Buisness of Illustration part 3!
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@Lee-White Do you know an efficient way to balance or to thrive as an illustrator while working two non-artistic staff jobs and living alone while creating work and still developing art skills?
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@Durrell-Odom My advice there may or may not apply to your situation specifically but I'll give it a go (everyone's situation is different of course).
I would say the first thing to look at is your overall expenses. Is there ANY way to lower your cost of living, which would give you the opportunity to ditch one of the non-artistic staff jobs? If so, that would buy you a massive amount of time and energy. Things like moving in with another roommate, not having a car payment, not subscribing to cable (and other monthly dues other than SVS of course!) come to mind.
Not gonna lie, working two jobs and trying to get work as an illustrator is extremely difficult. You need to try and change the situation if possible to put yourself in the best position.
For us, we are actually looking at moving to a cheaper town. Since our clients are all remote anyway, why live in a high cost of living town. If you haven't checked out Mr. Money Mustache, you need to. link: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/. He talks about all this stuff in detail. I'm not a hardcore believer like some of his followers, but I do like what he is saying.
We also gave up small things like gym memberships, alcohol (beer and wine is expensive!), and other small things to lower our cost of living to maximize our income stream. It's tough and requires some sacrifices, but it's all worth it in the end.
Let me know if this helps and if you have any other questions. : )
Good luck!
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@Lee-White thanks for this series.
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I love these. I'm very much looking forward to part 3.
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@Lee-White The first two parts are great (still have to do my homework about them), looking forward to Part III! (Btw if it's ever possible, please add some tips for those who want to use Photodeck, I took a new domain name and connected it to Photodeck at karimillustration.com with a PRO monthly subscription (found a 50% discount coupon online for the first month : )
of course everything is at a demo state right now but will be working on both a new portfolio and a different market -maybe, not sure yet to be honest-) thanks again and have fun in making the course : )Karim
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@Karim-Benyagoub I wish I had the time to do that, but that's a tough order. It takes about two weeks to get familiar with Photodecks interface. I don't love the design of it and find it confusing if I haven't logged in for a while. it's just one of those things you have to go in and mess with.
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
@Lee-White hey! Yes I totally understand, I've spent dozens of hours trying to figure out the differences between types of galleries etc (especially because my Internet access is so very slow currently,) but I understand what you mean, at least support seem to reach out to users by asking if everything is cool, and that's a good sign, I may explore it more and more as I renew some portfolio elements, thanks again!
Karim -
Class is live! go check it out! : )
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
Will and I may be doing a live Q&A based on the class (and we will record it) if you guys are interested in that. It will be free.
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Awesome, thanks! ^^
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@Lee-White Just finished listening to the 3rd video - Good job! Thanks!
I think for the Q&A, I'd still like to hear about: 1) Auditing the usage of images licensed via Photodeck as well as adherence to usage terms (this would also may include any commentary on litigation), and 2) the pros/cons, approach, practices & advice of being represented by agents.
Also, it was nice to see how you broke down the project into it's action points as well as how you itemized various things in the previous 2 videos and how you showed your workflow & presentation. It would be good to discuss/show other itemizations for business development & marketing/sales, workflow, project structure, file structure, presentation structure, etc. For instance, @Jake-Parker had a snippet of his document(s) for storyboard layout and page/illustration checklist for a book in an Instagram Stories post last week that was great.
You've stated similar sentiments in your videos: Project success is often helped or hindered by the quality of business operations. The better the structure, documentation, etc. the more efficient the process, end product, & client/vendor relations. Any additional insights you all may have learned across all your projects are incredibly valuable and will certainly help prevent costly mistakes.
Thank you for all that has been shared already!
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Hi, Awesome tutorial.
I saw that you create a pdf displaying different options for an illustration for a client which allows for descriptions and an easy way for them to display it in meetings. I was wondering what you do to display roughs for a picture book professionally, as this has so many more pictures?
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@neilpriceart for a book dummy I don't do multiple images for each illustration. I will do it for the cover though.
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
@Lee-White Thank you so much for the reply. So am i right in thinking you create a pdf for the roughs and each spread has a border and has your notes below? Thanks again.
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@neilpriceart sort of. The pdf dummy will have notes in various places. Using Adobe Acrobat, you can attach notes anywhere.
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
@Lee-White said in Buisness of Illustration part 3!:
@neilpriceart sort of. The pdf dummy will have notes in various places. Using Adobe Acrobat, you can attach notes anywhere.
Awesome, cheers.
