Right, I have some opinion about SENSES, unlike Fine Art, commercial art does not rely on inspiration, the term visual senses is too abstract to define drawing especially for Illustration need.

Digital illus is not the same as conventional art materials and lecturers from the older time is not experienced enough in digital as they do with art materials, if you merely replace the tools, then you are not benefiting from software technology and everything about the Principe is true except technique.

If you only want to explore digital illustration than design, you must learn all about RGB to CMYK, file type and compression. A lot of people still don't understand the relation between dpi resolution to pixel ratio.

Some one who worked as a multimedia artist in a publishing firm for five years still confuse about this issue because they thought what you see is what you get.

To see if you really understand colours, why is red = hot or blue = cold? Don't tell me because you lecturer told you so.

This post has been edited by 3dassets: Dec 2 2009, 04:53 PM

CMYK channel can achieve 4 colours black, you may paint in RGB spectrum to gain all the colours of light and convert to CMYK and manage the channel manually, if you do it in CMYK instead, you won’t achieve certain blending effects because the colour mode prevent non printable colours and it falls in the category photo enhancement after painting, particularly Photoshop (its intended purpose not a disadvantage).

Why paint in non printable colours in the first place? This is the difference between software and conventional material, digital imaging is written based on the science of light while art material is deflected from a surface by chemical and pigment which does not glow like light, thus layers of opaque and transparent colours is used to achieve consistence atmosphere / mood otherwise the painting will look like patches of colours than a coherence scene.

Material based painting technique involve mixing on the canvas and glazing as final touch and commercial illustration tends to lean towards airbrushing rather than oil or acrylic but no such difference in digital where you can achieve both effects, in short, if you pick the colour you need and apply to the area then blend, you will lose its brilliancy exactly like using art material which defies the advantage of software technology, instead, you can paint in grey and convert them into full colour using layer blending and colour filter.

Achieving the best result in the shortest time is a must in commercial illustration not replacing conventional art materials with computer and practice the same technique, digital does not have the physical and chemical limit of art material and need to capture / scan where the result is deflected lights.
Relying on the printer / colour separator to determine the final reproduction is an excuse where there is “icc colour profile” matching monitor to print, the reason of low wages is because of the production time and its market value, if the job scope revolved in books, comic and print commercials and I wonder how long can an artist remain in such industry.

Create own publication when you are up to it than rely on existing market is where the hope is or risk repeating the same cycle like another Illustrator, I heard a familiar artist from my time committed suicide, his name is Peter Yong if not mistaken.

I was the first batch from Tatsun Studio in 1988, that means I am your grandpa. The second batch formed another art college named Dasign, they are your former lecturer.

So you are doing the job I left behind since 1996 and I became a lecturer too at other art school, TOA is too proud of themselves and never wish to share, and in the end I am sure you heard the story.

I am certain Tatsun or Loong Wun would be very surprised that I am still alive and advancing, They thought I was gone long time ago and they fail to secure international client with their illustration studio.

The fact is when your pair of hands stop drawing / working so as your income and do you have to buy your way in? That is why I gave up, cannot compete and are you represented by anyone? They are the one who kill most of the illustrators.

Maybe the cloud is clear when you came into the illustration scene but the money culture in advertising agencies remains. I have no example because I am among the pioneer and the one who die first, but I prevailed and took so long to proved that I was right.