𝐌𝐫. 𝐑𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 | 𝐒𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐓𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐲

May 28, 2021 in Art Doll Making Videos, Art Doll Techniques, Artistic Inspiration, Fantasy Art Doll

During a recent period of artist block, I was inspired to get up to a bit of sculpting a troll head with polymer clay. Meet Mr. Render, an underworld enforcer troll-like character that I created. I’ve often had a fondness for period gangster film and television like Guy Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch” as well as “Peaky Blinders”. While I also enjoy American period crime drama, I really enjoy stories of the cockney accented London east enders. The idea for Mr. Render “The Ender” was sparked by such media as well as tough-man turned actor Lenny “The Guv’nor” McLean who was cast as Barry “The Baptist” in Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock”. McLean was not only cast in such roles, but also was something of that in real life in addition to being a champion in illegal bare knuckle boxing. There’s a documentary on him on Amazon Prime called “The Guv’nor” that I’d recently watched.

Watch Mr. Render | Sculpting a Troll Head with Polymer Clay

Sketching-out some design ideas for the troll.

The armature of this troll bust is just some crumpled up tin-foil that I built-up a Sculpey polymer clay form up around. Once the basic shape’s formed it’s then a matter of adding bits of clay here and there and refining the details with clay tools- steel tools, color shapers, and ball styluses as well as my fingers. I wanted to give this creature a very characterful face that recalls the look of the elongated snouts of storybook trolls. I also have a tendency to enjoy depicting characters with large noses and beady eyes (in this case, made from actual beads), which I didn’t fail to deliver on with this sculpt.

Eye, Mouth, Nose Placement

Here I’m just looking to put markings for the eyes, nose, and mouth and using a steel tool to do so.

Refining Around the Mouth

I’m using a color shaper to help refine the form of the mouth, adding in little wrinkles to create some texture.

Texturing & Detailing

I’m going around the face and adding in details that help reinforce this character as being rugged, rough-and-tumble.

One of my favorite costuming references, “Historic Costume in Pictures”

The sculpture’s only a bust, but I decided I wanted to add some fabric costuming. For that I turned to one of my favorite resources to page through, “Historic Costume in Pictures” for inspiration. Using some white fabric with some added ruffles and a grey fabric, I implied a fashionable gentlemanly suit. I generally find I can accomplish what I want with the simple whip and running stitches, which is great because I’m by no means an amazing tailor. The ruffles were made with some Fabri-Tac seams, accordion folding the pieces (I went over them with an iron to help reinforce the folds), and then using a gathering stitch to attach each progressively shorter layer to the one underneath.

Mr. Render isn’t exactly a troll. In this fantasy world I’ve been building, I kind of see most humanoid creatures as individuals with their own unique characteristics and sometimes abilities. I’m mostly breaking with the fantasy trope of races of creatures that all have X characteristics like elves or goblins or whatever. I think of all of that stuff as a pretty modern conception that’s sort of been ingrained in us through pop culture, genre writing, role-playing games, video games, that sort of stuff, but terms like fairy, elf, spirit, and goblin were used pretty interchangeably throughout mythology and folklore to just refer to some thing not of this world.

I’m considering the idea of doing a silicone mold and resin casting him and hand sewing on clothes Mr. Rend. For this reason I filled in some gaps in his sharp teeth with some Apoxie Sculpt so they wouldn’t get caught in the silicone while molding. Doing a silicone mold would let me paint different colorations of this creature and I could use different fabrics to create variations. For example, he could be in a simple cloak- maybe with a hood.

Here’s an idea of what the troll bust would look like with a simple cloak.

Thanks for joining me so far and here’s to the adventures we have in future! To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon. Catch all of my videos here: https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. And sign-up for my newsletter (in the sidebar) to get the latest studio goings-on! Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

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𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞 | 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐘 𝐒𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞

April 30, 2021 in Artistic Inspiration, Fantasy Art Doll

Recently I made the acquaintance of a new species within the Dream Syndicate, wander stones. Wander stones are nomadic, elemental beings that travel in small herds known as a ruckus or larger, more dangerous herds that are called a calamity. The process for designing these resin fantasy sculptures wasn’t without it’s challenges- I had over a dozen setbacks before the wander stones were fully brought to life!

Watch Wander Stone | Process for Designing a Resin Fantasy Sculpture

As many things so often do, these earth elemental creatures began as vague sketches in my sketchbook that I refined and from there I sculpted a full-grown wander stone. I have it mind to an image with over a dozen of these creatures, but thought I might start with molding and resin casting a sculpture of a wander stone. I’d originally thought I was going to make a planter of an adult creature, but settled on making a younger, cuter wander stone.

Wander stones reproduce in a strange way. A new wander stone is brought into the world during auspicious occasions when a herd is gathered. Members of a herd chant in their rolling, gravelly baritones rhythmically drumming on the ground, their bodies, and stamping their feet while a few find the rocks within the area that have the right resonances, sculpting and refining them. Finally a rune is carved on the forehead depicting some significant event occurring during the birth of this being, this could be an eclipse, a volcanic eruption, or the sprouting of a blade of grass, summoning an earth spirit that becomes a wander stone.

The sculpture is largely made from Sculpey polymer clay with a few Apoxie Sculpt touch-ups. Once the sculpting was complete, constructed a mold box from large Lego bricks and a baseplate, laid down a thin layer of plastilina clay, and alternated between building up the height of the mold box, and refining the bed of clay around the sculpture. I initially ran afoul on this project by not buying enough silicone Mold Star 15 Slow- I tried to cheap-out with the smaller sized containers of it when I should have just bought the larger buckets of the material. As a result, I didn’t have enough silicone to finish the first pour leaving me with a partially embedded sculpture. This required surgery to not only cut the wander stone sculpt out of the silicone, but I also had a breakage on the fingers and toes, so those had to be re-sculpted.

These young earthen spirits are cast in resin, using SmoothCast 66D, and I’m using a process called slush casting (aka roto-casting). There are various contraptions and simple machines for this, but with the method I’m using, I filled the larger front half of the two part silicone mold, secure the two halves together with several rubber bands, and slowly turn the mold in various practically random directions over the course of about 40 minutes. As you turn the mold in your hands, you can feel the liquid resin sliding along the walls inside of the mold. I try to manage the curing material inside in such a way that a bit more settles along the bottom so that the bottom is heavier. The reason for casting them in such a manner, making them hollow, is otherwise, they would be quite heavy and use an awful lot of material, making them fairly expensive to produce.

After the resin sculptures are cast, I refine them with files and sandpaper as well as sculpt some additional details onto each piece to make it unique and a glyph is also carved onto the forehead of these young wander stones. The glyph on the wander stone’s forehead relates to some auspicious event that was occurring as they were being imbued with life.

The fantasy sculptures are then primed and hand-painted with acrylic paints. Finally, once the paint has dried, the wander stones are sprayed with a couple of coats of varnish and the eyes are glued into their sockets with some Crafter’s Pick glue. And when the glue’s set, the eyes are polished with a little rubbing alcohol applied on a q tip.

Wander stones are available through my web store.

Wander stones are drawn to the same resonances that cause other beings to live places which when enough of them gather, can be quite perilous. A small group of wander stones is called a ruckus and outside of the occasional nuisance of a few of them rolling or a sudden crash, isn’t anything to be concerned about. As these boulderous creatures gather, they tend to form themselves into piles when stationary, readjusting from time-to-time. Now, when wander stones congregate in greater numbers, 20-50 or more, they are referred to as a calamity, which has the potential to cause injury or death or could even cause a rockslide that flattens buildings or even entire villages. Some individuals take up the profession of a rock herd or a stone shepherd to drive a ruckus or calamity to more remote areas with the aid of a tuning-fork that they strike in certain pitches and rhythms that lures the beasts away.

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𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐊𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 💀| 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐤𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐲

December 16, 2020 in Art Doll Accessories, Artistic Inspiration, Art Doll Techniques

I wanted to have the figure standing on a pile of skulls and so I sculpted a bunch of miniature skulls with polymer clay as an art doll prop in the image. I was inspired by stylized works by people such as Shaun Tan from his book “The Singing Bones” and by the work of sculptor Dug Stanat.

Watch me get up to some Skullpting

Prints of the dimensional-illustrations made with the redcap art doll are available here:

Open Edition Prints

“Redcap’s Rage” https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/thedreamsyndicate/redcaps-rage-evil-fae-fantasy-art/

”Redcap’s Rest” https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/thedreamsyndicate/redcaps-rest-evil-fae-fantasy-illustration/

“Redcap’s Reaping” https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/thedreamsyndicate/redcaps-reaping-wicked-fae-fantasy-art/

The skulls were made with original Sculpey, which is something I generally avoid using unless it’s for a background element. The issue I tend to have with sculpting with the original polymer clay’s that it’s really soft and gets even softer as your hands warm up as you work with it. In this case, I set myself the challenge of making these little sculptures with minimal clay, with each skull being mostly comprised of aluminum foil and also that I would make each one quickly, spending less than five minutes on each individual sculpture.

Once sculpted and baked in the oven, the skulls were tinted with raw umber ink, painted with a lightly earthy tinted white, and a final wash of ink was again applied. I found the change of pace freeing to work in such a loose and abstracted style.

𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐏 | 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐅𝐀𝐄 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐄𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐘 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥 | 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐱𝐞𝐝-𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐓𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥

December 11, 2020 in Art Doll Making Videos, Artistic Inspiration, Fantasy Art Doll

I recently spent some time documenting some terrible, malevolent, dark fae, the redcap. These nasty, blood-thirsty creatures make their homes in castle ruins or sites of gruesome battles and prey upon any who enter their domain. Redcaps are described as red-eyed old men with long, greasy beards, carrying pike staffs or scythes, and renown for wearing heavy iron shod boots and despite their ungainly footwear, move with preternatural speed. What really gives them their name are the red hats on their heads. The red is no mere ornamentation, it is actually soaked in blood and must remain so, for if a redcap’s hat ever runs dry of the crimson ichor, the creature will perish.

Watch me make the Redcap Art Doll here:

While the lore tends to describe the evil fae creatures as having a stout build, I tend to like spindly creatures. This poseable art doll was made in my typical mixed-mixed media style, beginning with sketches and ending with a finished dimensional-illustration. I made his fleshtone a sort of minty green hue because I thought it would coordinate well with the red cap on his head. One direction I decided to take on the design of this art doll was to make his hat resemble a mushroom- surprisingly, not many artists had made this character design decision. It made perfect sense to me, there are all manner of benevolent fae seen wearing mushroom hats and given that their are a good number of mushrooms that can seriously harm or kill a person and the redcap fae creature is menacing it’s self, it almost seemed like an obvious choice.

The art doll has a Sculpey polymer clay sculpted head, poseable wire armature body, fabric clothing, and his accessories are made from a variety of mediums. I particularly love some of the dingy little details of this malevolent creature like his spiked armguards and shoulder pad made from upcycled materials. His whole outfit was meant to have a rough-hewn, thrown together quality to it as if this creature doesn’t spend much thought to how he looks at any given time.

Sketching the design of the redcap art doll

Prints of the dimensional-illustrations made with the redcap art doll are available here:

Open Edition Prints

“Redcap’s Rage” https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/thedreamsyndicate/redcaps-rage-evil-fae-fantasy-art/

”Redcap’s Rest” https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/thedreamsyndicate/redcaps-rest-evil-fae-fantasy-illustration/

“Redcap’s Reaping” https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/thedreamsyndicate/redcaps-reaping-wicked-fae-fantasy-art/

Redcap's Rage

Redcap's Rest

Redcap's Reaping

Color studies for the various dimensional-illustrations made with the fae art doll.

𝐃𝐈𝐘 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐒𝐇𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐒 𝐓𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 🍏 | 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐲 𝐂𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐬 🎃🍂

October 02, 2020 in Artistic Inspiration

As a fun way to get into the spirit of the season, I decided to try my hand at making apple shrunken heads. These Halloween spooky crafts don’t require a ton of prep or supplies. With most things in arts and crafts, I go into them with a lot of planning. With these it was more of using the apples like “carving doodles” and seeing what came out.

Lost Your Head
Do my stitched eyes and mouth fill you with dread?
Beware, you’re on a path where none should tread
Heedlessness will end up costing your head
Too late, you’re now half decoration, half undead

Watch DIY Apple Shrunk Heads Tutorial | Halloween Spooky Crafts

To make these shrunken heads you’ll need apples, a melon baller and/or a paring knife, parchment paper, lemon juice, and salt. You can use whatever kind of apple you want, but granny smith apples are generally recommended for the way they wrinkle when dried-out, and you’ll peel the outer skin before you begin carving.

What you’re going to do is just take your melon baller and scoop out areas that you’ll want a rounded form. And use your paring knife to cut away areas where you want a harsher edge. You can use the paring knife to cut in more angular eyes, but I’m pretty partial to the big round eyes the melon baller gives you. The melon baller is also a good option for younger children to be able to do this craft since you’d have to really go out of your way to injure yourself with it.

As you carve your heads, you’ll want to set them in enough lemon juice, with a couple of pinches of salt mixed in, to submerge them for 15-20 minutes. This mixture should reduce the chances of the apples browning and molding. Then you’ll put them in the oven and recite the magical incantation:

Croak of frog, necrotic skin
Shroud of bog, weight of sin
Bone of dog, crocodile’s grin
Curse this head to the size of a pin

You want to run your oven at low heat, around 200 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours. I baked my shrunken heads for about 4.5 hours and let them cool in the oven overnight. Then you can either use them to decorate around the house, a spooky garland or wreath, just for the season or you could try preserving them with a varnish, lacquer, or any other method you might use to preserve real ornamental fruit.

I had my heads chilled in the refrigerator until I was ready to serve them. My plan for these guys was to have them in some spiked hot cider beside a bonfire. Now all that’s left is to put a shrunken head in a mug and ladle your hot cider overtop of it.

You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. And sign-up for my newsletter (in the sidebar) to get the latest studio goings-on! Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

𝐃𝐈𝐘 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐮𝐱 𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 | 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

August 15, 2020 in Artistic Inspiration, Art Doll Making Videos, Art Doll Accessories, Art Doll Techniques

For my latest dimensional illustration, Lord Bledwall, I wanted his robe to have a poseable metal trim- it wasn’t utilized so much in this image I made with him, but if I decide to use him in future images, I’ve some variety of what I can do with the moveable faux metal piece. This technique can be used not just for metal clothing adornment for a variety of art doll accessories like fantastical weapons or maybe metallic tentacles. Making these DIY poseable faux metal elements only requires some basic supplies and tools as well as some handicraft skills. If you can measure and cut things, you can absolutely make these! You can find the necessary supplies, instructions, or even watch how they were made below.

Watch how they were made: DIY Poseable Faux Metal Tutorial | Art Doll Accessories

Click on any of the items below & you’ll be taken to a corresponding Amazon page, which helps support my art with no additional cost to you.

Faux Metal Making Supplies Needed:

We’ll start-off with a length of 18 gauge aluminum wire. I’m basing the length of the wire on about how long I think the art doll’s robe should be. We’ll twist it up with our pliers and depending on what you’re doing or if it’s visible, you might want to snip the uneven edge of the wire with your wire-cutters.

Once that’s done, we’ll roll out a length of medical paper tape. And cut it to size. I like to cut it so it's about as wide as 3-4 times the thickness and about as long as the wire. We’re going to wrap the paper tape around lengthwise… this part’s tricky because the paper tape wants to snag on itself (a little bit of this is OK though!). You want to make sure it’s wrapped around snug to the wire. We’ll wrap the wire two, maybe three times if desired.

Then we’ll soak both ends of it in some water for a little while- anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour on either side to get the paper tape thoroughly saturated. Next we’ll spread some heavily Mod Podge diluted with water across it. I’ll do a couple more layers, letting the piece dry in-between, where I add in more and more silver acrylic paint and progressively less water with each subsequent layer. What that’s doing is seeping the pigment into the paper fibers of the tape. This is a similar method to how I go about creating my poseable art doll hands.

We’ll measure a thin strip of the a foam sheet, which is going to give us the segments of this sort of spinal shape that I’m making for this poseable faux metal trim. I like using foam because it’s flexible and you can easily texture and paint it. We’ll make a thin strip. And another little strip that will serve as a template for the other pieces we’ll cut. And we’ll just trace it all down the length of the foam strip. Then we’ll cut them out with our X-acto.

Here’s a quick note on failure: I’d tried using 2 part resin epoxy (another adhesive that I commonly use. Use with caution) and for whatever reason, it didn’t seem to hold. I’m not sure if I messed up the timing on the set time or what… it just wasn’t seeming to work at all. It might be that it wasn’t the right adhesive for the job.

We’ll use some of an old bottle of Fabri-Tac- this was made clear by the way I need to fish it out with a bit of scrap wire. I tried clothes pins to hold the foam pieces on as I went, but didn’t think they held it on snugly enough. I found a better solution by wrapping them with tiny scraps of wire that I had lying around. Being a bit of a pack-rat for the win!

Now we’re just going to take a sharpened pencil and use it to indent into the surface, score into it a bit with a pointy clay tool, and I also got some interesting textures from using needle files like one would use in jewelry making.

Then we’ll just go in with our silver acrylic paint onto the spinal form. One layer of metallic paint leaves a lot of the black of the foam showing through, which depending on what you’re doing, might be how you want it to look. I ended painting on three layers. You might consider using spray paint, but the propellant, what makes the paint shoot out of the can, tends to have a melting effect on a lot of foam-like surfaces. So that melting would either have to be a part of your design choice or you’d have to seal your foam in some way that also didn’t involve spraying the sealant on.

We’ll do an ink wash with this transparent raw umber. Unless I want a detail heavily accented, I tend to add a little water to the ink and even sometimes a tiny dab of dish soap. You can see how that ink wash is bringing up all the dents and scratches on the surface. After the ink’s been on the surface for a minute or two, we’ll wipe away the excess to make the details a little more subtle. We’ll repeat this process with each additional coating of ink. Since I liked the patina the ink was giving this, we’ll go ahead and do another wash. Each layer’s going to tint it just a bit darker. Another thing we can do is go back and put some ink inside some of the little holes and scratches to really bring them out. Here I’m using much more saturated ink and picking-out individual details.

My sketch of Lord Bledwall had these blade bits sticking out the sides of the metal trim like a spinal column, I’d already gotten pretty far on this build (and should’ve put them in sooner).... so I was in a mental fight over risking messing up what I’d already done (and really liked) and also my laziness didn’t want to do anymore work… or I could make this a bit cooler by spending the time to add them on. It was a hard fought battle, but “making it cooler” won, so I cut bits of blade out of some Bristol board, sliced tiny grooves that I could put the narrower ends of the blades into, and used resin epoxy both inside the grooves, and thinly applied it to the narrow end of the blade form. Once the two part resin epoxy set, I then carefully painted and ink washed the blades.

As a warning: pretty much everything in creativity’s a conflict of “good enough” and saving some amount of hours of work versus “putting in a bit more effort and making the thing cooler”.

Sewing faux metal trim with coordinating thread.

Having made the thing sufficiently cooler, we’ll attach the metal trim by sewing it on with a gray thread that will sort of blend-in with the paint job we’ve done. We’ll sew in from the back, make a loop, tie off our thread a few times, cut it, and repeat that process up the length of the trim. Here you can see what it looks like once it’s all attached.

Lord Bledwall’s also has a faux metal texture bladed mantle that I’ll do a “making of” process blog and video similar to this one if you want to see how that was made. When it’s ready, you’ll be able to click here. If you use techniques you learned from any of my posts, I’d be happy to take a look. You can tag me on whatever social media platform you’re posting to. You can find my links below!

If you would like a print of Lord Bledwall, you can purchase it here.

PRINTS AVAILABLE

A print of the final dimensional illustration’s available through my print shop as an open edition.

𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐄𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐖𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥 | 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐱𝐞𝐝-𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐓𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 →

August 14, 2020 in Art Doll Making Videos, Artistic Inspiration, Fantasy Art Doll

Much like dharklings, I’ve made another more nefarious aspect of my world, Lord Bledwall (you can learn more about how he arrived at his powers further below). He’s one of my world’s Manifest, wizard caste beings who have power far above and beyond what most inhabitants of The Dream Syndicate possess. He’s an evil wizard figure who has the ability to manipulate these bladed, vine-like growths that accompany him, known as The Bleedwall. The mixed-media poseable art doll’s meant to be imposing, menacing, with his sharp, angular features and withered appearance.

Watch the Making of Lord Bledwall, a Poseable Evil Wizard Art Doll | Timelapse Mixed-Media Art Doll Tutorial

As an adolescent, I’ve always been fond of the design of villains and I can see much of that fondness echoed in this character. When drawing the mouth of the poseable art doll’s design, I was thinking of the toothy maw of a crocodile. Some more obvious features to jump-out at you would be the look of “The Lord of the Rings” ring wraiths (even before the Peter Jackson’s films, many artist’s renderings of these creatures had much in common) and the look of Shredder from various iterations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In much the same way that these villains are encased and adorned in metal, so is the warlord figure of Lord Bledwall. The substance of the Bleedwall that he commands is an ever-expanding, invasive species that will either corrupt, harm, or kill whatever it comes into contact with.

Prints of “Lord Bledwall” are available here:

Open edition print: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/thedreamsyndicate/lord-bledwall-wizard-fine-art-print/

The more the wall hungered
The more that the enemy bled
The more that the enemy bled
The more the wall hungered

Lord Bledwall rules a land that was at war with a neighboring kingdom and he loses his son to the conflict. In his anger and grief, he happens upon a large, strange seed that calls to him. He nurtures it with his hatred and desire for revenge and day by day, month by month, it grows into this bladed and barbed barrier along his lands that comes to be called The Bleedwall.

The wall hungers and attacks friend and foe alike, maiming or killing anyone that comes within it’s lethal, sinuous reach. The Bleedwall ever expands and Lord Bledwall ever becomes concerned with assuaging it’s bottomless hunger. This caused the majority of his kingdom’s subjects to flee and how Lord Bledwall got his name, to be forever associated with that accursed wall.

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𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐀𝐏𝐄𝐑?! 👐

December 23, 2019 in Art Doll Making Videos, Artistic Inspiration

Today I’m going to share my process for making poseable art doll hands with… get this, paper! Well, more accurately, I use medical paper tape to make the hands for my mixed-media art dolls in a technique that’s sort of half-assed paper mache. This technique’s suitable not only for art dolls, but also for stop-motion animation puppets.

You can watch how I make this poseable wire armature hands on YouTube and I’ll also try to give as brief summary of how I craft these hands as possible. I’ll also put links to where you can get the supplies you need for this project. This method will allow you to craft a variety of hand shapes and forms and when you become well-practiced at it, you might be able to make a new set of art doll hands in about two and a half hours.

Watch Making Poseable Art Doll Hands with Paper?! 👐 Timelapse Art Doll Tutorial 👐

The supplies you’ll need for this art doll hand tutorial

Poseable Art Doll Hands Supplies

Aluminum tubing that will compose the character’s forearm and also hold the wires for the hands

Cutting Mat https://amzn.to/371kAXD
Medical Paper Tape https://amzn.to/2ZGPzEe
Aluminum Wire (16 gauge) https://amzn.to/2MNiy7D
Aluminum Wire (18 gauge) https://amzn.to/2zARPCt
Pliers & Wire Cutters https://amzn.to/34ekFGY
Pipe Cutter https://amzn.to/34g43ym
Small Scissors (any small, decently sharp grooming scissors will do) https://amzn.to/2ZHbQC2
X-acto Knife & Blades https://amzn.to/2Zbqh2y
Measuring Tape https://amzn.to/2tGeUEc
Transparent Ruler https://amzn.to/2rkPpre
Aluminum Tubing https://amzn.to/2UgQpXq
Metal Ruler https://amzn.to/2ZdmvWl
Sharpie Markers https://amzn.to/2EJ7O48
Mod Podge https://amzn.to/2ZGXFwT
Helping Hands https://amzn.to/34RCKts

Here I’m twisting wire to form the shape of the hand

For purposes of this poseable art doll tutorial, I used 16 and 18 gauge wire and a particular diameter of aluminum tubing, but you can adjust the size of the materials you’re using to accommodate whatever proportions you would like. The first thing you’ll do is use your pipe-cutter to cut lengths of the aluminum tubing that will form you character’s forearms. Afterward, cut two pieces of your thicker gauge wire at about 5-6” long (though whatever scale you’re crafting at will effect this measurement), create a loop- this will determine the size of the art doll or stop-motion puppet’s palm and back of hand, and then braid the two ends of wire.

Basic shape of the hands attached in aluminum tubing

You can then cut the braided ends of these loops so that there’s a piece left almost as big as your pinky across. You’ll then wrap the medical paper tape around this piece and you want to place this inside of the aluminum tubing pieces. You want this to fit in the tubing snugly, such that if you lightly pull, the hand wire won’t come out.

“U” shape to form the art doll’s pinky and thumb fingers

Next cut a longer length of wire, about 14-16” (I typically use the tip of my middle finger to the crook of my arm as a rough measurement), this piece is going to form the character’s fingers. You’ll leave a length of wire for the pinky finger, wrap the wire around the thicker gauge hand wire, have the wire create a gentle “U” shape, and then wrap this wire around the hand wire with it’s placement roughly where the thumb would go. I typically find the outermost fingers’s placement, the pinky and the thumb, as I craft the art doll’s hands. In all cases when you’re wrapping the finger wire around the hand wire, you want this wire to wrap around tightly- you may want to use your pliers to help in this process.

Now we’ll find where we want the index finger, wrap the finger wire around the hand wire. This will create a broad partial oval shape and the index finger and thumb will be connected. Next loop the finger wire around the “U” shape and back up to the hand, then wrap it around to create the placement for the middle finger. Then you’ll create another oval shape, winding a bit of the remaining finger wire around the hand wire and snipping off any excess with your wire-cutters.

Paper tape helping to lock the finger locations into place

You can adjust the spacing between the fingers, possibly even clamping them down with your pliers. Once that’s done cut thin strips of paper tape, and place them such that about the middle of it goes across the hand wire and each strip is going between our fingers. This will help keep your finger wires in place and you can take the wire-cutters and cut in between the connected finger wire pieces. You can take a sharpie marker and mark-off how long you’d like each finger to measure then cut them down to size.

This is our first layer of paper tape- it looks pretty rough, but it’ll come together in the end

Next you will wrap strips of paper tape, that are a little longer than twice as long as the finger, over each finger’s wire, smoothing it over one side and then having the paper tape overlap itself, wrapping around. You’ll typically do two layers on each finger in this manner.

As you place strips, follow the contours of the hand

Using thicker strips of medical paper tape, you’ll cover-over parts of the palm, usually folding over the wire at it’s mid-point. It’s going to begin to cover over the hand and also cover the tape from in-between the fingers and also the paper that coats the fingers. You want the paper tape to go where it wants to go, it may not form a mirror image of itself as it folds around the contours of the hand.

After you’ve a base layer of paper tape covering the hand armature wire, you can wrap pieces of tape around each finger. These paper tape pieces should be just a little shorter than the length of the fingers and about one and half times to twice as wide as the width of each finger.

You can bulk-out the muscles that comes from the thumb and pinky on the palm by placing strips that go across the length and width of these areas. At this point, you can also wrap a piece of paper tape that’s almost as long as the aluminum tubing and overlaps pieces covering the hand wire.

Next you’ll use as broad of pieces of tape on the hand as will comfortably fit- the wider the pieces, the less seams will be apparent on the hand. As you start to get a hand shape that you like, you can place a long strip that you might taper on the hand that will then wrap around the aluminum tubing and then you can wind another piece of tape around the tubing.

Wrapping a larger strip around the aluminum tubing

Painting a flesh tone on an art doll hand

“…Paint your art doll’s hands at the same time you’re painting other areas of it’s flesh so that you won’t have to try and color match it’s skin tones later.”

Other than patching areas that might need more tape, the poseable art doll hands are constructed. You can now apply heavily water diluted Mod Podge and let the hands dry. At this point you can trim the finger tips as they will have a blunt and malformed appearance. You want to trim a little bit of the paper tape material at a time. Once this is done, you can also patch any areas of the hand that look like they need it. You’ll apply a coat of less diluted Mod Podge, let that dry, and then you might mix-up a base coat tone with some Mod Podge and water that will serve as an under painting for whatever flesh tone you want for your art doll. The under painting color should be one that if the flesh tone paint was thinly applied over it and it showed through, it would add rather than detract from the piece. One tip I can give you is to paint your art doll’s hands at the same time you’re painting other areas of it’s flesh so that you won’t have to try and color match it’s skin tones later.

Thanks so much for stopping by. If you’ve read this post and watched the YouTube video, but still have questions, be sure to comment them below and I’ll do my best to field it. If you use this technique, tag me on social media so that I can see what you’ve made. You can find me on these platforms:

Prints of my art are available through my online store.

You can find my process videos by subscribing to The Dream Syndicate Arts here for more fantasy art doll polymer clay sculpture videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFMoEW3xC740tWfQNSixs_Q

Until next time: Make. Believe.

𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 | 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

November 22, 2019 in Artistic Inspiration, Fantasy Art Doll

You can find the Dream Syndicate Art Dolls submission to Jack Conte's first annual Super Patron Endowment Grant. Maker of Poseable Fantasy Art Dolls, Ryan Friant, makes submission to Super Patron Grant.

"𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆" | 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐲 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

June 10, 2019 in Art Doll Making Videos, Artistic Inspiration

I’m not sure what my latest polymer clay fantasy art doll Drust is… I think of him as some sort of goblin I suppose. If you asked Drust, I don’t know what he would tell you he is either. I imagine him to be adventurous and likely mischievous at times. One day in his boredom, a wayfly happened by and Drust couldn’t help but chase it!

In the scene captured in “Reaching”, I imagine that Drust has scaled a column of face vaults, statues with secrets of the ages locked away within, and finds his wayfly quarry just out of his grasp! Will he catch it or will it slip through his spindly little fingers?

A wayfly is a winged-key found in the wilds of the Dream Syndicate. Found individually, in pairs, or flying in flocks, wayflies often are found near ancient ruins or in catacombs. Capturing a wayfly takes guile, but the real clever feat is to determ… — A wayfly is a winged-key found in the wilds of the Dream Syndicate. Found individually, in pairs, or flying in flocks, wayflies often are found near ancient ruins or in catacombs. Capturing a wayfly takes guile, but the real clever feat is to determine which lock a given wayfly calls home.

Watch the process of how the poseable goblin art doll Drust was crafted

Prints of “Reaching” are available through my store here:

Limited Edition of 25 Print: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/thedreamsyndstore/reaching18x24print

Open Edition: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/thedreamsyndstore/reaching11x14print

Watch Details Being Added to the Face Vaults Polymer Clay Sculptures

Check-out a Winged Key Fantasy Stop-Motion Animation

𝐎𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐀 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐡𝐚𝐛 𝐏𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 | 𝐌𝐨𝐛𝐲 𝐃𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥

March 17, 2019 in Art Doll Making Videos, Artistic Inspiration

I’ve had a fair number of sketches similar to the image I created for my Captain Ahab piece, “Ode to Obsession”, for years. I’ve been intending to make a Captain Ahab portrait and actually read Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” for years. Recently I’ve finally read the book and crafted a Moby Dick inspired art doll, but it’s telling that I was able to make an image that gets the theme of Moby Dick and Ahab’s disastrous pursuit of the white whale across without ever having read the book- most of us know this story without having ever read it! That’s the power of Melville’s Captain Ahab: he is THE archetype of when passion and drive crosses-over into self-destructive obsession and ruin. He’s transcended the pages of the novel and become the cliche, the shorthand of the thing he represents.

Watch the Captain Ahab Art Doll Being Crafted

Designing a Moby Dick Art Doll

When creating the Moby Dick art doll, Melville describes Capt. Ahab, aside from his iconic whalebone peg leg, as having a scorched face, grey hair, and a scar that runs the length of his face and body, which I wanted to capture in my interpretation. I’ve seen other interpretations of Ahab that make him look hardy and vigorous, but when I imagine him, I always see him as this hard-angled, hollowed-out sinewy character. I really liked this idea of Ahab solemnly looking out and being tangled-up in his harpoon line and though it’s kind of subtle, he has a noose cast about his neck, foretelling the doom that he seeks and the prophesy of hempen rope being his end.

St. Ahab: Patron Saint of Creatives

I find myself thinking of Ahab as a patron saint of creatives or anyone that has a passion, a drive for what they do but the path is unclear and even perilous. Many artists find themselves making emotional, relationship, and financial sacrifices to chase that white whale of earning a livelihood doing the things that they love. And since we don’t only have an effect on our own life, we impact the live’s of those around us, the pull of our creative pursuits could also take a toll on our loved-ones as surely as it did Ahab’s crew. The ups and downs of a creative life can be harrowing and it’s often trying to even know if you’re heading toward your white whale or if the risks and the inner turmoil will pan-out and be worth it in the end. The only thing you know for certain’s as scary as all of this has been, is, and will be, looking back and regretting not even attempting the pursuit would’ve been infinitely worse.

I do want to pull this back from the bleakness a bit and say that we right now live in the best times to try to be a creative! The fact that you can attempt to put your art in front of thousands of people across social media and various websites, the only thing it costs you is time, and find-out if anyone cares- that’s such an opportunity that all of us creators shouldn’t take for granted. This opportunity simply wasn’t there for creators that were trying to put themselves on their career path and previously only a few people at publishing companies were the ones to decide whether your art was “good enough”. Now if you figure-out how to market your work and amass only a few thousand dedicated fans that you work’s for them, you can have a sustainable career and life, just getting there is full of headwinds and crashing waves. And for that I think it’s worth risking the venture!

Prints of “Ode to Obsession” are available through my store here:

Limited Edition: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/thedreamsyndstore/ode-to-obsession-captain-ahab-portrait
Open Edition: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/thedreamsyndstore/ode-to-obsession-captain-ahab-portrait-cwas5

Here is the finished Capt. Ahab illustration! If you would like a print, it is available as a Limited Edition and for a limited time, as an Open Edition Print.

Having a Growth Mindset as an Artist

August 09, 2018 in Artistic Inspiration

For some reason we give ourselves the permission to try new things and grow in our capabilities in them as a child that we don't as we grow older, even if we're trying to acquire a wholly new skill set. It's madness to think that simply by virtue of your age you're entitled to some virtuoso talent at a novel, new experience. There are two mindsets, one that's fixed and believes that your abilities are innate and then there's a growth mindset. I'm convinced that having a growth mindset for artists is the only way to be. Times and artistic tastes are going to change. Your work and how to best distribute it are going to change. To reject these truisms is to be at war with reality.

I certainly believe that people have predispositions to being skilled at a given task, what we would call talent, but it's routinely born-out in athletics and the arts, that those that are naturally gifted and strive to be the top of their craft frequently are. Innate talent can only take you so far and such individuals are likely to plateau without the disciplined work that's prerequisite to become a true master of one's craft.

If there's skill that you think would enrich your life for being adept at it, I'd urge you to take that child-like approach of the enjoyment of the activity regardless of the outcome and to work through it to the best of your present skills. Think back to most things you may have tried in your childhood and you'll likely have produced nowhere remotely near professional results, whether that was drawing, coloring, or whatever creative expression you attempted early on, but you likely enjoyed making the art making process and maybe you were lucky enough to have some kind adults lie and praise what you were making. When attempting new art forms as an adult, after a multitude of tries, fifty, one-hundred, then you would have some grounds to honestly determine the effectiveness of your efforts because while your critical eye may be honed as an adult, your muscle memory for a new task is often just developing.

For all the myriad of ways you can spend your time developing new capabilities, there comes a time when you need to narrow-in and focus on an array of abilities that are the most worthwhile and fulfilling to you. You could learn how to code and make custom websites, but if just creating a website through a templated site such as this Squarespace blog you're currently reading accomplishes the vast majority of what you want it to do, then the choice is fairly obvious. While you can likely learn how to do a great many things, at some point you're going to have to pick and lane, a focus, and prioritize what capacities help reach your goals from that perspective. The number of distractions that you can find are infinite and many creatives find some amount of constraints to be liberating in their ability to focus on the important tasks at hand as opposed to the infinite canvas stretched-out in all directions.

To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here: https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

Fan Art Illegal?! Things to Consider When You Make Fan Art

August 02, 2018 in Artistic Inspiration

There's a range of opinions on whether artists should create fan art and the ethics of doing so. One might make fan art as a genuine expression of their fandom, as an opportunity to gain exposure for their art, to make money, or some mixture of all three motivations. I'm not looking to judge someone's choice in creating fan art, but from a strictly creative business stand-point, if you're making the majority of your sell-able artwork around intellectual properties that you don't own, this seems like tenuous footing for an artist to be in. Selling fan art's illegal and this isn't just some opinion I happen to hold, this is straight from the mouth of contract and intellectual property attorney acquaintance, Seth Polansky.

Watch Fan Art Illegal?! | Things to Consider When You Make Fan Art

Luckily few intellectual property holders crack-down on fan artists selling their work, but that's precisely the issue: if you make your living selling fan art based merchandise- you're relying on "luck" for your continued livelihood. I lurk an artist alley Facebook page and I've seen the occasional so-and-so animation studio's issuing take-down notices. And a take-down notice or a cease and desist form is a kind way for the copyright holders to go about it- who knows if we'll see an effort to slap-down this form of infringement in the same way that the music industry came down on some of those pirating music in the early to mid 2000's to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

EXCERPT ON FAN ART USAGE PER COPYRIGHT ATTORNEY SETH POLANSKY ON ONE FANTASTIC WEEK

With the risks that are stake, I simply couldn't see putting all of my eggs in the fan art basket. I may occasionally do a fan art piece if the mood strikes me, but I definitely intend to make that the exception rather than the rule. What's your opinion on fan art? Do these considerations make you any less likely to make it?

Getting Ready to Show at My First Art Booth! | Art Star Craft Bazaar in Philadelphia, PA

July 28, 2018 in Artistic Inspiration

This Saturday I'm taking a leap that I've put off for some time in years past- I'm getting ready to show at my first art booth at the Art Star Craft Bazaar here in sunny, hot, humid Philadelphia! Art Star has been running successful arts and crafts shows for several years in the area and I feel like I'm in pretty good hands. This is a pop-up show, which means it's only one day for a few hours. The first date for it is Saturday, 7/28/18 from 12-5pm.

There's a few reasons I've put off boothing at art fairs, but I think one major one was not feeling like I'd ever had a large enough body of solid artworks to show. I don't feel like you can do this sort of a show without 10-12 images you feel strongly about. There's also a fair amount of start-up costs to running a booth- there's the cost of inventory (and the packaging of said inventory) and the display and booth decor items aren't particularly cheap if you don't happen to have what you need on-hand and want to have a certain level of professionalism to your presentation.

WATCH MY THOUGHTS ON GETTING READY TO SHOW AT MY FIRST ART BOOTH | ART STAR CRAFT BAZAAR IN PHILADELPHIA

Speaking of professional presentation, there's a few people I'd like to thank for inspiring me with best practices, either from watching their content or sending them the occasional frantic Facebook message. I've been following the independent genre artist podcast One Fantastic Week's YouTube content for a couple of years and I think there's few better resources for entrepreneurial artists and they've a great community of like-minded people. I also owe Pete Mohrbacher a beer for recommending El-Co Color Labs- they've produced some really fantastic prints of my art. Crystal Sully, creator of "Untamed Beastiary", was also super helpful in helping me track down a couple of vendors for booth supplies. Rather than have you track Crystal down, I'll list the vendors I've used for booth display.

Craft Show Vendors

Printing: http://www.elcocolor.net/
Banner: https://www.nextdaydisplay.com/product/fabric-wrinkle-free/
Print Bags, Cardboard Backing, & Shopping Bags: https://www.clearbags.com/

I'm doing four of these shows and I'll let you know how they ultimately went- fingers-crossed that it was worth it! To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here: https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

Making Fun: The Story of Funko Pops on Netflix

June 21, 2018 in Artistic Inspiration

I recently treated myself to a couple of hours to check-out the latest toy-themed documentary, Making Fun: The Story of Funko Pops on Netflix (as I write this, I'm still making my way through season 2 of The Toys That Made Us). There's a couple of things I'll have to confess before I go any further into this post: 1. I'm not a vinyl toy collector. There are a few toys that I think have a fantastic design and certainly wouldn't mind owning, but I also aspire to a certain level of minimalism in my life (I'm not great at this mind you, hence it's being aspirational). 2. I'd always taken Funko as some sort of corporate juggernaut, but the company's origins were a lot more DIY than I would've guessed. It didn't take long into the toy documentary before I was happy for the success of Mike Becker, Funko's once Chairman of Fun, and the scrappy little art toy start-up he'd built, Funko.

Watch Making Fun: The Story of Funko Pops Here

I had such a good time watching this Funko toy documentary and wanted to share it with you in my Making Fun The Story of Funko Pops review on Netflix.

I found myself delighted by the delight and passion of Funko's fans, self-identified as Funatics, and in such trying times as we now exist in, basking in this global community's collective joy was a welcome breadth of fresh air. What I enjoyed about Mike Becker and later Brian Mariotti's running of Funko was that they approached their stewardship of the company largely as fans first, steering the company in directions that has consistently make their collectors thrilled with Funko.

While I'm not likely to rush-out and buy a mountain of Pop Vinyls anytime soon, I'm glad that they can make so many fandoms happy with their little beady-eyed, square headed art toys. The Netflix toy documentary had a couple of emotional moments, but it was a "feel-good" piece through-and-through. If you could two solid hours of joy and camaraderie and you might enjoy a toy documentary, I definitely recommend you give it a watch!

The BEST Art Advice that You RARELY Hear

June 14, 2018 in Artistic Inspiration

We live in a landscape of seemingly inexhaustible "experts" when it comes to the creative field (heck, when it comes to most fields). Where many are pushing their opinions without your knowing their credentials. And that is crucial, if you can't verify why someone's opinion is more valid than any other person off the street, chances are it isn't. We live in an era where most everyone feels they need an opinion on most everything, no matter their lack of expertise on the subject-matter, to feel validated as a human being. With that, my old time-y wisdom to you, the best art advice that you rarely hear is this: always consider the source.

Watch The BEST Art Advice that You RARELY Hear

Should I Be a Specialist Artist? A Response to "Your Value in Art" by Bobby Chiu

June 07, 2018 in Artistic Inspiration

I came across a video by Bobby Chiu entitled "Your Value in Art" and my curiosity was piqued. Being the even-keel, zen-like soul that Bobby Chiu is, he didn't place a value judgement on whether one should be a generalist or a specialist artist, but (perhaps because I'm less even-keeled) I definitively believe that a long-term career favors the specialist artist.

Watch Your Value in Art by Bobby Chiu

Watch Should I Be a Specialist Artist Response Video

First, it would be helpful to establish a definition of both generalist and specialist artists. A generalist artist dabbles in any number of genres, styles, or niches of art making. A "jobbing artist" that goes from project-to-project, competing with several other well-qualified creatives to do so, perhaps a toy design one week, storyboards the next, and then a couple of weeks illustrating a book cover. A specialist artist narrows-in on one artistic field, medium, or overall aesthetic and produces work in that vein. The specialist artist is often brought into a project because they were one of a short-list of candidates who could properly envision the project, whether that's designing characters for film or television or creating work for print media.

While artists can make a living as a generalist, a generalist artist is a commodity, like a bottle of orange juice you'd buy at the local supermarket, easily replaced (and in the times we live in, easily outsourced if communication barriers are minimized). When their skill set is in alignment with what's desirable in the creative market place, a specialist artist is actively sought-out for the specific thing they do and therefore has a much easier time standing-out among a field of generalist artists.

If two artists were competing for the same job to design environmental concepts for a video game studio, who's most likely to get the job? The artist with the portfolio of character, vehicles, weapons, and environment concepts or the artist with the same number of pieces in their portfolio, but every single piece of the portfolio shows that they want to do the job their trying to get hired for, each piece shows a game environment concept? I don't know about you, but I'd say the smart money's on the second candidate, the specialist.

There's also the level of niche-ism that surrounds us today- an artist that may not have gained support through the conventional route of publishers can now go directly to the public if they're willing to become savvy marketers of their work. Services like Kickstarter, Patreon, YouTube, Instagram, and the like give artists a multitude of platforms to try and connect with an audience. Add to this that in most countries, there's fan conventions for any kind of niche you could imagine- everything from fantasy/sci-fi, to comic books, to My Little Pony, to... furries.

But isn't there a danger of being too specialized? Frankly, there's risk in any field one could choose to invest decades in that the market could shift and the only thing one can do is shift with it or perish. Commercial airbrush artists were in demand from the 60's through the 80's, but once the art market shifted, many of them either had to pivot their artistic skills to another medium or no longer work in the creative field.

Make Better Art By Caring Less? 🎨

May 31, 2018 in Artistic Inspiration

Is it possible to make better art by caring less? In my latest video, that's exactly the thesis I posit. As with any craft- playing music, dance, or the visual arts, once you get a firm handle on your rudimentary skills, you can accomplish greater works by not putting too much pressure or importance on any one individual work. If you're thinking beyond being in the moment of what you're doing in the present, you're hindering your ability to reach a flow state.

Watch Make Better Art By Caring Less

Flow State: In positive psychology, flow, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one's sense of space and time.

When I was younger, in art school and earlier, I'd often be paralyzed by the potential of things "going wrong" in a piece, which was an impediment to artistic growth. Had I adopted this Stoic-like philosophy of "is this the condition I so feared?" much earlier in my art-life, I'd likely be happier for it. Not to spend too much time on roads less traveled because on some level I wasn't ready to receive this life lesson, but within the last few years, I've become ready and that's ok too, to borrow another bit of immortal wisdom, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.", and to a large extent that teacher was time and experience.

Let's put the number of works of art you're likely to make over the course of your life-time into perspective- let's say a given artist will average 1.5 pieces of art in a month, that's 18 completed artworks per year. Now let's say you'll have at least 40 productive years of making art- with that number of works and that time-frame, that's 720 finished artworks... and these are all using fairly modest estimates- there are plenty of artists that can and do complete 2-4 works of art in a month. Bearing that in mind, is the piece your working on right now all that significant in the grand scheme of things? If you let go and create without fear, it could be. It could be one of a handful of pieces of art that you're known for, but this becomes far less likely when you create in a state of fear and anxiety about the artwork's outcome. Hold-out for judgement on the outcome until your piece of art's completed.

Making art should be about making the best possible thing you're capable of creating in the stage you're at in your artistic journey at that moment. If you need to make bold changes, a drastic change in drawing, tone, or contrast, make it and go forward boldly, leave open that space for growth. And even if you fall flat on your face in the attempt, chances are, you've learned something that you can carry onto future artistic endeavors.

What's With #ArtVsHero?

May 24, 2018 in Artistic Inspiration

If you spend time lurking artists on Instagram or Facebook or are an artist yourself, you may have seen #artvshero going around. The hashtag started with students of SVS Learn, which was founded by Jake Parker and Will Terry, and is a way for artists to see how they stack-up when surrounded by their art heroes. An artist places their work in the center of a 3-by-3 square grid and literal surrounds their work with the artwork of their influences.

Watch a Discussion on Art Versus Hero Here

I first found-out about this creative exercise on the fantasy/independent artist podcast One Fantastic Week when hosts Pete Mohrbacher and Samuel Flegal had Will Terry as a guest. And I spent some time thinking about it, I found that I'm as influenced by collaborative arts like stop-motion and film design as I am by individual artists and if you've followed any of these artists, there's a through-line, between many of them.

Watch the One Fantastic Week Interview with Will Terry Here

My Art Versus Hero Grid

Going across each row, the artists (or production companies) are:

Rednose Studio (an independent artist), Brian Froud, Rankin/Bass Productions, Laika, myself, Tony Diterlizzi, Jim Henson Company, Brom, and Dave McKean. I try to take little bits and pieces of inspiration from all of these wonderful artists with myself acting as a filter. This is by no means an exhaustive list of artists that have influenced my work- I also draw inspiration from many, many more fantastic artists.

Brian Froud worked with Jim Henson films to design the characters for Labyrinth and the Dark Crystal and I know these films were hugely influential on Tony Diterlizzi as early in his career he dreamed of working for Jim Henson. Rankin/Bass produced stop-motion films throughout the 1960's and 70's and it would be easy to see their work informing later animation studios like Laika or the work of Rednose Studio. I love the work of both Rednose Studio and Dave McKean because they've both shown themselves to be near limitless in their process to visually story tell. I also owe Rednose Studio a debt of gratitude for raising the bar for dimensional-illustration! There have been traditional photographed three-dimensional picture books in the past, but they had the unfortunate ability to be unintentionally unnerving (a college friend had showed me a "Goldilocks & The Bears" picture book from decades ago that was nightmare inducing).