Designing a Logo—Step 1: Research

Recently a high school classmate contacted me asking if I'd design a logo for his church. Thankfully he said this was a paying job which brings me to a point.

With a few exceptions, I strongly believe that artists should ALWAYS charge for their work. If we don't charge for the work we do, the work is diminished. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to do a lot of art work for no pay. In the past I accepted those jobs but those days are over.

ALWAYS CHARGE FOR YOUR WORK, EVEN IF IT'S A SMALL AMOUNT!

OK, rant over!

My friend gave me some ideas and information about his church and the goals they wanted to achieve with the logo.

I didn't tell him that I've NEVER designed a logo for a genuinely professional situation but hey, he didn't need to know that, right?

Since this was a relatively new experience, I did some research to ensure that I completed this job as professionally as possible.

First, I looked up logo design best practices. I got a lot of great and helpful hints on how to proceed.

Once I knew this, I researched church logos and my friend's church specifically.

That research turned out to be essential because I learned an important piece of info about the church that wasn't told to me until much later in the process.

By looking up the church online, I discovered that on its property is a meditation garden that contains a stone labyrinth.

Once I learned that, I knew that a labyrinth had to be one of the design ideas! I was especially excited about this because I wanted to stay away from the common church symbols (steeple, cross, bible) that other church logos had used.

So my first suggestion for making a logo is: do your research! Spend as much time on this step as you need. Because this is the step that's going to get you the ideas that you execute later.

Modified Mentler Pelvis Grids

In this previous post I explained how using the Michael Mentler pelvis grids got me close to a proportionally correct drawing but not completely correct.

By placing his grids over pictures of real pelvises, I could see where his grid was off and make adjustments.

Here's the result:

After doing all of this measuring, however, I realized how time-consuming it is. Also, these grids are only for front-neutral and profile positions. What would I do if the pelvis was in another position?

That's when I decided on another approach to learning the intricacies fo the pelvis: just draw them, male and female, every day from every angle until it's embedded in my memory. I discovered that my drawings work best if I start with the placement of the sacrum; then do the inlet; then the rest.

Yup, it's that simple. And Proko's premium account helps a lot by providing images of the male and female pelvises in almost every conceivable position in addition to an online 3D tool that allows one to position both pelvises in any way:

For me, this is the best way to learn and understand the pelvis. By doing lots of drawings in lost of positions, I'll develop a feel for the parts, proportions and the sex differences between the pelvises. Then when I place the pelvis in a figure or conjure one from imagination, it's structure will come to me instinctively.

I Ordered A Modbook!

Part of doing the Proko Anatomy of the Human Body for Artists curriculum involves using a tablet to digitally draw over images.

To do this, I'm currently using a Wacom Intuos Pen & Touch Small tablet and Adobe Photoshop. It's become frustrating, however, because I've never gotten used to my hand drawing in one place and me looking in another.

So when I discovered that there is a Mac-based tablet AND computer, I was excited! This is the ONE gadget I genuinely need—and want—more than anything else (OK, except a smartphone. I was REALLY excited when the smartphone came out and I didn't have to carry both a flip phone and a palm pilot.)

Why hadn't I heard of the Modbook before? It's been around since 2008 and is a brand of a pen-enabled Mac tablet computers. It's an aftermarket Mac conversion based on certain models of the Macbook and Macbook Pro product lines manufactured by Apple.

Despite having just purchased a new iMac, I decided that the Modbook is worth the price since it will allow me the tablet and portability I so miss with the iMac. It will also make doing storyboards and animation a lot easier than my current system.

As I often do, I impulsively purchased one! Here's what I ordered:

I was impressed that Modbook contacted me 2 1/2 weeks after the order was placed to inform me that a vendor issue was delaying the harddrive. As a result, I was upgraded from a 480GB harddrive to a 750GB. Now that's what I call customer service!

In my haste to order, however, I didn't notice that the Mac OS wasn't the most recent. In fact, it's several generations behind. And I didn't notice this until weeks after placing the order.

I sent a concerned email to Modbook and they got back to me promptly. They explained that my order's current delay is due to them working on getting the most current OS operating on the computer. I wrote them back to please take the time they need to get this right because the computer will be of little use to me without the most recent, or close to recent, OS.

As of this writing (Dec. 17) I still have not received my Modbook ordered on Oct. 13. This does NOT bother me. This computer could be exactly what I need and I'm willing to wait as long as necessary for it to be right.

When I do finally get my Modbook, I'll make an unboxing video. Keep a lookout for it!

Learning to Draw the Pelvis with Michael Mentler a.k.a. "The Bone Doctor"

As I explained in this previous post, doing the Proko "Bucket" method to find the bony landmarks of the pelvis wasn't working for me. I was struggling to get the correct shape of the top ellipse and without that shape correct, the rest of the drawing falls apart.

So instead of using The Bucket, I thought I'd just draw the pelvis based on observing my skeleton:

I liked the how the drawings were coming out but…I still felt like I was guessing about proportions and the locations of the parts. I felt like I wasn't fully understanding the pelvis.

Out of frustration, I searched for other measuring methods for drawing the pelvis and surprisingly found only one: Michael Mentler's pelvis grids.

Mentler created a front/neutral position and a profile position grid, based on the head measurement, to draw the pelvis proportionally correct:

Hooray, another method! Just what I was looking for!

I deciphered Mentler's handwriting and did drawings based on his measurements:

His grids got me close to a correct drawing but they were off in some ways.

Then I decided to test the grid over a picture of a real pelvis instead of a drawing or my skeleton:

These drawings showed where the Mentler grid was off and how it could be improved.

In my next post, I'll show you the pelvis grids I developed based on the Mentler measurements.

Women in Animation Presents…Rich Johnson

On November 14, 2017, the School of Visual Arts hosted Women in Animation's presentation by Rich Johnson.

Johnson is a former Vice President of Book Trade Sales at DC Comics who has been credited with popularizing the graphic novel genre in mainstream bookstores and libraries. During his tenure, DC Comics had their first New York Times Bestseller with Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman: Endless Nights. He also co-founded and was Co-Publishing Director for Yen Press and co-founded the magazine Yen Plus. 

Johnson is now the Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development for Lion Forge Comics. He was the Co-Founder and Co-Publishing Director for Yen Press, the graphic novel and manga imprint for Hachette Book Group.Johnson gave an informative presentation about the history of the graphic novel. Here are my takeaways:

1. The only difference between a graphic novel and a comic is the binding. A comic is stapled (saddle stitched) and a graphic novel is perfect bound.

2. The first example of sequential art telling a single story is English artist William Hogarth's "A Harlot's Progress" from 1732. It's a series of six paintings and engravings that shows the story of a young woman, M. Hackabout, who arrives in London from the country and becomes a prostitute.

3. As a result of the unfavorable press following the 1954 United States Senate comic book hearings, comics publishers chose to self-censor. This explains why many 50's comics are goofy.

4. Neal Adams made comics more realistic in 1969 with his "Hard-Traveling Heroes" era of the team of Green Lantern and Green Arrow.

5. The father of the graphic memoir is Harvey Pekar.

6. Book stores sell more graphic novels than comic book stores.

7. Neil Gaiman's alternating between graphic novels and prose books contributed to the legitimacy of graphic novels.

8. The industry forgot that comics are for kids. The industry is now moving more toward teens.

And what about creating your own work and publishing it? Johnson's answer echoes what many others have said:

JUST.

DO.

IT!

Challenges in Learning to Draw the Pelvis Using Proko's "The Bucket"

It’s been a bumpy road since this post from September about me struggling to understand the pelvis, spine and ribcage lessons in the Proko Anatomy of the Human Body for Artists course.

Soon after that post, I decided that I'd learn anatomy superficially to get through it faster and then return to it as needed to learn it more in-depth.

So I continued past my flimsy understanding of the pelvis, spine and ribcage and moved on to the good stuff—muscles!—and specifically to the pectorals.

BIG!

MISTAKE!

To reinforce what I'd learned about bones, I tried to them in my pectoral studies. But it became clear that I hadn’t learned much! I kept guessing where to put stuff. For every angle, I had no idea what to put where! Ugh! 

It was clear that the “learn-the-basics-now-and-the-details-later” approach was NOT going to work.

The time to gain a firm grasp on this material and learn it in-depth is NOW.

So I took a step back and re-learned the bones.

First I tried Proko's "The Bucket" method of drawing a simplified pelvis. Although it's an easy-to-remember system that gets your bony landmarks placed properly, I consistently had trouble getting the top ellipse drawn correctly. Without that right, the rest of the bucket doesn't work. Like these sad attempts:

I screamed, "There's got to be another way!" And a search online turned up only one other method.

I'll talk about this other pelvis-drawing method in my next post!