sutton052

Vanessa spoke movingly of how, as a child with dyslexia, she wishes she could have had Crystal Allen books to read. Crystal thanked the Lord, her family, agent, editor, and then, touchingly, her character Mya Tibbs: "For teaching me to walk the walk, not just talk the talk." She describes getting to know her character (who loves country music) and how she herself didn't like it... until she realized she hadn't given it a chance. It's touching, and funny, and so fitting as she accepts the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor!

This session is so much more than best digital art tips! Vanessa talks a bit about how she started to learn how to illustrate. She followed every possible illustrator and animator blog, did all of the Illustration Friday prompts. She copied her favorite artists like Sasek and Blair, but then adding her Vanessa interpretation. She works both traditionally and digitally, and is a perennial student in both. Vanessa stalks Youtube and still enrolls in things like Lilla Rogers classes. She tells us to make a lab for yourself, take a day to learn how to do something on Youtube and improve all your illustration weaknesses in this customized fashion. Paint your own textures and papers so you have your flavor in those textures and also so you don't need to rely on stock sites or worry about copyright. To Vanessa, the ideal is: You want to get to that point where people can't tell, even art directors, if it's digital or traditional. Dyslexia made Photoshop and Illustrator's compl...