Creating a Successful Art Collaboration

Tips for working together to create beautiful art

While it’s easiest to create art by yourself, and for yourself, creating artwork with other like-minded and talented artists can be an incredibly rewarding and fun experience. Or it can be awful and make you hate the final result. To achieve the first, and avoid the second, setting clear expectations is critical.

Rules of Collaboration

Avoid arguments by establishing expectations up-front.

1. Is there someone in charge of the overall project? For paid projects this is typically the client who is establishing the terms of what they are paying for. This can also be the lead artist who commissions or seeks assistance from other artists. In the business world this is referred to as the Primary Stakeholder.
2. What level of contribution is expected of the other artists? Are they expected to just do what is asked of them, or is their input and ideas necessary to achieve the end-project?

While true collaboration projects – those where all participants are equal with all artists having a say on the final result – can be exhilarating when successful, they are much more likely to end in spectacular failure. The key to making those work mainly comes down to finding people who mesh on personality and have a similar vision for the end-goal.

This article will focus on the much more common, and easier, method where one person is in charge and the other artists contribute according to established parameters. To help illustrate this subject, I will share the process that I and two other artists went through to create an award for a Pennsic tourney.

The Vision is Set

Michael Sinclaire was contacted by a person who needed an award for an SCA tourney he was organizing at Pennsic. The client was inspired by artwork Michael and I had done a year earlier and asked Michael if he could do something similar for him. As Michael was the one working with the client, he became the Primary Stakeholder for this project and we were expected to follow his vision.

The art illustrates highlights of the life of William Marshall, a knight who lived in 13th century England, done in the style of the Morgan Bible. Ålso known as the Crusader Bible, this book was created in the mid-13th century and uses comic-book like panels to depict scenes from the bible, heroic tales, and everyday medieval life.

The Sketch & Layout – by Michael and I

Michael got all of the pertinent details from the client (style, subject, size, necessary details, etc.) and sketched out the initial design.

Since one of my strengths is drawing people, Michael used stick people to show general size and placement of the figures and explained what he wanted to me. I used references from the Morgan Bible to draw all the figures.

The art was passed back to Michael and he transferred the sketch to watercolor paper, then added the calligraphy.

• 

• 

• 

Gold Leaf – by Hlutwige

As applying gold leaf is a skill neither Michael nor I have, he contacted our friend Lois (aka Her Grace Hlutwige Wolfkiller). He explained the project, gave her a deadline, and delivered the artwork. She completed her portion and gave the artwork back to Michael.

Painting – by me

While Michael is a good painter, I have a lot more experience, so Michael asked me to paint the art. He gave me a deadline and instructions on appearance. With source material open, and colors mixed, I blocked in the colors, then added details and shading.

• 

• 

• 

White Work – by Michael

Once completed, it was passed back to Michael, who is a very talented detail and white work artist. He added all the tiny painted details, added white work, re-outlined the figures and touched up areas that he felt needed it. When finished, the completed art was mailed to the client.

A Successful Collaboration

The final result was a project that was more impressive because each artist’s strengths were used. It was a success because expectations were clearly established from the beginning and we all knew who had the final say over the project.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Links

The Morgan Bible – https://www.themorgan.org/collection/Crusader-Bible/thumbs

Pennsic – http://www.pennsicwar.net/

Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) – https://www.sca.org/