Draftsmen

Stan and Marshall are back with a new season of the Draftsmen Podcast! This time they are looking at different career paths for artists: Employees, Freelancers, and Entrepreneurs. They discuss the pros and cons of these different career options as well as their varying levels of independence. They also discuss how to speed up the process of learning from your failures as you try and create a succe...

It’s the last episode of the season! Before Stan and Marshall go on break they share with you some of their favorite books that they recommend reading. Some of them are art related, business, marketing, fiction, and self help books. If you’re interested in picking up any of these check out the full list of books below.  Answer the Survey - proko.com/season3survey. If you have trouble with the shor...

Proko employee and artist Kristian Nee joins the podcast this week. He talks with Marshall about his secret to making friends with influential people, how his personal connections have opened up new opportunities for him and his friends, what road tripping has taught Kristian about humanity and why he asks crazy questions. On top of all the insight there’s also a few special guests that make it in...

From Rocket Scientist to Professional Artist (ft. Jama Jurabaev) Jama Jurabaev is one of Marshall’s former students and has overcome incredible and difficult circumstances to become the pro artist that he is today. He joins the podcast to tell his full story and hopefully inspire other artists that are working hard towards a career in the industry. Jama’s design work has influenced some of the big...

Marshall sits down with professional fantasy artist April Solomon. The two discuss how April fell in love with drawing dragons and werewolves, the power of traditional art materials and the techniques she’s learned over the years, art festivals, what her art schedule looks like, and more. If you’re interested in supporting April be sure to check out her patreon - https://patreon.com/aprilsolomonar...

While Stan is out on paternity leave, Marshall invites fine artist Joseph Todorovitch on the show. Joseph talks about what it’s like being a parent and a working artist during a lockdown, his portrait painting methods, and making the switch from animation to fine art in the early 90’s. Make sure to stay subscribed to get notifications about other guests joining the podcast and also follow Joseph o...

For Lightbox 2020 this year Stan and Marshall streamed their first live Q&A episode! Rather than release the full version that had awkward pauses and tech issues it’s been edited down and remastered. Now you’ll get a clean experience as they answer a variety of personal and art related questions. Some of what you’ll hear are answers to how the podcast got started, brainstorming techniques for arti...

In the 2nd part of Marshall and Stan’s critique discussion, the two talk about getting useful feedback, the importance of being specific with your critique requests and the concept of the 6 thinking hats and how you can use them for self critique. If you missed the first part on how to give critiques, go check out the previous episode.   Call and Ask Your Art Questions: 1-858-609-9453 Thanks to Be...

Stan and Marshall return to the topic of art criticism to impart the secrets of giving and receiving the best critiques possible. They summarize why it’s good to critique people, what goals you should have when critiquing someone’s art, how to frame things positively for the person receiving the critique and more. This is only part 1 of the discussion. In part 2 they’ll change topics and focus on...

Marshall talks to Stan about the different “corrupting” influences which can affect the purity of an art piece. Some problems affect the craft of your art, but others affect the spirit, undermining the meaning you are trying to convey in your work. These pitfalls, while hard to avoid, are something Marshall believes artists should be aware of as they pursue their careers. Learn how pandering, sent...

Sometimes we’re stuck with bad teachers and when that happens, what do you do? Marshall and Stan address the frustration of one highschool art student that’s facing this problem by trying to provide them with workable solutions. They also answer a few additional voicemail questions on learning how to teach art, how to increase output for commissions and more. Go to HelloFresh.com/draftsmen80 and u...

Stan talks with Marshall about social media and how to be successful with it. Publishing quality content is key, but that’s only one of many areas that an artist needs to focus on now if they want to be noticed on a platform. Learn how to build an audience, avoid getting dinged by social media algorithms, and why it’s important not to stress about analytics and nasty comments.  Thanks to Betterhel...

Marshall and Stan have another book club episode, this time discussing “Art and Fear” by David Bayles and Ted Orland. The book explores how fear inhibits an artist’s work and the way in which an artist can confront their fears to help them create. Some of the topics covered include the difference between stopping and quitting, how you can be the best version of yourself, the way we are similar to...

Guest artist Jennifer Wang joins the podcast to discuss gender, race and sexuality in art. Marshall and Stan ask her for her opinion on a previous caller’s question about the sexualization of women in art. The broad topic opens up other cultural conversations as Jennifer talks about the challenges of getting representation in media, cultural appropriation and more.  Go to thegreatcoursesplus.com/D...

Reinvention is a part of growing up and plays an important role in developing as an artist. Marshall and Stan talk about the changes that they’ve had to make in their lives, a soldier and artist provides insights into reinvention, and both Draftsmen talk about the reasons why reinvention is important and how you might do it in a positive way.  As a listener, you’ll get 10% off your first month by...

Marshall invites a former student onto the podcast who became a pro artist at 21! Knight talks about her experience learning anatomy and fundamentals as a kid, her journey to becoming a freelance and pro artist, how her parents encouraged her art, and what she wants for the future.  Go to thegreatcoursesplus.com/DRAFTSMEN to get access to the entire Great Courses library for FREE for an entire mon...

Stan and Marshall respond to an artist’s tweet who asks if it’s possible to learn from artists who have talent, but are terrible people. Can you separate the art from the artist? Get 68% off NordVPN! Only $3.71/mo, plus you get an additional month FREE at nordvpn.com/draftsmen Call and Ask Your Art Questions: 1-858-609-9453 Show Links (some contain affiliate links): Slack - https://slack.com/ Adop...

2Senior Visual Development Artist Anthony Francisco joins us to talk about creature design and how he went from a minimum wage job to his dream career as an artist! Anthony has worked on some of the biggest movies in the Marvel movie universe. He designed Baby Groot, costumes for Black Panther and many more. You’ll hear how Anthony’s fake portfolio and his sketchbook landed him his first few jobs,...

Marshall and Stan field voicemail questions about balancing time an artist should devote to input and output, what kind of message they want to convey with their art, how much showing off is too much, and whether an artist should take a pay cut to create artwork for friends. If you have a question call and leave a voicemail at 1-858-609-9453. If you’re not located in the U.S. you can record an aud...

In this episode, Stan and Marshall discuss studying from masters. You’ll learn the difference between a master study and a copy, how beginners should approach studying masters, the artists that Stan and Marshall have done studies from and lessons they learned from them, a breakdown of the creative process, and how to figure out which artists are worth studying. Also, Court Jones from the Caricatur...

Drill Sergeant Stan and Major Marshall review the book “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. The book was written to help artists tackle some of the mental challenges that get in the way of creating. Using war as a metaphor, the author offers solutions to get things done by defeating ‘resistance’ - the difficult obstacles artists face. Both Marshall and Stan have caveats with Pressfield’s advice...

Composition is technical, creative, and incredibly subjective. Marshall teaches us how to learn composition and suggests artists and resources that will help you learn more about it. Marshall talks about breaking apart master paintings to learn how to compose, focal points, contrasts, metaphors, harmonic armatures like the golden ratio, among many other things. Marshall has years of experience tea...

Stan and Marshall teach you how to be a good student. The mindset, habits, and things you can do that will speed up your learning process and make it more enjoyable. They also discuss kind vs wicked learning, methods for taking notes and staying organized, treating your education as a job and the importance of getting real world experience as a student.  Call and Ask Your Art Questions: 1-858-609-...

Scott Flanders (aka Shapecarver) joins us as the first guest of the Draftsmen Podcast! He shares his good and bad experiences working in the gaming art industry, the dark side of working in a corporate environment, the challenges he’s faced to make it as an artist and family man, and how he’s been able to become an independent artist and entrepreneur doing what he truly loves. Scott’s Website - ht...

Marshall and Stan answer questions about networking, cross training, royalties, breaking rules to create a unique art style, going all in vs having a backup, and studying multiple things at once. Also, Marshall gives advice on how to ask good questions! Call and Ask Your Art Questions: 1-858-609-9453 Questions in episode What do you think of David Ross’s Book on Figure Drawing? How do you network...