Creating a Reference Library
2mo
Michael Giff
Hello Proko land! Time for inane question of the week (yes it has indeed been 7 days since I last asked a question)
Do any of you folks use or create reference libraries? I do save clips from comics, and movies from time to time but nothing too extensive. I was reading through the 1950's Famous Art Course text book and came across this!!! That is a ton of stuff to keep track of! Kind of curious if anyone else has folders in there computer like this or has google made creating such extensive files obsolete?
I'm of two minds of it. It's nice to have something to look at that is offline, easily accessible, and the only person that can delete or move the images are me... on the other it would take sooo long to build up a file like that to ever be useful.
So does anyone here use a reference library? Any tips of streamlining it so you can create one within this century? Really curious to hear what other folks interested in Comic Book Making think on the subject, but by all means all are welcomed to chime in.
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2mo
This isn't exactly what you're asking about but I really like the "Infinite View" on public domain image archive (https://pdimagearchive.org). There are thousands of images on there, all public domain and it's a fun rabbit hole to go down to get some ideas.
lol. Your right, infinite view is a fun time. Not sure why this spoke to me... maybe because I played a lot of Battle Toads with my brother back in the day XD
Hi Michael,
I use Pinterest to get references and I have an illustration book by a Japanese manga artist that I do master studies from. I notice Pinterest is kind of saturated with ai art which makes me sort of nervous as an artist.
Strange question. When you do a master study, what are you looking at? The strokes of the pen? The Anatomy? Shape Language? Do you look and study them all at once or do you pick and choose what you're trying to learn in any one sitting?
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2mo
Personally, I like Pintrest. I have some boards that I have added to for years for different things. This is how I store a lot of reference images.
Here’s a link to a board filled with inspiring artworks-
https://pin.it/6Mm5kmyeZ
Oooh thanks for the link. And your stuff is so well organized! When you work on your comic do you have a 'research' phase when you'll assemble everything you'll need for a project or do you have a good enough memory that you draw without reference and only pull it up when you feel like you are getting stuck?
