(Part 4) Top products from r/Art

I wish I had more time right now - maybe I'll fill one of those out later and send it to you.

I have to say, though, that I don't like the layout - turning much more of the text into dialogue would be much easier to read. Now it's like a book with pictures, like A Cartoon History of the Universe, which, as we all know, sucked ass and just sat on my shelf until I got to high school and just burned it in my backyard. Not that yours is bad (it's good, I like it a lot), but it shares the problematic "is it a book or a comic?" layout.

Another point of unsolicited advice - your illustrations show that you have lots of potential as an artist - I'd encourage you to dive into upping your illustrative abilities and learning all you can about comics. Truth is, comics are all about the illustrations, and if you really want to do this, it'll be in your interest to figure out the visual part of it, and how better to incorporate your admittedly great message into comic form. And you can do it, as evidenced by your solid foundation.

As is, as an artist and writer I'd be hesitant to join forces because I'd be doing a vast majority of the grunt work and I'd want to reformat and maybe rewrite all the text blocks completely to fit my illustrations. This seems kind of like the "design the new Facebook for me for $50 and no credit, and it has to be pink" trope for web developers. The Cyanide & Happiness model of several artists making their own full comics with the same theme seems to me like it would work way better than separating out the writing and illustrating. Again, just my personal response as an illustrator/writer.

Anyway, I'm shitty at giving opinions that aren't so sharp that they make people want to avoid them just to spite them, so sorry, and I hope you find an awesome illustrator here - but if you don't, there are other great options.

For Korea in general I took a lot of East Asian history courses, including courses on relations with the west, in college. I studied abroad in South Korea for a time where I studied Korean history (ancient and modern) as well as Korean culture and sociology (mostly South Korea). I also had the pleasure of speaking with someone from North Korea.
But if you're interested to know more, these are some sources I can personally recommend...

Books:

• Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
  
  
• Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag
  
  
• The Cleanest Race
  
  
• Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty
  
  
• North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea
  
  
• Korea's Place In The Sun by Bruce Cummings
  
  
• Korea Old and New by Harvard Press and Korea Institute
  
  
  And there's more that I have not read yet. If you only read one book out of these, I'd say Nothing to Envy is a great place to start. It gives the most complete picture, in my opinion.
  
  
  Documentaries:
  
  
• A State of Mind (2004)
  
  
• Seoul Train (2005)
  
  
• National Geographic: Inside North Korea (2007)
  
  
• Inside Undercover in North Korea (2007)
  
  
• The Vice Guide to North Korea (2008)
  
  
• Kimjongilia (2008)
  
  
• The Juche Idea (2008)
  
  
• Seven Days in North Korea (2008)
  
  And there's a whole bunch more that I have not seen yet.
  
  And there's a whole bunch of essays and journals/photo collections floating around the internet as well.

It's very photoshoppy. The problem a lot of artists have with photoshop is that they tend to get too sucked into details and lose sight of the bigger picture. One of my professors describes it as 'painting a highlight on the eyelash of gnat.'

Painting in Photoshop is no different than painting on a canvas. You should start out loose and transparently, block in objects and build them up slowly. There is no magic button that just makes your stuff look good, it takes the same amount of skill as mixing paint and applying it with a brush. I'd suggest going to places like http://www.imaginefx.com or http://www.cgsociety.com and looking at other peoples' art and tutorials on how to paint.

Try converting your image to black and white. The human eye sees two images, one that is just lights and darks and one that is color. Color is totally arbitrary, if you painted a solid black and white image of a teapot, you could then make that teapot any color you want so long as the black and white core is unchanged. Every color has a value, yellows are closer to white and blues and reds are closer to black. Contrast is how you draw the viewer's eye to where you want them to look. Always have a center of interest in your painting. Don't bog yourself down in details, squint at your reference and really ask yourself what big shapes you see. Only some details are visually present, like looking up at a skyscraper and attempting to draw it - not every window is important, the effect of repetition is. You can suggest detail instead of being too rigid with it.

If you're not using a tablet, painting in Photoshop is tremendously difficult. Tablets are pressure sensitive digital pens that you plug into your computer which allow you to make strokes that get thick and thin or that vary their transparency. If you're serious about it, I'd suggest looking into it.

Painting is not easy. If you really want to get good, you need to learn from good resources. I just picked up Master's Collection Volume 1: Digital Painting Techniques and it's a wonderful resource. I'd recommend checking it out if you are interested in getting better. Copy old masters too. Just remember that art never comes quickly, it's a slow, laborious process that can takes years and years to get good at.

Keep on trying, nobody ever improved by becoming discouraged.

This is a fantastic book about de Kooning but it also goes into a lot of art history and shows why these guys were able to change the face of art.
de Kooning: An American Master https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375711163/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_DXJiybSN10009

It is not just a great biography, it's one of the best books I've ever read.

Do that, but also get a lightbox so that you can trace the original really easily and do the 'final' coloring/inking.

Relevant

Seven Days in the Art World is a fascinating read. Journalist Sarah Thornton investigates seven different facets of the business of art, from its conception and production to sale and commodification.

I love this. I need to get it in a locket to remind me to be less prickly.

In case your anxiety is still active, I really recommend this book. It was a total game changer for me after decades of anxiety and depression.

Edit: Would you mind offering tiny prints? I'm actually not joking and would like this around my neck as a reminder when I'm not keeping up with the exercises from the book. I found your print shop, but there are just large sizes at the moment. (Thanks if you happen to read this and answer!)

These are just about my favorite art books.

The Art Spirit by Robert Henri

What Painting Is by James Elkins

A Giacometti Portrait by James Lord

If you're interested in this painting, check out the book "The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Henri Nouwen. It's an incredible read and the cover folds out so that you can look at that painting while reading the book.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Return-Prodigal-Son-Homecoming/dp/0385473079

Here's the book on Amazon: Coming Soon (can't wait to read it) http://www.amazon.com/Million-Stuffed-Shark-Economics-Contemporary/dp/0385666780/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248589537&sr=1-1

I got it from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Van-Gogh-Life-Steven-Naifeh/dp/0375758976/ It's 700 pages, but quotes all the letters to his brother to keep it factual.

Weren't we done with this type of imagery ?

Could be the alternate cover to this book: http://www.amazon.com/Am-Wallpaper-Mark-Peter-Hughes/dp/0385732414

Cover of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Found-Nature-America-Discovery/dp/0226583414

If anyone wants to check out the artist, I super-recommend the first edition of Flight.

http://www.amazon.com/Painted-Word-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312427581/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376866837&sr=1-5

Read this book years ago. Explains a lot.

What happened is that back in the post-war years, art became very contextual. You kinda had to know where the artist was coming from intellectually, what it was in response to.

It isn't all bullshit (though there is a LOT of that). People make fun of Pollack but look at it this way. He was paintng at a time when the world had just fallen apart. Not only that but we were just starting to wrap our collective heads around atom splitting and that reality was not only not solid, but it was uncertain at a very basic level. His painting reflect that.

Can't say I would pay any money for a blue panel, though.