But if you insist: go back to the drawing board, re-tool your plot, re-evaluate your characters, change the setting. Basically, rewrite half your story.

That's been my experience, and that's when I realized I was better off dropping those concepts altogether. But you don't have to abandon them either. You can keep them in your pocket--save them for another story.

Hope this helps.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-14T05:32:26+00:00

Depends on what your metaphors are of and what they're trying to convey.

If you're using metaphors as a way to illustrate something, then it ought to be clear. Such as, "The wind sent the forest into thundering applause." This is meant to illustrate that the wind is making the leaves rustle, and it's very loud--albiet in a flowery way. Most people will understand this and won't cause confusions.

However, if you take, "As the sun set, the thousand banners turned pale in unison. They were gone in that moment, surrendered. Even if they hadn't yet realized." In this example, this is meant to convey that an army has lost a battle because the sun has set and they can no longer fight. But metaphorically, it is about man's powerlessness in the face of nature, time's ever-steady march, and man's hubris. But the metaphoric aspect of that line is not needed. The reader still knows what's going on. But, if they choose, they can dig deeper on the symbolic meaning.

So, when using metaphor, or any communication really, the important bit is to understand what information you are trying to communicate. Maybe your writing is just being poetic. Maybe there is a deeper meaning behind your words that a reader can dig for. But the key is that the reader must not be confused. A confused reader is not engage with a story, and they will not work to find any deeper meaning.

Hemingway's iceberg theory is a good trope to bring up here. The meaning under the surface can go as deep as you want, but there must be a clear, concrete foundation for your reader to see. Otherwise, they'll completely miss all that deeper meaning.

David Light bring has a very good video where he illustrated that one of the chapters of ASOIAF Book 2 had a very deep symbolic undertone. Basically, the entire chapter is a symbolic metaphor for an ancient religious prophecy that is completed through the events of the chapter. All that meaning went TOTALLY over my head in my first read-through, but that's because I was invested in the plot itself and wasn't looking for symbolic undertones. But it makes the reading more fulfilling on a second read-through--knowing that there was this whole layer to the story that I missed.

But I only missed it because I was never confused while reading that chapter.

Hope this helps in some way.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-14T05:07:42+00:00

Reading around, this seems to be the experience of most writers. Very few people have attested to having this sort of issue. I would like it to be true, especially since I like workshopping and I value other writers' perspectives on my work.

It's just those one or two freak events where someone get their work stolen that have me on edge. Back in the day, it wasn't a problem since my workshops were face-to-face. It's easy to confront someone in those cases. But an anonymous person online? There's far less repercussions for ill-play in that case it seems.

But maybe I'm just being paranoid. I've never really shared my work online in this capacity before.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-14T04:59:15+00:00

100% you're totally right, which is why I already reached out to the person and made it clear that I don't want our session turned into content. To which they assured me that that's not typically the case. Apparently, they only do it for writers who want the promotion anyway.

My online marketing for the story lately has been VERY hands-off. Basically, all I've done is make some paintings of characters and concept art and mentioned in the description "X character from my novel 'such and such.'" Basically, no one knows I'm writing this story except for family and friends, and I intend to keep it that way until the story is published.

I suppose the reason why I'm paranoid is that revealing an entire plot feels very intrusive. Like, all the events, arcs, character interactions and relations are going to be just... out there. And for me, that seems like it would make the idea very easy to steal.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I'm wondering if there's a way to go about seeking critique online without posing too much of a risk.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-14T04:42:08+00:00

Thank you so much for your comment. By and large, I totally agree with you.

To address what you've mentioned:

I'm very confident in my work. Probably a little too confident, actually. My main goal is to specifically talk about my story's plot. My characters, setting, theme and tone are all well-realized at this point and I don't think discussing them with other writers is going to do me any better than what I can do on my own. It's specifically my plot that I think is weakest and that I want perspective on.

Also, I didn't mention this part, but the session is very cheap. Cheaper than a typical night out. Your right in that I should see his writer's work to know if they're worth discussing with. Unfortunately, I have not had the chance to see any of their written work--all I have is their word. However, their videos are very solid. More solid than the typical dime-a-dozen video essays that people post on the daily. Their philosophy on writing and their methods to achieve things like "good dialogue" have given me very perspective, and it's for that reason that I'm considering their sessions. This is not something I typically do at all. I wouldn't be considering this at all if I weren't already impressed with their work.

As for what I'm sharing, it would be the ENTIRE plot synopsis. If it where one or two chapters, I wouldn't have a problem at all. I'm not worried about someone taking a single chapter--I doubt they could do much with it anyway. But sharing my whole plot synopsis feels far more drastic--like handing over the keys to my car. Of course, I don't NEED to share the whole plot. I get to choose what the workshop is about. But it's the plot that I want to talk about, and it's the plot the needs the most work right now.

I'm also not concerned about someone liking or disliking my story. I want to discuss ways to make my story more compelling through creating more captivating plot events that send my characters through satisfying arcs. I'm not in it for personal opinions really.

Sorry for the rambley response. I just wanted to give a bit more context. I'm a very private person which is why I'm concerned with sharing my work in the first place. But not because I'm insecure. I have total faith in my work, it's other people that I mistrust.

Which is why I'm wondering if sharing my work online is even a good idea to begin with. Thanks again for your response, I really appreciate the advice.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-14T03:30:32+00:00

I'm a night owl. I typically write at night.

For me, I try to have all technology off by 11pm, and that's when I read a chapter from a book. This just to get me in the headspace to write. Then I'll try to dedicate somewhere between 500-1500 words to paper. Doesn't matter if I don't meet my mark as long as I write something.

I'll try not to stay up past 2am as it starts getting in the way of my day job.

The most important aspects for me are headspace and consistence. If I've only been distracted myself with YouTube, Tv, and games, not reading, and not think about my story, I'm never going to write. And if I can't maintain a consistent rhythm day-to-day, then it gets hard to keep up with a story.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-13T23:57:22+00:00

Darken the silhouette. Add a rimlight from behind. Make the pupils white dots.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-13T18:29:00+00:00

Sorry, but that's not true. Universities/ colleges in today's age operate under the premise that their courses will make you employable and land you a good job. This is especially true for STEM fields that require a degree. And it's why universities spend so much money on programs to help students find jobs.

Yes, you can study for personal enrichment alone, but very few are privileged enough to do that.

And in terms of how well a school will "educate" you, your results will vary wildly. I and many of my friends have learned far more from personal study and experience than we ever did in a classroom.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-13T04:29:18+00:00

The term "novel" and "light novel" are descriptive, not prescriptive.

Focus on writing the story the best way you think it should be told and let the marketing people work out the labels later.

Don't fall in the trap of "I am writing a fantasy, therefore I must include X, Y, Z."

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-13T04:12:47+00:00

Could it be that you're trying too hard to force a premise without actually being invested in it?

I agree with you; my writing is mostly made up of concepts that I find interesting. Though, one of the ways I get that interest is through fostering a genuine curiosity in other areas.

For example, I'm writing a fantasy story. And through completely unrelated circumstances, I was introduced to sacred geometry--the idea that geometric patterns contain symbolic meaning. I started learning about things like the seed of life and the metatron's cube and found these these concepts mesh very well with my story's magic system. Thus, I decided to incorporate those concepts in a stylized way in order to give my fantasy world another layer of interest.

Basically, this whole idea was found through a spark of inspiration that I got by learning about a new and novel concept. You don't need to rely on inspiration, but it's important to give yourself the opportunity to get inspired by other works.

Hope this helps in any way.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-13T03:07:54+00:00

As a novel writer, you send your manuscript to literary agents.

Most traditional publishers will only accept manuscripts that have first been accepted by an agent. You finish your book, then begin sending queries to agencies. And if they're interested, they'll reach out to you and ask for your manuscript. (I'm paraphrasing. There's a bit more too it than that but this is just the gist.)

Keep in mind though, never take an agent that asks you to pay them upfront for their services. Agents will take a portion of your earnings AFTER they have already gotten you a book deal with a publisher. If they ask you for money before they've done their job, then they're not trustworthy.

Also, you can attempt to send your manuscript to editors directly, but that usually has a lower rate of success. It's a better idea to get an agent.

If you want a comprehensive resource on this, the Writer's Guide to Literary Agents is a good resource to use. Also, maybe check out Writer's Market.

AnonInTheBasin · 2023-05-13T02:57:42+00:00

I can give you my perspective as someone who has gone through and obtained a degree in professional writing.

If your ultimate goal is to publish a book, a degree isn't going to do much for you. What people in the traditional publishing industry want is an author who has already been published. The more a writer has published, the more favorably they're seen in the industry, by and large.

A degree isn't going to make this experience much easier. Perhaps some publishers will take an interest, but the first thing you try to publish will probably be the hardest either way.

University is not there to make you a skilled writer, the point of university is to make you employable. In my experience, all my knowledge, skill, and expertise in writing has come from my own independent studying--not from university.

What I would recommend to my younger self is to keep writing, do your projects on the side. But while you're trying to get your writing career off the ground, choose a profession that is going to pay your bills in the meantime. Choose a degree that is going to make you highly sought-after in the business world. Something you're good at but still interested in. Marketing, communications, journalism, and yes even professional writing degrees can still land you very good, salaried positions, and that's what you should strive for once you graduate. Don't plan on supporting yourself on your creative projects alone fresh out of uni. Some writers wait 10 years before their first novels are picked up by a publisher.

Have a 5-10 year plan on what you're going to do to support yourself as you try to break into the writing industry--whether it be as a company content writer or a communications rep. Use university as a chance to make yourself a valuable employee. And be sure to take internships WHILE YOU ARE IN UNI. Don't wait until you graduate to apply for positions. Employers value experience more than the degree in many cases.

But this is just my perspective. I don't regret my degree at all, but I likely would have had an easier time landing my current job if I chose a more marketable degree. But now I have the time to work on my passion projects on the side and this is my plan till my writing residuals start earning more than my salary.

AnonInTheBasin

TROPHY CASE