Not in this for the warm fuzzies: an Open Letter to teachers everywhere

So as some of you know, I recently became an instructor at my alma mater.  In the eight (nine?) months I’ve been here, I’ve learned a lot about my chosen profession, graphic design, and I’ve also learned quite a lot about student-teacher interaction.
Specifically, I’ve learned that not every student is the same; some must be handled with kid gloves in order to avoid ‘breaking’ them.  Some can take a hardy critique, using the feedback they receive to help better their design and further themselves as designers.  Others cringe away from any interaction at all, remaining silent in class, in the lab, and producing sub-par work because they’re too shy and too afraid of criticism to ever step forward and ask for help.
Do I wish that I could offer the support that those painfully shy student require?  Yes I do.  I hate to see any of my students fall behind; I hate to see any of them show substandard work come presentation day, and I hate knowing that they probably aren’t going to have a career outside of college because of their crippling inability to simply ask for and receive help.
Some students consider themselves to be the end-all and be-all of graphic design; when I critique their work they become angry, storming out of my lab in a huff and vowing never to sit in my class again.
How do I deal with such behavior?  It’s simple: I let it slide off of me.
As instructors, we have to realize that we’re never going to make all of our students happy, but in this industry, it’s vital that a student learn how to properly express him or herself to a client.  In order to be a good graphic designer, you have to divorce yourself from your personal feelings about a piece you designed; your client, nine times out of ten, does not know anything about graphic design.  You client wants what your client wants… and God help you if you’re that graphic designer who doesn’t interview your potential client for at least an hour before taking a job.
The foundations of design are vitally important; a designer must learn them, know them, and retain them.  The foundational design principles must become second nature in everything a designer does.  Typography, hierarchy of information, color choices, layout, and consideration of whether a piece is to be for print or for online display are the very minimal concerns that a designer must always have in his or her head… but design itself is of secondary importance to knowing why the foundational design principles work the way they do.  Why is that?
Because as a graphic designer, you have to deal with clients that don’t know a single thing about design.  You have to be able to justify your design decisions to a client beyond “Well it just looks good!” or “It’s a great design and you don’t know anything so shut up!”  (And believe me, I’ve heard both of those and more from students.  When it happens I just look them in the eye and tell them that, as their imaginary client, I’ve just fired them and they’re about to be escorted by security from the premises.)
I live my life in ten-week chunks; from the first week a student enters my classroom to the final week of exams and presentations, everything is geared toward helping the student understand why graphic design works the way it does, so that three years from then, when a client is asking for some God-awful design, the former student can then politely and knowledgeably explain why that won’t work and suggest alternatives that do.  Even then, it’s not always guaranteed that a client will listen; sometimes, no matter what you do and what you say, a client just wants to stick a rabbit somewhere on their logo even though it makes things lopsided.  Your job as a graphic designer is not to argue to the point of frustration or to fire the client; it’s to figure out how to incorporate their insane ideas into your design as if it happened by plan.  One of the things I always tell my students when they’re giving a presentation and something goes wrong is, never say ‘oops.’  As a designer, you should be able to just roll with anything that comes up, organically; there’s no such thing as a mistake in design.  Merely an opportunity.
As a teacher, I’m not in this for the warm fuzzies.  I’m certainly not in this for the money.  Most nights I go home frustrated at my students, at their design, and at the politics that keep me from telling them what I really think of their art in a lot of cases.  I’m sure my students go home frustrated as well.
And that’s the point.  If, as a college student, you’re not going home angry and frustrated every night and pounding your pillow because you can’t live up to your instructors’ expectations, then you’re not doing college right.  If you don’t care, if you just want a passing grade, if you just want to squeeze through the cracks in the system and squeak by with a diploma you really didn’t put the effort into earning, that is entirely your prerogative.  After all, you’re the one paying the tuition.
…But if you want to learn, if you want to really really learn, then come to my class, take my critique, listen to my suggestions, learn how to hold a discourse with someone intelligently, take notes, make a scrapbook of things that inspire you, experiment, try new things, look at the classics, and always try to better yourself.
Do those things, and you will become a designer.  A good designer.

Stop tracking me down, craziness.

I mean, I try to be a good retired villain; I'm not too enthusiastic about some Rorschach wannabe bursting out of my refrigerator in the middle of the night thirty years from now.  I've plainly laid down that I'm retired (though that doesn't mean that I can't still be on speaking terms with either side of this nutty little community,) and that anyone stupid enough to try and draw me out of retirement is going to discover really quickly that in the real world, the cops don't go in for your shtick like your Youtube audience does.

Having said that, why the hell is Phoenix Jones continually popping up EVERYWHERE?!  Seriously.  What the hell is UP with that?  The guy is appearing in blogs I read that aren't even remotely connected to the RLSH or RLSV communities.  He's either the biggest fame-whore this side of Portland (Actually, I believe he is, since Seattle is closer to me than Portland...  Huh.) Or he's actively trying to figure out how to appear in as many of my RSS feeds as possible, even the ones that are about yarn and kittens and shit like that.

Yes.  I subscribe to the occasional yarn and kitten blog.  Back up; you don't know me.

Now, Phoenix Jones is talked about by Rainn Wilson on Jimmy Kimmel Live, which pretty much guarantees that Jimmy Kimmel himself is going to ask Phoenix Jones on to the program at some point in the near future. (Jimmy Kimmel and Rainn Wilson both being Seattleites, along with Phoenix Jones himself.)
Now, I don't ask too much in life; I only want a nice warm place I can work nine or ten hours a day, a nice warm place to lay my head at night, food on the table, gas in my car, and the occasional chuckle at idiots in spandex.  What I didn't ask out of life is to somehow be cosmically and karmically pursued by this moronic juicehead who seems intent on taking over the entirety of the Internet.

Phoenix Jones, get the blue hell off of my everything.

Elder God Rap Battles

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Correction on the Sarah Palin blog.

Thanks to reader Bluiis, (Again, Carol, is that you?) I see that this story was in fact one of the Internet's many hoaxes.
Website Super Tuesday News, an Onion wannabe, originally posted this story as a hoax and it sucked in a lot of people, including me.  Of course this brings to mind the importance of proper research before posting, but then again I'm a blogger and therefore not bound by any sort of journalistic integrity.

It's raining snails from the sky!  Uzbekistan is behind the snail-raining plot!  There; see how easy it is?

Michael Jackson - Thriller (A Cappella)

Take notes, Glee kids.

THIS is how you do Michael Jackson's Thriller a Capella.

P.S.  You suck.

Please don't vote this idiot into the presidency.

Um, wat?

DALLAS, TX - Potential 2012 presidential candidate Sarah Palin says that if she were president, she would deport pop star Christina Aguilera for botching a portion of The Star-Spangled Banner during her performance at Super Bowl XLV. Making an appearance on Sean Hannity’s radio program on Monday, Palin pointedly criticized Aguilera’s gaffe, and called her out for exhibiting ‘diva behavior.’

“Quite frankly, Sean, public figures must be held accountable for what they say,” explained Palin. “Here’s another case of an airhead diva going on TV, running her mouth off, sounding like a fool. She doesn’t understand something so basic about America, yet we’re supposed to tolerate her diva behavior? Americans can see through that, Sean.”

Palin also levied criticism on the Obama administration for allowing “spicy Latin princesses” to do the jobs of American pop divas. “Unemployment is at nine percent, yet we have to suffer through a performance by a foreigner with a poor grasp of the English language? If I were president, I’d deport Ms. Aguilera back to wherever it is she’s from and give Amy Smart a call.”

You do realize she was born in New York, right?  And that bumbling your words (as embarrassing as it is when singing the national anthem,) is not necessarily the same thing as running your mouth off?

Also, I was not aware that Amy Smart was even a singer.  I guess you learn something new every day.

Adventures in Teaching 02-08-2011

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This happened the other day.  Not a fun five minutes of my life.

Thank you, Photoshop Science.

Hey, did you guys know that the complete Cosmos is available on Hulu.com right now?
What?  You've never watched Casmos and you have no idea who Carl Sagan is?

By Science, it's about time you learned!

Also, Carl Sagan with an armored bear.  Just because.

By the way, that there colored text up top is a link directly to the page on Hulu. Click it for Science-y justice.

Superman Classic

 I wholeheartedly love this and am now dying to see more.

Jackass doesn't deserve to have a dog.

Do you see this adorbale Corgi? His name is Corky.
I found him tied up in the blistering sunlight outside the library this morning.
He had no water and he was going crazy trying to get away from the leash you tied him to.

You're very lucky I didn't call the sherrif's department.  Heck, you're lucky the library's manager put out a call over the PA system for you to come get Corky; if she had waited a few more seconds to take action I would have called the sherrif's department... which, incidentally, was right across the street from the library.

Next time you get it in your head to abuse an animal, remember that there are those of us out there that won't put up with that crap and will have your dog taken away from you so you can't abuse him any more.

Jackass.

Funny story: as the spider went flying away, I'm fairly certain I heard him shout "EXTREME!"

So, someone tagged my house last night.  As we were leaving for breakfast, my wife gasped and pointed out the vandalism.

Our fence has been tagged before, but never the house itself.  Giant orange and black... squiggles.  All over the side of the thing.

...Which, of course, just makes me want to figure out which gang sports those colors so I can track them down and ask them to at least make a little effort with their vandalism, maybe drive them down to Chicano Park, show them this fascinating book about the history of graffiti... seriously, if you've got it in your head to mark up someone's house, at least try to not come across as an epileptic octopus.  Make it inventive and visually interesting to look at.

Oh, and tag someone else's house next time.

Jake Shimabukuro plays "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Blah.

A quick preview

Today I've been working on some concept sketches for the character redesigns, and one of the sketches I've been working on is an action scene with three of the main characters, Stanto, Adam, and Chimbly running from a troll.
Just a quick preview of the image so you know I'm still alive!

 
In other news, drawing with the tablet:

The art of Stanto Pigwalter: blog 1

So, my normal style is very cartoon-y, with very little regard for anatomy, perspective, or realism.  It's fast, fun, and it communicates the message I want to get across.

For The Adventures of Stanto Pigwalter, I had decided to fuse my normal style with a slightly more realistic take, since a lot of the story is quite serious and action-packed. (Though it certainly has its fair share of slapstick and humor to balance that out.)

One of the invaluable resources I've been using for a long time is Edweard Muybridge's Human Figure in Motion, (published in 1955 by Dover Publications, it has since slipped into public domain and is available for free download in PDF form here.)  For the artist who loves thousands of different facial expressions, I recommend Mark Simon's Facial Expressions: A Visual Reference for Artists.  This book is not available online (at least not legally,) but if you can order it through Amazon, it's very much worth it.

Muybridge's famous photographs have helped aspiring artists for years to be able to grasp the nuances of the human figure in motion (aspiring: too poor to pay for life drawing classes) and has been an invaluable addition to my own collection, as my style (as stated before,) is not necessarily the most realistic of things.

Anyway, since I'm gearing up to start re-drawing The Adventures of Stanto Pigwalter, I figured I'd share a little concept art I was fiddling around with this afternoon.  Now, the art itself isn't any of the characters from my story, but rather a self-portrait.

First of all, I take the photographic image (here blurred and censored in case there are younger readers in the audience.)

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Next, I take the image into Photoshop (this can also be done on paper, but I feel that I've grasped the Wacom tablet enough now that I can begin to do this digitally,) and draw an armature over the original photo in non-reproducible blue (again, I picked this habit up from my time doing this by hand, where actual non-repro blue pencils are as good as gold when sketching.)

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Here, we can begin to see the way that the musculature works, and we can begin penciling in some of the finer detail, to be reproduced in our final linework.  At this stage, I add in the face and begin the process of shading the image.

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Finally, when the sketching is done, I turn off the armature reference and do some light correcting to get the proportions correct and the shading process along.

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Finally, when the shading is through and matched up to the original photograph, I can turn the photo layer off and finish up any detail work that still needs to be done.

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Et Voilà!  The finished piece.  As you can see, it has a sense of realism while retaining some of the cartoon-y quality of my normal artwork... and that's really the point, at the end of the day.  An artist should never attempt to ape someone else's style entirely, not even if said style is the realism of a photograph.  In doing that, the art loses any quality of life it may have had in it.  An artist can take a photographic reference (or really, any reference,) and apply his or her own style to that reference, to make the piece his or her own.  The Adventures of Stanto Pigwalter is the largest project I've ever worked on, and I hope to bring a whole new artistic edge to the piece.

Penciling, Inking, and Adventuring.

So, those of you that have known me for a while have inevitably heard me mention the project I've been working on since 2003, The Adventures of Stanto Pigwalter.

The idea for the story came to me in Iraq, when a friend introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons, showing me how character creation, adventuring, and character development is done.  Stanto was born that night, when I wrote down his name for the first time; I plucked it out of the air, a gibberish mishmash of syllables that would grow in my mind steadily over the course of the next eight years.

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Originally, Stanto's tale was not going to be drawn; originally I was planning on writing his travels down in novel format, but after I realized that I had absolutely no gift for writing believable prose, I scrapped it in favor of a graphic novel, or novel in comic book form.
Stanto started out as the generic Luke Skywalker-type character, a simple farmboy that had adventure thrust upon him.  I realized of course that the Luke Skywalkers of the literary world have been done to death, so I instead took the premise of a simple farmboy and turned it on its head, changing him from a farmboy to a morally bankrupt thief who used "innocent farmboy" as a cover story.
I've always been a doodler, an amateur cartoonist, but working on this comic for the last eight years has taught me a lot about anatomy, visual dynamics and how to make things POP on paper.
I'm still very much an amateur, but Stanto and his merry band (who in the intervening years have swelled from three people to over ten,) refuse to give me a moment's peace until I get it down.
I'm very honored that such a cool story idea chose me to bring it to life, and I can't wait to start bringing Stanto and his adventures to you.

Watch this space for further developments and news.

Adventures in Teaching 01-22-2011

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This message brought to you by the Dean of Academics, reminding you to GET BACK TO WORK.

Adventures in Teaching 01-21-2011

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Presented without comment.

Adventures in Teaching 01-20-2011

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Disclaimer: No, I do not have a totally rad Helvetica tattoo, nor is this nonexistent tattoo written in the wrong typeface, but I've actually been thinking about doing this for a long time.

In a parallel universe, this conversation actually happened.

Adventures in Teaching 01-19-2011

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I swear, you mess around with HTML code and it messes with you back; you start seeing everything how it would be coded in a computer and even your conversations sound different after about ten or twelve hours of poking around in the stuff.
Anyone out there have a similar experience?  Is there anything else that gets in your head like this and refuses to get the heck out?

Adventures in Teaching 01-18-2011

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Yeah, don't be the jackass that ends up doing this.  Always keep in mind whether you're writing on your board or projecting on your screen; if you mix the two up, they tend to take it out of your paycheck.

...Not that I'd know anything about that personally, of course.

If you could master one skill what would it be?

Kung Fu. I'd love to be able to knock a rhino through a brick wall with my pinky.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/smeagol92055

Adventures in Teaching 01-17-2011

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Hi, and welcome to Adventures in Teaching, my new comic blog!
Here I'll share comics, stories, and occasionally graphic design advice.  Also available will be a Formspring link, found here, for anyone who wants to ask me any questions.  Graphic design, life, cooking, whatever's on your mind, ask away!

-S