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Mark Mitchell Interviews Me and an Inking Video
I have a couple of videos for you today! The first is a video of me inking an old painting. I go through the steps of first redefining certain areas of the drawing with pencil and then I go over it in inks. I like how Clip Studio has a vector layer that can be adjusted after drawing lines.
Final Image Mark Mitchell interviewed me recently about Smart Dummies. I thought you might like to see the video! I always enjoy talking with Mark. He has a great class! You can find out more about Mark here: https://howtobeachildrensbookillustrator.com/ A new semester of his class “Make Your Marks and Splashes” starts in a few months and I’ll let you know about that soon.
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Support Me on Patreon!
I hope you are enjoying Smart Dummies this year. I love helping out other people and I hope you are learning a lot, or at least getting a lot done this month. Smart dummies is not an easy event, so be nice to yourself and celebrate what you are able to complete.
Today is my birthday! What better way to celebrate than to update all my reward tiers and give presents to all my patrons on Patreon? I feel like I’m winning my birthday already: https://www.patreon.com/SmartDummies I don’t have presents on Kofi, but you’ll have my love if you can only make a one time donation there. https://ko-fi.com/daniduck!
It is not free for me to run this blog and the events do take a lot of my time. If you have the money, please consider helping me out. I will be working to giving you lots more value for your donations. Check out the new tiers and know that I’m open to suggestions!
TIERS
Smart Member
$1 or more per monthBasic Membership Includes
+ Monthly Art Process Videos
+ Monthly Challenges to help encourage creativity in your writing and art
+ Your name listed in a special post before Smart Dummies and Spring into Writing!
Smart Fiver
$5 or more per monthAll of the previous tier benefits plus:
+ Your questions answered on a short video every month.*
+ Extra entry on all Patreon giveaways and contests.
+ Your name listed in a future Smart Dummies/Writing Challenge Booklet.
*You ask me 1 question a month and I’ll give you a video answer of your question on Patreon. Access will be given to everyone in this level and above.
Smart 10s
$10 or more per monthAll of the previous tier benefits plus:
+ 1 Hour Chat with me and other Smart 10s every month.
+ Exclusive Smart 10s only content.
Want to make a one time donation? https://ko-fi.com/daniduck (This will not give you access to patron rewards, but I will love you forever. Even if you don’t donate.) Feel free to contact me about other ways to donate!
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Smart Dummies Week 7
I have a very busy week ahead of me this week so everything will be happening after Wednesday. I hope you are doing well with your dummies!
Smart Dummies Week 7 Schedule
Sunday – Smart Dummies Week 7 Schedule
Wednesday – Process Post!
Thursday or Friday – More Process!
Sunday – Smart Dummies Week 8 schedule
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Art Process and Thumbnails
Before I show you some process posts I’m going to start with a poll I posted on social media. This was a question asked by Tara Santoro (@JerseyGirlDraws on twitter).
This is pretty reflective of the people I’ve spoken to. Most believe thumbnails are essential. There are a few that think they aren’t important.
Brian McLachlan (@McLachlanBrian on twitter) said as a response, “Once you’ve done enough layouts you don’t need to thumbnail everything.” Which makes sense!
There are some of you that hate thumbnails and think it’s silly to use them. I think not using them may be a harder path, but that path is up to you!
Initial thumbnails should take you no more than a few seconds on each one. It’s just to figure out proportion and where things go. More than a couple seconds makes it stressful. Too much detail in thumbnails can be stressful. Keep them simple, and if you want to do detailed thumbnails do that after!
Some Final Art Resources
Here are some resources you may want to look into before creating your final art! In fine art the idea is to make a beautiful piece that will last a long time. With kidlit your final art doesn’t necessarily have to last a long time (it does help, though). It does have to look good. Instead of giving you a bunch of resources for fine artists or illustrators, I’m going to show you some art projects that are mostly for kids that may inspire or inform your own art!
Want to find a process in your medium? Just go to Pinterest or YouTube and type in your art medium and then “projects”. You can add “for kids” if you want to find easier projects.
Watercolor Techniques: https://www.projectswithkids.com/watercolor-techniques-for-kids/
Blending Colored Pencils: https://www.mybluprint.com/article/blend-your-way-to-smooth-colored-pencils
Scraping Painting with Oil Pastels: http://krokotak.com/2019/06/scraping-painting-with-oil-pastel/
Acrylic Painting with a Fork: https://www.projectswithkids.com/palm-tree-fork-painting-for-kids/
Painted Collage Art: https://layers-of-learning.com/painted-collage-art/
Torn Collage Art: http://www.onecolorfulday.com/free-printable-night-sky-collage/
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Fun Art Videos!
I have a fun inking video that I made today. I need to go back in and edit it a bit. 5 minutes of me having the save dialog open isn’t that much fun to watch. I will be adding sound and hopefully narrate this as well. Hopefully I can get this up for you soon! For now here are a few instructional Youtube channels that will help you with your art!
SVS Learn — Home of the 3-point perspective podcast (video version). This podcast tells you everything you need to know about Children’s illustration! Will Terry, Jake Parker and Lee white host. Their excellent Youtube channels are also below https://www.youtube.com/user/SVSLearn/videos
Will Terry — Kidlit Illustrator with a huge collection of videos about the craft and business of kidlit books! https://www.youtube.com/user/willterryart
Jake Parker — Creator of Inktober and Illustrator https://www.youtube.com/user/jakeparker44/videos
Lee White — Kidlit illustrator and Fine Artist https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8I_myjn8osVaEPsS7eq1Q/videos
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Rachel Armington — Her videos are watercolor, food and crafts! She just posted a video about making clay models for illustration! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ7Eosyn2nYbNbkokKrmPcw/videos
Chris Hong Art — Some fun illustration techniques and lots of pretty art. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGHCzXORMIUiBZmNHr1ovjw/videos
Sheldene Fine Art — This is a nice channel that has all kinds of different techniques you can try for your own art. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_KkCbQ6ZlN0dGnT1GLdz7A/videos
Have a Youtube channel you’d like to share? Please post the name in the comments below. I’ll be sure to share the channel in a future Smart Dummies post!
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Smart Dummies Week 6: The Week That Time Forgot
Have you ever forgotten about a number? I sure have. At the beginning of Smart Dummies I completely forgot about the number 6! I couldn’t think why this upcoming week was so off with the schedule (we will be working on finals next week, not this week). Now that I know about the number 6. I will be working to come up with good stuff for this week. I will also be recalculating my age based on this new information!
I’m hoping to have some process videos to show you soon. Fingers crossed that I can make or find people to post some process videos or posts. I’ll also come up with a post of links to different techniques. The following schedule is subject to change!
Smart Dummies Week 6
Sunday – Smart Dummies Week 7 Schedule
Tuesday – Process Post!
Thursday – Links to Techniques
Friday – Possible Book Blog
Sunday – Smart Dummies Week 7 schedule
If you have not signed up for Smart Dummies yet go here: https://www.daniduck.com/register-for-smart-dummies-2019/ You can sign up, pick up the booklet and badge and find out everything you need to know about the event!
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Share Day!
Here is some great art from Becky Aren’t! Becky does not have a website at this time, but wanted to share her work. If you want to get a hold of Becky for professional reason please feel free to contact me on my contact page and I will get you in touch with Becky! https://www.daniduck.com/contact/
Character Creation 
Dummy Work 
Final Art! -
Making Models and Getting Ready For Finals!
Modeling Your Characters
Here is a special video from Rachel Armington. You can visit Rachel’s website here: https://rachelarmington.com/ Her Youtube channel has some great videos like organizing your portfolio for an illustrator showcase, creating promotional material and lots of great watercolor painting tips and techniques. Rachel’s Youtube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ7Eosyn2nYbNbkokKrmPcw
She just finished it and wanted everyone here to know how to make a clay model for illustration. This is especially helpful for complex characters. You could also make up sets and photograph your models rather than draw them (need to have a good camera and light set up)!
5 Things to Do for Final Art
1. Set up Your Substrate
I have adjusted my layout page. I use to work at a print shop and it was so much easier if there was a bigger bleed. This also more accurately reflects how I set up my digital images. I create my digital images 11″ x 17″ and am aware that half an inch will be trimmed from all sides of the final image.
If you are working traditionally you need to place an extra 1.5″ around the image. You will want your paper to be 14″x 20″. You can work on smaller paper if you need to practice before your final. This is where the printer will touch your image. When your digital image is printed it will have the same border, but it’s added after the art is finished.
2. Stepping Back
This is very important in the process of creating. Move a few feet back from your image an look at it. This helps for both digital and traditional artists. Another thing you can do is take a picture of the art. Seeing an image smaller can help with noticing any flaws.
3. Polish Your Image
I made a post about how done is done here: https://www.daniduck.com/how-done-is-done/ this relates to your sketches for your dummy. This does not have anything to do with your finals. You want your images as polished as possible before you take them into finals. You don’t want to both color an image and still be trying to figure out the positioning of an arm or the perfect smile for your character!
4. Work in a Familiar Medium
It’s not wrong to work in an unfamiliar medium. Just know that your finals are going to take longer without having practiced the medium. You are learning how your style works in the medium. This makes it more likely that you are going to be using more pieces of final paper (if working traditionally), so it’s better to practice on a smaller sheet!
5. When Things Don’t Work Out
Sometimes things don’t work out. Be nice to yourself. If you have to start over that’s okay. Even when big mistakes are made, set the work aside and come back to it later. It could be that the work can be saved, but not if you crumple it up and throw it away! Also possibly not if you continue to work on something that’s had a problem. Frustration can often lead to more mistakes.
Be nice to yourself and take a break if you aren’t having fun!
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Quick Note
I have a very busy week ahead of me. I wanted to check in to see how everyone is doing. How are you doing? Where are you in your drawings? How do you feel about your work?
If there are any questions you have for me please go to my contact page and ask!
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Smart Dummies Week 5: Dummy Drawing
This week is a very busy week for me. You may have noticed that I did not do a book blog last week and I wont be able to do one this week either!
Smart Dummies Schedule Week 5
Sunday – Smart Dummies Week 5 Schedule
Monday – Quick Notes
Wednesday – Share Day! (Send me your work and I’ll post it on my blog!)
Thursday – Getting Ready for Finals
Sunday – Smart Dummies Week 6 Schedule
If you have not signed up for Smart Dummies yet go here: https://www.daniduck.com/register-for-smart-dummies-2019/ You can sign up, pick up the booklet and badge and find out everything you need to know about the event!
