Art by Braden Hallett
SHOW LINKS
NOCK.CO BUSINESS CARD SIZED NOTE CARDS
3PP EPISODE 48 - WEBSITES AND ONLINE PORTFOLIOS
CRITIQUE ARENA (Check the forums for a new prompt each month!)
KAZU KIBUISHI HARRY POTTER COVERS
“Why am I not getting illustration work?” This is a question that can bother even the most seasoned artist. Being between jobs can be frustrating and difficult, but just because your clients aren’t calling doesn’t mean you can’t keep working on other ways to be productive. Professional Illustrators Jake Parker, Lee White, and Will Terry discuss the different strategies you can utilize to spend your down time effectively, and garner more interest from potential clients.
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INTRO
Let’s start with a rant! Jake received an email from an ad agency asking if he is available to work with them. They asked him if he was able to offer a reduced day rate because of COVID-19 restrictions. It’s weird, because the company is still making sales but Jake would be doing the same work for less pay. He responded that he couldn’t reduce his rate and is interested in seeing how things go from here.
Lee got a similar email from a big company that rhymes with “Cramazon” (who could it be??) that wanted to make one of his stories available online for free. He did it, because the company was not making money off of it.
How many other professions get asked to do things for free? Cabinet makers never get asked for free cabinets. But at the same time, doctors or dentists sometimes have to take bills to collections, when people don’t pay their bills. Doctors also provide an essential service.
Illustrators are essential as well. They save lives.
Artists are always asked to do things for free all the time. Other professions don’t have that.
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE NOT GETTING WORK?
NOCK.CO BUSINESS CARD SIZED NOTE CARDS
What should you do when you aren’t getting work?
1. Get a Networking Plan
Make a list of everyone you’ve done work for in the past, and make a schedule to stay in contact with them once or twice a year. Don’t look at it like networking, but rather as “friendshipping” -- just be real and friendly! This will bring you to their attention and help you stay in the forefront of their mind.
Lee calls this the bullseye/dartboard theory. The people on the outer ring are people you don’t know, that you need to reach through postcard mailers or something similar. The second outermost ring are the people who you have contacted previously, or who move there from the outer ring -- they get more specialized notes and cards. Then there is the bullseye group, who are the people that hire you regularly. They are a fantastic group to regularly contact with new work or promotional stuff, but in a “no-rush” manner. Lee keeps these messages low-profile and doesn’t put too much onus on the other person to respond.
Something that a lot of beginning illustrators don’t realize is that our clients don’t know that we want to keep working with them. If you don’t let your clients know that you liked working with them, they might not reach out to you because they could have lots of other artists to keep track of, or they might assume you are busy.
2. Organize your Physical Space
At some point the work will come again, and you will be busy. The more organized you are in your work area, the easier and faster it will be to get back to your grind. Take the time to organize your computer and your files, as well as your tools and your workspace. Optimize everything as much as you can.
It makes a huge difference to how you feel and how your day progresses. Don’t get carried away with it, where you fine tune it to the point that it becomes its own “thing” to do, but do it regardless.
Lee has to take several days to repair and organize his work space because if he doesn’t focus it down, it will never get done. If you are getting into a big project like Inktober, take some time at the start to gather all your reference or do your research so that you have all your materials organized and ready to go -- it will save you time in the long run. Giving your work its own space will make it much more enjoyable.
Will is slightly less organized than Jake but because he works digitally there is less mess to worry about. He keeps a list of things that he needs to do, and one of those things is organizing his reference and his assets. When working digitally, all that stuff can get as messy as a physical space. Will is working on a project right now that has different objects that he can reuse. He is going to organize them and put them all in a reference folder, so that he doesn’t have to look through his old work each time he needs it.
Lee suggests that they share reference folders for a video. Would you be interested in this? Let us know in the Youtube comments or on the forums!
Jake keeps a lot of reference on Pinterest but also keeps a lot of it on his hard drive, and on his bookshelf -- a lot of information is still only in books.
3. Come Up With a Social Media Strategy
Downtime is a great time to focus on your online presence. It might be a good opportunity to follow the types of industries that you are interested in, and become better educated and more well connected. Consider commenting, posting, and following/liking posts for the industry that you are focusing on. A lot of the time while you’re working, it is easy to neglect social media, but look through your archive and consider posting older art.
Working on books can be unique -- they are usually long term projects that take a deep amount of focus to work on. When Lee is deep in a book, a lot of his other projects fall apart. Jake just went through his old illustrations and reformatted them to squares, so that they would look good on social media. He has been posting them every week, and they are getting way more likes than the sketches he usually posts. Rarely are people going through your archive, so feel free to repost old work.
Will doesn’t produce enough new artwork to share consistently -- he can’t share his client work until much later. If he is getting ready for a Kickstarter, he goes dark on social media so that he can save up content for the launch. People don’t necessarily care if you repost old work. Will worries that he doesn’t want to repost stuff he has already posted before. But on Instagram, only 20% of your followers will see a post. Apparently paying to boost your post gets you worse results, because you will get more followers who don’t care about your work, which dilutes your pool. It is better to have 100 followers who care about your work than 1000 who are semi-interested only.
4. Update Your Website
You want an online home that you own, that is not beholden to social media algorithms or other things. Update it with all your latest stuff and keep your about page updated. There is stuff on Jake’s website that is 15 years old, but stays because it is still relevant. We have an episode all about websites!
3PP EPISODE 48 - WEBSITES AND ONLINE PORTFOLIOS
Stay on top of your website! Have 10 to 30 pieces in your portfolio on your website, and change them every couple of years. Will uses his site more as an archive than a rotating portfolio.
Jake keeps old original art on his site to let people know that it is only sometimes available, what it costs, and that it sells out.
NOTE: We lose Will Terry at this point in the podcast, but he’ll be back! In the meantime, check out his Kickstarter project -- just search “What They Don’t Teach In Art School”.
5. Polish Up Your Portfolio
Take a good look at your portfolio. Is the breadth of your work there? Is it the type of work you want to be doing? Take some time to work on some stuff you want to do, to include in your portfolio.
Lee always suggests to his senior students that they start with something they already have and change it, then add it to their portfolio. Use your own work as a starting point.
6. Cut Costs
This is a good time to plan and prep. Look at your overall business strategy. Follow the 80/20 rule, pick the 10 things that you are spending money on every month in either your business or personal life, and look at the bottom two that are delivering nothing, or the top two that are delivering the most, and try to get rid of the rest. Also consider looking at the top 10 things you do to make money, and pick the two that make you the most money, and lean in hard on those two. Cut the bottom two or three out.
You could be paying $10 a month for cloud storage that you don’t even use, or something similar.
Lee recommends Truebill, which helps you track your subscriptions and expenditures. You can cancel those subscriptions straight from the app. They also go through and negotiate lower prices for your subscriptions via robocalls.
If you work from home and use a car four or five times a month, it might be cheaper for you to do uber rather than owning a car. There are plenty of things you don’t need that you think you might.
7. Enter Art Contests or Challenges
Go online and look at what online communities are holding contests or challenges. Social media challenges are also a great option -- including Inktober, Mermay, or March of Robots. The #sixfanarts challenge is great as well. SVSLearn also has a monthly contest:
CRITIQUE ARENA (Check the forums for a new prompt each month!)
Critique arena is a battle royale of art submissions, with audience votes and a bracket system, as well as two winners that are hired by SVSLearn to do illustrations for our podcast episodes.
It’s a great way to sharpen and hone your skills, as well as build notoriety.
8. Give Yourself Your Dream Assignment
If nobody is hiring you, hire yourself and give yourself a dream prompt. Make it something that is in alignment with what you want to do and get more work for. Do a board game, a children’s book, a comic, or a toy. You might not have all the resources to publish your work but you could design it and work on it and learn. Consider taking something with a strong fanbase that has died down, like Twilight or Harry Potter, and redesign all the covers in a modern style. If you do a great job it could be blogged about and shared.
KAZU KIBUISHI HARRY POTTER COVERS
Harry Potter will be rereleased for its next anniversary, and it will have new covers as well.
9. Launch a Kickstarter Campaign
It could be anything -- something small like a $5 zine, or a huge board game. There is something refreshing and challenging about making a Kickstarter, from start to finish, and producing a product on your own. You learn something even if it doesn’t fund.
There is some great stuff on Kickstarter. Consider starting a Patreon if you don’t have one -- Jake has been leaning into his one this year and has pivoted the focus, and has doubled his subscribers. He shifted from project-based to just a feed of every behind-the-scenes piece that he makes. He shares .PSD files as well.
10. Take Some Time To Fill Your Creative Bank Account
Read stuff, watch stuff, play stuff, experience the things that you want to be a part of. Take time to recharge your creative juices. Maybe your ideas are getting a little crusty or tired, maybe you aren’t as inspired any more. Fill your creative bank account, look both inside and outside of your comfort zone, and gain inspiration.
11. Do Something Far Out of Your Comfort Zone
Do a creative process that is so far from your norm that you will learn and be reinvigorated -- take a sculpture class, or do some silkscreening, or do anything that you don’t have to be a pro at. Changing your medium can change the way your art looks, and the way you see and think and process things.
12. Work on Promotional Materials
Work on stuff that you can show to your clients, that would get them excited about hiring you. Consider creating a list of side projects that you want to work on, and turn to it when you are between jobs.
LINKS
Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44
Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt
Lee White: leewhiteillustration.com. Instagram: @leewhiteillo
Alex Sugg: alexsugg.com
Aaron Painter: painterdraws.com. Instagram: @painterdraws
Daniel Tu: danieltu.co.
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