Comic Book Heroes Pose Pack - RAM

Comic Book Heroes Pose Pack

I started my first Comic Book Heroes Pose pack on my Gumroad. These will consist of all of my favorite poses that I have developed over the years and a bunch of new ideas that I am working out. There will be action poses such as fighting, lifting objects, throwing, kicking, power poses and so on. There will also be a lot of the overlooked stuff like basic social interactions. Even things like sitting around drinking a cup of coffee. You need all sorts of poses to tell a well rounded story. ( You are also welcome to make requests on a pose you would like to see. ) This is just the start of this pose pack so get it early and get access to all of these as they are created and uploaded. The price will increase when the pack gets larger but for now you can get your copy at the bargain price of $3. You will get all the future updates included if you purchase now. The other benefit to this pose pack is that they will be organized for easy access. So if you find yourself in a pinch when constructing that next panel of art you can quickly reference this pack. These will be in a mannequin style drawing so that you are not hindered in your own creative process. I will include some anatomy shots but they are merely for you to study. This is not meant to replace your own drawing process but act as an aid to it. You can still jump on my Ram Studios Comics newsletter and you will get lots of free poses to work along with but they will be more gesture and style based than this pose pack will be. Join the newsletter here - http://www.ramstudioscomics.com If you want to try it out here is my Gumroad link - https://gum.co/UJaJe As always, thank you for your support and good luck with your art! :) Robert A. Marzullo Ram Studios Comics

Teaching Art Courses on Udemy

Teaching Art Courses on Udemy Image

Teaching Art Courses on Udemy

Hello everyone! Robert A. Marzullo here and I just wanted to give you all an update and my inside opinion about my experience with Udemy thus far. As you may or may not know I have been creating video courses for a few years now. I have created hundreds of Youtube videos and then got offered to work for Tuts Plus of Envato. I created about 6 full courses for their company for which they paid me outright for. I will admit the pay was pretty good but I no longer own those courses. They belong to Envato. Not a bad thing mind you, it did help pay the bills while I was creating them. That eventually ran its course when they started cutting back on art courses and I still had lots of ideas to offer so I started to look around.

I then made some of my own video lessons and uploaded them to a site called curious.com ( Which I do not recommend. ) Not a bad bunch of people but the return on investment for me was very small and they do not allow you to remove your content freely. They claim they are trying to protect their students that have already paid for the lessons but that unfortunately will lock you into a bad agreement if the return on investment isn't good for you and you want to repurpose your content. Which should be your right. It is your digital product after all. Oh well, live and learn seems to be my motto in life.

So while this experience was going on I continued to look for some better options. I started a Gumroad with my content and added lots of neat stuff for my Youtube followers, such as custom brushes and templates for Photoshop and Manga Studio 5. Some of those have actually done very well. And Gumroad has a pretty nice pay structure. They payout once a week and it automatically hits your account like clockwork. The fees are reasonable considering there is no actual operating cost other than production. And they do market your products somewhat. As people purchase similar products your may get recommended so you generate a few extra sales that way. They take an additional 10% discovery fee but hey, it's still an extra sale so I'm good with that! One thing I will note about Gumroad is that they have a free and a paid option. Be careful because the paid option goes up as you gain a customer base. Your monthly amount will increase as you get more customers to support. That can burn you if you are doing some free products to drive your customer growth. So do your research before going to the paid subscription model. Either way, I am still a big Gumroad fan. It has been great for my digital business thus far!

Here is my store on Gumroad - http://www.gumroad.com/robertmarzullo

I still needed to get more income and improve upon where I was at. Besides, I knew that if Envato was willing to pay me thousands of dollars for a course there must be some real value in what I was doing. Although my courses were selling on Gumroad, I still had to drive the main portions of the sales and that is another job all in itself. Setting up promo videos, blog posts, social media, networking, etc, etc, etc. Not that I don't enjoy that but I just shut down my sign business of 15 years to pursue art, not be a marketing guru. So I needed some help in the marketing department. That is what led me to Udemy. I researched a few others like Teachable, Skillshare, Thinkific and so on but they all had a few quirks that eventually led me to try Udemy. So I uploaded one of my courses on Udemy and BAM!! Nothing happened. I know, very sad. I was extremely hopeful and I really needed to make some financial progress. Storyboards illustrations weren't coming in as before and I was starting to think I needed a real job. So the next few months went by and I studied how to promote my courses and kept adding products to my Gumroad like a good little artist. Then I find out that it is extremely helpful to have multiple courses on Udemy. Which makes total sense anyways. Who wants to buy your product if you only have one product and very little reviews. Students want proof that you are good at what you do and that means more than one product. So I uploaded my next course and sales started to increase. Then I got some good reviews and sales increased again. I then got off my butt and did some promotional videos with course coupons leading to my content, and sales went up again. I won't talk numbers because we all need very different amounts to survive and be happy but I will say this, within less than a year Udemy is now my biggest income for my digital products. It now generates new sales every day without me lifting a finger. I am approaching 2000 students and growing every day as well as getting lots of great reviews and feedback from the students wanting more. So guess what, I am making new courses right now!

Now also take into account that I don't put all my eggs in one basket. I use a few revenue streams with my digital content so that if one or two start to decrease I can analyze what is going on and make changes accordingly. If it is something that is within my control. The wonderful thing about this type of business model is that you are now gaining income over and over again on the same product with no operating costs. And it is very sustainable because all content is going to video and digital books. You do have to continually respond to students and update your courses over time if you want them to remain valid in the marketplace but nothing is entirely perpetual without some force behind it. Nothing I am aware of anyways.

So the main thing I want to share is this, you can do it if you keep working hard and don't give up. Almost all things start very slow and need momentum to be successful. That is usually why most people don't make it. During that slow period we think of reasons why it might be failing other than how we can make it succeed. Look for growth even in small numbers because that will tell you what to do next as well as what not to do when the numbers decline. Just don't give up! You don't have to be the first one across the finish line, just make sure you get there!

Thank you for your time. I hope you found this information helpful and if you want to learn about art in the way that I teach it, here is my course coupons on Udemy -

My Figure Drawing Course - https://www.udemy.com/how-to-improve-your-figure-drawing-step-by-step/?couponCode=RAMSTUDIOSCOMICS101

My Course on How to Draw Comic Book Faces - https://www.udemy.com/creating-comic-book-faces-in-sketchbook-pro-8/?couponCode=RAMSTUDIOSCOMICS101

Robert A. Marzullo

Ram Studios Comics

www.ramstudioscomics.com

Comic Book Poses - My Sketches and Studies

Comic Book Poses by RAM

Working on some more comic book poses. I am going to compile them into a set on my Gumroad but I will be sharing some of them as a monthly newsletter. So if you are like me and you would love to have lots of various poses to work from head over to -

http://www.ramstudioscomics.com - and sign up for the list.

I will be doing all sorts of pose studies. Everything from couples sitting there having some coffee to hulking behemoths busting through walls.

This should be a great resource for all types of artist that need figure drawing but it will be primarily focused on comic book heroes. Male and female poses. 

It should also be a nice addition to my course content so if you decide to take those you will also get a copy of the PDF's.

Good luck with your art and more on the way real soon!

Robert A. Marcello

Ram Studios Comics

www.gumroad.com/robertmarzullo

#drawing #comics #poses #figuredrawing #reference #studies #sketches #superheroes #pose #comicstyle #artwork

How to Draw Hands - 6 Different Poses - Narrated

How to Draw Hands - 6 Different Ways - Video Lesson

In this video I discuss how to draw hand poses and things to look for to make this process easier.  I talk about some of the primitive shapes that are noticeable in the hands when designing your art pose. As well as study methods to commit more of this to memory.

Hands are always a tricky topic but it is important to not shy away from them because you find them difficult to do. We learn a lot from drawing hands and they are in integral part of telling a great story within your illustrations.

If you have any questions about this video lesson then please feel free to comment and I will do my best to help you if I can. Either in a response or through and upcoming video.  Good luck with your art and thank you for reading!

To support my work and get additional video course content you can visit my Gumroad here -

http://www.gumroad.com/robertmarzullo

Robert A. Marzullo
Ram Studios Comics
http://www.ramstudioscomics.com

Prints are Now Available on Society 6 by RAM

Art Prints by Robert A. Marzullo

I am making some of my art pieces available on my Society6 site for prints. Hopefully this will give some people what they have been wanting from me.  I have been asked for prints of my work but usually it is the superhero fan art stuff that I can't freely put out there to sell. I wish I could but I am afraid that just isn't legal. Although I seem to see a lot of other artist getting away with it somehow.

So my prints will be of two topics that I love. Science fiction and Nature. I will be honest, I am more into science fiction that I am into nature but I love painting and drawing them both! I feel like I learn from nature to create science fiction and fantasy art. One cannot exist without the other, in my art anyways.

So be on the lookout for updates on future prints.  I only have a couple available now but if you know my work ethic then you know there will be more very soon.  Be sure to let me know if you have any great ideas you would like to see on there and if I can make it happen I will.

Here is the link to my Society 6 Site and thanks for your support of my work!

https://society6.com/robertmarzullo

Robert A. Marzullo

Ram Studios Comics

http://www.ramstudioscomics.com

Art Year in Review 2016 by Ram Studios Comics

Well another year in the books and it went by all too fast. Now it is time to reflect and make some well needed improvements to my art. I am decently happy with some of my creations of this year but I have also found some real chinks in my armor. I don't want to sound negative but I feel it is an integral part of growing one's art abilities to find our flaws. To fix something you must first acknowledge it's presence. And it is easy to look the other way when our work is less than perfect. A bad habit to get into if you want to improve.

So here are some of the things I will be working on this year and what I see wrong with my current work. First and foremost I will be focusing on my proportions. Exaggerating features is common in comics and science fiction illustrations but it must be kept in check or your art will border on the realm of amateurish. So to hone my skills and perception in that arena I will be doing lots of figure drawing studies. I don't think there is any better excercise for that problem.  Unless I can get my hands on one of those machines from the Matrix where you can just upload the data to your brain box.

The next thing I want to improve this year will be my knowledge in adding colors. I think a few of my pieces came out nice but my ability with the coloring process could be much better. I am confident with the application of the colors and digital painting but I need to know more about moods, color balances, color theory, and all that jazz. I have always enjoyed creating the line work the most but now it is time to grow past that.

And finally, I want to improve my backgrounds and compositions. Drawing cool characters is great but you can't bring them to life without amazing backgrounds. So I will be doing lots of studies where I break down the composition from all my favorite comic book panels. Don't worry, I won't steal any bodies work. I will just study the work and figure what my scenes are lacking.

There are lots of things I can complain about when it comes to getting better at my craft but I don't want you to think I am an unhappy camper. I am extremely grateful for where I am at with my skill set. I just really want to be the very best that I can. So I am excited to learn all that I can in 2017 and I will do my best to share that process along the way. So if you enjoy comics like I do, please stick around! We can learn together.  ;)

Robert A. Marzullo
Ram Studios Comics
http://www.ramstudioscomics.com