With what has happened on deviantart, do you think instagram is a good alternative to use as an art portfolio? (I know this is an undertale blog, but i saw you commented about this and i want to know your opinion)

Well, I don't use instagram--so I can only give you my vague impression. but...

The long and short of it is that no, i don't think instagram is a good portfolio site. my thoughts on why below the cut:

As i understand it, instagram relies heavily on constant activity on your newest posts to feed its algorithm so you get any kind of visibility. people going back to look at and interact with your oldest works may actually punish you? somehow??? (i shouldn't have to explain how dumb that is XD) from what i've heard, you basically have to post every day, which inflicts a terrible pressure to constantly perform and produce, making huge demands on your time, and that's 100% a fast-track to burnout. If people can make it work for them that's great, but that's not how I'd want to live, and it's just not possible for many others. so if you can't meet these demands, your art gets buried and impossible to discover, and older works that might still be amazing never get seen.

Furthermore, as far as I know you can't really use it on desktop. if you try to post a large piece or paint digitally, it may be hard to upload, and many people will only be viewing it on their phone screens... not ideal for anything with a lot of detail. So it wouldn't show your art in the best light if you do larger pieces like that.

and finally, instagram is owned by facebook. if you don't want to give facebook any more data on you than they already try to collect, don't use instagram :'D

it sucks that deviantart no longer seems to be the best place to post art--and that there are no clear alternatives. There are options, sure, but I don't know how well they work or if they're particularly friendly. Deviantart, at the very least (and for better or worse), was always where anyone could post, no matter their skill level and interests.

Anyway, if you just want a place to post only your art (and not mix it in with other types of posts), you can always make a sideblog here on tumblr; if you want something more "professional" to display your best works, you might look into making a little website for yourself. there should be options to do so that are either free or pretty low-cost, though i haven't looked into it recently so i don't know what's out there. It'd be more intensive to set up, but you'd have more control.

them's my thoughts on the matter; what you do with them is up to you, but hopefully they've helped ^^;

Hi Eva,

I have a fee questions regarding your wonderful work. I'm currently working on my visdev portfolio, but going a bit insane thinking about keeping my artstyle consistent if i'd ever be hired. I just looked through your background paintings and wondered how you keep your backgrounds in a consistent style. I love your nature studies too, and they look so different from your work pieces... More free and explorational. Is it difficult to keep up the habit of learning new techniques and exploring styles once you're on a job? I'm so full of ideas and feel like sometimes the idea would require a certain style/technique to be pulled off in the best way. Do you feel that too sometimes and is it restricting in a way to then keep the style of the paintings the same.

Would love to hear your thoughts on that!! :)

Hi Eekonis!

First off: don't worry! I don't think consistency is an issue... I feel like any artist no matter the level, feels like their work is all over the place. I think of consistency more like per project, rather than overall my work. 

If you're interested in vis dev, a good way to showcase your work in a portfolio and not feel overwhelmed and all over the place, is to create just one project. I saw in your portfolio the bat story exploration, that's great! Just pick one of the ideas you have. Truth is we never feel ready to do something and we postpone and ruminate, but you have to start somewhere. My friend always says, "vain tee se" (just do it) and that's really all there is. Imagine your story as a film/TV (or game, or comic, but you have to choose one), and make designs and paintings of how you imagine it. You can try searching for visual development portfolios and see what other professional artists have included in theirs, there's so many ways to go about it. From the top of my head I'm thinking Aurelien Predal, Marie Thorhauge, Scott Watanabe, Kevin Roualland, Sylvain Marc. Also art books of movies or shows you like are really useful. There's a lot of art of movies and artists, tutorials etc collected in character design references website, from all around the world.

If your own idea feels too vague or the story is not set and you get stuck on it, you could also choose an existing story like a fairytale or a novel. Try to be intentional with your pictures - you want to be clear and tell a story after all, you want people to feel like they get to know the characters and the world from just one picture, and they really want to know the full story. In your portfolio, I like your bat story explorations and it seems cool, but it's currently missing some characterization and story. It would be a good idea to illustrate story moments or character design that really shows the personality, gesture, acting. And when you create environments, make them feel lived and inhabited, give them just as strong mood and character as you would to characters. 

Consistency within a project is just about setting rules and limitations, some of them come from the ability and skill. Others are more like, what brushes to use, what are the visual goals, influences and references. You can go pretty far in breaking down how pictures are made and what makes a style. For example, why do Ghibli movies look like Ghibli? What kind of color palettes, compositions, camera angles, tools were used? How realistic/cartoony is it? There’s internal logic to everything designed, and with practise it becomes more visible.

I don't know if I intentionally try to learn new styles all the time. I'm generally just motivated by doing what I think is fun or what I want some piece to say about story, character or my own feelings and trying to do it best I can. It sounds simple but... if the goal is to do something really well, then I just do my best to learn it. There are some styles that I really love and think are amazing, but would probably take decades to pull off and I just accept that I don't really want to go that way, and I focus on things that I really want to keep at. It's always possible to switch directions, but to get good at something you have to commit to one thing at a time. 

So yes, I face my limitations all the time. I'm very familiar with feeling like, so and so would do better job, someone is always better than me for sure. Sometimes it is painful to not be able to draw or paint in a way I want. I think this probably never changes, it's just human nature. But I dunno, some people get satisfaction from making AI do their project in the style they want, but if I was able to do something in a snap of fingers, like just get the perfect style for my project, it wouldn't feel good to me. I guess I want the full experience of suffering and joy of figuring things out myself. Sometimes it will suck and hurt, but you learn more about yourself and it'll get easier to recognize what you really want to make. Then, you can always do a little bit better next time.