Andrew Burdan
Illustrator , Artist
Biography
My first professional work involved storyboarding TV commercials and dramas. Storyboards are visual depictions of camera setups that help the film production team understand the director’s vision. I found the work to be pretty interesting and fun at the time – you got to see behind the scenes of some impressive productions.
My first foray into illustration was with Learning Media, doing a School Journal story for Elton Gregory. Elton was very helpful, not least for giving me the job in the first place, but also for offering great encouragement and many helpful suggestions. (Storyboards had taught me a lot about storytelling and meeting deadlines, but I found illustration work to be both a lot more demanding and a lot more rewarding, too.) Thanks, Elton!
Since that initial story, I’ve managed to keep reasonably busy working on a number of really interesting projects for Learning Media and other publishers. The great thing about illustration is it gives you opportunities to keep learning while you work. I find the research aspect of a job can be as rewarding as producing the actual artwork. Initially I worked in a mixture of markers, acrylics, and coloured pencils, but I didn’t really feel happy with my work until I did the switch to digital, and to Photoshop in particular.
My set-up involves a pretty standard issue PC with a fairly inexpensive A4 scanner. (I often scan my work in sections and assemble it in Photoshop. Yay!) I use a Wacom tablet (intuos 3), which is a really great tool. I work with Photoshop 7, and occasionally a program called Painter by Corel. I love the flexibility Photoshop offers, with its many levels of “undo” and the ability to pick up right where you left off, no matter how many interruptions occur during the day.
It can be expensive setting up, but prices for computer hardware are always coming down and offering greater performance into the bargain. As for Photoshop, while it’s great to have the latest version, I’m still on version 7 myself – and I know of professional artists who are still on Photoshop 3. So it needn’t be prohibitive to experiment. As far as tutorials go, there are hundreds on the Internet. I have found the illustrating and cartooning blog Drawn! really helpful and inspirational (you’ll find heaps of cool stuff there, including animations, cartoons, and all styles of illustration).
I’ve recently discovered the art instruction books of Andrew Loomis, a commercial illustrator from the 1950s. His books focus on classical concepts of anatomy, proportion, and perspective but have applications to all artists, no matter what their style. I’d really recommend hunting down any of his books. The Human Machine by George Woodbridge is also really helpful for understanding the fundamentals of anatomy, and it’s still in print.