shannonbebel

[shannonbebel]

What are your thoughts on including fanart in your portfolio while applying to studios? I'm currently working on my portfolio and have a lot of fanart pieces I'm proud of but I'm worried about the etiquette of including it.

So I wrote a whole thread about this on twitter, actually!  I’ll recount it here:

“so to clarify: #fanartgotmepaid doesn’t mean “fanart guarantees you a job,” nor does it mean “you can’t get a job without fanart.” #fanartgotmepaid just means that fanart isn’t always a Scarlet Letter that immediately colors a potential employer’s opinion of you. 

I like to think that the personal art you do can be roughly broken down into three motivations: Conception, Self-Improvement, and Enjoyment (take this with a grain of salt! there are other motivations – commercial, vindictive, goofabouts – I’m just focusing on the heavy hitters):

Conception, meaning “I have a specific creative vision I need to commit to paper.” Concept, idea, composition, style, what have you.

Self-Improvement, meaning “I want to better myself by practicing or taking on a challenge.” Trying that new brush, studying folds, etc.

And finally Enjoyment, meaning “I physically/emotionally enjoy the process of making art, and choose to do it because it’s fun/therapeutic.” 

Art fulfills each of these to varying degrees; sometimes a piece can be all three at once, but it doesn’t have to. That’s up to the artist. Fanart will almost always include some degree of Enjoyment. We make fanart because we love a thing, because it provides a familiar framework. For example, here are some pieces of fanart I’ve done that are PURELY for Enjoyment:

…These aren’t going to win me any awards, they aren’t going to get me any jobs! But they’re good, they’re fun, and I’m glad I did them (and not to mention, any art is better than no art! Like playing a cover of a song, drawing fanart is still building artistic muscle memory).

NOW, let’s talk about fanart that gets you hired. Compared to the above, what is it about some fanart that gets the attention of employers? Generally, employers are hiring you for what YOU bring to the table. If fanart is the hook, your particular vision is what reels them in. No one ever got a job just because they drew a Sailor Moon that one time. You get jobs because you treat fanart as a tool in your toolbox. Are you redesigning characters? Interpreting them through a compelling stylistic lens? Rendering them in a fresh way? That’s your vision.

So here are some examples of my fanart that HAS gotten the attention of employers, with some rough notes on why I think they stand out:

The reason I was hired for Bioshock wasn’t because of Disney princesses: I was hired because of my eye for historical costume design. You aren’t hired for fanart, you aren’t hired for the hook: You’re hired for your vision. You’re hired for what keeps them interested.

If you want to draw fanart purely for Enjoyment, that is completely rad and fine! Appreciating an IP by way of creation is pretty amazing. And if you want to use fanart to pursue a professional career, find a way to balance that Enjoyment with Conception and Self-Improvement!

Long story short: do fanart or don’t, live your bliss, and maybe analyze your motivations for making art once every blue moon. And for the love of god, maybe don’t make blanket statements condemning entire swaths of professional and amateur artists? Just spitballin’.

[shannonbebel]

Petrichor

Oil and charcoal on canvas

2017

[shannonbebel]

Self-Portrait In Green

Oil on canvas

2016-2017

[shannonbebel]

Xuanwei Su, Illustrations.

Ethereal illustrations reminiscent of Klimt by artist Xuanwei Su.

Don’t miss Supersonic Art on Instagram!

[shannonbebel]

omg 😂

[shannonbebel]

This is my first ever entry for Inktober. Even though this is technically day seven, it's day one for me. I finally received my package from Artsnacks today. I only used the tools that came with it to draw this. Day 7 Prompt: Shy

[shannonbebel]

My first ever entry for Inktober. I have been a bit busy this month and I was waiting on my Artsnacks package for Inktober. Even though it's the 7th of October, it's my first day. Day 7 prompt: Shy

[shannonbebel]

House of Horrors: Exoplanet Edition

Astronomers may be closer than ever to discovering a planet that’s habitable like our own, but along the way they’ve discovered some very scary exoplanets – places where conditions are far too harsh for life as we know it to exist.

Okay, but what IS an exoplanet???

We’ve rounded up some of the most frightening, deadly exoplanets, places that make even the scariest haunted house on Earth pale in comparison. Check them out…

Radiation Bath, Anyone?

The exoplanets PSR B1257+12 B, C & D were among the first discovered, and also happened to be three of the weirdest! The entire system is a graveyard, remnants of what used to be a normal, functional solar system before the star blew apart in a giant explosion known as a supernova.

The massive shockwave from the supernova stripped away any atmosphere or living creatures that might have once lived on these planets, leaving behind ghostly, rocky shells, dead planets orbiting the corpse of an extinct star.

Except that the system isn’t completely dead…the remaining core from the old star has become a zombie star called a pulsar. Literally spinning in its grave, it makes a full rotation every 6.22 milliseconds and emits an intense beam of radiation that can be detected from Earth. The star’s unfortunate planets are thus bathed in deadly radiation on a regular basis, making sure that this system remains a cosmic no-man’s land.

A Mighty Wind

The sound of howling wind is a must for any Earth-based haunted house, but weather conditions on HD 189733 b make it a very dangerous place to go trick-or-treating.

At first glance, this exoplanet looks like the typical “hot Jupiter” — a huge gas planet perched dangerously to a burning-hot star, with daytime temperatures around a balmy 1,770 degrees Fahrenheit. This exoplanet is also “tidally locked” in its orbit, which means that the same side of the planet always faces its star.

But when scientists measured the planet’s nighttime temperature, they were shocked to find that it was only 500 degrees cooler. How does the back side of the planet stay so warm?

The answer is wind! Insanely fast, dangerous wind that whisks heat from day-side to night-side at a speed of 4,500 mph, nearly six times the speed of sound! In fact, astronomers estimate that wind speeds might top out at 5,400 mph, conditions that make hurricanes on Earth look like a breezy day at the beach.

Newborn Exoplanet Around Scorching Star

This exoplanet, named K2-33b, is the youngest fully formed exoplanet ever detected. This planet is a bit larger than Neptune and whips tightly around its star every five days. Since this planet sits nearly 10 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our sun, it’s HOT!

No matter how cute you think infants are, this is one baby you’d want to stay away from.

Boil, Boil, Toil and Trouble

The planet HD 209458 b (aka. Osiris - the god of death) has a few things in common with Earth: water vapor, methane and carbon dioxide in its atmosphere, key ingredients for life on our planet. Don’t be fooled, though, because this planet is a rolling cauldron of almost unimaginable heat.

Even the hottest summer days on Earth don’t get as dangerous as the conditions here. A planet that orbits so close to its host star that its atmosphere is literally boiling off, ripped away from the planet as it whips around on its breakneck 3.5-day orbit.

All Alone and Very, Very Cold

While most of the exoplanets found so far are hellishly hot, OGLE-2005-BLG-390L b has the distinction of being extremely cold.

The planet takes about 10 Earth years to orbit its tiny dwarf star, and it’s a chilly trip; the average temperature on this exoplanet is 50 Kelvin, or minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit! A good costume for trick-or-treating on this frigid planet would be a toasty self-heating spacesuit, an oxygen supply, ice skates and plenty of hot cocoa.

Of course, don’t expect to find many houses with candy here, because despite the fact that it’s just a few times bigger than Earth, this exoplanet is an uninhabitable ice ball stuck in a perpetual winter freeze.

A Scorched World

Kepler-10b is a scorched world, orbiting at a distance that’s more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our own sun. The daytime temperatures are expected to be more than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than lava flows here on Earth. 

Intense radiation from the star has kept the planet from holding onto an atmosphere, but flecks of silicates and iron that have boiled off a molten surface are swept away by the stellar radiation.

Learn more about worlds beyond our solar system at: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[shannonbebel]

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves”

some monochrome ideas

[shannonbebel]

This was done in only two class sessions, btw.

Study of a male model for my figure painting class.

[shannonbebel]

Working on a new self-portrait! Yay! So excited.

[shannonbebel]

Study of a male model for my figure painting class.

[shannonbebel]

"Pride" Oil on canvas 20 3/16" x 24 1/8" Spring 2016 I must say that I am very pleased with this piece. This painting is a part of a series I'm working on that combines portraiture with images of the natural world to create something that reflects the relationships people have with themselves and each other. I wanted something dream-like without being as intense as Salvador Dali.

[shannonbebel]

Flight

Plaster

2013

[shannonbebel]

WIP: The Cosmos Cloak

Oil on canvas

2015

[shannonbebel]

Study of a Woman

Oil on canvas

2015

[shannonbebel]

Nessie (In a Box)

Oil on canvas

22 x 22″

2014