There have been a lot of changes on Muddy Colors of late, with the addition of 3 new contributors in recent months, and more yet to come!
These new additions are always a wonderful chance to hit on new topics and reassess where the blog is headed.
So once again, I would like to ask our readers to submit ideas for posts they would like to see.
They can be from a specific contributor, or just general topics for the group as a whole.
Or maybe there is something about the blog itself you would like to see different?
Do you like seeing the same topic repeated by different contributors?
Whatever it is, we want to hear it!
We want to make this the best art blog possible, and we can’t do that without your input.
Please leave your suggestions in the comments section of this post.
Hi i I've always loved this blog and because I'm interested in in house concept art i just wanted to suggest maybe having an artist in the rotation that talks about design, the pipeline and environment of working in house
Other than that have you ever thought of kickstarting a muddy colors encyclopedia book with a your posts I'm sure many people would back that tenfold
I love Muddy colors, there is only one thing that lack, some kind tagging system to easily find past post by the author. It is very hard to navigate in past posts, usually I use google to it.
I always loved Muddy Colors, and as a student I want to see some content maybe leaning towards newer artist.
I really enjoy the blog and would love to see more about our contributor's studio space and daily work regime. Perhaps an article for us colourblind artists on controlling palettes? Keep up the great work.
I love the blog – it's part of my daily wake-up routine. Especially love the blogs on theory; Gregg's 10 things, Bill O'Connor's artist of the month and all the tips to help others improve, shows what a caring group of artists! Just keep it going with all of its variety.
This right here. I'd love it if it was even just if you click on one of the contributor's name you can see all the posts they've made on Muddy Colors. We're sorely in need of a tagging system overall though. It'd be a organization pain, but I think lots of people would appreciate it.
A few contributors tag their posts. The labels got out of hand though, so we try to limit it to just the author's name. Very few of us do it though. This sounds like a job for an intern!
I'd love to see an article from Greg Manchess' series of 'x things…' on drawing, with some more in-depth insights on sketching and pencil work. It's just one of those basic skills that I know I and many others would love to improve their handle on, since it can get neglected when we try to leap ahead!
I absolutely love Muddy Colors. The diversity of content from the contributors really makes this blog special. My personal favorites are usually the ones on theory and the business behind art/illustration, especially Greg Manchess' “10 things” series.
I absolutely love Muddy Colors. The diversity of content from the contributors really makes this blog special. My personal favorites are usually the ones on theory and the business behind art/illustration, especially Greg Manchess' “10 things” series.
I'd love to have a way to browse through past posts in an easy way! the blog archive isnt really good at that; if you could scroll through all posts on a page with miniature teasers for each post, that would be great! Something like a scroll with bookmarks, links and pictures with the first sentences of each post on it.
Long time follower of this great blog. Thanks for all of your hard work!
Here is what I would love to see in the future:
— The journey from amateur to where they are now; an insightful article discussing the specific changes in medium handling the artist felt made a difference in their confidence and the quality of their work.
— A collaborative tricks of the trade oil painting article with an emphasis on technique.
— Article(s) on sculpting fantasy figures/scenery, covering things such as organic texture creation, handling of various clay mediums, etc.
— Technique article(s) on drawing/painting organic scenery both real and imagined.
— Technique article(s) on drawing/painting rocks and stones from the imagination.
Oh, yes yes yes. A tag system would be wonderful. Just consistently tagging author names would be great.
If you have a problem with labels getting out of hand, then I'd suggest you make one limited list of broad topical labels for every contributor to draw from, instead of letting it be a free-for-all. Still difficult for organizing previous posts, but it would make it easier for future posts.
Hi
These topics would be great, also some sort of importance of practice, and comparission between how old masters practiced everyday and modern artists do it now. Also some book reviews would be very usefull
Hi, I know this is a rather stale subject for such a fantastic blog, but I'd love to hear some talk on licensing. I've read up on it and everyone always refers back to the Graphic Artist Guild, which is great but it doesn't have any real life experiences in it. I'm curious to hear how other artists handle usage rights and what kind of price ranges for the different licensing of an image.
I absolutely love when you guys get very analytical and show the audience what knowledge can be attained from people proficient and specialized in their artwork. It often beats the knowledge being taught in the academic curriculum as it is direct and honest whilst coming from a stable well-respected member of the industry. Less self-promotion, more Information.
They're my favorites too. I suspect Greg will be doing them for a while.
Thanks for the suggestions!
We should definitely go over some legal stuff. Good idea.
Obviously a great blog and all of that 🙂
I find Lauren's posts the most inspiring. Even more then that. Especially the last one, it was just what I needed to read at that time. I'd like to have some insight on “behind the scenes”.
All you artists are so big and great, have this perfect way of work, perfect results, perfect jobs, perfect life.
I'd like to hear more about the hardships and how you all overcame them. I'd like to know more about your biographies, what was the way you walked through from the day you decided to be an artist until now. Were you a prodigy? Did you ever think about giving up? And one subject that's especially important to me – have you ever dealt with depression? how did you manage to overcome it, if at all? how did it affect your art and your way as an artist?
I want to get a more realistic picture about being an artist, how does it feel, what are the sacrifices.
I hope you understand me.
I love and rely on this blog, but if there's something I'd love to see more of, and you have done it previously, would be to provide critiques for amateur and/or aspiring artists. It could perhaps be done as a contest, where you would have people submit posts and a random person will be selected, or even impose more rules than that, setting a topic or theme, seeing what people come up with, and critiquing the response. I realize something like that would likely be difficult to coordinate among a blog's worth of working artists, but it was a feature I found very informative and encouraging in the past and would really appreciate seeing again in the future.
I would love to see a post or two about design. (product, industrial, entertainment etc.) Might be a bit out of focus for here, but it would be a nice chance of content.
One quick question I found myself asking today.. When do you use a passe-partout? 🙂 (I'm getting prints for my room but unsure to use one or not..)
I really love this site and all the inspiration he gives to my work. Many thanks to all the artists involved in the content I read here daily!
Thank you again for this blog, it's such an invaluable resource on so many levels. Thank you for the time that y'all spend working on it! My two cents would be to see a continued pursuit of posts on:
-Art business acumen suggestions, like, what a typical day, week, month, maybe even year looks like in terms of what they know they always have to do in securing the business runs. How much job diversification factors into a successful year.
-I especially enjoyed the gallery posts by Julie Baroh. Any posts on what galleries look for and tips on pursuing galleries out-out-state, or even out country when there aren't many local options available.
I love MC. Painting process and How it is to work in the industry – in AAA enterprises, mostly – being a woman. Thanks!
I'd love to see something about how to prompt for good actionable criticism from nonartists (as opposed to the more frequent, 'that looks nice') and how to mitigate those feelings of wanting to hulk out or curl up into a ball and cry after particularly harsh criticism from anyone. I'd also love to see a discussion about what exactly makes a modern Master a Master instead of someone who is just very good.
thanks for the great blog guys. My favorite posts have been the “Artist Selfies” and “How to Photograph your Paintings” among many others. I really like the posts where you show lots of process shots, and share how you work.
More Terryl Whitlatch please! she hasn't posted in forever, and I miss her posts. but other than that…
Posts on process, technique, research, sketching, self-education etc. are always my favorite.
Posts on business, though of course super important and hard to find elsewhere, I sometimes feel don't really fit with everything else on here. When I wake up and find that its a post about business, I get a little sad. I always read it (and I'm sure I'm better for it) but when there's a few posts in a row just about business and politics in art, I start getting discouraged and uninterested… When this happens I usually start digging through the older posts from years ago, and I'm not usually let down. But I am catching up. And It's not like I want them to stop, but I almost feel like they should be separate from the rest.
I don't know though… I love that they're here, I just don't love that they take up a post that could've been more about the actual making of art. please don't be angry, I love Muddy Colors. Maybe nothing should change.
Awesome blog, thanks
Recommendations:
1. Special Weeks where every author has the same subject. E.g.: how they paint clouds. How they choose color palettes (individual small subjects)
I think this would be an other and easier way to handle group-posts (i like them very much).
2. Guest-Sunday (any day, but frequent). There are a lot of Guest-Interviews online but not so much guest-blogs. I think sometimes a blog provides more freedom than an interview.
Thanks for a great blog!
I would like to hear something about carrer control. Some thoughts on how these top artists steered their carrer in the right direction, fantasy , sci-fi and so forth. I guess it's the art of saying no, but how do you do that as an aspiring artist?
+1
Agreed agreed on tag system!
It's already the best art blog on the planet! Thank you all so much for all your amazing work.
I keep thinking I want to pay for this invaluable content… Is it weird suggesting that..?
A design upgrade for the site itself would be nice, and definitely a better search and categorization system as suggested before. That would be much much appreciated.
And lastly, I would love to have more posts on the subjects of fantasy and sci fi art: theories, histories etc.
Thanks again!
Olá, primeiramente eu peço desculpas por falar em português, mas eu gostaria que especialmente Dan dos Santos desse atenção a esse comentário.
Eu vejo muitos posts excelentes aqui, nos quais são mostrados artistas extraordinários ao redor do mundo, e dessa mesma forma eu gostaria de sujerir um post mostrando alguns artistas acadêmicos brasileiros do século XIX como Pedro Américo, Rodolfo Amoedo, os irmãos Bernardelli, etc.
Acredito que as obras desses artistas se encaixariam perfeitamente no perfil do Muddy Colors.
Continuem com o excelente trabalho.
Parabéns!
Yeah, we need to get the 'Crit Submit' going again. A themed one would be great.
Actually, I never thought about a framing post. Thanks for that.
That's such an important topic, Rasmus. I actually have an hour-long live lecture I give on pretty much just that. I don't know how I'd cram all that into a coherent post, but I will certainly give it some thought.
#1 will be happening VERY soon.
Dan,
I think the only thing I would ask more of this blog and its contributors relates to how to turn a “concept” into a finished piece without much direction. In many respects in positing this, I am thinking of the works by Sam Weber, who does great editorial work which can also be considered part of the fantastical realm. I am also thinking of a certain piece by Frazetta in which he was merely asked by a firm/company to “paint sound.”
Namely, what process do you or other artists go through to translate a more abstract idea into something more tangible and accessible?
Thanks,
Todd
have adored this blog a few years now and i was EXTREMELY excited to see the new additional authors. Keep doing what you do — putting something like this together is a lot of work but it is such a tremendous resource! thank you muddy colors team!
have adored this blog a few years now and i was EXTREMELY excited to see the new additional authors. Keep doing what you do — putting something like this together is a lot of work but it is such a tremendous resource! thank you muddy colors team!
I was reading through the replies to see if somebody had asked for a post on framing options and choices. I sometimes find it quite difficult to chose a frame for my paintings and would love to get some advice from the pros!