Cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier has written a great post on what he uses when he’s working. Everything from paper to pencils. You can read it here.

IGI Member David McClelland show us an original way of standing out with your marketing materials.
For me business cards get old really quickly. Now being an artist I should include a piece of work on my business cards but if it takes me a year to move a bunch of cards that image can suddenly get old and irrelevant. My solution was to print out blank business cards and use them as a mini sketchbook creating individual pieces of art reflecting the time, my surrounding and what I’m thinking about.

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The perfect antidote to the current snow induced blues is sipping a hot port and listening to the Christmas special edition of “Ireland’s No.1 comics podcast” THE COMIC CAST. Regular SCAMP contributors Liam & Craig lure us into their lair with a fantasticly sung duet intro and follow it up with some tasty reviews and recommendations from the world of comics, as well as the latest comics related news. Listen directly on their blog or subscribe via iTunes.

The blurb…

“Andy Williams had one. Cliff Richard too. And by golly we’re ten times better than Cliff Richard. So fall on your knees, hear the angels voices – it’s the Comic Cast Christmas Special! Where, from beside a roaring fire, we review Lint by Chris Ware, The Little Prince by Joann Sfar, My New New York Diary by Julie Doucet and Michel Gondry as well as the latest in Irish comics – Windells’ Supernatural Showcase by Gar Shanley and Cathal Duggan, Finn and Fish by Leeann Hamilton, Eclectic Micks Sketchbook Volume 2, Something Wonderful Eats Babies by Tommie Kelly and Other Work by John Cullen. After dinner we’ll be watching (and reviewing) A Town Called Panic on DVD and MegaMind 3D. And what would Christmas be without family? Cartoonist extraordinaire Bob Byrne joins us direct from his villa in Spain to talk about his latest book  Dr. Moku’s Hiragana Mnemonics and his current online comic saga Today we worship Michael Landon.”

Illustration by Stephen Byrne (who’s recent parody of RTE TV’s Fade Street please me no end)

Only kidding, recently Kevin McSherry was was invited to give a talk about his work to illustration and animation students at Ballyfermot College. He has put a post up on his blog outlining his presentation and he doesn’t hold back on his views of the current working environment for illustrators and is full of advice for the next generation. A must read…

Never work for free. If there’s no financial gain, then negotiate some other reward, whether it’s some advertising, PR or other contra-deal that suits you. There’s often something that could be of value but it has to be negotiated from a position of your daily rate. People don’t respect work that’s given for free and many have a tendency to abuse artists who fall for this sort of bolloxology. If some bullying twit [who happens to be paid regularly by the way] suggests that being published in their magazine/newspaper/advert will be a ‘great shop window for you’ or ‘a great portfolio piece’, or an ‘in’, ask them to quantify the greatness exactly in terms of cash. If there’s no benefit at all; walk away.

For the full post go here.

Escape from Illustration Island has posted a series of handy articles recently including Sample Contract for Illustrators and Graphic Designers, How to Protect Yourself with a Solid Contract, Things to Consider When Pricing Your Work, How To Work With A Client’s Tight Budget, How to Educate Your Clients.

The Society of Illustrators in NY have taken their excellent lecture series, featuring some of the best and biggest names in the industry, and are streaming it for free online. Current lectures include:
February 10, 2009 – Becky Cloonan and Nathan Fox on Comics. 
February 4, 2009 – The Evolution of The New York Times Op-Ed Page with Art Directors Jerelle Kraus and J-C Suares and Artist Brad Holland. 
November 18, 2008 - Art Directing and Illustrating with Nicholas Blechman and Max Bode. 
November 5, 2008 – Character Design, Animation and Toy Design. With Paul Budnitz (kidrobot) and Mark Graham (ilovedust). 
October 22, 2008 – A Conversation About the Fine Art of Children’s Book Illustration with Dilys Evans. 
October 16, 2008 - The Original Art 2008:Celebrating the FIne Art of Children’s Book Illustration. September 10, 2008 - Hanoch Piven.

Philipp Lenssen of Comic Browser has compiled a small series of John Romita Jr.’s scamps for Marvel comics covers compared with the final printed covers. Go trawl through the rest of his site, its a veritable treasure trove of comic book covers. Go get lost and nostalgic for a few hours!

“Plunking yourself down in front of a pad of paper and scraping the inside of your brain is probably not the most effective way of generating ideas.”

So says Jillian Tamaki on her sketchblog, where she reproduces a handout produced for a talk she gave on concept generation at Parsons in NYC. As she says herself “everyone works differently” but it’s an interesting to see her process and maybe get a few tips along the way.

Via Drawn.

Agence Eureka blog has posted a wonderful collection of early French papercraft. You can see more on Flickr. The craft is still as popular as ever it seems; see the likes of Paper Foldables, Cubeecraft, or the realistic paper portraits of Bert Simons.

Ok so this is vaguely illustrational, but the good news from Wired Magazine is that the Tutorial/Comedy series ‘You Suck at Photoshop’ is set to return June 27th. Above is the last episode for your viewing pleasure. If you’re new to the series you can check out episode one here.