o64. TIPS ON PRO-DOM

Hints for Pro-dom @ MO:
1. Hang around a bit before applying. Show us some of your skills, let us have a taste of your style and also let us get to know who you are as an artist. While yes, we do have an application process, we will look at your previous works as well.
2. Do well on your application and put forth your very best effort! Plan it well, take your time and just do not rush anything.
3. For subjects, choose something and draw it in a full body or put in as much of the body as you can, because anatomy is something we will be critiquing often, and because headshots don't showcase the full extent of your abilities. If the anatomy is off, it can throw off the whole picture.

Also, if you choose a Pokemon or some sort of creature that is made of simple shapes, don't expect to get into Pro. As an example, don't use something like a Weedle or a Jigglypuff for a Pro app because they're basically circles.
4. Don't be discouraged if you're rejected! You'll have plenty of chances to try out again. Don't, however, keep constantly making new Pro applications, like, every week. It's very irritating, and besides, it's highly unlikely that a person will improve that much in their skills over a week.

After rejection, pick yourself up and poke around the Pro board or look at the artists who are marked as Pro. Observe intently, and look at what it is that you're lacking in or less experienced in compared to those people. Practice on the doodle board, ask for help on the critique boards and listen to the critiques given to you on your application picture.
5. You don't have to be an ace at them, but you should at least be able to produce a decent background. Blank voids, endless skies with airbrush clouds, a fill tool color layer, textures... are very simple backgrounds and don't highlight your skills very well. You don't have to be capable of elaborate landscapes, but backgrounds make you much more appealing to the committee.
6. You should exhibit maturity if you want to be a Pro. Maturity doesn't exactly have to do with your art skills, but acting immaturely can make people apprehensive of making you a Pro. Do not have a spaz attack when you apply and don't try to throw a pity party on us, because that makes you very unappealing.

Also, your age does not matter to us. While certainly time affects ability, your age—not so much. If you're nine, ten, heck, thirteen? You have plenty of time to gain experience and grow as an artist.

Anyway, here are some examples to illustrate some of my points:

Bad Types of Pics to Use for Pro Apps:
Like I said earlier, headshots do not showcase the extent of your abilities. While the coloring style and the anatomy of the head and face may be good, can the rest be said for the rest of the body? I don't know! For all we know, you could just specialize in making fantastic heads because that's all you practice, and suck wonderfully at bodies and avoid them like the plague. Pros should be able to handle a subject as a whole.

If you look at this pic (which I drew last night btw), the head looks pretty good, but the rest of the anatomy, we can't really tell so much because there isn't really much for us to go on here. Plus, what we can see looks really, really awkward, doesn't it?

Timer for this pic is probably around 40 to 70 minutes.

Here's another type of picture I wouldn't really use for a Pro application. While yes, it is in a way a full-body picture, it's in a chibi style, rather than my usual style. Chibi are very simplistic and have very screwy proportions that vary between artist styles. It also lacks shading for the most part, and the background is incredibly messy and childish.

Timer for this pic is probably around 30 to 55 minutes.


A pic where I tried to be epic and failed. And it's kind of old by now.

Anyway, a pro for this pic is that this is a pretty good amount of the body to use when drawing an app for Pro. (That is, of course, ignoring the fact that I have some pretty bad anatomy going on in this pic—I should really redo it...)

The bad thing about this pic is some of the coloring. While the shading on its own was probably good, I kind of killed it with my dodging and burning. (Though, that's mostly a critique about the, rather than what makes it a bad type of picture to use.) The main reason I wouldn't use this as an app is because the background looks pretty rushed compared to the rest of the pic.

Timer for this pic is approximately 130 minutes.

- I would also avoid drawing pictures with a large amount of negative space (or HUEG BLANK SPACE) in them. If you find a big gaping space in your pic, try filling it in with some background scenery if you can, but don't put anything in that would detract attention from your main subject. Just don't leave it blank, though, because then it'll feel like your composition is lacking.

Decent Pics to Use for Pro Apps:
Here's a pic that's a little closer to being a good Pro application! It's kind of ugly though, since I dug it up from the pits of my art folder. Dx It's from July '07!

What makes this closer to being a good Pro app is that includes pretty much all the basic elements I noted before: a lot of the body is included, giving us a good view of the anatomy skill of the artist; there is a background present, and it isn't a generic fill-tool layer of one color or a sloppy mess of colors; and it looks like the artist really tried to color it nicely.

A person displaying skills at this level is pretty good, though pretty much the whole picture could use some reworking. The anatomy looks a little weird, the background is a bit more on the simple side and the shading could use some work as well. But a person here would be well on their way to Pro. Given a few months and plenty of practice, a person at this point could very well get into Pro.

Timer for this picture is approximately 105 minutes.

Wow, this is kind of an old request... xD;

Another point where I could see someone almost making Pro but not being quite there yet. This is a pretty decent show of anatomy skills. I'd probably be wary of anything showing less than this much anatomy.

I probably wouldn't let the subject cover up so much of the canvas like it does here, though, because, as we can see here, we can't see much of the background. What we can see of it, though, is color fill + texture which is still on the very simple side. (Though, it does work nicely for this pic, I guess.)

Timer for this pic is around 83 minutes.

This one is a pretty decent show of skill. There's a pretty good amount of the body shown here, and while the subject is off-center, our eyes are brought straight to him. The background doesn't detract attention from the subject—instead, it adds to him and brings attention to him with the white glow around him. Still, the background and anatomy could use some work... but even Pros aren't perfect. (|D;;;) But we can get a pretty good gauge of a person's skills with a pic like this.

Timer is about 139 for this pic.

Pro-level Pics:

I personally don't have any Pro-level pics (I have yet to have finished my one WIP on the Pro board yet), but if you want to know what Pro work looks like, check out the main board works of the artists with the diamonds by their names. And the most obvious place to look would be the Pro board, of course. xD;

Anyway, I hope this is helpful for all the Pro-hopefuls and that you guys don't think I have a big head for saying all sorts of things about my own stuff here.