Your Report Card: Reviews from Professionals

Reviews from Professionals
The good news is, it’s probably never been easier to talk to a professional in the field you want to enter, and even to talk to your absolute art heroes. The great thing I’ve found about artists, is they are generally some of the nicest, most giving of their time and knowledge, people you will ever meet.

The first and probably easiest way to try to make contact with a professional is through their website or social media. A quick web search should turn up their website fairly easily, assuming they have one (and most do), and that will in turn lead you to their contact email. Also, many of artists keep a profile on Facebook. You can also find artists in your field active on the same sorts of web forums that you might find peers of your own level. I’ll make a list of a few of the popular web forums I’m aware of at the end of the article.

You can also meet artists at appropriate conventions and events. A face to face meeting is great, and it often times allows you the opportunity to talk to several artists in one event. If the artist doesn’t appear too busy, or his table too crowded, many will happily give you a brief portfolio review, and offer tips, advice, and that precious feedback you need to keep improving.

There are a few ground rules though to get the most of your interaction with professional artists:

• Be polite. This should go without saying, but sadly it does need saying sometimes. Remember, you are asking a favor to have them look at your work and comment on it. Sometimes they may simply not have time, or have more pressing things to do. You can try again later, or try for another artist.
• Don’t monopolize their time. You may have a million questions, but try to limit yourself to a few. If you talk to the artist online, their online time competes with working. If you talk to them at a convention, there are likely other people hoping to talk with the artist, or they may have other activities to attend.
• Be prepared. If you want a portfolio review, have it handy, and have it edited down in size to probably not much more than a dozen pieces. Those huge artist portfolios are honestly too big to work well with a convention table, stick to the sizes easy to hold open in your hands. If you are asking for advice via the internet, do not send them large image files. Send a link to where they can see your work online.
• Listen. Actually listen to the advice. This isn’t the time to make excuses for the work, it’s the time to listen to what they have to say so you can improve. If some of the comments are blunt or are hard to hear, remember, this isn’t a judgement about you or your potential, just about where your skills are currently.
• Thank them. Mostly that’s part of being polite. It’s always best to leave a good impression, and remember, you will likely want to be able to ask questions again some time.

That wraps up this article on "report cards", which is really all about finding out how you are doing, and getting the feedback you need to keep improving. It's difficult to improve in a bubble, you need experienced eyes, or sometimes just fresh eyes, to help you see how your work is coming along.

BONUS: Online communities that are good places to meet peers and professionals

• The Artorder, a community managed by Wizards of the Coast art director Jon Schindehette. This often revolves around structured challenges which are open to all to participate in.
• CGHub, which has a lot of pro and semi pro work. You can brose lots of artist's works, and post your own.
• CGtalk, the official forum for the CGSociety. It’s prime focus is digital art, and you can make posts to share your work and get feedback. Also, lots of good information hidden in the various sub-forums.
• ImagineFX, forum for the arts magazine. You can create a profile and share your art in their Galleries sub-section.
• and DeviantArt, another place to share your work, which has a wide range of artists from beginners to professionals

Your Report Card: Reviews from Peers

If you’ve been following along with my suggestions on creating a DIY Art School experience, there’s one thing noticeably absent- Grades. You know, that little report card that tells you how you are doing? I hope you didn’t think you’d be getting off easy, and that there would be no grades to worry about. Haha, no such luck.

In fact, these grades are the only ones that matter, and they are in fact, scarier than “real” grades. You see, in art school, you can tunnel vision a bit  and trick yourself into believing that grades are the goal. They aren’t of course. Progress and reaching a professional level is the goal, and THAT’S the only meaningful measure, and it’s the one we’ll be using.

Ok, so we’re not talking about actual letter grades, or actual report cards here, but we are talking about intent behind report cards. Getting that feedback on where you have been successful, where you need more work, and some insight into the places you didn’t even know you had a problem. In art circles this is called a critique, or a portfolio review.

Reviews from Peers
Your peers are others at a similar level as you. In art school these would be your classmates. Home study doesn’t leave you much in the way of classmates, so we’ll have to get a little creative.

Locally, you can find peers “out in the field” in a few ways. We’ve already talked about one of them in the article Field Trips, going to life drawing sessions. A regular life drawing class (either with instruction or without) throws you in with other artists. Some may be much more advanced than you, and others may be complete novices giving art a try for the first time. Either way, these may be great people to get to know. When the model takes a break, many artists take the opportunity to stretch their own legs, and see how others are doing with their efforts. This is a natural time to see how others are doing and strike up conversations. Over time, once you’ve gotten to know a few people, you can start asking for a little feedback. Seek out help from those more experienced if they seem open to it. Most artists I know are very happy to help others and pass on what they’ve learned. Try not to take up too much of their time, they are there to draw just like you are, but a little quick feedback can go a long way.

Another possible avenue to find peers is to join a local artist group. If you have a local arts paper you’ll often see listings for all sorts of activities that might be of interest. Your local art store, or possibly a coffee shop, may have a bulletin board where people post things of this nature as well.

The next best thing to finding local people that you can talk to directly, is peer support from online communities. One of my favorites has been Conceptart.org. There, you can post up work you’ve been doing, or even your entire portfolio, and ask for feedback. It may take time, and you may need to spend some time building relationships and “getting your name out there” to start getting more people interested in giving feedback, but the more regularly you post work, and the more you make progress, the more interested others will be in checking in on your progress and commenting and offering advice. Be a good peer yourself, and offer help and advice where you can, or even simple encouragement. Tomorrow I continue this article with advice on getting reviews from professionals!