i am once again asking artists to publish digital artbooks (and advertise them on their blog or website)
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in reply to @margot's post:
I'll be honest I'm not sure what a digital art book is, as in what you're suppose to put it in, how you're expected to format it if at all, like is there a wrong way? Do I just dump all past work in it if I do I've and call it a day? Like since I've not done it myself and I've not looked at any myself the concept of doing it is like asking my friend to "just go build me an orbit capable rocket please". The concept is there but the how to and all the underneath expected things to do are not. I'm just rambling cuz I noticed at have not a good clue on this.
well the nice thing about a 'digital art book' is that its vague enough that there can't really be a wrong way to do it, but what I was thinking of is essentially a pdf or cbz or similar formatted file that is a collection of either:
(1) finished art pieces from various places (whether that's your blog or commissions (incl. commercial art) that wouldn't fit in other kinds of books
(2) work from sketchbooks that you feel good about showing off, or
(3) some combination of that
these can be themed around something (like a collection of fanart, or a specific year) or they can just be whatever you want to throw in! there's really no rules you can break
idk if the 'digital' part is throwing you but this was p common for artists before the internet! since there wasn't a way to show off these kind of one-off pieces or sketchbook drawings otherwise.
ill put some links to examples i've bought over the years, but a website that specializes in these kind of books for illustrators and comic artists is stuart ng books, if you want to look around there for inspiration: https://stuartngbooks.com/
okay it turns out a lot of my links are broken to the ones i've actually bought! so i'll share a couple and then if i track down more i'll add them, if you'd like
an example of a themed artbook/zine is this Bloodborne one: https://texture.itch.io/a-hunter-is-never-alone
i think max schwartz's sketchbook collections are great, and a great example of using resources you already have to put something together that ppl will be interested in: https://maxds.itch.io/
sophia foster-dimino has a few as well, both in the themed sense and sketchbook senses: https://hellophia.gumroad.com/
So, it's not mainly thought to use the main finished work I have already available out there publicly, but, More like doodles that never made it out, or other private work that just never saw the light of day?
Maybe I'm missing the point tunnel visioning on the sketch and commissions part. And sorry if this shouldn't be that complicated, my brain functions in that is I've never done something I need a bottom to top building of understanding and fundamentals to grasp a concept at all, so to me it's easy to mess up something that sounds simple to others.
focusing on doodles is definitely something you can do! but also collecting already available stuff is fine-- don't underestimate how useful a book full of pieces that you posted on your blog can be, since it lets ppl browse without having to scroll thru or worry about link rot or anything like that!
(for instance, those artbooks i can't link to because the artists have closed their stores, or stopped wanting to pay for bandwidth for portfolio sites, i still get to have access to whenever i want, since i have them as pdfs)
think of it almost like you would a portfolio, i guess? if that helps make it make more sense.
Ooooooh yeah I think this makes some more sense. Granted, any reason to do it in a PDF, as opposed to PNG files compressed into a zip or 7z so you get the individual pieces as they would come already? I've never worked with PDF format so for me I'd naturally graduate to zipped folders of content instead
i personally like it when all the pages are similarly sized and formatted, especially if there's a chance you might one day want to print it for some reason, but there's no real reason to use PDF especially for that-- it's just the most common format i've seen.
in fact a lot of people might prefer a zip file (which is really what a cbz file is, just in a format that makes it easier to page thru on a dedicated reader or app)
Hmm, I may look into the PDF and CBZ more just to educate myself at least, and overall having an art book I kinda think sounds neat just as an archive someone might have in the worst event that I just lose everything on my end, like a way to have some stuff carry on
