𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮 𝐕𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥

I recently wrapped-up making a Nosferatu vampire art doll inspired by the character from the classic film of the same name. I used reference images from the film and also found some inspiration as I did research about the original film, there was one line that stuck with me that described Nosferatu as vermin-like as opposed to the more debonair portrayals of vampire that we’ve had in later media.

One point where my version of Nosferatu diverges from the film version is that the costumers had given him these long, thick eyebrows, which I found to be kind of silly looking, so I eliminated them from the design. Many modern interpretations of Nosferatu omit them, so I can’t be the only one that feels this way.

This is the final illustration that was created with the vampire art doll. If you would like a print, you can get one here.

It was also fascinating to read that Nosferatu was actually an illegitimate Count Dracula. As many people are aware, Bram Stoker wrote “Dracula” and when he passed his widow, Florence Balcombe, had authority over his works and didn’t authorize a film adaptation of the novel. This didn’t prevent the creators of Nosferatu from going so far as to advertise Nosferatu as adapted from Stoker’s Dracula!

I hope you enjoyed seeing this lurking terror come together! 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/. Until next time, make believe!

𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐎 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥 🎃

In continuation of building a Halloween Jack O’ Lantern art doll, I’ll be making Jack’s body and clothes (because it’s simply indecent to have a nude Jack O’ Lantern running around!). I wanted this character have something of a folk-art look to him, so I chose to give him twigs for hands which have the added effect of looking rather creepy- and that’s a good thing.

Watch Building a Halloween Jack O’ Lantern Art Doll 🎃

This character’s body, like many of my art dolls, is built from aluminum armature wire with a chest and pelvic block made of plumber’s epoxy and that is covered with upholstery foam. Once the character’s built, I move on to hand-sewing clothes on to the art doll. I take measurements from the character and simply draw this on to my fabric, cut it out, and sew it on to the figure, making adjustments as I go.

This Halloween character was built to create this illustration, which was photographed in a hand-made set and is available as a print:

Jack and his fellow pumpkin-sprite friends are looking forward to that time of year when they can roam the mortal world once again! You can purchase a print from Etsy here as well as the original sculpture here.

If you missed how the halloween art doll’s head was sculpted, you can read my post about it here.

We’re not quite done visiting Jack O’ Lantern’s world as I’ve one more crafting tutorial to show with you! In the next video, I’ll show you how the crow on the fence was made! 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 to get the latest studio goings-on! Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐎' 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐒𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐩𝐭 🎃

In my latest project, I’m making a Jack O’ Lantern art doll. This character probably has the largest head out of any art doll I’ve previously built in proportion to his body, but I found using a large wad of tin-foil to do the trick all the same. In making this Jack O’ Lantern head sculpt, I spent plenty of time looking at reference online, looking various interpretations of Jack O’ Lantern characters and photographs of real Jack O’ Lanterns people carve for Halloween.

Making a Halloween Jack O Lantern Art Doll Head Sculpt 🎃

The design of a Jack O’ Lantern character’s pretty simple, it’s just a round or oval shape with a stem and a central seam at the top and bottom of the form, though since I created a human-like figure, the neck overs much of the bottom of the pumpkin. I love art and objects with surface texture, so I really enjoyed adding the variations of the pumpkin rind on the art doll head sculpt and later the way the sepia ink wash was able to pick-up these little indentations.

Here I’m roughing out the spherical shape of the Jack O’ Lantern’s head sculpt

Giving this lil Jack O’ Lantern doll a smile

Continuing with this series, I’ll show you how I built this little Halloween Jack O’ Lanterns body as well as how as I made a crow that appears in the background of the finished dimensional-illustration. 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 to get the latest studio goings-on! Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

Around his mouth got a lil bubbly and warped, but I actually think it added to this piece

Making Slimy Slug Art Dolls with Resin Slime 🐌

Today we'll be embellishing wooden display bases as we make slimy slug art dolls with resin slime! I'd previously sculpted these polymer clay slug art dolls with super sculpey over aluminum foil armatures, made these handsome display bases, and only recently had the idea of "slug trail" trailing behind them as if the slugs (slowly) made their way up on to the base.

WATCH MAKING SLIMY SLUG ART DOLLS WITH RESIN SLIME 🐌

I'd already given the slugs a thin coating of two part epoxy resin to give the sculpey art dolls a wet sheen look and I used the material again to make the slimy path for the little critters. Since I've had these particular opened bottles of epoxy resin for a few years, this was a great way to use the older materials rather than wasting them. 

Slimy Slug Sculptures

These slug sculptures can slime their way to your home & heart.

Buy a Slug Here

 

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 to get the latest studio goings-on! Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next time: Make. Believe!

How to Craft a Miniature Wizard's Wand

What's a wizard, warlock, or witch without an implement of arcane power?! In this video I show how to craft a miniature wand through an incredibly simple process. When making a mini wizard's wand with my process, there's plenty of room to customize the wand and make it unique to whatever wielder of wyrd eldritch power you like, whether that's Harry Potter or Gandalf the Grey (or White).

 

How to Craft a Miniature Wizard's Wand

This wand was crafted with an art doll in mind that was actually a character I played in the Pathfinder role-playing game, Fabian Faust, a conjurer of devils and demons with a snide, sneering disposition- safe to say he's a bit of a jerk (I'd imagine him talking like Timothy Spall, the actor who played Wormtail/Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter movies). I'd made an art doll of the character some time ago and decided it was time Fabian had his arcane armament.

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!

Having a Growth Mindset as an Artist

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

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?
 

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!

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

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!

Greetings & Welcome to the Dream Syndicate Art Dolls

How rude of me- I've yet to properly introduce my YouTube channel. In this video, I do just that by giving folks a taste of what they can expect from The Dream Syndicate Art Dolls with this channel trailer.

WATCH WELCOME TO THE DREAM SYNDICATE ART DOLLS

Throughout my videos, I share the process I use in crafting fantasy art dolls, showing you how I sculpt, paint, build, and paint them. I also show how some of the props are made for a photo shoot and a glimpse of what the photography sets look like for my dimensional art doll illustrations. When I'm not creating videos about making art dolls, I make videos about the arts, whether it's culture or thoughts about what it's like to be a professional artist today.

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!

The Devil May Cry with this Devil Art Doll Repair 👹

This devil art doll's name is Diavolo Malvolo and he fits that old wedding tradition of something old, something new, something borrowed, and something new as the blue devil himself is an older work, the illustration's new, I borrowed some dry-rotted wood to make the "cliff" he's standing on, and well, the blue part's pretty obvious, isn't it? In this latest video, I take the devil art doll that's been sitting on my shelf and reveal his dark, disturbing secret... no, it's not that he's a devil- that much's obvious! The secret is this: he has crevice along his horn and ear- he's damaged goods. Over the course of the video I try to repair him, but do I succeed? Watch and find-out good viewer!

 

WATCH DEVIL ART DOLL REPAIR 👹

As you might have seen if you made it to the end of the video (I say in an accusatory voice), I made an dimensional illustration with this handsome devil art doll. If you'd like one to hang on your wall, you can order a print from my Etsy store.

You can bring this handsome devil home from my store.

Just in case you're still in suspense- I was able to repair Diavolo after all through the use of plumber's epoxy and epoxy resin as well as a fresh coat of paint. Huzzah! I hope you enjoyed your chance encounter with the devil! 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/. Until next time, make. Believe!

HOW I STARTED MAKING ART | MY JOURNEY AS A CREATOR SO FAR 🎨🖌

This a brief recap of how I started making art, which I began probably around the time that I could hold pencil or crayon to paper. I'd draw the characters from my favorite cartoons and video games and because others noticed what I was doing, it fueled me to do more of the same. I drew, colored, and later even expanded my repertoire to occasionally include other mediums such as pastels, charcoal, and learning the basics of Photoshop and a 3D animation software called Bryce (a part of me wonders if anyone's still using it) in my K-12 education in southern New Jersey in the U.S.

After high school, I went to the University of the Arts in 2002, and aside from the fair amount of debt that comes with a private college education, it was a mostly good experience. I was surrounded by an atmosphere of people that were as enthusiastic about the visual arts as I was from my peers to much of the faculty. I'd made some lifelong friends and even a couple of mentors. With all this in mind and with so many art education resources available that weren't at that time such as Schoolism, SVS Learn, SmArt School, Udemy, Skillshare, Linda.com, not to mention the countless hours of free tutorial content you'll find on YouTube and elsewhere online, and the ever rising cost of college tuition, I wouldn't recommend art school for most young people these days. Instead, consider what resources you can find in your local community and online. 

WATCH HOW I STARTED MAKING ART | MY JOURNEY AS A CREATOR SO FAR 🎨🖌

The route to earning a living off of art can be a long, circuitous one and longer still when your passions lead you in the direction of fantasy art. I'd occasionally send-out my work, which wasn't good enough at the time, to art directors and then I sort of shifted to sending-out art to galleries. It was largely my photography that was lacking in my work- the art dolls that I make were good enough to earn the interest of a few art gallery owners around the U.S. and Canada. The downside to the gallery world is that the economics didn't seem sustainable to me (i.e. getting to a point where you can live on the money you earn) and so when my brother and I began talking about creating a role-playing game oriented YouTube channel, I was open to the suggestion.

In March 2014, my brother Dave and I started the Nerdarchy YouTube channel (in short order we added Ted, Dave's brother in-law and later Nate, who are both friends and people I've spent many an hour with at the gaming table). During this time, my art largely took a hiatus- I'd create art assets and do graphic design for the channel, but my art largely took a backseat to the other demands of being a YouTube creator. It was slow, tedious at first, with the channel getting very few views, but by that summer something fantastic for nerd niche channel happened, a large scale play test document was released for Dungeons & Dragons, arguably the biggest player in the tabletop role-playing world, and our channel honed-in on covering and playing this 5th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game. And with that, our channel started to gain some momentum, not meteoric as happens with some personalities on YouTube, but at a steady enough growth rate to assure us that we were on the right track. A fantastic community started to build-up around Nerdarchy and our content- people would send us stories about how we brought them back into the hobby or just how much they enjoyed our videos, valued our opinions, sometimes even wanting an opinion on specific issues that were having at their gaming table. We carried-on at a frenetic pace for the better part of two years, uploading 12-13 videos a week and recording our D&D sessions while also trying to figure-out how to make this whole thing make sense as a business venture. About two years into my involvement with Nerdarchy, I'd had the nagging feeling that though we were succeeding at building this business around a hobby we all love, I was feeling that for myself, I was succeeding at the wrong thing. The way the business was growing and the roles that I would have to take-on weren't what I would choose for myself and with it still being a side-business in addition to my full-time job, if you aren't passionate about a side-business, a passion project, then there's no reason to continue doing it. And besides, I was thinking of how much I missed actually making my art.

I'd acquired a ton of knowledge about how YouTube worked- from content creation, to thumbnail design, to nitty-gritty things like Search Engine Optimization on the platform. I also knew that there are few better ways for independent creators to reach people today than making YouTube videos. With this in mind, I re-dedicated myself to once again creating my dimensional illustrations and documenting the process in videos on my new channel The Dream Syndicate Art Dolls. And once again, starting a new YouTube channel's slow and tedious, but I've faith that it will take me places that I want to be in the next couple of years.

If you want to watch where the journey takes me, you can subscribe and hit the bell icon to get notifications from my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. Until next time: Make. Believe!

Making Fun: The Story of Funko Pops on Netflix

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!

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/. Until next time, make believe!

The BEST Art Advice that You RARELY Hear

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

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/. Until next time, make believe!

BRAMBLING 🌲| Making a Fantasy Art Doll

And finally, a brambling is full born... or is it sprouted from a little acorn? The biology of the little fae creatures aside, this fantasy art doll is completed! All told, he probably took around 16 hours to craft (including accidentally sculpting two right hands for him! Unfortunately, not the first time something like that's happened, I assure you!). In prior videos I shared the process of sculpting and painting him in-depth and in this most recent one, I sew his clothes and show-off a bit of the staged set that went into making the finished dimensional illustration.

Watch Brambling | Making a Fantasy Art Doll

I enjoy characters with fanciful clothing and while the brambling's clothes are meant to have a utilitarian, rustic look to them, I was able to add some visual interest with the fae creature's asymmetrical, tattered cloak. The clothing was distressed by wrinkling, staining with acrylic paint, sanding, and then hand-sewing the fabric directly on to the art doll's body. I usually make a point of distressing an art doll's fabric as i like the viewer to imagine the secret life that the art doll has when they're not around. A life with a bit of mystery and magic's a better one! Lastly I set-up the scene by arranging fabric, vines, butterflies, and even used some small tree stumps! I photographed this mixture of found objects and then spent a little time post-producing the image in Photoshop.

Here's the finished dimensional-illustration:

You can find a print of this illustration here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/601530840/brambling-fey-fantasy-fine-art-85x11?ref=listings_manager_grid

I hope you enjoyed exploring this magical fey creature as much as I have! 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/. Until next time, make believe!

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

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.

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/. Until next time, make believe!

Make Better Art By Caring Less? 🎨

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.

Painting the Brambling | Painting a Fantasy Creature Head

Now that the brambling's head is sculpted to my liking, it's time to lay down some paint! When painting a fantasy creature head, it's actually kind of important to ground yourself in realism because bramblings are elusive in the wild! I had to do the next best thing and bring a couple of tree branches into the studio. Who'd have thought realism's the best strategy when painting a fantasy creature head? By looking at this tree branch I could observe that it was largely a warm grey tone with moments of green and brown on it rather than that iconic brown Crayola crayon that we might all instantly imagine.

 

Watch the Brambling Head Be Painted with Acrylics Here

I used a range of earth-tones in painting the fey creature's head- siennas, umbers, ochers, and greens with touches of grey tones to dull-down the pigments. I also painted the head generally lighter than I would have naturally due to the fact that I was about to embark on trying my hand with an ink wash technique...

EXPERIMENTING WITH INK!

ACRYLIC INK

In painting this head, I tried a technique that was new to me: using an acrylic ink wash with dark toned ink. I had carved a lot of bark texture all over the brambling and I wanted a way to darken the recessed areas that didn't involve my painstakingly painting in dark tones and then carefully trying not to undo this work as I painted-in lighter tones. Before I used the technique on the actual fantasy art doll head, I tested on scrap sculpted piece I had (who'd have thought I was doing myself a favor when I accidentally sculpted two right hands for this art doll?!). Admittedly, I still feel like I can do a better job at highlighting sculpted details with this technique, but overall, I'm happy with the outcome.

If you would like a print of the Brambling final image, you can purchase it HERE.

I hope you enjoyed exploring this magical fey creature as much as I have! 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/. Until next time, make believe!

What's With #ArtVsHero?

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).

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/. Until next time, make believe!

Making a Brambling 🌲 | How to Sculpt a Fantasy Creature Head

Bramblings are fey creatures that wander the forest floor looking for mischief to get up to or something good to eat. They can helpful to a lost wanderer or a nightmare to those that break some esoteric woodling taboo. The brambling has been living in my sketchbook for some time and I'm glad to see it finally come to life. I see them as a species rather than any one individual creature and being somewhat wild and unpredictable.

Watch a brambling get crafted here:

This fantasy polymer clay sculpture was crafted with Sculpey Medium Blend, which is a mixture of Sculpey's regular and firm variety, and was my first test with that particular clay (Super Sculpey beige being my "go-to: polyclay). While I found it pleasant to work with, I thought it had a pretty similar consistency to my regular clay. At some point I'd like to experiment with Sculpey Firm and see how that handles. I really could have stood to use a firmer clay since the oh so thin branches are a very delicate aspect of this art doll sculpture. I could see trying Firm or trying my hand at Monster Clay, which doesn't require baking in the oven since it's a two-part epoxy.

I spent a lot of time during the sculpting process creating the bark-like texture of the creature, smoothing-out and trying to create the delicate lines of the branches. I also sculpted tiny clay-like hands. I typically craft art dolls with poseable paper mache hands, but in this case I didn't think I'd be able to get the jagged texture of the bark with such delicate material.

If you would like a print of the Brambling final image, you can purchase it HERE.

A brambling in it's natural environment.

I hope you enjoyed exploring this magical fey creature as much as I have! 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/. Until next time, make believe!