This short excerpt from Yuko Shimizu‘s blog post considers the importance of developing a unique visual vocabulary. After reading this article, consider how you can use your sketchbook as a tool to developing your own visual vocabulary. What kind of things are you interested in drawing? What visuals might become important visual signatures for you? Write a few sentences considering these things.
Post your thoughts on this along with your Sketchbook Pages.
“ I believe many of you who are reading my blog are aspiring illustrators. If you are, here is something you may want to remember, or to work on, if your art school instructors haven’t taught you already: we have to be remembered by something we are good at, so when a prospective client sees a topic that needs to be illustrated, they know who to call.
The most obvious themes prospective clients think of in connection with my work are Japanese or Chinese themes. I am Japanese, but I had also studied Cantonese for three years, and I have strong interest in Chinese culture. And people somehow see that in my work. There are other themes, like sexy girls, action and sports, comic-book look, snow, and water and underwater themes.”
The things i like to draw are people and weapons and i could practice drawing these people and weapons in my sketchbook to develop my own visual vocabulary. personally i’m interested in drawing villainous characters and creating bad guys with ridiculously impractical weapons. The visuals i believe that would become important visual signatures for me would be small details in muscle structure and weapon handles.
The things i like to draw are people and weapons and i could practice drawing these people and weapons in my sketchbook to develop my own visual vocabulary. personally i’m interested in drawing villainous characters and creating bad guys with ridiculously impractical weapons. The visuals i believe that would become important visual signatures for me would be small details in muscle structure and weapon handles.
I’m interested in drawing people, which Is what I’m working on a lot on right now. I’m also interested in drawing fantasy characters, environments such as buildings, trees etc. mostly objects people use everyday. The visuals that would be important would be clothing, and body structure for characters. For environments, it would be details of buildings and landscape structure
Most of the things that I draw is with the intention of creating discomfort but it does not have to be weird or creepy. Usually, it contains animals, bones, masks, exaggerated facial expressions and any type of horns. Also, I am interested in some aspects of Japanese style such as the representation of water, fire, smoke, and other elements.
Things that I am interested to draw are flowers and character/people, mostly female. But most of the time, they are showing their backs with different kind of hairstyles; with or without a natural background. The visuals that would be important would be the different type of hairstyles and clothing on the character since the face is not my strength.
The things I am interested in drawing are people and anime characters. I love drawing people because everyone is unique as far as their appearances and facial expression, and to be able to capture that in a sketch is beautiful. I love drawing anime characters because I love anime and there is so much creativity and action that comes along making such characters, their style, poses, expressions, just everything to composes who they are.
The things I’m interested in drawing are historically and fantasy inspired. I like a lot of historic things, and my art is often revolved around it. I like to draw people dressed in old fashioned clothes and draw backgrounds influenced by old photography. From time to time I like to mix it up with something from fantasy, such as magic, or creatures. I also like to draw animals and nature, but the visuals that might become important signatures for me are those with something historic.
I am most interested in drawing between the alternating people/weapons/clothing. I am very interested in fantasy based things and the mythologies. The detail in the armors and weapons of fantasy norse and greek are amazing and drawing this often would show my visual style. The small details in the buildings and the body types of the gods are very eye catching and I want to make drawing people like that my strength.
I personally like to draw portraits (semi-realism) and full figured characters in my own unique “cartoon-ish , anime-ish” style. I Personally think what identifies me with my Illustration, what people will find and automatically know it’s my style, are the pen/pencil stroke weights along with my “bubbly” shading. I like drawing children and other cute things so I guess that’s where it derived from. It’s like how Yuko Shimizu , whose style is inspired by east asian Illustration style, mine is more of “bubbly” and “fluffy” and inspired from Japanese anime (studio Ghibli). \(TTwTT)/
Things I am Interested in drawing are comic book and manga style Characters. I have always loved the over dramatization that both styles bring to the table and the amount of detail each have even though they may not be the most realistic. The visuals that would be most important would be drawing the different poses, faces, and hair styles. Also the heavy ink style that some comics and manga’s provide.
I tend to draw a lot of characters/people. Depending on what story I’m working on I switch between a realistic style, a western cartoon style, and an anime style. Also recently I’ve been developing an interest in drawing real life portraits. I think people would tend to recognize my work through the style of my line art and how I draw males since I tend to draw them more than females.