A year on...

Drinks after our last studio class

The other day, Facebook reminded me that a year ago I had my last day of university. The graduation exhibition was later on in November, and my actual graduation date was early in 2015, but to me the last day of class signifies the end of university. 

It's been just over a year, and I'm feeling pretty retrospective. Looking at work from a year ago, it's pretty obvious I have experienced more improvement in this last year than I have in several years put together. The year didn't start out great, though. Moving back home to a small town meant being somewhat isolated from other artists, which is pretty demotivating. On top of that, to graduate with zero technical skills, and then be expected to not only have a good portfolio, but to use it to get jobs was a lot of pressure and stress. I was feeling completely lost and disillusioned. I knew my portfolio was shit, (although, a year on I can see that it was really, really shit) and I wanted to create more work, better work, but I just couldn't get anything started. I couldn't execute any of the ideas I had. I wanted proper training (now that I knew what that was) but there was no where to get it. Insanely frustrated does not even begin to sum it up. I was about ready to quit.

Then I opened up an ImagineFX and saw some figure drawing tutorials by Chris Legaspi. I signed up for his newsletter and then forgot all about it. Some time after that I realised a mentor would be something good to have, but I had no idea how to go about getting one. Literally a few days later I got a subscriber email from Chris offering his mentorship program. Fate, awww yiss. So I did that for a month, and learnt about figure drawing for the first time. After that I did another mentorship, this time with Sam Carr, focusing on digital painting.  The image I created with Sam pushed me way outside my comfort zone. It turned out horribly but I learnt so damn much. These two events kickstarted my improvement, and the ball has been rolling ever since, especially as one of my recent images earned me commissions for the first time in my life. 

In September Jonathan and I did a week bootcamp at Watts Atelier and my mind was blown. My figure drawing improved in that week, and my level of taste skyrocketed. I know what mastery is now, and my week there solidified my commitment to art. Currently we're studying at CDA, doing figure drawing and dynamic sketching. As much as I've improved, drawing is still my weakest point, and I'm looking forward to training properly, even if I have to teach myself. I still have a long way to go, and my next step is to try do more personal pieces. I've been swamped with homework and commissions, and it's starting to get to me. I feel like there has to be a balance between work, study and personal work.

I figured what better way to reflect than to do one of those DeviantArt improvement memes. I tried to choose things that I felt were an improvement at the time, and things that showcase just how shit I was. I started from 2009 simply because I had images of drawings from then, but I consider the beginning of my 'journey' as 2013. That was when I decided to do Illustration, making a conscious decision to give art a try. I figured if I failed I still had time to go back to university and study something else. Most of my work before 2013 was just mindless doodling/scribbling, with a peppering of actual "pieces" here and there. 

I often feel like the universe has been dragging me arse backwards into art my whole life. For some reason, I never gave up even when I was just drawing for fun, copying pictures with no direction and no real intent on improving. I thought you had to be born talented at drawing and painting to be an artist. I honestly didn't realise it was the right training, dedication and practice that helped you improve. Later on, not giving up meant coming back to drawing even after saying "That's it, I quit." Seeing the big improvement learning the right things could make, I finally decided this is it. The universe doesn't have to drag me anymore, I'm ready to run. 

Sugar City Con 2015

*I actually wrote this article just after SCC (August 29) and never got around to posting it!*

I wanted to post about our experience at SCC asap so it would be fresh in my mind, but when we got home there was just way too much to do. On saying that I didn't know what to write about it to Jonathan, he said 'YOLO... So do a convention.' I think that pretty much sums it up.

Sugar city con had a really great vibe about it. Everyone was super friendly, and it was great being able to talk to other industry folks after months of just the two of us working away by ourselves. It was his first time being a vendor and we had some crazy high expectations at first, which seem funny now, but he did really well in the end. We're super looking forward to doing another convention, but that's still going to be way down the line!

Most of the attendees were cosplayers, which most of the guest/vendors said was highly unusual for a convention, as usually it's just a small fraction of cosplayers.
Funniest part was that every now and then there'd be loud yelling from the other side of the convention hall as Paul Eiding performed for his fans, which kept it interesting! We had a chance to meet him (he came around to all the vendors) and he is such an awesome, friendly guy!

Since it was Jonathan's convention, I wanted to get him to write about his perspective:

"Yeah, Sugar City Con(SCC) was great. Many other creators have always raved on small town cons being better and I can see why. Being a smaller town, the organisers always take better care of their guests. I wasn't a guest myself but the other guests were taken around town at nights, dinners organised, etc. They even had baby kangaroos brought in one day (just a one-off, this doesn't usually happen at Australian conventions in case anyone was wondering). But even as a vendor, they were super helpful with the set up and checked in on me multiple times during the event to see if I needed a break or any help. So I definitely recommend trying to attend smaller conventions if you want that special treatment.

There is also a downside to smaller conventions as well obviously. Yeah, you do get some guests that are super supportive of local indie artists and appreciate the artwork and books that are on offer, but most of the crowd will be a little tight on the purse strings. You're definitely not going to do as well in terms of sales as you would in a big metropolitan city.
Most of the crowd at SCC spent their money on international artist's works or items like collectibles, on sale action figures or mainstream comic books with the big attraction being stalls that sold swords, hats, masks, etc (basically anything that could be used for future cosplay). Other artists agreed that sales were ok, some did better than others with most just about managing to cover costs.

Many of the artists made more from doing sketches (sold for as cheap as $5 - $10) instead of their self published books or prints. This is something that didn't work for me as I'm quite slow when I draw so I didn't even offer up the option. This will be something I change at my next appearance as it's a great way to make some money, but also a great way to get people at your table and also spread the word that you're the artist. People love seeing the magic happen so there'll always be a few people standing around watching you work or commenting which is also a good way to generate a few more sales in prints or books or whatever.
Also, for some reason, many people don't realise you've drawn these images hanging up behind you. Maybe there are more art thieves around that I realise but people don't recognise the sole person pitching sales at the booth as the artist. I got plenty of "you drew that!" from the crowd which confirms something I read online before - saying you're the artist when you greet people. I guess it puts a face to the work instead of some unknown name on the poster. This probably is more true for small indie artists like myself. I'm sure Jim Lee doesn't have that experience.

Overall a great experience even though I didn't have fantastic sales. It was especially nice meeting fellow creators who supported my work (I tried to support them back as much as I could too, be kind to your fellow artists) as well as attending a few panels and meeting a few guests. I definitely want to do this again if only for the experience and can't wait until next year when we start attending more cons. YOLO."

Definitely didn't want me to take a picture, but he was happy throughout, I swear!!

First post and Sugar City Con!

I'm an artist/illustrator from Australia, graduated early 2015 and currently just busy trying to level up my portfolio and my work!

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This weekend Jonathan and I are going to the Sugar City Convention, a local convention in Mackay, QLD. We're driving down tomorrow and the con is Saturday/Sunday! It's his (our) first convention, but I'm mostly just along for the ride at this point! Check out his work, he does mostly comic art, and is the artist of Team Echo, a comic he co-owns with Craig Berger. 

SCC has an art competition that I'm putting a piece of fanart/pop culture into, so fingers crossed! Hint: it's Fallout inspired! (SO ready for Fallout 4!)

To kick off the blog, here's a Batgirl fanart I finished recently, and a definite level up in skill for me. 

This is available as an A3 print! To order go to my page www.facebook.com/IonaVorsterIllustration or email me at ionavorsterillustration@gmail.com!

Some people also expressed interest in having this on a t-shirt, so that might happen.