Art by Liz Orton
Should you follow art trends? What compositions do you keep using? And is it too late to start illustration as a career? This week, Jake Parker, Lee White, and Will Terry discuss the answers to these questions as well as offer a rant on the state of the American Cinema.
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SHOW LINKS
The House in the Night by Beth Krommes
Lee starts the podcast off with a rant about the storytelling found in American movies today.
He’s upset at American Cinema for ruining good movies that had great promises with terrible plots. He uses the movie Hancock as an example of this- Will Smith plays a superhero in the movie, a superhero with lots of problems and who ultimately needs help to fix up his life. Jason Bateman plays the regular dude in the movie who helps Will Smith’s character shape up.
Or at least that’s what the first 40 or so minutes of the movie lead you to believe is going to happen. But after about an hour, a female superhero gets introduced and a bunch of other weird things happen and, in Lee’s opinion, it ruins the story.
He thinks they made the story too big-- added too many elements to it-- when all they needed was a simple, well-written story.
Jake actually used to work at a film studio and he remarks that the things Lee is complaining about remind him of when the executives would see the movie for the first time and say “the story’s great but it needs to be well received by x,y, and z audience so you need to add this, this, and that.”
Lee says that one of his favorite things about being a children’s book illustrator is that there are not as many opinions about his work that he has to satisfy- it’s usually just him and the people who commissioned his work.
Jake mentions My Neighbor Totoro as an example of a well-made, simple story, and says that there is such a difference between American Cinema and Foreign Cinema.
(Lee mentions another ‘Sunday Movie’ as Jake calls these more relaxed stories- A Letter to Momo)
Jake was asked to pitch his book, Little Bot and Sparrow (a Sunday Movie in book form), to an animation studio for it to be made into a film. He thought about how he could expand the story and eventually landed on Little Bot needing to go on this big adventure to find Sparrow after he’s left.
When Jake pitched this the studio told him that it was great but that he needed some sort of baddie- a bully or some tangible antagonist that Little Bot needed to overcome. Jake didn’t like that so he never returned to the project.
Will brings up that a lot of publishers these days want a book/story to solve a problem. They need the protagonist to overcome something. He thinks that’s a misguided notion because sometimes a story should just be entertaining.
Jake disagrees, or at least provides some pushback, saying that parents and librarians (the ones who buy children’s books) want to reinforce this idea of problem solving.
He also mentions that the big publishers might not want the book you're trying to sell them- and that’s okay. If you have a goal of making a story that doesn't appeal to the big publishers but that you know there’s an audience for- find that audience and make your art for them.
Lee predicts the death of the publisher, and Will disagrees. He argues that publishing will transform so it can continue to supply books as demand changes.
Like the Walter the Farting Dog books- the higher brow publishers wouldn’t produce that book but the authors felt they had an audience so they self-published and it blew-up.
Writing and publishing for a niche audience is never a waste of time.
QUESTIONS (None of these questions will be word for word due to them either not being on the spreadsheet or the text within the spreadsheet being cut off. Sorry)
Emily asks- To Be or Not to Be- The Style Conundrum. She’s confused about what to do about her style. Should she follow the trends just to get work? Have the guys ever had this concern? What did they do?
WIll starts by pointing out that some people say they want to do children’s books but the work in their portfolio is not for children’s books (There’s a distinct lack of cute kids and animals), and that if you don’t like drawing the things that go in children’s books don’t do children’s books.
He has two different art styles-- a more colorful and rendered one and one that focuses more on drawing and less on color). Martha Rayon, the creative director of Penguin Random House, once asked him to use his drawing style for a project, and that project turned out to be Bonaparte Falls Apart.
So, he wouldn’t recommend you just follow trends but there are some modifications that you can probably make to your work so that it’s both your work and what the client wants.
For this, he recommends looking at 3-6 children’s books that you think are popular and use those styles to influence your own.
Jake thinks that if you want to do a more retro style you have to do something more contemporary with it- you can draw like Dr. Seuss, but if your character art is inspired by him then maybe you should add a more contemporary background. (He’s kind of doing that with CC and Benson so take a look at that to see what he means.)
He also mentions that he transitions between his two children’s book art styles based on what the art director wants from him.
Lee agrees but, brings up that ultimately the judgement call on what art style you use is up to you. If you really feel like the style you use needs to be more marketable you should take the time to break down what makes other styles populer and see how you can incorporate that into your own work.
His theory about this is that children respond better to mark making that is similar to their own. To illustrate this, he compares the work of Chris Van Alsberg and David Shannon. Adults will typically buy art by Van Alsberg but children probably won’t.
David Wiesner has a realistic art style but it has a sense of magic and adventure that works well with children's books.
Lee would have you think about what would make your style interesting to your market? What will the adults in the market think kids will respond to? What’s already in the market and selling?
The definitive answer-- according to Jake-- is to follow opportunity but bring passion with you- Mike Robe said that originally.
If illustrating children’s books is really what you want to do then go fit yourself into that market but don't change your style so much that you can no longer see yourself in it.
Lee remembers a book called The House in the Night by Beth Krommes. It has a very out-of-left-field art style but it sold very well and Evan won a Caldecott. This just proves that doing what you like and doing what sells can be a very tricky balancing act.
Jake asks that you consider if you want your art to win awards or do you want your focus to be making great books that sell well.
Joseph asks- super witty subject line- What are some of your favorite illustration techniques or layouts? Ones that you come back to all time.
Will used to struggle with having backgrounds with his images. He just couldn’t figure it out so he ended up buying a bunch of children’s books where the backgrounds match the foreground really well.
David Catrow is one of the people he drew inspiration from during this- his art really helped show how to draw backgrounds that wouldn’t distract/detract from the main story.
He loves a good spot illustration that tells the story without complications.
(A spot illustration for those of us who weren’t aware is an illustration that can stand on its own. It doesn’t have a background scene.)
Lee really likes what he calls the playset technique-- he’s really fond of having nicknames for his techniques.
He likes to think of his artwork like it’s the stage to a play and each individual drawing is one of the set pieces. This helped him with the lack of background that gave Will so much trouble (he references the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet and how it only needs the balcony and about 4 trees to let the audience know that the scene takes place outside in a garden) and it also helped him move his art from a 3D picture in his head to a 2D drawing.
One of Jake’s favorite techniques is called the peg-leg pig of the one-fin shark. This technique focuses on the difference between a drawing and an illustration. A drawing is just an image. An illustration is an image that tells a story.
It’s called the peg-leg pig because of an old joke. This guy drives past a farm and he notices a pig with a peg-leg. He thinks this is odd and drives on. But now his curiosity is needling him, he needs to know. The man turns his car around, heads back to the farm, knocks on the door of the farmhouse and asks why they have a pig with a peg-leg.
Your Illustrations should cause your reader to ask questions that they will keep reading the story to find answers too. Jake uses the example of Will’s book Bonaparte Falls Apart- in order to show that Boneapart couldn’t keep himself together he loses his head right at the beginning of the book and in his efforts to find it again, he confuses his skull for a basketball, putting that on his head instead.
Will says that you come across strange things every day and that it’s natural to stop and question them a little bit. He was in the park the other day and there was a guy taking measurements with a little device. He would take a measurement and then look at his phone, and since neither Will nor his companions could figure out what exactly the man was doing Will went and asked.
He was excited to be able to bring back the new information to the table. He thinks that as an illustrator you have to have that mindset of ‘what can I bring to the story that won’t detract from what’s already there?’
Lee brings up the term McGuffin and Jake defines it- it's something that’s necessary to the plot but is not really important or useful all by itself. The most famous example is the Arc of the Covenant in Indiana Jones.
Then Jake asks (rather abruptly) if the others know the punch line to the peg-leg pig joke. Lee and Will say no, so he tells it like it’s peak comedy.
The farmer tells the man that the pig woke up the family in the middle of the night because the barn was on fire. The man asks if that’s when he lost his leg. The farmer says no. Then the farmer tells the man of the time the pig dug him out from underneath an overturned tractor and saved his life. The man asks if that’s when the pig lost his leg. The farmer says no. “Then how’d your pig lose his leg then?” The man asks. “Well,” said the farmer, “ a pig like that you don’t eat all at once.”
Unknown asks- a 40 year old pipe dream. This person studied illustration in their 20’s but was rejected too many times. Their portfolio was too varied- it was in the generalist style that her school was pushing. They want to know if it’s too late to start as an illustrator.
She has submitted her artwork to CritiqueArena pretty regularly so in looking at that, Will says that her focal point is great when she’s doing characters but it falls apart when she does illustrations- the value pattern seems more arbitrary and less planned.
You need to fix a viewer's direct eye-traffic with value and color. We communicate visually in organized, logical sort of ways. You want your picture to have one focus- one message. It’s an easy fix once you’re aware of it.
As for if its too late to start again- Will wants to know if you need to make money at this or if you just want to do it because you love it. Doing it for the money might overshadow how much you love it, but if you follow your passions opportunities will follow.
Lee says that of course it’s not too late. Illustrators are not professional athletes. In his opinion, illustrators get better over time because they have more life experience to draw from.
As for her work, it’s very character driven. There’s no story. There’s no background. She’s saying that she wants to illustrate children’s books but she's showing something completely different.
He recommends putting a second character in a scene and that the relationship between the characters will become a story.
Jake weighs in by saying that this person definitely has the chops (and Lee agrees) and if they want to just draw characters they totally can. The title artist can consist of so many different things.
His advice is if illustrating children's books is where you want to go- to build up your portfolio. Pick 3 projects and do 6 illustrations for each. You like Little Women- make 6 illustrations for LW in your style. This shows art directors ‘oh, if she can do this for LW she can definitely do it for my project.’
Then do 6 illustrations for a classic fairytale and 6 from your own world. That’s an 18 piece portfolio right there. That plus your character designs and graphic art- your portfolio is going to grab people’s attention.
Will would like to remind you that doing something you love is always worth it but you have to work consistently at your craft to make it come true.
LINKS
Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44
Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt
Lee White: leewhiteillustration.com. Instagram: @leewhiteillo
Daniel Tu: danieltu.co.
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