I bought a Painter magazine this weekend and scanned a few tutorials to share. If you find these helpful at all let me know and I'll scan a couple more. There's tutorials on colored pencils, still life, and metallic surfaces that caught my eye. And if you really like them, run out and buy the magazine. Run run RUN! The images below are samples, cut and pasted parts of the articles.



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In an attempt to be helpful, rather than just ranting and raving all the time in this journal as I play armchair psychiatrist, here are a few useful CG videos thanks to headlesspuppet who doesn't post these useful links herself *glare*. Some you must pay for, but they're useful, and if you can afford it and are serious about improving your skills, why not split the costs with a friend?

• Massive Black
  
• Zhuzhu's dA Digital Painting in Photoshop.
  
• Area 56

Other useful sites:

• CG Textures, has a tutorial as well; applying photo textures can look great when done right

For writers are some links to publishers and a couple books that seem to be well recommended.

• Doutrope's Digest, a database of over 2125 current markets for short fiction, poetry, and novels/collections.
  
• Ralan.com
  
• Novel and Short Story Writer's Market
  
• Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market

In my opinion I think not bothering to research is a mistake too many people make, either out of pride or lack of foresight. You might luck out, but otherwise it's a trial and error process, and no one wants to look bad in the eyes of the editors and publishers, especially in smaller circles where they talk to each other.

If anyone has more links to share please comment.