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March Q&A - leave your questions here! (Patreon)

Published:
2021-03-14 07:37:49
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
Q&A

Content

Hey!

Hope you're well! Please feel free to leave whatever questions you like here for this month's Q&A - you can ask me anything personal/professional or otherwise. Go ahead, ask me how many rats I've eaten, ask me about my glands, ask me if I can predict how much longer my dog will live without actually taking it's life with my bare hands - I'm open to it all!

Looking forward to answering your questions! Talk to you soon!

Thanks as always for your support!

Dave

Comments

Andrea Volpini

Hi Dave! just wondering, how do I keep a clean and professional portfolio? I feel like mine is super cluttered with different things and I don't know what my best works are and how to correctly display my skills. Thanks in advance.

Frederik H.

Heyo Dave! Hope things have settled a bit in your personal life and everything is looking a little brighter, family's healthy and safe. I have two smaller questions, one regarding online pseudonyms: All my social media art accounts are currently under a pseudonym/nickname. It's no "NoobSlayer69" level, but it's pretty far removed from my actual name. I've been wondering whether this will make me seem unprofessional when pursuing clients. I do have my actual full name as a domain for my portfolio website. However, people have gotten to know me/my art under said pseudonym. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this? My second is pretty basic: What are some tips and tricks to make backgrounds for character art a little more dynamic/fitting? I want to move away from your standard Concept-Arty gradient background a bit. Sorry for the block of text but thank you for the opportunity to ask questions every month. Supporting the Patreon has been incredibly helpful and the best thing I've done since Covid started (except eating 40 Chicken McNuggets and then immediately falling asleep for 9 hours). Best of luck to you and your family!

Andrew Marcus

Hi Dave! So glad I joined your Patreon! I'm currently in school as a studio art major (a super senior) and I've only been doing digital art for a year outside of school. I have two questions, but they feel like stupid questions so forgive me in advance >-< I follow Jen Bartel and other comic artists and something I've always been curious about is the use of halftones in digital pieces. I was wondering if there is a technical requirement to use halftones or if it's purely an aesthetic choice for comics and other types of digital media? My second question is the choice of application to draw digital media. I know how to use photoshop and Clip Studio paint (which I already own) due to lack of money in the bank I'm seeing myself rely more on clip studio than photoshop to draw (plus all the extra brushes for clip studio make me want to use it more). Should I learn to use photoshop more (Since I see so many professional artists use it) or does it matter what application I learn to create digital artwork on? Thank you again, Dave

PygmyBehemoth

Greetings milord. Thank you so much for all the work you’ve posted online over the years to help your fellow artists. It’s truly a blessing and I can’t really describe how much I’ve learned during my stay in the court of the creamson king. I was just wondering, how do you tackle art fatigue? I’ve recently set myself a pretty strict (but sensible)schedule in which I devote at least 4 hours of each day focusing on art, however my roommate is convinced I’m on the path to burnout. I’ve been on it for 2 weeks now and I’m not feeling rundown yet but would like to know what you think before I hit that wall(if I do). Thanks for your time and may the gods of success, wealth and joy smile upon you, Big Papa Rapoza.

Ahmed Alqirsh

I have 2 questions the first being on you saying that drawing comic books pages helped improve your draftsmanship skills like anatomy etc can you please elaborate on that a bit more ? The second QUESTION is that you said during the last q and a is that frank frazetta has that cool touch to his work that goes beyond technical skills compared to people like Boris Vallejo, people who aspire to be like that what’s your advice to them?

Emmanuel

Hey Dave, hope you and your family are doing well. I've got two questions. I've realized I've been doing a lot of art study especially anatomy but I've been pretty nervous about making my own art , any advice on overcoming this ? . My second question, by this time next year I will have saved enough money to start art school , I just wanted to get your opinion on art schools? I've also been looking at other alternatives too like online art school especially Marc Brunet art school

Asher Tail

Hey Dave hope you're doing alright! Just wondering how you sketch out gestures and tips on foreshortening or know of good figure drawing resources. Thanks!

Jason Scott Morris

Emmanuel, just go for it. Make stuff, even if you feel like it’s going to be trash. Truth is, it’s going to be bad— like, it got some stank, bad— but that’s ok. It’s actually good because you’re putting one foot in front of the other. You’re learning, and over time from putting in all of this effort, you’ll be able to see yourself get better in retrospect. And it’s something that you can do even without art school. Especially without it, if you ask me. School is a good way of creating connections with people just like yourself, and growing with them. You’ll find competition, and be pushed into assignments and situations that you might have not been on your own, but the effort and dedication? The skill? That’s all you. And you’ll feel that. You’ll feel how fast your feet go when you get into it, but you have to start somewhere. Let your hair down, man. Get after it :)

Jason Scott Morris

Hey, Mr. Rapozanator. I hope you’re doing great. I’ve followed your work on social media for about a year or two (dunno, actually. I can’t count), and I have always admired your work. Especially since so much of it is of things and franchises I personally love, and love to draw of. I’m glad you asked for any questions. I have a few: 1) how old are you? 2) Is it true that you smited the Gods of Creation just to power your work station? 3) when did you start? 4) Nobody is normally as cool as you; who did you kill to be so awesome? 5) Would you/ (have you ever) consider creating a “The basics of digital work” series? 6) what’s your ancestry?

Chris Pittas

Hey there Dave, I hope you are doing much better, and things have settled down with everything that happened to you and your family. I'm not sure if my question will be answered in the grand PDF you are preparing but here we go. For the last 4-5 months I've gotten my first full-time job as an artist in an indie game company. I work around 9-10 hours Monday to Friday, and while I'm grateful about it I feel super drained at the end of day. I can push out some personal work, but haven't done a proper study in a VERY long time. How did you stay motivated to both work and give it your 100% and study to become a better artist at the same time? Also, because you had a problem with my name last time, you put the emphasis on the "Pi" so it is read like Peter. Thank you for your time you truly are AN AWESOME DUDE!

Médi

Hey Dave, hope you're doing good. I started taking art seriously about a year ago and I'm having trouble with balancing studies and personnal work. I would suppose that the only way to learn how to produce finished illustrations is to actually make finished illustrations, but a part of me keeps saying that I need to properly study all the fundamentals first, and that the time spent rendering a poorly done image would be better spent grinding studies. Any thoughts ? Have you had a similar experience ? Cheers.

Yuri Cherkasov

Hey, Dave! Do you consciously thinking about your shape designs when painting? and i mean shapes as an abstract shapes of color or value not anatomical shapes.

Nick Sermuksnis

Hey Dave! I'm referencing the Makoto/Ann piece while I ask this, but how do you balance capturing the essence of a character's aesthetic with your own style? They LOOK like themselves, even with similar proportions to their normal art style, but it's also so identifiably your style. I feel like when I draw it looks like ill-fitting cosplay. Thank you and I hope you are well!

Fethennour

Hi Dave, I have only one question: back in february, you tweeted about working on a PDF file for Patreon explaining how you got started in art, structured your days learning in the beginning, networking, building online presence, and more (to reprise your words). Will we get to see this soon? I assume it takes some time to work on it, I just can't wait to know more about it. Thank you.

Dean Brorson

What's up Dave! Happy 1 year anniversary on Patrion, its been a wild ride. I've learned a lot over the past year. My question this month is: Have you seen the Chinese Artist Ruan Jia's process? He does these really detailed pieces and he starts out building on top of abstract block ins of color without line work. Could you discuss this method vs your method of starting with line work? From my own studies I've realized that you can do more problem solving in the early stages with lines which saves you from a ball ache fixing any errors in the later stages. Thanks Man!

Sleepy

Hey Dave. Hope you and your family are doing well. You might not remember but a while ago you did images of a sikh guy covered in gold and rabari snake witch. Do you plan on revisiting this style and doing more work with that aesthetic in the future? Also it would be neat to see the process for those. Any chance you have that recorded somewhere? Thanks again for all the great content. Love

Lupazen

Hey Dave, hope you and your family are doing well. I was looking through your portfolio and absolutely fell in love with your X-Men portraits. The colors and rendering are amazing. Would you ever consider doing a coloring tutorial similar to that style? I'd absolutely love to see your approach.

Ben LaCasse

Sup Dave, hope the fam is kicking ass <3 Ive got a good foundation on comic styles but when it comes to digital painting, im a total brainlet. do you have any recommended resources where someone can start learning all that? Im slowly going through ctrl+paint but any other recommendations would be rad. Thanks for all the work you put into this page

Oliver Howe

Been loving your patreon Dave! Thanks once again for doing all this, it's appreciated! For my question I wondered if you had any tips on idea generating and how to come up with ideas for paintings? I always find I freeze and struggle to come up with any ideas when looking at the blank canvas.

Ialmar Pedraza

I only want to know how you can blend on CSP :P And I'm very grateful of your content :)

Maddie

Hi Dave! Back in October you posted your variant cover and the associated inks for Marauders #15. Do you normally do finished inking like that for comic book covers before you start painting, or was that something that the client requested? One other question - I think I remember you saying you listen to the podcast Your Mom's House (I might be wrong). I love YMH, so do you have any other podcast recommendations, comedy or otherwise?

Bogsloth

Whats up Gangbang Gangsta, I've been freelancing for the same company since October and I'm into a lot of the stuff they make, I'd love to be hired fulltime there, but I really don't know how to go about asking for that. How would you handle something like that?

Magenta Sunrise

Yo Dave. Wanted to say that every person I show your art to says "no fucking way" when they see the level of detail and quality. Thank you for being the best example of an artist to me. How do you come up with ideas for paintings? More specifically, how do you go from looking at a blank canvas to envisioning the characters, their poses, actions, environment? This is the toughest thing for me for some reason. I get that you must have a certain idea for a character that you want to draw, but how do you get a clear idea in your head of what's gonna be going on in the painting?

Noel

Hi Dave, I really love the finish look of your work on Persona Makoto and Ann, will you do more of "human" illustration tutorial ?, thanks Dave.

Senna Prahara

Hey Dave, have you ever studied martial arts? If you have the chance to study one form of martial art what would it be? Last one, Van Damme VS Steven Seagal, who would win in a fight? Thanks Dave take care.

MadaoWay

Hey Dave, How do you manage a client with really poor taste ? Do you try to force your vision ? or apply the feedback even if you know it will ruin the painting ? Thanks man :)

Ionut Pop

Hi Dave ! Do you have any advice on learning how to draw heads from any angle ? I 've just started to look more into the Loomis method and I'd like to hear your insight on that, and on drawing heads and faces in general. Thank you, and have a great day !

Steve Robinson

Hey Dave, what made you give up Clip Studio for Photoshop? Cheers.

Moth Dweller

When can we expect your next goblin piece? I was thinking something like the final fantasy poster you did, but with lots of Goblins — Thank you. Would you consider coming on the one fantastic week podcast again sometime? Would be really great to See you, Sam and Pete talk art and business. I hope you'll have a good April, best of luck!

Moth Dweller

Oh one more question — Sorry for intruding — do you know about NFT's? It seems to me that you can earn a tone of money selling your art that way and since you're saving up for a house wouldn't that be a great opportunity?

Wesley Edwards

Hello Crimson Snake Drainer, long time stalker here got a couple of quick questions for you: when putting together a concept art portfolio for doing key shot illustrations, what would you specifically include? Like would you create pieces from an existing ip or create your own and do you have any examples of this kind of work? Just make them epic and flashy? I get confused cause I see some concept artists doing keyshot images and others just doing character breakdowns so I’m unclear of what is expected from a concept artist in this regard. Also what do I do with my neighbors useless skull after eating his eyes?

Psinuxi

Could you go over some painting theory like where colours shift with skin, subsurface scattering, bounce light, etc? I've been doing more painting studies, but I seem to struggle more with having my colours make sense than with the values which come easier to me. Also, I tried the mixer brush in Clip Studio but it doesn't seem to support how it grabs colour from multiple layers which is disappointing.

Oronoro

Hey Dave! How important is visualization to your drawing process? Do you try to keep a precise image in your mind, or is it more about working out the drawing on the page, with picture ref when needed? Kim Jung Gi often talks about the importance of having a clear image in your head before you start drawing, but I wonder how common it actually is for pro artists to draw that way. It's always been difficult for me to visualize a subject well enough to use the mental picture as reference.

Colorblindraws

Dave how many rounds of 10 heavily motivated 8 year olds u think u could survive? PS: u can have either a knife, or a slingshot with unlimited ammo

Colorblindraws

Dave hope u doing well, and I just wanted to know, how does it feel to see a lot of the names that used to be around in the crimson dagger times, thriving in the art industry in whatever fields they are in, and some of them like Mike Azevedo even becoming an inspiration for us brazillian folk, does that put a smile on ur crusty ol' face?

Colorblindraws

Everyone loves stories, and I specially like when real stories are deeply dark and hilarious at the same time, and since u talk about getting inspiration from other peoples stories, do u have any old tale that is in this realm of Dark/Funny? It can be someone else's story tho

Colorblindraws

Also, whats the darkest thing that u found about someone u knew? Like something that really surprised u in the worst possible way

Colorblindraws

Also also also, thank you so much for all the lovely content, you have helped so many people get a clearer grasp of what is needed to move forward in the path to pursuing art as a career, and during all that process u seem to have had fun and made us all have fun too. I personally have no more art questions (just a lot of hard work ahead), so I'll just use these questions to get ur insight into some random ass shit, hope its not too much tho Stay safe Daveedo and again Thank you

Marino Gardiner

Afternoon or good mythical morning, I hope everything in life is calming down and becoming less stressful for you. Or atleast your family is doing well and is healthy 🙏 Today my question is what's do you thing is the best way to create personal projects for a portfolio? Or What's the best things to put into a portfolio?  All the work you do is pretty much what I want to get paid for and just draw awesome cover art for anything and everything. Should I just pick a few of movies, comics or games and draw as epic cover art for them as I can possibly draw? Or is there something else I could be doing?

Jorge Romero

Hi Dave, just wondering if you've ever been approached to illustrate something that don't feel comfortable with? Like depictions of rape, torture or violence that go too far. If you haven't, would you do that?

Nachta

Do you have something you like to draw to relax? Goblins? Sweaty swamp ogres? Blood 'n' guts? That aside, I hope things are getting better for you and your family! <3

Owen

Hi Dave, how you doing my guy? Hope the fam's all good. I was wondering if you ever had some sort of mentor in your artistic journey and if so, in which ways did they help you? Much love babycheeks

Bruno Diaz

Hey Mr Delicious So I have this story and my main protagonist is a 13yr old girl. I'm struggling with drawing her face so she doesn't look like a 20 year old. Do you have any tips/advice to make my character look more young? Or how would you approach it? Thanks :) .

Klutsen

Hi, Dave, Do you know how to stop failing? It's like every single stuff I've made is garbage, I just feel sad, I can't stop thinking about all the problems that my illustrations have. xd Thanks

Roberto Jiron

Hello Dave! hope you are doing great, wanted to ask, how can i improve my line art? Greetings from Mexico! thanks. PS. Where can i find your pencil brush?

Craig Herbert

Hi Dave. Apologies if this question has been asked a thousand times, but what do you think was the most crucial thing to help you level up your career? As an outsider, it seems like you spawned into the art world and started nailing good gigs like MTG cards etc straight away. I'm a freelance artist and really want to get past doing cheap jobs like D&D character commission etc, but the internet is saturated with artists so it seems trickier to land anything decent now compared to how it was a few years back. In order to be noticed it seems like you have to have done some 'big boy' work, but in order to get that experience in the first place you need to have done it, so it almost seems like a catch 22 situation. What were your shitty starter jobs (if you had them) and what do you think was instrumental to moving forward? I know you talk a lot about reaching out to your influences and various art directors, and I have tried that but a lot of people don't take the time to respond. Thanks as always for the amazing content, and hope you and the family are well. PS. I know you're a busy guy, but it would be awesome to hold a quarterly art challenge, with the top 3 places getting a portfolio review or something. I know it's a lot of work and you already do so much, but just putting it out there! Either that or delegate the responsibility to one of us minions on Discord to sort it out for you, I'd be happy to help.

Justin

Hi Dave, I was wondering how would you tackle and approach on dealing with subjects that are repetitive?? Such as patterns like scales, basket weaves... You get the idea... What do you think of using photos online to map on it to give a base for the rendering? Any tips or tricks you use when it comes to such stuffs? Thank you!

Vincenzo Laruccia

Hi dave, what's your take on discipline? What do you do to get you drawing for yourself no matter what when you had a bad day or something (I'm sorry if this was already answered) also, what's your favorite fighting game?

Félix Hinojosa

How you deal with a crazy family member? Love you Dave.

Wesley Edwards

Can you give us some tips on making short comics? I have stories I want to develop into bigger comics, but I want to learn the basics with smaller comics however when I write the stories usually balloon out of proportion so I'm curious what your take is on this.

Echjar

Sometimes it takes me days to figure out a sketch/comp that i really like and most of the time i trash it and start a new piece. Is it better for me to just finish the pieces even though i know they might have a lot of things that are wrong with them whether it be the sketch or the composition. Is this just a "do more studies" type deal or do i limit myself to doing smaller pieces like portraits and studies? I like doing pieces with multiple characters but I'm never really satisfied with them. Some advice would help as i hold a high standard for myself and this causes me to never really post/finish anything

Isaiah Zachary

Thoughts on "perfect practice" vs getting mileage by producing work?

Klutsen

Hi, Dave First of all, I just saw your last TWD video and hope things are better now. Thanks a lot for this effort you're doing in this Patreon, and I want to thank you because it's really cheap and accessible for people that don't live in the US. So, back then in September/2020 you drew an awesome MTG style illustration, and I was wondering if I could illustrate something with the same character because I fell in love with it. I'll give you the proper credit.

Rauv_Art

Hey Dave, been missing out on the Q&A posts since August, so I'm glad to catch this one. I have a somewhat longer question if that's okay. In December I graduated from an atelier and am trying to figure out what's next. I've realized that I am not particularly interested in the "fantasy gaming" side of the market like Magic cards and stuff for D&D. I'd rather try to do work in the fields that interested me as a kid, mainly comics and games. While my technical skills have really grown thanks to the atelier study, in terms of doing comic book stuff, I'm essentially a beginner again. There are a lot of articles out there about people in comics struggling financially, even people who are working for Marvel and DC. I guess my question is: what would your advice be for someone who would like to work in comics, but also wants to have a family and do okay financially? Thanks Dave, best wishes to you and your family.

Wesley Edwards

Hey dave when designing for print do you usually pull from only a specific set of color swatches that are cmyk ready or do you just make sure youre previewing the image in cmyk in clip? Can you give us some tips for calibration and making sure our stuff doesnt come out looking like shit when printed? Im doing my first big print job with a client and I dont want to look like a tool so I plan on previewing in cmyk and using a series of cmyk ready swatches to paint but it feels limiting. Any tips would help.

Félix Hinojosa

Hey Dave, Before patreon when you where only working freelance how do you dealt with not getting ongoing work? /not hitting your financial goals? Also do you have a goal each month? do you aim for savings?

Matt DiVietro

Hey Dave can you go into your creative approach for monsters/anthromorphic designs. Im referring specifically to the cool paragon beast designs/ black witch style and the 80s monster movie type of designs you do so well. Thanks so much for being so open with how your work is made! If you could share what inspires you for these ideas I would really love to explore those for myself thanks

Natalya Glushenkova

Hey Dave, First of all, thanks for all this amazing stuff you are doing, you are such an inspiration ! I'm new here, so you probably answer this before, but I wanted to ask, what is the most important thing in design for you and what makes the picture good in the first place? Like... maint point of focus, that sort of stuff. (if you already tired of answering for such stuff, just ignore me, I love you anyway)

Anton

Hey Dave, I hope I’m not late for this Q&A. How did you manage your social media marketing stuff in the beginning? Did you routinely dedicate time to do it? What’s useful to do, what’s a complete waste of time? Any 2021 tips that would help jumpstart things that aren’t obvious to artists yet? I don’t have any plans on monetization, just want to be seen by people, not clients. Thanks

Ahmed Alqirsh

Hello Dave will do you more of those ink drawing with copic marker tutorials on paetron?

Tim Turner

Hey Dave, No question from me this time. Just wanted to drop a line to say keep up the awesome work dude. Your work keeps me inspired and motivated to keep drawing. Also, Jade Cocoon. Still dope 👌 ..or at least that's what my nostalgia still tells me.

Wesley Edwards

What are your thoughts on having a palette specifically for printing? I preview my work in cmyk through clip, what else should I keep in mind?