Marco Blanco - Art School Journey - Get a load of this guy

[mitsuki-youko]

ooh this looks so good! if you made a comic i'd read it (assuming plot is in my taste ofc but ur art is rly pretty)

[marco_blanco]

You have no idea how much that actually means, you're very kind! Hope to do something well beyond a comic some day, just pretty art in the horizon for now 😁

[mitsuki-youko]

I am creating my own world and characters, and one day aim to be Head Honcho in the studio that animates those very characters!

Eyy me tooo! haha! I've been working on plotbuilding my story (5 mcs across 2 worlds - roughly 24 arcs) and im planning to make 6 trailers for it, one for each main character + 1 for the overall plotline. I'm also planning to make my own music for it its cool to see others who want to do something similar

[prinzmoana]

Man this has soo much personality :} Love the color and expression ^.^

[Lockenheim]

I really love this little bird!

[marco_blanco]

It is actually a flightless bird in this story, so thats why they go up to the clouds together ☁️☁️🌤☁️🙂🐦☁️☁️☁️☁️

[snakker]

Oh wow, that little detail you mention just added a huge amount of character and emotion to this

[mitsuki-youko]

awe that is so cute!

[marco_blanco]

alright this is a cute one, a friend asked if I could make illustration of his childhood drawing to gift his father for christmas

[CYP2C19]

This is amazing!, I love how this came out, and I absolutely adore how you kept the original little rat head for the bar's logo!, such a small but amazing little touch.

[snakker]

This is really awesome
Love how you implemented value for the foreground and background plus the perspective to give the image depth

Cheers

[marco_blanco]

I must say posting it here and getting this feedback from my piers has been more satisfying than any social media interaction
So thankful to you for noticing

[Gordon003]

Love the sketching process to make the final piece!

If there's one I want to say, i don't know what's the main attention seeking thing in the piece. Like, what's the main story of this picture? If it's about the fighting on the right, then you can place more detail on fighting cloud (e.g. more shading depth) and be a bit more darker on the left hand to focus the audience eye on the fighting scene.

[marco_blanco]

That came from the client notes, when I was playing with the focus of the light he said he couldnt make up his mind since we made each character a reference to a member of his family, so I made the light and saturation more or less even, it's kind of a story without story without a main character xD

[marco_blanco]

I'm now experimenting with style a little bit, I am very torn, on one side I am happier with my art now than I have been in ages, I can solve problems without frustration, on the other one I feel like in order to sell my art I should focus on a lane that people can associate with me, but so much of my recent joy is from experimenting.

Any advice?

[marco_blanco]

If you have an opinion about my previous post I'd still like to hear from you: )
Here's the process for my last painting, this was a satisfying one!

[snakker]

Yoo awesome stuff!

I am still way too much of a noob both in art and in “the industry” to give you a well informed opinion on the style and experimentation issue. That said, I think you should always experiment anyways - especially if it gives you joy

Cheers

[daceronine]

Hey Marco! Just found the post. Seems you've been at this for a while now and have been clearly working hard at it. These is all really good work.

On regards to the this post, about experimenting and selling art. I'm probably not qualified enough to speak around "selling" art myself, however for what is worth, if I wanted to sell art, my two cents would be to go through popular forums (for example, Genshin Impact in reddit), see what people want to see, then post things you know are bound to bring attention, and potentially, clients.

When it comes to commerce, it's all about offering what people are willing to buy. There are also forums where people will tip with specific requests. Persist on your own marketing, and without doubt, clients will appear.

This should let you get some commissions, some experience, and you can then work your way from there, never losing focus of your own value (since clients are bound to haggle).

That is, of course, if it's about selling. Personally, I do digital art simply because I enjoy it, if people were to eventually like it enough to donate/buy things, great, but if not, I'm fine with it was well, since I'm doing it more for self satisfaction, for experimenting, and not really for the monetary benefit of it.

It's all about circumstances and what your goals are.

I'm curious, you started off pretty talented already, and have only improved. What term are you on currently? I'm just in term 2 myself. Still got a long way to go.

Whatever path you choose, make sure you are enjoying it, wether that's getting the satisfaction of successfully completing a commission, or the satisfaction of sharing art you enjoy to do.

Edit: fixed a lot of typos.

[marco_blanco]

that was a very comprehensive response! I've got a bit of fear into commiting to a corner of art... I don't have a niche that I'm interested on, I love trying different things, my musings may be more philosophical than practical, but is there a way of marketing myself without finding a corner of the internet and catering to them? make my own lane perhaps? xD

I'm still on my journey and I've done other courses besides Art School, I'm still on Term 5 at them moment, I have 0 complaints about the course thus far, keep it up

[daceronine]

Wow! term 5! that's great, I believe one of the final terms will have you create a portfolio worth enough to land you a job at a proffesional company. I'm eager to see what your portfolio end sup looking like!

On regards to the topic of marketing. I believe there is certainly a market for everything, though we must also be realistic and realize not all of these might be very profitable or be at our reach.

It's a very complex topic since it varies a lot with circunstance, skill and luck. Hardly any specific example applies to everyone.

There is certainly a way to carve your own path, but it's also usually dependant a lot on luck. Even if you are incredibly skilled, if you can't find people willing to fork up money for your work, it's hard to make a living out of it.

Providing a venue to monetize the work you enjoy to do is probably a good idea. Make sure these channels to funnel income are availabe and actually work, and promote your work shamelessly as much as you can. I'm personally looking into this myself, with Patreon, merchandise, donations and such, since I think most of us here have a desire to be able to live off what we love to do.

Sometimes you find and whale that helps, sometimes your style and skill is in great demand. Or none of these might happen and you might simply need to earn your living through other means in order to continue to carve what you want to do (this is kind of what I chose to do for now, since I kinda just want to do what I want and don't want to worry about if I'm earning enough to cover my expenses).

There is, unfortunatly, no easy answer on what is best for your situation.

I guess the best we can do is to keep trying different venues and keep pushing at them even if they don't always work out. We have to remember that success is built on failures, if you haven't tried and failed, it's going to be hard to succeed. While being realistic and making sure you have the means to not worry about what to live off. These usually involve something we don't necessarily enjoy, but hey, those bills need to be paid somehow.

That went longer than I expected. It's an interesting topic. Best of luck!