Staying In Your Lane
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It's a bit irritating how effortless @marek-halko makes it look isn't it, haha . Great image and another enjoyable episode!
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@Daisy Was just finishing up the section addressing your question as I pulled into work and had to go check out your instagram. They're right, really really good work, you should be valuing it at that rate or a bit higher as they said. Also, I couldn't help but think after they mentioned painting influencers that you should paint Will, Lee and Jake. HAHA!
By the way, love all the Ghibli and also love that you've done some fan art from The Girl From The Other Side, which I still need to read all the way through but my fiancé LOVES.
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Something new to me in this episode was the idea of working as an in house illustrator at a studio, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around what this looks like in practice. Does anyone have any specific examples of this kind of studio? I’m mostly just finding in-house jobs at non-art-related companies (e.g. Duolingo and Amazon) when I search online. Does anyone have experience at a place like this? @Jake-Parker mentioned that there are a lot of these in Seattle, which is exciting to me because I grew up around there and would love to move back.
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@patricialamas I once worked for a startup company who was trying to make Audio books with illustrations for people to watch on their DVD player. They had a team of us doing layouts, finished inks and coloring so it was more of a production line.
Also, the guy who owned it was a clown, his ideas were awful, he was beholden to this one author who funded him up front and wanted her book made which was terrible. Needless to say it ended with us all going home on PayDay and then finding out the paychecks he cut us all bounced, and then he bounced.
GOOD TIMES!
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@Blitz55 This sort of thing is what I’m afraid of!! Semi-related, my experience as an employed artist was as a cake decorator at a fancy bakery that specializes in custom illustrated and 3D carved cakes. It was a stable job and fun work, but terrible pay and hours. The people who are still working there justify it by telling themselves that they don’t know where else they could work and still get to be so creative.
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@patricialamas It depends on what you're more interested in I think. A few examples that I can give of places that I've worked or known people that have worked in that space are:
Local print shops - sometimes these can get pretty big and as their client-base grows their need for design help grows accordingly. These are shops that do local signage, brochures, marketing material, advertisements, have relationships with local publications, etc . We're not a huge city (about 900,000 total in the entire area) and we've got a few print shops that employ up a hundred employees. Clients have zero idea how to format even their logos let alone placement on signage. So they have quite a few people dedicated to just graphic design and every now and then you have someone who wants custom illustration work.
Larger Web Development Companies - If a web company starts to grow beyond 1 or 2 people, usually they're starting to delegate the creative part to someone that's just designing elements and layouts. Enevidably clients start to need things like logo design, brand identity stuff, which ends up overlapping a good amount with the same kind of marketing work you'd be doing with a print shop. It's not uncommon to find a web company that employs 10-15 people, some of whom are 100% dedicated to the creative development.
Creative Design Studios - These are more rare than the first two in my experience, but I can see metro areas like Seattle could have a ton more than we do here in a smaller area. But this kind of outfit is just straight up a creative studio that I think would probably say they do "brand identity" as their main staple. They do web, print, brand, logos, etc. They're also often charging a ton so they can afford to bring in dedicated creative people.
What I'd do look in your area and start doing searches for website developers, brand identity development, local print services, etc and make a list based on how big they seem to be and just start calling and asking the larger ones if they're looking for any creative or design people to fill a position.
OR as a second option, you could ask if they ever have too much work and are looking for people to work as contractors to handle the overflow. If you had a relationship with a few different outfits you might be able to carve out a nice niche with a lot of versatility and stay more autonomous than someone on the payroll.
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@patricialamas My experience is with a production department for a corporation. The leadership was experienced in live action work, with little to no academic knowledge of animation or the visual arts. I was the only one with an illustration background, while my colleagues were from graphic design or motion graphics. This made me the expert in life drawing and anatomy. My first presentation with the team, going over my mood boards, storyboards and character sheets - standard stuff for animation - was beyond their expectations.
In regards to teamwork, it wasn't like art school. Getting constructive feedback from co-workers without a representational art background can be difficult. Not everyone working in a creative field is imaginative, making for unproductive or one-sided brainstorming sessions. It was fustrating trying to convince others the need for storytelling (expressive faces and posture, pacing, etc). I think they would have been fine with Memphis style.
Serving in a specialized role meant more varied responsibilites. They had me producing presentations and provide multiple options to clients, creating backgrounds and assets for motion graphics, social media posts... The experience serving multiple roles can be good if you're planning for a higher position within the industry.
A former colleague of mine was recently hired by Amazon as an animator/illustrator. She quickly rose to a leadership position. If you have stong sensibilities in life drawing and storytelling, you'd already stand out from most applicants.
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@Daisy I know I've said this before somewhere, but I used to be an oil portraitist. There really is something to what the guys said about people thinking you're worth what you ask, and if you underprice yourself people will not give you as much respect. (@NessIllustration has a video about this as well.)
That's not to say you don't put in enough work to make it worth what you ask, because I'm sure you will, but it's just to say that for the same amount of work (and a bit more experience), I was able to ask for more that I had previously, and as I did, I noticed that people gave me more respect, and as they did that, I did better work and got more of it. So keep that in mind as you price your portraits, which are good!
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@Jake-Parker Thanks for answering my question! I wrote the following in the YouTube video comments, but think maybe I should repeat it here in case someone else was confused by my question: The part about the hospital was just my attempt to specify that the quiet scene didn't have a super-obvious context that already sets a certain tone, such as a family gathered around a sick person in a hospital room.
And Lee really got my point about subtlety. In my opinion it's much harder to do storytelling in quiet scenes than in action scenes! I liked the response, though, which was mostly about environmental clues. Jake also mentioned studying quiet films, which I thought was an excellent idea.
Thank you!
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@Daisy I have not listened to the podcast yet, but I just looked at your work on your website and you are creating very professional work. Love it all. $90 so low, you are worth a huge amount. I know someone close to me that also undervalues their work, I am always saying that they should value their work at at least 3 or 4 times higher.
I also wanted to say that your website is so professional. An excellent presentation of your work. -
@Blitz55 Thank you so much for the encouragement! Yeah Ghibli and manga in general are a big influence in my character designs. I actually haven't done a portrait painting in a while... I will once I have a bit more time! And I'll keep in mind your suggestion, lol!
(And yes, Girl from the Other Side is high on my recommendation list!)
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@LauraA Thank you for the suggestion! I don't do any traditional work but I really envy oil painters, it's such a luscious medium! I really want to try and mimic some of it's properties in my digital portraits. Thanks again!
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@PenAndrew Thank you so much! Man I hate the business side of things, why can't we just create to our heart's content?
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@Daisy Well we could but maybe we would make less money!
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@jdubz I would look more carefully before approaching print companies or creative design agencies. Find out how much illustration they actually do. I was in such company and the best illustrator there did 2 projects which actually had illustrations in his 5 years there.
The majority of the time he had to do website wireframes, edit photos, lay out brochures and mock-ups in photoshop. They actually treat you the same like any other people hired as graphic/UX designer because there is just not enough Illustration works to go around with their clientele. Other times they just outsource the illustration to freelancers because they can pick a more specific style. I ended up joining as a studio manager because I didn’t like the creative work that seems to sap your creative energy without it being fulfilling at all. That way I create art in my free time instead…
However not all creative agencies are like that. Maybe there is more illustration work in general in the larger US cities or wherever you live, so it may be worth checking out a few studios and look at their portfolio of projects and you can sometimes tell if they are leaning more corporate (hence less illustration ).
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@Daisy So did you raise your prices then? Ha ha.
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@PenAndrew oh lol! I have to burn thru some commissions that I had already accepted at a lower rate but yeah I'm planning on reworking my website and raise my prices! I still like the 35/hr and 280 day rate, we'll see how it goes!
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@Daisy yes, life work balance is important. What are you working on now?
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@PenAndrew oh I fell behind on Patreon rewards, so I'm creating a set of postcards for my patrons and I'm tempted to try and make some of these into little notebooks (I saw Fizz and Flourish make some on Instagram and wanted to try it out :D) after that I have a set of portraits that I need to finish, so I'm busy for a little bit. I also desperately want to participate in Mermay, but I'm not sure I'll have time lol. How about you? What do you have going on?