Tuesday, May 5, 2020


In part one of this Design Diary, we talked all about getting the Art Direction ready to send to our artist, Nat, for the creation of the character Sholem that I've designed for a pitch that I'm building. Today, we'll continue as we walk through the process of initially receiving art (SO! EXCITING!) and  the subsequent revision process. When I say exciting above I'm not be facetious, either. It's one of the most thrilling parts of my job to get new art in, I simply love it and wish it could happen everyday...seeing words that I've written given form and life...it's a feeling that's very difficult to describe for me, and well, I'm a writer.

So that should tell you something.

At any rate, a few days (or weeks, depending on your schedule) you should get art back based upon your Art Direction. Depending on the stage of the process you're in, the artist with whom you're dealing, and a dozen other things, what you get may not be the same as what I'm showing here, but bear with me, as this is all about the process, not necessarily the product. In my situation, I was planning on getting black and white sketches and that's precisely what I got:



A very cool creature and way different than I'd imagined it in my head, let me tell ya. Nat had added cool tubes for projecting sounds all over Sholem's body and I instantly fell in love with the concept. It was nothing like what I expected, but exactly what I wanted. That's one of the ways I can tell I have a good concept artist on the line, BTW. I also saw some things immediately that needing tweaking - there were no wings, for instance, which I knew the character would need. I also keyed in on the tube-like fingers and decided that I wanted to see them on both hands. Lastly, there was an issue with the antenna looking a little too anemic, so I dropped Nat an email.

And here's where you can learn another lesson from me about dealing with artists: be specific about the things you like. Remember, your artist is not inside your head and cannot tell the things you like about their work unless you TELL THEM. Make it a point to do so. This will build up the artist, increase their overall confidence, establish a working respect and rapport between the two of you, and let them learn the types of things you're searching for in regards to this particular contract.

Which was precisely what I did and the next revision I got from Nat was closer to the character I'd been thinking about, but so much cooler:


At this point, I was very happy. Getting to see those cool tubular fingers, three pair of groovy moth wings, but I felt that the antenna still needed to be a little thicker and the angular shape on the face seemed to be conflicting with the rest of the organic shapes I was seeing. Again, I let Nat know what was good and asked nicely to have a few things tweaked and received the following:


Now the antenna were in the range of what I was thinking, so that was good, but we'd lost almost all of the neat design on the face with the correction I'd asked for. At this point, I tossed the image into photoshop and make a minor tweak showing precisely what I was looking for on the face and sent that back to Nat, with a request for a minor tweak. And this is yet another lesson that you can learn from me: SOMETIMES SHOWING IS BETTER THAN TELLING. This is especially true if you're working with an artist who is not a native english speaker. Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand emails....er...words. And, if you're like me and not an artist, that's ok, even a hackneyed job of a visual markup can often be scads more productive than five (or fifty) emails.

After not too much time, my inbox pinged and I had this beauty awaiting me:



(I know, the change here might seem minor to you, but it made a lot of difference to me. :P)

Of course, I got the color version as well:


Lovely...just lovely.

Lastly, I wanted to see Sholem in a more active pose. So, once our initial contract was completed, I asked if Nat had some more time to do a couple of additional pieces for me. And herein is yet another good lesson: DON'T OVERLOAD YOUR ARTISTS/BE RESPECTFUL. Artists are people too and they have lives and families, hobbies and maybe even full time jobs. Don't assume they're just sitting around, waiting for you to make their life more full. Luckily, Nat had the time and I said I'd like to see Sholem in a more active pose and provided some specific art direction toward that end. What I got was just awesome:

So, what do I think? Flippin' awesome, that's what I think. Based on the hits this art keeps getting, you folks out there think so too. I hope this post helps! More Design Diaries comin' soon!