3 Point Perspective: The Illustration Podcast

308 episodes — Page 6 of 7

Ep 57Heck Yes! Or it's a NO!

Click here to learn more and sign up for SVSLearn's 30 Day Trial: https://courses.svslearn.com/bundles/30-days-free3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here to find the links for this episode and to see this episode's illustration. 3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here for this episode’s links and show notes.

Jun 16, 20201h 6m

Ep 51How We Actually Make The Art

3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here to find the links for this episode and to see this episode's illustration. 3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here for this episode’s links and show notes.

Mar 24, 20201h 19m

Ep 5010 Lessons from Starting SVSLearn

Mar 10, 20201h 14m

Ep 49Websites and Online Portfolios

Feb 25, 20201h 9m

Ep 48How to Evaluate your Art Foundation

Feb 11, 20201h 14m

Ep 47How to Launch a Book

Jan 29, 20201h 12m

Ep 46What Are You Working on This Year?

Jan 15, 20201h 18m

Ep 45Difficulties of Being an Illustrator

Jan 1, 20201h 19m

Ep 44The Year in Review

Dec 23, 201948 min

Ep 43Agents and Reps

Dec 12, 20191h 23m

Ep 42Cultivating Creativity

Nov 28, 20191h 11m

Ep 41The Best Illustration Assignments

Nov 14, 20191h 23m

Ep 40Illustration Horror Stories

Oct 31, 20191h 7m

Ep 39Starting an Online Shop

3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts! Inktober Promotion: FREE 30 Day Trial of SVSLearn, includes all of our inking courses, along with 80+ other art related courses. Perfect for leveling up and getting ready for Inktober. Click here to find the links for this episode and to see this episode's illustration. 3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here for this episode’s links and show notes.

Oct 16, 20191h 29m

Ep 38Listener Questions

Oct 3, 20191h 20m

Ep 37Creating a Great Concept For Your Illustration

Sep 18, 20191h 25m

Ep 36The Style Episode

3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts! Click here to find the links for this episode and to see this episode's illustration. 3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here for this episode’s links and show notes.

Sep 5, 20191h 6m

Ep 35Transitioning to a Career in Art

3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts! Click [here](https://www.svslearn.com/3pointperspectiveblog/2019/8/21/transitioning-to-an-art-career to see our awesome show illustration ) to find the links for this episode and to see this episode's illustration. 3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here for this episode’s links and show notes.

Aug 21, 201955 min

Ep 34When Did You Know You Would Make It?

3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts! Click here to see our awesome show illustration and to find the links for this episode. 3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here for this episode’s links and show notes.

Aug 7, 201959 min

Ep 33How to Social Media

Most creatives feel a pressure to be active on social media and to be building a following around their work. In this episode we talk about how to determine which social media platforms are best for you, how to use hashtags wisely, and how to best leverage the strengths of Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Linkedin, and E-mail. To see this episode's illustration or to view links mentioned in this episode, click here. 3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here for this episode’s links and show notes.

Jul 24, 20191h 19m

Ep 32How to Change

Everyone wants to improve and try new things, but why is change so hard? Sometimes we box ourselves into a certain identity or style and feel like we can't deviate, or we get comfortable and fear failure. In this episode we discuss why consistent improvement, experimentation, and change is so vital to creatives, and go over practical things you can do to create lasting changes in your life. For more detailed show notes and links to things talked about during the episode: Click here 3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here for this episode’s links and show notes.

Jul 10, 20191h 16m

Ep 31Pricing Your Work

"How much should I charge?" This is a common question that every professional artist needs to confront and understand, yet it is often talked about so vaguely which leads to a lot of confusion and mystery. In this episode we hope to shed some much needed light on the subject. We go over day rates, how much beginning children's book illustrators typically make, things to consider when pricing your work, negotiation tips, whether or not you should do work for exposure, and the benefits to having an agent. For more detailed show notes and links to things talked about during the episode: Click here. 3 Point Perspective Podcast is sponsored by SVSLearn.com, the place where becoming a great illustrator starts!Click here for this episode’s links and show notes.

Jun 20, 20191h 10m

Ep 30Post Graduate Advice

This podcast is sponsored by, SVSLearn, the place where becoming a children’s book illustrator starts! Oh The Places You’ll Go! This is the season of people embarking on the next step of their life journeys, graduating from high school, college, etc. In today’s episode we discuss ways you can move forward in your creative journey. In the last few weeks Jake has been visited by a handful of high school kids and college underclassmen asking for advice on what they should do to prepare to get a job in the art world. In response to that, he asked a bunch of his artist friends at Emerald City Comic Con what was once piece of advice they had for someone graduating high school who wants to be an artist for a living. To watch that video click here Lacking from that video was our advice. He has some things to say to people who have chosen to walk the creative path. If that’s you, then settle in. If it’s not you, please share this with a person you know who’s going to art school, or recently graduated. You can read it too, of course. This advice is universal and it just might help you no matter what stage in life you’re at. To read Jake’s blog post: click here. Or keep reading since this show is a mix of Jake’s thoughts with Will’s and Lee’s, that’s why we call it 3 Point Perspective, of course. A Career In Art Is Possible. By now you’ve probably figured out that it is possible to have a career in art. Some art careers make more money than others. Some are more stable than others. But for anyone who has the skill, the drive to improve, a healthy work ethic, and isn’t afraid of the unknown it’s possible to get to the point where you can support yourself and even a family with a career in art. In school there are grades and personal opinion that plays into things, but in the professional world it seems to sort things out. It puts everyone where they are supposed to be, the good people get work, the average people struggle to get work, and those that aren’t so good don’t get much work. It really rewards talent and drive and is pretty fair, there aren’t too many people who are super talented that aren’t getting work. It also depends on what you classify as success. A lot of people land in art related jobs that weren’t exactly what they were aiming for but for those people they end up loving them. There are some who have book deals and who struggle to make ends meet between book deals, and there are others who struggle to get book deals but are really good at business and are making even more than those with book deals because they are good at freelance and are business minded. There is a combination of being business minded and finding ways to generate passive income and those who are really good at the craft and struggle with the business side of things. There are two sides to the coin if you want to really be successful as an independent artist. This is mostly for independent artists. There are some people who have day jobs who work at studios. This is good for people who aren’t as business minded, you show up and provide a service to the company and they pay you for that service, and then you go home, and repeat. If someone had sat us down and told us these things as a high school kid it would’ve saved us years of spinning our wheels. 1 - Focus on one path. “Find out who you are and do it on purpose. “ -Dolly Parton You need to be a heat seeking missile focused one thing. A heat seeking missile works by finding a heat target and then ignoring any heat signal that doesn’t come from that target. That’s why heat seeking missiles don’t just fly straight towards the sun when they’re launched. Picking one thing to do does not mean that’s the thing you’re going to do forever. In fact, it’s very rare to be ONE THING you’re whole life. Steven Pressfield tells us of this truth in his book The War of Art: “As artists we serve the Muse, and the Muse may have more than one job for us over our lifetime” That said, you have to start somewhere, knowing how to do something. So pick something and learn what you need to master in order to get a job in that discipline. Learn how other artists got their job. Study the art of people who work where you want to work. That’s the bar that you need to reach. Visit the studios, meet up with the artists, acquaint yourself with recruiters. Do internships. Insert yourself into that ecosystem. Make it so that when you finally apply for that job, it’s a no brainer for whoever is hiring, to hire YOU. As you go throughout your career you’ll probably do a variety of things. You won’t find success until you nail one thing and get good at that one thing and then can branch out from there. We’re not saying, become the master of drawing eyeballs. There was a discussion on the forum about this, whether you should discover your personal voice and then decide which market you want to go for or to pick the market and match your personal voice to the desires of that market. Becoming a jack of all trades comes fr

Jun 5, 20191h 6m

Ep 29Building A Strong Portfolio

3PP 29 Curating Your Portfolio New class that launches this month! Gina Lee’s Art Licensing Class: Part 2. She has artwork that she is still making money from, thousands of dollars, that she made in college, that is getting printed on bags, shower curtains, etc. If you want to learn how to do that, check that out at SVSLearn.com! Because Will has his Youtube Channel, does this podcast, and teaches for SVS Learn, he often gets asked a lot to give people portfolio reviews. Handout: A list of 100+ things to include in your children’s book portfolio, at the bottom of the show notes. Portfolio Reviews The main thing that Will will ask people when giving them a portfolio review is: “What type of work do you want to get?” And he will normally get one of two responses: I don’t know, I just want to work as an artist in some illustration market. More specific: I want to do [comics, children’s books, graphic novels, or animation.] Advice for people who don’t know: if you don’t know what market you want to go into, then there is no way you can make a portfolio that will please an art director and make them want to hire you. Art directors are pretty literal. If you think that you are good at rendering, then you may think that you could draw anything well, and that the art director will recognize that because you showed your rendering prowess. That is not the case, you have to show it! It really is so specific. Whatever you show, literally, that’s the thing you will be asked to do. If you have a couple of illustrations with chickens in them, then you may become known as the chicken guy! You as an artist know that if you can draw a human figure well, then you can draw just about anything. But that’s not how art directors see it. Art director’s have to protect their reputation. This is their career and they want to be well known and respected, and someday become creative directors. They don’t want a curveball. They will usually go for the sure bet. You Need a Business Plan Lee often asks the same question as Will: “What type of work do you want to get?” That question says: How are you going to be in business? It drives the image and everything else: who the market is? how the market pays? how you get paid? how many illustrations you have to do in a month? how images are licensed? how the pay structure works? do you know how the business works and which direction you want to go in this business? Etc. This is important stuff to research and know ahead of time. So essentially, when asking, “What type of work do you want to get?” We are asking, “What’s your business plan?” This is a business and you need to have a business plan. If you are at the point where you are trying to get work, it is vital that you understand this. For example: You need to be able to say, “I’m going to work in editorial illustration, focused on these markets..., I want to work with these magazines…., and this is the type of work that they are doing.. Here’s my work and how it fits in there...” And then as a critiquer, we could tell you, “I would recommend, you take these 4 images and make them into post card mailers and send them out, and then alternate them monthly with this email marketing plan…” The more focused and specific you are, the better advice and critique you will be able to receive. A business plan is an evaluation of the current market and your particular direction. Who’s getting work right now? Where is the majority of the work being hired? Are the rates going up or down? Who are your main competitors? What do you have that they don’t have? What’s your competitive advantage? What will help you get hired instead of them? You need to be able to answer those questions. This is a very smart, logical way to approach your work. To the person who says,“I don’t know what I want to do, I just want to work somewhere.”: You can always change it, but you will be treading water if you don’t have a plan. You need to have a definite plan. So let’s get rid of the art side of this for a minute. Let’s say you have a $100,000 and your friend has a business plan that they want to pitch you. So you go and meet them at a cafe and say, “Okay, pitch me your idea.” They say, “I want to open a pizza place.” You say, “I’ve got $100,000 that I could invest in your place. Okay, where’s it going to be? How are you going to compete? What’s your secret?” “Oh, I don’t know.” “How much is it going to cost?” “Oh, I don’t know.” “What materials are you going to need? What’s your advertising plan?”? “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t have an advertising plan.” Would you give that person $100,000? With what we are talking about it’s even worse: “I want to open a restaurant.” “Okay, what kind?” “I don’t know.” We have got to be smarter than that. Artists do that, here is most artist’s 3 Step Business Plan: 1. Make an image, 2. Post image, 3. Sit back and pray that something happens and that they get hired. We’re only half joking. Any other business would die with that model. They hav

May 22, 20191h 6m

Ep 28How to Convey a Message or Story With Your Art

What if you could make money off of artwork you did years ago? That’s what Gina Lee does. She has a class on SVS where you can learn about how you can take artwork that you have already done or how to create new artwork that can be used for licensing (i.e. paper plates, decorations, etc.) You can check out that class here. This next week we will be releasing a Part 2, which will cover: Trend forecasting, developing your personal style so it’s more desirable to licensers, and how to create vision boards to help direct your work for what you want to do for licensing. Jake is reading, Keep Going” by Austin Kleon. One section is all about “Create For the Sake of Creating” and Austin talks about how you can sometimes just create something and then toss it, shred it or burn it. Create just for the sake of creating. It makes the creation all focused on the joy that comes from creating, not the end product. Sometimes we get so focused on the end product, whether or not we can scan it, share it, etc, that we lose sight of the joy of creation. Oftentimes kids only care about the experience of creating, they aren’t so focused on making something perfect. Sometimes it’s nice to not be so focused on the end product. Our topic today is: How to Convey a Message or Story With Your Art The Kick in the Creatives podcast covered this topic and they are tagging other podcasts to cover the same topic; we were tagged by them to go over this topic and they are wanting us to tag another podcast to then talk about this. Out tag is:(“One Fantastic Week”)(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/one-fantastic-week/id949599706). Storytelling As illustrators here, we are going to focus on how to convey a story with your art. Jake overheard this experience, when Will was teaching a class with Brian Ahjar about creating great backgrounds. Brian is really good at telling good stories with his art. Will and Brian were critiquing students work in their interactive class and the problem many of the students were having was that they were telling story fragments. Brian’s critique on a lot of the pieces was: “I don’t know what the story is.” Oft times the illustration can confuse the viewer more than it communicates something clearly. Just because you’re drawing a picture doesn’t mean that you are saying anything. That’s a problem you see a lot of times with amateur illustration work they just draw a character or an environment with no story in mind and oftentimes people don’t know what’s going on or have any deeper questions that they want to know more about after seeing the illustration. That’s what we want to go over: how to tell a story and why that’s so important as illustrators. Longevity, if something is going to be interesting for a long period of time, then it needs a story. On the other hand, sometimes people run into the problem where they tell too much story and it doesn’t give the viewer any work to do or allow the viewer to participate at all; there is a good middle ground where people can come back to it again and again, and depending on where they are in life, they can maybe read the image in a different way. Sometimes people paint a barn that has really no story to it, and unless it’s just amazing if it’s not telling a story then it’s not going to be as interesting. If you aren’t telling a specific story, often what you draw asks questions rather than answers questions. Sometimes you are asking more questions and making things more confusing than you are answering. I.e. Will saw this student’s illustration where there was this happy woman in the foreground looking over her shoulder and a happy dog trailing behind her, and then in the background there is a girl that is upset, but there are not cues as to why the child is upset. You might imply that this woman is the child’s mom and that she was happy from just disciplining her daughter. It seems that she almost has glee that her kid is upset, which probably wasn’t the illustrator’s intent. That’s an example of asking more questions than you are answering. You are asking more questions than you are answering, that is starting to move away from illustration and more towards fine art. Which can oftentimes be a lot more abstract and wanting the viewer to ask questions and think more. David Dibble does these amazing barn paintings, with terrific color, light and shadow, but when doing that these are more of a gallery piece, a decoration for someone with a lot of money to hang on their wall. They are a decoration. The piece’s purpose isn’t so much to communicate a specific story. Your job as an illustrator is to tell a story. Every image spurs a question in your viewer. Every image should elicit some sort of emotional response from the viewer It should make them laugh, or make them interested in the story or in the character, make them want to turn the page to see what is going to happen next, make them angry, inspire them, give them awe, etc. Really cool concept art: creates a feeling

May 8, 20191h 9m

Ep 27Work / Life Balance

3PP 27, Work/Life Balance SVSLearn.com Just a reminder this podcast is sponsored entirely by SVSLearn.com. This is the place to be if you want to become a children’s book illustrator. We have 80+ courses apart of our subscription, we also have a few 5-10 week long interactive courses that will be starting up in May. We are running a 7 day free trial right now and you can try it out and see if you like it. We are starting to record our podcast as a video and will be uploading it to Youtube. Work/Life Balance Our topic today is Work/ Life Balance. We have gotten a lot of people asking us about this and we’ve talked about this before on our old webinar, which was the precursor to this podcast, hopefully we will be able to address it from a few different angles today. This is something that everyone is concerned with and it affects all of us each day. The Basics of Establishing a Work/Life Balance We were thinking about going over what to do with your time once you have established a work/life balance, but we wanted to start with the basics of establishing a work/life balance and share some experiences from different phases of our lives. We thought that starting with the basics would be beneficial. Is it possible to always have work/life balance? No. There are some phases that aren’t going to have as great of a work/life balance. When Lee was at Art Center, it was like boot camp, he was doing art from the second he woke up to the second he went to sleep, and he didn’t have good working methods back then which may have helped alleviate some of that. There were other phases where the balance was skewed, i.e. having a baby. Balance is not the norm but there are ups and downs and ebbs and flows and rhythms to our work/life balance. There are times for more work/life balance. Life is everything besides work: Spending time with family, with your spouse or significant other, exercise, recreation, playing games, etc. Learn to Do Hard Things Will has noticed that for a lot of young people, including one of his children, that they struggle to do really hard things. When Will was young he participated in Boy Scouts, and for that he was in an axe competition that took all day chopping down trees till his hands were bleeding. Probably one of the hardest experiences he had was when he hiked a mountain in the winter time starting at 5am and they didn’t set up camp till 5pm. Experiences like that, where you push yourself and your body to the limit, it makes other things pale in comparison and seem less difficult. Some people don’t have hard experiences like that to build on. Things that might seem easy to some seem impossible to them. However, compared to others throughout the history of the world, Will has never done a full days work in his life. There are kids today, who have really never worked a day in their lives. Lee was teaching a painting class and students were commenting on how they had spent 6 or 8 hours on their master copy painting, but when he was in school that was just the start most of his would take around approximately 12 hours long. That was the norm. Nowadays we lean towards that instant gratification mindset and 5 hours can seem like forever. If we change our mindset on how long we think something should take it can change our whole attitude towards the project. Work/life Balance is not a balance so much as it is more like an ebb and flow. There are times where you need to put everything into work, there are times of life and times of the year, or the project, during those times your life becomes the work. There are other times in life where you need to focus more on family and on friendships and it’s okay to hold back on work some to focus on those most important things, maybe you just had a baby, or got married, or had a death in the family, etc. There is a way to have that ebb and flow day to day as well. The main rule is: be present wherever you are at and in whatever you are doing. When you are at work, be 100 percent at work. When you are with your family, don’t be on your phone, be 100 percent present. Jake’s mom just passed away and that is one of those personal experiences that we will all experience in our lives. Jake went and visited her before she passed and had a really special time taking care of her, talking with her, and holding her hand. He came back to Utah and her condition was worsening. He had some rough days, and had been planning on going to Emerald City Comic Con and he was debating if he should go or stay in case he needed to go back to Arizona for his mom. Jake’s mom wasn’t the type of person who wanted to cause too many waves and wouldn’t want to get in the way of family or work. She was really cool about stepping back. Jake’s sister told Jake to go and that if there was an emergency they would fly him out. He went to the event and did his best despite the undercurrent of sadness and thoughts about his mom. He tries to be present and do his best wherever he is. Work With Intensi

Apr 24, 20191h 29m

Ep 26How to Become a Better Children's Book Artist

How to Become A Better Children’s Book Artist We want to go over some questions that Will has been emailed about that all revolve around the general topic of: How to become a better children’s book artist. As a children’s book artist, do you have to speak and if so to what capacity? Will got this email from a student who got a literary agent last summer and who was wondering if publishers require illustrators to do school visits and publishing conferences. Essentially they are afraid of speaking and were wondering: As an illustrator, do you have to speak? Will used to be petrified of speaking, it probably doesn’t seem like that now because he has a Youtube channel, and speaks at conferences, and now it’s no big deal to him. However, before his heart would pound like crazy just thinking of an upcoming speaking engagement, if he had to speak or teach at church or in school. Maybe some of you also feel that way. Do you really have to speak and if so to what capacity? Jake has done 15 or so books through publishers and he has done school visits for 1 book in particular and it was completely optional. They asked if he would be willing to do it. He went to 6 different schools and didn’t know how much it actually helped his book sales? Ultimately, he doesn’t know how effective it is. You shouldn’t worry about it or let it hinder you from pursuing a career in children’s books. Maybe if it’s apart of your business plan and you are visiting 50 schools a year and you have a line of books to offer for sale, then it might be much more effective. There are some people who do this and they make a lot of money from it. If you go out of state and visit 5 or 6 schools and line them all up and coordinate it so it works out then you can stack a bunch of schools next to each other. Some people will finish a book and then spend the whole next year doing school visits. Once they were trying to get an illustrator to come and do a video with SVS, and he said no and the reason he said no was really really smart, and Lee thinks about this all of the time now. The reason he said no was “because he would come film a 2 to 3 hour video, but it would take a month or two to get ready for it, with rehearsing it, practicing it, writing the course, it takes so much time to prep it and he has learned that he doesn’t have the capacity to do that sort of stuff. Now Lee tends to fall along that line now when he is asked to speak at a SCBWI Conference etc. it’s exhausting and it zaps all of his creative energy out of him. So for Lee, it’s a mixed bag for him. If you take 2 months to prepare a presentation and you can give that same presentation 50 or 100 times then it really pays off and is worth it. But if it’s for a one time or two time presentation it may not be worth it. David Biedrzycki and Jerry Palada do school visits all of the time. So maybe we’re not directly answering the question but these are all different ways to consider speaking and the benefits of it. Average payment for a day is about $1500 and so if you do a few days in a row it can really add up pretty quickly. For David, his wife does all of his booking, hotels, and airfare. And he is now going back to some schools that he went to a few years ago. Publishers like it and want to work with someone like that. It takes away almost all of the risk because if they are doing so many trips, the publisher should be able to at least sell the amount to break even. These guys make a lot of money. How about speaking at bookstores? You have to decide who you are. Some people love to travel and know how to work while they are out and they can keep their routine. It seems like a really lopsided investment and you don’t get much out of it. Lee, works on a book and then it comes out six months later and he is already on to the next thing and he doesn’t want to stop all of that. The thing is book stores typically don’t pay, but schools do. So you’re paying to go and sign books and it’s not very profitable. It’s really hard to make them worth the time. You might sell 10 books in 2 hours and with your royalty of 50 or 75 cents a book, you might make $7. Book signings work for the famous but not so much for the up and coming person. Why You Should Learn To Speak Publically If you do this job and you start to get work, at some point you will be asked to speak publically. So should you? Yes you should, at least learn to be comfortable speaking. Take classes or do a workshop to learn to speak publically. You will be asked to speak publically, or you’ll be asked to teach, or you’ll be asked to present, we get those offers all the time. How to get good at it? Start saying yes to every opportunity where you can. Will used to be that guy that hated it. Will could barely speak when he was chosen as illustrator of the year for the California Teachers Association, and he had to go around giving speeches and he gave a speech in front of 1000 people in a ballroom and that was 10 years ago and he was so nervous

Apr 11, 20191h 1m

Ep 25How to Make an Impact With Your Art

How to Make and Impact in the World With Your Art. What work have you done, that has had the most impact in the world? Meaningful Lessons Will doesn’t write the children’s books that he has illustrated but he feels like he really is able to bring a lot to the table with his art and is able to make the stories more clear. One of those books is Bonaparte Falls Apart, and he is working on the sequel right now and it has an anti bullying theme that is not overt, in that the story holds up on its own. He loves and enjoys working on them and because the Bonaparte books have sold really well, even though the second hasn’t come out yet, the publisher has hinted that there may be a third book. Pretty much every kid experiences bullying and even the kids who are bullies probably get bullied at home. It’s really an important message to help kids become empowered and overcome and deal with those emotions in a positive way and overcome. The Frances books have a kid who is a bully in them. Will had an epiphany reading those books because he used to tease his sisters and sometimes he was a bully; in one of the Frances books he remembers that the sister goes off and is crying because of her brother’s bullying and it really tugged at his heartstrings and must have been pretty impactful because he can still remember that experience now over 50 years later. He realized that he was the bad guy in the story and it really changed him. It was a children’s book that taught him that lesson. I don’t think that you can quantify the impact of your art. Sometimes it’s hard for us to remember where we have shared things and if we have shared stories before, so we apologize if we keep sharing some of the same things. Gentle Reminders Lee feels that where he has made the most difference, it was probably not with his books, instead he feels like it is the connection that he has been able to make with his one off images. Sometimes it’s a momentary thing and he strikes some inspiration and creates a fun print, and then he goes to art fairs to sell them. One time, Lee was getting ready to close at an art fair when there was this woman who came to his booth and one of Lee’s prints caught her eye and she was holding it up looking at it. Lee was waiting for her to leave so that he could tear down his booth but he noticed that she had tears running down her face, she was crying, he wondered what he had done or what he should do. She was looking at this picture of this girl swinging really high on a swing hanging down from a tree. She shared that her sister had died when she was young and that she liked to swing just like that. Lee gave her a hug and she was just bawling and he gave her a print. It was just such a personal connection and one of the most powerful moments of his career. That’s just one experience. On a more consistent basis, when doing art fairs, older people will come to his booth and they will stop and look around, and have this starry look in their eyes. One time this lady said, “I remember this”, not speaking of one piece in particular, they were talking about the feeling of being young. It wasn’t just one image or just one book, but the overall impression of Lee’s work. Lee gets these ideas and likes to make images and are fun, whimsical, and capture a moment. He has seen that happen a lot, with older people coming to his booth and it gives them this shot of something they may have forgot and they leave smiling. Unanticipated Impact One of the things that Jake did that inadvertently had an impact on the world was start an art challenge called Inktober. He didn’t set out trying to make an impact on the world but he gave himself this challenge to try and get better at his craft. He easily could have said, “I’m just going to do this challenge in ink and you guys can follow along.” However, instead he decided to make it a challenge and he invited other people to participate if they wanted to and he made some parameters or rules for the challenge: you draw an ink drawing every day for the month of October and share it online. What started out as a single person doing a self improvement art challenge turned into thousands and thousands of people. He gets so many emails every year from people sharing how it has helped their creativity; it gets people drawing for themselves again, a lot of professionals share that they draw so much for work and Inktober helped them draw for themselves and remember the fun in drawing; people show how they improved so much from doing this and got better as an artist; others share how they got all of these new followers because they showed up and posted consistently on Instagram. Jake had no idea what he was starting. He is trying to actively promote it more and participate more and try to make it more accessible for others. He’s done childrens books, graphic novels, worked on animated films, but everyone views him as the Inktober guy. At first, he thought, “No, i’m so much more.” But now he accepts it an

Mar 28, 201953 min

Ep 24Roadblocks to Success

Have you ever felt stagnant in your life or your career? We all encounter roadblocks and in this episode we go over some very common roadblocks that are encountered by everyone from the most beginning student to the most seasoned pro. We talk about how to get those roadblocks out of your way and how to be great and reach your full potential. Roadblocks to Success We give a lot of critiques to students and also to pros. It’s interesting how many times the same things come up in a critique. That is what we want to talk about today, “Roadblocks to Success.” Lee has seen a lot of the same things happening, not necessarily in an art piece, b in different artist’s growth. What gets in the way? Why don’t people logically improve consistently over time? If you look at an artist’s growth and career it looks like a stock chart with ups and downs. You see some of the same things happen from the most beginning student to the most seasoned pro. We want to talk about those things and how to get those roadblocks out of your way, how to be great and how to reach your potential. Roadblock #1, No clearly defined goals or understanding of where they are going; they are trying to do everything all at once. There are a lot of students who are working really hard but might not be as focused as they could be. They are going to life drawing, doing Inktober, and taking 3 classes in school, they are trying to do everything, or there is the early professional with everything in their portfolio. Art schools are often patterned after the 4 year university curriculum, and they have all of these different skills and classes they require students to take and sometimes it just isn’t set up in the best way possible. You need a target to be shooting for. Sometimes in school we have to do a character design, then a book cover, then a concept piece. You can’t do all things. Lee would have students bring their business cards in and work on branding at the beginning of one of his classes, and students would bring cards up and they would say, “John Smith: Illustration, Concept Design, Storyboarding, Graphic Design, 3D Modeling.” you may have done each of those things but that doesn’t mean that you are able to produce at a professional level in each of those fields. Sometimes that thinking continues after people graduate and they can flounder with their portfolio. They haven’t picked their market yet. Art is very business related. Lee was judging January's SVS Monthly Art Contest just recently and got a great question. There was an honorable mention, for the topic “Big”, and in the illustration the artist (Aleksey Nisenboym) drew these leprechauns or gnomes around this giant glass of beer and they were all knocked out from drinking so much; the illustration was done in a children’s book style and the great question came: “Is this okay for a children’s book portfolio?” This was such a good question because this artist knew the market and target that they wanted to hit. Look at how you can fit in a field. There are two things here: There is focus and there is goals. We sympathize with the young 20 something year old artist who is kind of good at everything, when you are kind of good at everything you could go in any direction that you want. So you tend to try it all out. You try everything, you try some modeling, you do some illustration, some comics, etc. Jake’s advice is: Have fun, try as much as you can, but see where there’s opportunity, and follow that opportunity if it aligns with your goals. If you don’t have a clear goal for where you want to see yourself at age 30 or where you want to see yourself at age 40, then you aren’t going to focus in on the right things. Go out and experience those things and see what you are good at and see what you like, you may not be as good at that thing but if you enjoy it then that could mean a better level of success for you, in the long run. Then lean in on the thing that you like the most, the thing that you’re good at, the thing that you like and the thing that has those opportunities there for you. Jake’s Venn Diagram: What You’re Good At, What You Like to Do, Where the Opportunities Are. How do you figure out what you’re good at? First, do it. Then see how people respond to it. Show it to a mentor, post it online, see how people respond to it. Being good at something you don’t really care for. Lee did a bunch of architectural design to make money, even though he didn’t love it, but then was totally focused on children’s books and was always doing that on the side. Short term goal: pay your rent this month. Long term goal: where do I want to be as an artist in 10 years? Focus Some businesses in Japan have like 100 year business plans (that’s just a ballpark number, it’s some big number like that). We need to do more of that. A lot of artists are kind of just doing their next piece and go from piece to piece not thinking about the underlying reason and how it fits with their portfolio. Sometimes we just g

Mar 13, 20191h 8m

Ep 23How to Be the Best Art Student

How to Be The Best Art Student Will got a letter from a listener who shared that her favorite episode was the first episode, “My Art is Great, Why Won’t Anyone Hire Me?” She requested an episode where we focus again on that and expand more on that topic. She also said that “and by the way that is the best episode you guys have ever done thanks to Will Terry.” Will may have embellished the letter some! She continued by saying something along the lines of, "The idea of self audits is great and I am taking to heart the idea of really honing my craft over the next year. I would like to know as an artist taking your classes the best method to take and absorb those classes since I only have a few hours in a day after work to learn and get better." So that’s what we want to talk about today. We will split this episode into 2 parts: Part 1: How to Be the Best Art Student Part 2: How to Get the Most Out of Our Classes at SVSLearn.com and Online Learning We did these things called 3rd Thursday’s and they were Webinars that we did live and then we would put the recording of it on Youtube. We put all of those webinars on SVSLearn.com. So we are taking some content from one of our Third Thursdays from a while back and presenting it in a more creative way. Part 1: How to Be the Best Art Student, 5:35 Addressing Poor Mindsets: “I’m going to art school to get a degree.” First off, in all the years that Jake worked for studios and being apart of the process of looking at portfolios for people that they wanted to hire, never once did they ask if the applicant went to school. The portfolio always was first. They always would look at their portfolio to see if they could do the work and then they would ask what school they went to but wouldn’t check if they graduated or anything. The degree, as far as the real world is concerned in concept art, in children’s books, etc. does not matter, what matters is that you can do the work. It’s a meritocracy. It’s all based on ability. How well can you perform the task? Would you say that people who have gotten far enough in a degree program should quit? If it is your last semester and there isn't a job offer yet, then finish it out. If there is a job opportunity that is available and it is what you are going for, it might not make sense to turn that job offer down just to finish out that last semester, and then if you are ever in a position to you can go back and finish that last semester. But we're pretty sure that once you are working in that field that you are wanting to work in and you are good, and already getting job offers as a student then you will keep progressing and odds are you’ll keep getting better and never look back. Unless you want to teach for a University at some point, if there still are Universities in 10 or 20 years. Some job postings do require a degree. But really it all comes down to if you can do the work. If you have a great portfolio, and show you can do the work and especially if you already have some experience under your belt. There will be some companies that want you to get a degree. It's all about your portfolio and skill set. You could have two people who graduate from school and they both graduate and get a degree, however one of them may have worked 2, even 4, even 10 times harder. That person will be so much more prepared for the job field. If the prize was the degree then they will get killed in the job market. Maybe mom and dad will be happy about the degree, but it’s all about the learning. The mindset you should be trying to develop as a student is don’t have your eye set on the degree. The degree should be the byproduct of you trying to get the experience to get a job. Looking at the college kids that Jake works with as assistants, everything they are doing to get that degree is totally going to help them get a job. But it is not about the degree, it is about the experiences they are getting as they work towards that degree. Your senior project or your final art show, that should be the thing that gets the employer’s eyes on your work and interested in you not the degree. Will would give himself assignments or choose to do different assignments that he felt would get him closer to his goals in terms of portfolio. His classmates would sometimes get freaked out and ask him what he was doing and he would say that he was wanting to do freelance after graduating and that he was focused on preparing his portfolio. There is a middle ground with ignoring what your teachers are asking you to do. Lee would ask for permission to adapt assignments and would shoehorn what the teacher said to what he wanted to do. He would do what worked best for him and his portfolio. Jake had an assignment to draw himself as an animal and instead of doing a portrait, he did a landscape with animals in the background, because he wanted to do a piece that could become a part of his portfolio, and he ended up using the piece in his portfolio to get a concept art job.

Feb 28, 20191h 18m

Ep 22Tools of the Trade

Today we are going to answer these questions: What are the tools, the programs, and the apps that we use to create the art that we do? What is not essential, what is nice to have, and what is essential? Traditional Tools: Jake: The last book he did was ALL digital. However, that is not the norm, usually he uses traditional at some point in the process. The sketchbook is where a lot of the traditional work happens for him but, a lot of times in the process he will go back and forth from digital to traditional at some point. Jake’s Traditional Toolset: Sketchbook, pencil, and a pen. The reason these tools are so important is that they don’t have to be charged or plugged in. You can carry them wherever you go. You can use them to jot down ideas, to work on a character design or a composition that you are trying to figure out. A sketchbook is absolutely essential. If you don’t have one, this is something you should reconsider. Jake used to work on loose sheets of paper, and that’s fine and all, however, sometimes he would lose an illustration or a drawing, or it was always hard to organize them by date. But now all of his sketchbooks are dated and kept in a drawer and are organized in order. Keeping a sketchbook makes it easy to organize your drawings. The Moleskines Cahier Sketchbook What type of sketchbook should you use? It all comes down to what type of paper you like to use. Jake has used a lot of different sketchbooks but his favorite is the Moleskine Cahier extra large plain journal, they are flimsy, and the paper is just good enough to keep his pencil, ink, and marker markings in place, they don’t smudge too much. It’s nice because with this particular sketchbook it doesn’t feel too precious, it feels like a good workbook where it doesn’t feel like every drawing has to be pretty but you can do nicer drawings in there if you want to. PrismaColor Col-Erase Pencils For a sketching pencil Jake wants something that works well with ink and doesn’t smudge with his hand, and the Prismacolor Col-Erase pencils are perfect. He takes an exacto knife with him in his tool bag for sharpening them, or a pencil sharpener in the studio. He likes the orange or vermillions, or the reds, they are nice because the ink stands out in contrast to the pencil while you can highlight things with the red or you can draw lightly and the ink will really stand out. Pens: Some sort of technical pen is essential. They are great for taking notes, a 0.3-0.8, maybe a 0.5 is good for jotting things down or doing quick loose sketches. Copic Multiliner 0.5 Pen. Brush pens are great for going from thin to thick in one stroke, they are a tool that you can use to bust out a really nice drawing or illustration very fast. Jake’s favorite right now is the Copic Gasenfude. Will’s Traditional Toolset: nothing is essential. Only the traditional aesthetic is. Lee’s Traditional Toolset: Sketchbook/portable workbook. Mechanical pencil. There is nothing worse than trying to draw with a dull pencil. It’s a visceral experience, almost like scraping nails on a chalkboard. Loves drawing on cold pressed watercolor paper. If you don’t sharpen your pencil it hurts your nice line quality. The mechanical pencil gets rid of that. Lee likes to use the .05 basic size. Moleskine Cover Sketch Album, Plain It’s a new experience when you have a horizontal sketchbook rather than a more narrow workspace. The wide one is awesome too. There is another sketchbook that Lee likes. Nice to Have: Lee likes to make a sketchbook with the paper he will use in the studio. Then when you work on your final piece it is just a one to one translation and you know already how i the paper feels because you’re using the same paper. In watercolor the paper is everything, you can use cheap brushes or paint but the paper dictates everything. M Graham Watercolor Paints Great for use in the sketchbook and in the studio. The reason is because it is really easy to reuse the paint, if he just sprays some water on it with a spritzer it comes back like he just poured it out. This is great for when you are traveling. Winsor and Newton are great but they don’t rewet very well. This is the brand typically everyone buys when getting started and then when they try and make a portable sketchbook it doesn’t really work because the paint doesn’t rewet or come back Watercolor Pencils Watercolor pencils are great, and Lee uses them a lot mixed with the watercolor. The difference between that and a regular pencil is that once the surface is wet a lot of color is released, you can even draw on wet paper. He’ll paint and draw right into the wet and it’s great. Lee’s Favorite Prismacolor Col-Erase pencils: Tuskan Red or Indigo. Feels that other colors are too saturated. Beat up Dip Pen Reason for beat up is there is some oil on the nib from the factory., wash them with vinegar and water, or dish soap. Don’t use a lighter, it will ruin your pen. Dip pens are like guitars, there is something special about them when t

Feb 13, 20191h 9m

Ep 21Successfully Failing

Failure There are a few different types of failure: Low-level; these are the daily upsets and letdowns. Mid-level; they sting for like a week or a month. High-level; getting fired, getting divorced, these are life changing and really can be cause for a lot of introspection. Let’s start with a good quote, that’s how all good podcasts start, right? “People who succeed are people who failed but they keep going anyway.” Examples: Mohammad Ali. He lost his first fight and then, after the fight, was claiming that he would be the heavyweight champion of the world. Michael Jordan, didn’t make his 10th grade basketball team. This failure is the impetus of his success. This is what lit his inner fire. Babe Ruth, he had the home run record and the strike out record at the same time. He went for it everytime, it was all or nothing. Babe Ruth was so confident that he would point over the fence to say he was about to hit a homerun before going to bat. 7:07 Low-Level Failures When Lee started art school he came to it really without any experience drawing or painting. The first 3 or 4 terms were kind of rough. Every day Lee would sulk into class and he would have done his best on his paintings and then would look at what everyone else had done and he knew that he wasn’t at their level yet. It was a daily failure, for the first couple of terms. It was tough and he really struggled with it; it was quite disheartening. He came up with a way to get through it: He was going to do 100 paintings and the wouldn’t start being judgmental of his work until he hit 100 paintings. He would keep tick marks on a sheet until he got to 100 and by the time he got there he was way better and more confident. By 100 paintings Lee was starting to find his stride and get pretty good, at that point at least it wasn’t daily failure. One problem we have is that we look at failures as failures. We have also been conditioned to not look at trying and failing as a learning and forward moving experience. Everything in school is all about moving up, what grades did you get? Were you right or wrong? We’ve been conditioned to not use trial and error for learning. In school we don’t get a good grade for trying and failing. All the results we see with report cards are all about moving up. That conditions us in a bad way for being artists. That model is good for math, it’s either right or wrong, but with a painting there is not just a right or wrong way, sometimes you have to wipe the paint off and redo the painting but that failure was apart of the successful journey. Will once had a student and they wouldn’t try anything with paint and were so afraid to make a bad mark, they were paralyzed. Will thinks that this was because they weren’t ever rewarded for trying and failing. 12:30 Be 100 Percent Responsible Participation awards, now in youth sports there are always participation rewards, but kids know it is a game and there are actually winners. They know who won and who lost. There is another way to categorize failures: Caused by you, and your choices Caused by others, and their choices Caused by external forces. You can’t always control the outcome of the failure however, your reaction to failure is up to you. Typically Jake’s goal, regardless of what caused the failure, he tries to take as much responsibility as possible for what happened, or for fixing the situation moving forward. Hopefully that’s the lesson from any sort of failure, you’ve learned something, if it didn’t work you can check it off your list, okay this didn’t work, and then you can keep moving forward. No matter what happened you can check it off your box, whether or not you caused the failure. You don’t have to be a victim, you can choose learn, and then move forward. 15:00 Test Your Hypotheses Art and life really is a lifelong learning process both on the micro and macro level. You’re always testing your hypotheses. You can always be learning. “I tested those theories and they didn’t work and so I am going to change the process, or change…” That’s how Lee learned watercolors. Initially in almost every painting he would fail. Watercolors are really difficult to master. Lee would constantly fail in every painting and would get frustrated because he had to buy these big sheets of expensive paper. He decided that he would start painting with the mindset that each painting was a test. And then that shift in thinking really helped him, instead of “I wrecked that painting and wasted that piece of paper”, it was, “okay, next time I need to put more water down.” he moved from frustration to a growth mindset. Rocket scientists almost celebrate when a rocket explodes. If the launch is successful sometimes they don’t know if they just got lucky. However, when it fails they get all of this data to learn from to solve the problem and then when the next launch is successful, they know that they were able to solve the problem. Jake feels the same way and if something takes off he is a little uneasy wo

Jan 31, 20191h 22m

Ep 20A Year's Worth of Lessons

Projects: We’re still working on a lot of the same things, and so from now on we’ll probably just give updates once a month instead of every episode.. A Year’s Worth of Lessons We want to each share a couple of lessons that we had from this past year. Concept is King, Will At the beginning of his career, like most people, Will focused a lot on craft. And as he has matured he has learned that craft is what gets you through the door but what moves you forward is artistry, or the concept behind your piece. That is the most important thing. Craft validates you, but your concepts is what moves you forward. It is all about the subtle things, the things that add to the story, the things that are left out of the illustration. WillTerry.com, check out Will’s comic con drawings, a lot of time goes into making sure the concept is solid. You don’t really get to see anyone’s real initial reaction when they see your children’s book that you illustrated. However, at the comic conventions strangers don’t know that you are the artist, so Will gets to see their natural reaction to his work and his fan art concepts. He has been able to really see, by watching it in real time, that people are not drawn to the craft but they are really drawn to the concepts of his drawings. The drawings with stronger concepts attract more attention from customers. Will is trying to go through his Bonneparte book and make sure the expressions and everything add to the story. That those little details are adding to the story and concept behind each illustration. Technique, perspective, etc: it all serves the story. Not the other way around. You don’t make the story about the perspective or about the technique. Lee really likes his work to look raw, and has really gravitated to that look over time. He oticed that when he tried to make things look really rendered and realistic people talked a lot at how realistic his work looked rather than the concept behind it. But when he changed his approach and focused a lot more on concept and developed more of a raw style then people also began to focus more on the emotion and the concept. Jake used to be very tight with his drawings using a technical pen, but has grown to not focus so much on that and instead uses a brush pen and it has given his drawings a more organic, hand drawn feeling. It’s more about bringing the drawing to life than making sure every part and mechanical piece makes perfect sense. Ask yourself: What is the concept, and what is the emotional response that I want to illicit in the person viewing it? With all of that it is hard to get noticed if you have bad craft. Having bad craft, is often from laziness. Will struggled with drawing and resisted getting better at it, and his excuse was that he didn’t want to hurt his style, but it was really just an excuse for laziness. Putting some effort at building your craft will help you better pull off any concept you want to tackle. You need to still learn craft so that you are able to take on whatever artistic challenge comes your way. You want to be malleable, and adaptable. You need to be able to adapt to the times and not be stuck doing just one style. In short, good craft will get you through the door, but good concepts and ideas will help you move forward. 20:00 It’s All About Lifestyle, Lee This has been a big year for Lee and his family! They moved from Oregon to Tennessee and have been able to really lower some of their expenses which has taken a lot of stress from Lee to have to make as much money and helped give him more time. They have been working at this plan to reduce costs for 3-5 years and it has really payed off, no pun intended. Now Lee has a lot more time, and a lot less stress that allows him to be more creativity. Essentially, control your costs to enhance creativity. There is a big relationship between what you want to do and the stress of making money. The more pressed you are for money the more likely you will accept work that you would prefer to avoid. The more financial freedom you have the more you can say no to those projects and work on the work that you want to. Will was alive way back when not everyone had personal computers. He didn’t want to spend the money on one and kept putting it off but once he got a personal computer, that was a game changer for him. If you need a particular tool to do the work that you need to do, that you want to do. Then get a job and work to save money for that tool. If you are more wise with your eating expenses and your other flexible expenses, soon you could save enough money to afford an iPad or those tools that will help move you forward. There are some practical things that you can do to help move you forward financially: Don’t Live in San Francisco or another place with high cost of living; it will be difficult to move forward, starting off your career paying $2300 a month for an apartment. Go through and try and take 20% off of your major bills: groceries, rent, etc. Back in the

Jan 16, 20191h 24m

Ep 19The Stories We Tell

3PP 20: The Stories That We Tell Stories are as old as civilization itself, and as humans we can't help but tell stories. In this episode we share common plots, themes, and ways to understand and better come up with good stories. We also share some of the stories that have been influences on us and who we are as artists and storytellers. Current Projects: Lee, Is continuing on his book cover series; he also worked on creating 50 patterns to give to his agent to take to a convention in New York for licensing. Will, Still working on the sequel to Bonaparte, and is working on a new Kickstarter, to be released in February or March. Stay tuned for details! Sidenote: in case you didn’t know, Kickstarters are exhausting! Jake: Is all finished with his Skyheart Kickstarter and is still just rounding up any stragglers, so if you are a backer and haven’t filled out your survey yet, log onto Kickstarter and fill it out so we can get your reward to you! SVSLearn.com, sponsor of this podcast! Free for 7 days. Click here if you are interested in learning more! What stories do you want to tell? That is the question that we want to dive into with today’s topic. The Stories That We Tell In illustration there are some recurring stories and themes that come up with similar plots and basic story details. Lee did a deep dive on the internet to learn more about what stories keep coming up in the world of children’s books and here are the results from the first website he found:) Basic Themes, Plots, and Actions 10 Basic Themes in Children’s Books: Courage Friendship Belonging /Identity Family Loss/ Grief Growing Up Anger Suffering Jealousy Love Lee did a little more research by clicking on the next Google result, and found this: (The 7 Basic Plots, Christoffer Booker)[https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Basic-Plots-Tell-Stories/dp/0826480373/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1546027154&sr=1-1&keywords=the+seven+basic+plots] Overcoming the Monster, or overcoming some big thing Rags to Riches: follows a rise to happiness. Voyage and Return The Quest Comedy Tragedy: riches to rags, follows a fall. Rebirth Jake’s 4 Different Plot Categories: Winning Escaping Stopping Retreating These are the modes of action of the main characters. I.e. Where the Wild Things Are, Max is escaping. Little Bot and Sparrow It’s all about a robot that becomes friends with a sparrow and they grow in their friendship together, until one day the sparrow has to leave for the winter. The story is all about: Friendship, Belonging, and Dealing with Loss and Grief. A subtle version of rags to riches. Plot applies more to bigger, longer stories, stories with a 3 act structure. Children’s books can have a 3 act structure but often times they don’t. Most stories: a problem that needs to be solved and then they find a creative solution. The late Rick Walton: Come up with an interesting problem with a creative solution. Are there things that you like to create? Are there things that you like to create? What are you naturally drawn to creating? If you are a student in school you should be creative enough when you get an assignment, you should be able to fit what the assignment is with what you want to paint or create. Some themes that come up in Lee’s work and entertainment interests: Kids that find something magical, and then that drives the story. Normal real life with a hint of magic, or one thing out of place. Like The Goonies, Iron Giant, and E.T. With Harry Potter, he liked the details, more than the overall story. 3 Different Types of Creators: World Building: get really caught up in the details, sometimes overlook the story and characters and can get caught up with plot points, etc. Character Building: very focused on the characters and their development. Plot Building: very focused on the overall story, but maybe doesn’t have specifics figured out with characters, the world, etc. Jake loves Worldbuilding. What are the mechanics of the world? It’s super interesting to have characters with conflict. I.e. A bad character who is forced to do something good. The reluctant heroes, the anti-hero are very interesting and fun stories to follow. What are you going to paint and create if you are left on your own? Will’s goal is to become an Authorstrator. Will and his wife were losing their home because of poor financial choices, and this was a direct influence on his story: (Gary’s Place)[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/garys-place/id778805132?mt=8]: What if this gopher decided to dig a hole and then added a whole bunch of rooms, and then the house got flooded because the Gopher dug too far. What do I like to do in the winter time? etc, then you can start thinking about situations and character ideas. Essentially the stories that you tell will come from your life experiences, your interests, and from who you are. How to come up with a good story Why a story starts and why a story ends is so difficult, the resolution is the hardest part, it is difficult to come up

Jan 2, 20191h 14m

Ep 18The Life Cycle of a Children's Book

3PP 19 Life Cycles of a Children's Book Projects: Will: Still working on the Painting Color and Light class. I’m gonna be working on it for a while. Loves working on classes, and loves having them. Loves it. It takes a long time but is very satisfying. Lee: Going into the last week of his basic painting class, and it’s amazing the progress people have made between weeks 1 and 10. Started a bunch of projects, and is working on a big series of book covers for his agent, he is trying to move into that genre, because children’s books take a long time, so he is trying to find things to do to supplement his children’s books. Working on classic novels right now, and just did Lord of the Flies. His goal is to do 1 cover a week. Be willing to move without the ball. No one is paying Lee to work on this book cover project, but he is doing it because he feels that it will be good for him. Good things happen to those who take initiative. Jake: Working on coloring his Inktober drawing. It’s a challenge, but it’s satisfying. Also is working on his Inktober book. Life Cycle of a Children’s Book Today we talk about where a book starts, what it does in its lifetime, how it ends, and all the hands that touch it. There are two different branches to children’s books, and they are: Author, illustrator combo. Or an Author who is also the illustrator. We’re going to focus on the first, and talk about how a book is made and published going through a publisher. Not self publishing. The Manuscript After a writer has gone through all of their ideas, and has a manuscript nailed down, they then submit that manuscript to their agent. The agent reads through the manuscript and decides if it’s something they think they can sell. Then the agent usually will give notes back to the author. If the agent is good, then they should know the market and what’s selling right now. Once that stage is over, then the agent will take it to publishers and start shopping it around. Should you chase what’s hot? If you really believe in the story, then you can tell your agent to try and shop it around. But maybe you aren’t super attached, and you don’t mind making the suggested changes. Pick your battles. Usually Jake defers to people with more knowledge and experience than him. Often an agent’s suggestions are very valuable because that is their job and normally they have so much experience with this than you do. The Agent Takes it to the Publishers She takes it to publishers and gauges their interest. more often than not they will have a list of go to editors that they will show it to first. The publisher level might want to get on board too if it’s a really good idea. The editor takes it to the publisher and they bounce it around and see if it’s a book that this publisher wants to publish. They will talk to all sorts of people about schedule, etc. And if it all works out and is a good fit then they will come back with an offer. There is a lot of work that goes into this and it’s something you may not see. Victoria Jamieson, Roller Girl She’s an author illustrator now, and she used to work in publishing. She had a wonderful slideshow that walked people through the process of how a book is made. There are like 100 people working on deciding if a book should be done or not. There are a lot of people that have to give their stamp of approval. It’s good to not know about all of the near misses because then you will be beating yourself up over them and spend way too much time worrying. The money you are offered is a fraction of the money that will be spent making the book. There is printing, marketing, sales, etc. all involved. They all need to have a say to make sure it will work across all departments. Would you trade this for a less free but more stable job? Jake loved animation, but he is happier with the independence that his lifestyle offers now. Will would get into lively discussions with his wife, because she was wanting him to have a “real” job. She was tired of gaps between checks and the uncertainty. But now she is grateful and is glad that Will stuck with being an independent artist. Will has lived long enough to see people with regular jobs experience plenty of layoffs. If there was a house style for picture books, it would take a lot of creativity out of the market. The Publisher Strikes a Deal With the Illustrator. Once the light is green. Once you get the green light, an offer is made, and you are in a good position if you are getting offers from multiple publishers. Then once the offer is made they will start looking for an illustrator. If you are an author then they will have a short list of Then if you are an illustrator then you will get to look at the manuscript and decide if you want to take this project on. Is this something I want to spend months on, will it align with my style and my brand. Is it enough money? Then if you choose to accept the book offer then they will give you a real offer. They will give you a loose schedule and an off

Dec 12, 20181h 17m

Ep 17How to Work with Art Directors

Society of Visual Storytelling: Our show is sponsored by SVSLearn.com. It’s like Netflix for a high quality art classes. We love the guys down there at SVS. :) If you are interested in learning more, click here Current Projects: Will: Working on redoing a class for SVS, and originally the class was done live and so now he is giving it a facelift and making it more organized and coherent. Lee: While waiting for a book project to start, has started working on a basic Digital Painting class for SVS. He has done 90 videos done so far. Also, took a week to dial in his studio, his process and needs have changed over time, so now he has taken some time to customize his studio and built things to streamline it. Fancy customization. Jake: Just finished, Inktober! Yay! Finished all the Inktober posts, has been doing a ton of work on the Inktober posts, which is a ton of work. Did all of his personal Inktober drawings, plus another 20 or so to promote sponsors. Cleaned the whole studio with his trusty assistants, Aaron and Tanner Now is working on the Inktober book which is all about how to ink, how to do Inktober, and where do you fit in the world of Ink. November Art Challenges: Slowvember: taking time to slow down after the franticness of Inktober and just focus on making one thing beautiful. Another popular art challenge is Huevember, combined with Sketchtember, and Inktober. People do sketches during the month of September, ink them during October, and then add color during Huevember. Slowvember, all about creating an amazing Last year Lee did 2 pieces during that month. 2 weeks a painting. In today’s world it seems like it is all about speed, so it’s so nice to slow down and work on a painting and give it 100% of what you’ve got. It’s the last 20% that makes you a professional. Students can totally get to that 80% mark but they get stuck and don’t know what else to do. It’s that final 20% that is the hardest part and this challenge is a perfect way to work on getting past that. We love this podcast! This is what are meetings used to dissolve to anyways, so we’re happy to share it now with you. (time) Today’s topic is: How to Working with Art Directors. The nuts and bolts of working with an art director is usually learned on the job and is not covered as much in school. So hopefully this will be helpful. We have some questions that were submitted to us by a former art director who thought these would be helpful questions to discuss and consider. How much creative freedom can I expect to have when illustrating a book? For most children’s books that Jake has done he has been hired based off of a specific illustration he has already done. Some artists have only one distinct style and so if that’s the case the client most likely wants something in that style. Usually Jake will email them and ask what type of style they want for their illustration. The freedom lies in how you can use that style to tell the story. You have to stay in that box of the style and work inside that box and all of the storytelling and design you do should fit in that box. Usually Lee will ask the publisher why and for what reason they chose him. Then they will send some images that they like of his and start to describe the look and feel of the project. Your creativity doesn’t change as much as your confidence does. Lee feels that he has the same amount of creativity and capacity to have good ideas now as when he started, the difference, however, is his confidence and ability to pitch those things and more creative solutions to the art director or publisher. We all need to overcome self imposed limitations of what we think the art director wants. There is a freedom to pitch things out there and see if they are received. It took some time but now Lee has confidence to think outside of the box and to propose new solutions. Talk to the art director like a person, and give them more options. Don’t only focused on “will they like it?” Focus on coming up with creative solutions. Overcome self-censoring to do what is fun and exciting. Here’s an example, for a book Lee gave them three different options of approaches they could take on it and listed the pros and cons of each option. Talk openly about all of those things. Jake likes to think about the current children’s book as the calling card for the next one. So he tries to really push things as far as he can and do his very best on at least a few spreads so he can show that stuff to other publishers. If you give them boring stale work, and that’s what they want and that’s what you’ll be continued to ask do for them. Lee gets shut down all the time, and that’s okay, he understand and has developed confidence. “I love the limited color, but maybe we go full color..” Anything you draw is never wasted. Anything can be reused, shown, and you get to become better as an artist because you went down that path and explored that option. Have you been as satisfied with your professional work as your personal

Nov 29, 20181h 14m

Ep 1610 Skills Every Illustrator Must Have

Most people think that in order to be a great illustrator you need to just be a great artist and storyteller, that's true. However, there is a lot more that goes into being a stellar illustrator and a more well rounded person. In this episode we'll go over 10 important skills that we all need to be developing, and we'll go over some of the reasons why they are all so important, and share some techniques and tips for improving your skills. "Art directors only want illustrators with great skills!" Just a reminder that this class is sponsored by SVSLearn.com with a library of over 80-90 classes. Here are some recommendations: Lee’s Favorite: Visual Storytelling Techniques, it gives a why for all of the marks that you are putting down. Will’s Favorite: Draw 50 Things, it’s hard but once you learn to swing a golf club then you can go forward knowing how to create images. Jake’s Favorite: How to Draw Everything, Really proud of this one, it’s an intro to drawing, and it’s also great for experienced artists. It’s always a great thing to make sure that you are doing it right. It corrects drawing problems, and you learn a process by which you can draw anything you want! SVSLearn.com is Netflix for art school. If you want to own a movie, you go buy it. If you want to have access to a library of movies you do Netflix. That’s how SVSLearn.com is set up, you can buy the class and own it indefinitely or you can subscribe to our growing library of great content. Project Updates: Will: Sequel to Bonnepart, still working on it and is on the second round of sketches. Lee: Working on a new book with Simon and Schuster, it’s a doozy, because it’s based on a song and the song doesn’t have a strong narrative, and so he is trying to create a story through the images. Great ideas come early in the morning. That’s when great ideas come. Working in the morning and then chilling at night, or some people like to work till late at night and that can be great too. When you get into a focus mode, whether it is late at night or early in the morning, nobody is there to interrupt you. Jake: Delivered all of the interior drawings for Littlest Snow Plow 2, and it ended up being 40 pages. Next up, is working on the Inktober Book with Chronicle: how to do Inktober, and how to ink, and Jake’s process. The 10 Skills that Every Illustrator Must Have Love Creating You need to love creating art. Will has had students who he has determined don’t love art, people who would show up late, and talk to people, and take forever to get setup, and then they pack up and leave early. This is true for anything that you want to do. If you don’t love it then you won’t have the drive to push yourself and become great. Art is great, it’s what kids get excited about in pre school, and we are so blessed to be able to “play” for our job. Will had a friend who was admiring his iPad and asked about getting one, and then Will told his friend that he shouldn’t get one because he doesn’t love drawing. The friend hadn’t drawn really at all in the last decade, and was kind of offended at first, but then when Will explained why he said that, he understood that what Will said definitely had some truth to it. You’ve got to love it in order to excel. Jake has 5 kids and all of them who like to draw. One of them loves drawing and is older, and has a younger brother who likes drawing but and is way more naturally gifted. Sometimes his older son gets jealous, however, the older one is way more passionate, and in the long run he will have the drive to grow and become an amazing artist. You have to love it in order for it to be a career. It’s fine if it’s just a hobby and you only do it for a few hours a week, but if you are going to be creating for 40-50 hours a week, then you need to love it. Unique Style Too often people settle and just copy someone else’s work and they don’t develop their own unique style. If you stick with it long enough, your style will emerge. You can be deliberate and coax your style out quicker with exercises such as collecting 5-10 illustrators that you really like, and then creating lists about the different things that make up their style. If you want to get published you also need to develop a style that is relevant. You need to be looking at what’s being published right now, and then you can push things, you need to be current. We’ll do an episode about this soon, because this is an episode in and of itself. Communication You have to talk good. You have to be willing and bold enough to ask questions, and call your art director to clarify things. Back in the day everyone called people even when people didn’t see it coming. However, it makes sense that sometimes people are nervous and don’t want to look silly or incompetent to an art director, and therefore, are afraid to call and ask questions. People are willing to help you. If they want to work with you then that means they value you and your art. You can be honest, “Honestly, this is my firs

Oct 31, 20181h 16m

Ep 15Why You Should Do an Art Challenge

Our Current Projects: Lee: is working on some fun little promos for his agent, and he is getting feedback and having different studios look at one of his books. Will: Just submitted the second round of sketches for Bonaparte Falls Apart. Jake: Super busy with Inktober and it now has several sponsors, which takes a lot of administrative work, looking over contracts, and providing content for them. Also, shipped Skyheart, went to New York and talked with editors about working on future projects, and built friendships and connections. Reminder Svslearn.com, is an online illustration school, and a sponsor of Inktober! There are inking classes, and right now we have a Free 7 Day Trial going one, If you are interested please click here. Be sure to check it out! Drawing Challenges Have you guys ever done an art challenge? Will created the Draw 50 Things Challenge, it’s a design challenge where you try and create an illustration that has at least 50 different recognizable objects in it. Lee once did a 14 week long art challenge, painting a digital landscape painting everyday, 7 days a week. Which is a TON of painting! Drawing challenge: you do something daily or you have a project you try to finish in a certain amount of time. Take something you want to get better at and do it every day, for 30, 50 days. Jake created Inktober, which is where you create an ink drawing ever single day during October. How to participate in Inktober. He also created the Draw 100 Somethings challenge, which is where you draw something and then draw 99 more different somethings, all within narrow constraints, i.e. 100 different dragons, 100 different pirate animals, the key is to not be too broad, the constraints will push your creative muscles! Why You Should Do an Art Challenge There are 3 main reasons: Improve your life, and become more creative. Improve your habits and develop your craft. Get attention and exposure. It is so important that you do it everyday, at first it’s really awkward and it takes time to get in the rhythm, but eventually it becomes second nature. When you first try something it’s harder and then when you do it again it gets easier. Repetitive attempts drill it into you. You will become a better and more creative artist by the end of the challenge if you really do it justice. While in college, Will got let into the illustration program on probation. He had to prove himself during the next semester to stay. He kept asking professors what he needed to work on and ultimately it was design. That’s why he made the Draw 50 Things Challenge, to help push people to sharpen their design and creativity skills. Lee created the art challenge of Slowvember. You create something every day for Inktober and it is really fast paced, maybe you have then during Slowvember you slow down and spend time every day working to create and polish one amazing piece. Lee is an advocate for slowing down and doing things right. So many people can get paintings to 70 or 80 percent of where they need to be but it’s that last 20 percent that really pushes the painting to the next level and its that last 20 percent that takes the longest. Slowvember gives you the opportunity to push something to 100 percent! Challenging Yourself in Different Ways Inktober: you should have a vision for it. Think of how you can do it, have a goal. Don’t do Inktober just do do it, but make it specific and have a goal. Be deliberate. Don’t just swing at 10,000 golf balls, but have a specific target or goal you are trying to create, then swing for that. That deliberateness will help you learn and improve so much faster! Maybe you want to do quick 30 minute sketches for Inktober with a goal to get faster at doing quick sketches, then that’s great! Just make sure you have a focused goal and you will get even more out of it. For the vast majority of people who participate in Inktober its hobbyists, people who love creating but aren’t doing it professionally for their career. They come from all walks of life, from middle school to adults that all like drawing and being creative. Proportionally there aren’t as many professionals. If you fall into that category then for you it doesn’t have to be good it just has to exist. You’re building a habit of drawing and you’re trying to build the creative mindset. It gets you thinking. After 7 days you start to run out of ideas, and you have to push yourself creatively. There is value in just doing it, even if it’s not amazing...yet! Are You Allowed to Do It Digitally? Do you think that the guy with the turkey feather guy got mad when the guy with the metal nib pen came and drew next to him? Will, Art is art, the tools don’t matter. It’s about what you make and how you make the viewer feel. The problem with digital is when you don’t understand the traditional medium and the look that you are going for. When you know how to do it traditionally, then you can recreate that feeling and look, digitally. Lee’s Challenge to Digital: Do half d

Oct 17, 201854 min

Ep 14Comic Cons & Art Fairs

Comic Cons & Art Fairs Comic conventions and art fairs take place all over the globe, with almost every major city in the United States hosting one. With the large audiences that attend these shows it is a good place for illustrators to show their work and start selling. In this episode we will cover what the world of comic conventions and art fairs is like, ways to get into shows, and the differences between them. This is one of the easiest ways (depending on some conditions) to make money as an artist. Lee White has experience showing at art fairs, whereas Jake Parker and Will Terry have experience with the comic convention circuit. Money range [5:32] The amount of money an artist can make at a show depends on a lot of variables such as location of the show and the types of products being sold. At Lee White’s best art fair show he made $24,000 USD over a three day art fair. On the comic convention side, at Jake Parker’s first convention he made enough to cover the cost of the show and for travel. At Jake’s best comic convention he broke $9,000 USD gross. His average is $5,000-$6,000 USD gross. At Will Terry’s best convention he made $19,000 USD gross. His average is between $7,000-$9,000 USD gross. How Lee, Will and Jake started showing [8:38] Lee got his start showing at art fairs with Crafty Wonderland. He was invited to show when a table opened up. Following that experience he started actively looking for art fairs to attend. In his mid 20’s Jake was in the comic anthology, Flight. The editor of the book purchased a table at San Diego Comic Con, and invited the other artists to use the extra space. Jake went to sell prints and books. After getting a taste of what it was like to table at a show, he decided to do his own show. His first show outside of San Diego was CTNX. Following that success he knew it was possible to be successful at other shows. Will Terry’s first comic convention was a disaster even though he spent two years researching how to sell. Through that experience he learned how to be successful. He now has an assistant that takes Will’s art around the comic convention circuit. Will only personally attends 3-4 of the shows. Will has a series of YouTube videos where he goes into detail about his first experience tabling at a comic convention. Will Terry’s comic convention video series: Lee White: “It’s worth it as an experience. You cannot anticipate how much energy these things take. They are really hard.” Having extra people to help you is really helpful because there are so many factors involved. Doing this full time as your only source of income can be really consuming. For Lee, Will and Jake they use art shows as supplemental income sources. Artists who do this full time can go to 30-40 shows a year. Differences between art fairs and comic conventions [21:05] Art fairs are typically during the summer. Usually outside in parks, but sometimes in convention centers. Artists purchase 10 foot by 10 foot booths. The average attendee at an art fair is older (50 years-old to 70 years old). There are not a lot of collectors, it is mostly people looking for artwork to put on their walls. They want to purchase originals. Prices for pieces at art fairs range from $50 USD to $20,000 USD (higher end of that scale are people buying originals). Lee White: “The more specific the story in my image the less likely it is to sell. The bigger the character in an image, the less likely it is to sell.“ Lee focuses more on environment elements and doesn’t get too specific with storytelling. In order to be successful at art fairs you have to strike a nice balance between illustration and fine art, and create images people want to hang in their homes. Lee’s Secret Sauce for Art Fairs: “[Illustrate] a moment that people can interpret what’s happening versus showing them what’s happening.” Create images that two separate people can view and come up with different stories. Just give the audience a hint of the story. James Jean is a good example of this principle. His work transcends illustration and taps into the art fair market. Website James Jean Instagram Comic conventions [30:40] Comic conventions are focused on popular culture. There is an artist ally section where artists can buy tables to show and sell their work. Attendees typically have $100 and spend that across maybe 5 different artists. What sells the best at comic conventions are things people already know such as characters from popular films, tv shows or cartoons. Comic conventions products typically sells from $4 to $70. There is also a commission market, where attendees will pay artists to draw their character or some other character doing something specific. Some artists open their commission list before the show, whereas others only do commissions during the show. Jake does commissions at show and works on them during down times or at the hotel. He can make an extra $2,000 to $3,000 USD depending on what he is charging. Commission from artist

Oct 3, 20181h 33m

Ep 13The Caldecott

The Caldecott is the most prestigious award a children’s book illustrator can receive, and it’s an award that, once received, changes each recipient’s life. We will discuss what the award is, how it is chosen, some patterns with books that have received this honor, and some tips on what you can do to try and become a more Caldecott-worthy illustrator. What are you working on? [01:17] Will Terry: Bonnaparte Falls Apart Part 2, and a new board game in his digital painting style. Not the best pay, but he has complete creative freedom and so it’s worth it. Lee White: Just moved to Nashville, Tennessee from Portland Oregon. Still working on two books, one that he is writing and illustrating himself, and still working out the deal for illustrating someone else's story. “Cain’t never could do nothing.”- Southern Saying We might be doing a live workshop later on in Nashville, but don’t quote us on that, all 3 of us would be there. Keep your ears peeled. Jake Parker: Has been crazy busy and gone a lot. He did a Comic Con in Denver, a workshop up in Boise, and a workshop here in Provo, and did a bunch of work for Snowplow 2; and, Skyheart is at the printer in China! There has been some translation issues that have slowed the process down, so we’ll see if the books get here in color or black and white! Today, we want to dive in and see if what sort of a role awards play in the life of an illustrator or comic book artist, and does it play a role in developing your art. If you are an illustrator, new or old, we hope that we can shed light on some of the illustration awards and what impact receiving different awards can have on a creatives life.. What are the Awards? [11:00] There are specific awards that we want to dive into on this podcast. The Caldecott Award, conceived in 1937 by Robert Caldecott. The Newbery Award, given to Young Adult Fiction, it’s an award for writers. The Eisner, given for creative achievement in comic books. Eisner Award: the Academy Awards of Comic. Given to different categories, i.e. Best Publication, Best Writing, Best Art, Best Short Story, etc. It’s an award and the publishers love it because they get to put the special award sticker, and whoever won the award has a prestigious bargaining chips for future projects. It’s important to understand the audience for each of these awards and oddly enough the for the Caldecott, they are librarians. Will hated school growing up and the last place he would imagine being is a library convention. But as fate would have it, he ended up going to one, and he has now been to three of them. American Library Association (ALA) hosts a conference where illustrators and librarians collide. Librarians matter because they are the ones who will be recommending your books! The Caldecott [15:00] The Caldecott is the biggest most prestigious award for children’s books. The Caldecott is determined by a committee of 15 people and 8 of those people are appointed by the ALA. These people are composed of librarians and school teachers. They are supposed to primarily focus on the artwork, but there aren’t any poor stories that win the Caldecott. Art is a component but other components like story are a factor that enhance the children's book. Look for patterns. Think about the patterns of the wards winners. Lee likes to look for systems and commonalities to help inform success. There is often strategy to most things we do. Even when playing Monopoly! Since 2000, only 4 Caldecott winners have different writer and illustrator. It means that more Caldecott winners not only illustrate but also write their book. Is this a coincidence? Committee members like to promote and celebrate 1 person. If you win this award you are the “Miss America” of illustration for the next year. Can winning one of these awards change your life? [22:06] There are over 200 children’s books awards but they are not life changing like the Caldecott. Almost every state has one award and they are sometimes narrow and specific. Will won the North Carolina book award one year. In Utah there is an award for Best Mormon Illustrator. Any award is great to receive but are not on the level of receiving a Caldecott. These awards are great but the Caldecott is different. You will be known and introduced as a Caldecott award winner, and the book will be in print for the rest of their life, which translates to a lot of money. There are over 200,000 libraries across the US and stock Caldecott winners. Sometimes one library could buy 10 copies of 1 Caldecott winners book, and restock every year. There are also people that collect Caldecotts. It is a fail safe for the libraries and bookstores because these books have a stamp of approval and popularity built into them. There are Caldecott honorable mentions that also reap the reward of this honor and Lee has a friend that recieve $75,000 in royalties. Jon Klassen is an illustrator/writer that has been raking in the Caldecott. (Jon Klassen)[http://jonklassen.tumblr.com/] (

Sep 20, 20181h 11m

Ep 12A Day in The Life of An Illustrator

Have you ever wondered what your life might be like if you were an illustrator? In this episode we want to give you a sneak peak into the secret life of illustrators. We will go over what a typical day looks like, some of the biggest frustrations with this lifestyle, and some of the reasons being an artist is so wonderful and rewarding. Sorry, we just wanted to apologize for the audio quality of this episode; Lee has been moving across the country and didn’t have the best set up when we did this episode, but we loved the content so much that we decided to release it anyways. Finished, not perfect, right?:) And correction: when we mentioned Milton Glaser, we actually meant Philip Glass. Enjoy! We want to talk about a day in the life of an illustrator because when you are choosing a career as an illustrator you are essentially choosing a certain life, and a lifestyle that goes along with it. Lee and Will will be discussing the life of an illustrator from the book illustration side, while Jake will be commenting and focusing more on the entertainment side of things. Lee always gets up really early each day and gets t work on a project. As an illustrator you don’t have hard deadlines, so you need to make up your own arbitrary deadlines. There is a final deadline but you need to break it up into smaller steps. So he spends the beginning of his day scheduling what to do. Then he goes right into working on one of the books he is working on. Schedule: when you are able to schedule your time wisely, that is really going to pay big dividends in your career. At a studio, Jake would get told what he would do and the schedule was laid out for him. It was a big adjustment when he became an independent artist and had to start managing his own schedule. He started with to do lists, to keep track of what went on during the day, then he started scheduling those tasks throughout the week, and now he has a full weekly and monthly plan and that really helps him with accomplishing his goals. You need to learn to manage the small micro steps, and learn about your work flow and how long it takes you to perform certain tasks. Jake divides his work into two categories: creative time and administrative time. Creative time is during the morning when he is fresh and alert, then administrative time comes in the afternoon when he is more tired and burnt out. Deep Work Lee is the same. When Lee gets a project he typically gets an email from his agent that someone is interested in working with him; he writes back and tells them that he is interested; the agent will start to work on the budget and negotiate back and forth with the client; they go back and forth and agree on a schedule; then he gets started on the project by doing some research and development. “A good beginning is half done.” Great advice from a fortune cookie. It is really profound, though! If you can start goodt it will influence and pay dividends throughout the project. At the beginning stages of a book try to stay open to a lot of different influences. It doesn’t have to be so linear. After reading the manuscript stay open to different ideas, styles, or influences, from anywhere and everywhere. For entertainment, typically if you are on the development team doing the early early pre production work and working on ideas, then you might be doing that for weeks to months at a time, fleshing out ideas. A lot of times before Jake would go to the studio he would stop by the library for a half hour before going to work and maybe checking it out to use at work that day. Usually there is a weekly meeting where you meet with the director and show it to the group. As an illustrator you don’t want to attach too much value to your work early on. Nothing is sacred or precious, you can’t get too attached to your drawings and paintings. Otherwise it will become a hindrance to you. If you are uncomfortable with showing people your rough sketches, then entertainment might be hard for you. You have to show everything, and you don’t know what the director is going to respond to. It might be a 5 minute sketch that you did, or it might be something you spent a few hours on. You go through stages as an artist: you draw something realistic, then you start drawing characters and diving more into the story and narrative side of things. You don’t just move forward with your first sketch. You need to do push it more. Step 2 is where Lee will start thinking about storytelling, and this is his favorite part about being an illustrator: thinking about what the story is really about. Everything needs to serve the story, including the style. The story should dictate the approach, not the other way around. Entertainment: Usually the early development team is made up of an art team that is made out of artists with different styles that will help direct the story. The Art of The Incredibles There is a lot of overlap between movies and book images, probably because there is a lot of storytelling. To recap L

Sep 5, 20181h 12m

Ep 11Networking for Artists

Networking If you think that networking is manipulative, selfish, or all about getting ahead you are doing it wrong. In this episode, we talk about how networking is all about friendship, giving, and the people that you choose to spend time with. We talk about how to network and connect with people above, next to, and below you. The What and Why of a Network? Your network is your connection to a broader world, to opportunities, and to new ideas. Your network consists of your friends in the field that you work in. Your network is so important and who you surround yourself with will influence the type of person that you are and the person that you will become. This applies to your creative life as well as with every other aspect of who you are. Every jump in Jake’s career came from his network: animation, comics, publishing. Your network is your gate to so many Jake and Will started to get connected over lunch. Lee was deliberate and tried to connect with Will and Jake. Networking is like cycling, there is strength in staying in a group. Bikers encourage and support each other, and they draft off of each other. It is hard to break away and do it on your own. Choose friends and to spend time with people that push you to be better. A true network is not your “job hotline” it consists of your real friends, your buds. Put yourself in the right place and good things can happen [13:40] It is true that there are some places that are creative hubs where its easier to find people to connect with but ultimately your network is a result of how much time and effort you put into it. How much time do you spend getting to know other creatives that are like-minded, how do you make the first contact, and how do you deepen a creative relationship that you have? Consider these things as you learn more about creating your personal network and how to grow it. Question: Do you need to live in a creative hot spot to be successful [14:54] Many people have the false impression that it’s all about the location of an artist. Although each area has its own creative hub you can find creatives that are like minded just like you anywhere. You create your network and you can reach out to people in the area through web searches and hashtagging your area to find people that have the same goals and values as you. Instagram is a great platform to do research and learn about the people in the area and there will be people. How to build a network of friends in your area [18:00] Search online, check hashtags, follow & Like SVS Forum or general online forums Facebook groups Through these interactions online you begin to develop relationships, give feedback and receive feedback, and engage with others. You can make the effort to not only find creatives online but create the friendships and start conversations to grow your circles. SVS Forum Online interaction is good, but you’ll need to meet people in real life [22:54] Online interaction has its pros and has reach but there needs to be face to face interaction to solidify the relationships and contacts. This face to face interaction develops the real friendship aspect of networking. Go to networking events, Comicon, conferences, and presentations allow you the environment to meet people face to face with similar goals, values, and ideals. Often time if you have a clear vision of where you want to go you find people in the same boat as you. How to get over being nerves [24:06] Starting a conversation with a stranger is not easy but in the industry of illustration and artist, there are comfort zones that need to be broken. Talking face to face can be hard but there are many things you can do to overcome the fear of talking to someone you have never met. Put yourself in situations to interact with others. Sit next to people or stand next to them in line and create a beginning point of conversation like drawing next to them or talk about why they are there. Introduction and exit strategies [27:48] The more and more you stick your neck out to meet other people the more and more you will learn how to ignite conversations and end a conversation. You can begin by pointing out something on their shirt, comment about something that they have or ask about what they are doing here, or what awesome things they seen at the conference etc. Jake’s foolproof exit is “It was so good to meet you!” hint I gotta go. Form: Family, occupation, recreation, motivation(or message) [29:44] You can follow these guidelines to create conversation Family: Are you here alone, where are you from, are you the only artist in your family? Occupation: What do you do for a living, is it a hobby? Recreation: What do you like to do for fun? This then warms people up for this question: Motivation: What motivates you, why are you here, why did you decide to draw ….? Don’t forget the best questions: what is your worthless superpower? More ideas to meet people [33:11] Attend a lunch or dinner, or host your own Create a critique group In c

Aug 22, 20181h 13m

Ep 10Critiques

Episode 10: Critiques Critiques can be the wind beneath your wings that help you grow in incredible ways; or they can be the source of many tears, hurt feelings, and stomps out of classrooms. In this episode we will cover why you need critiques and critique groups, where to get them, how to prepare for a critique and what to avoid. [00:00:49] What have you been working on? We used to do this but got out of the habit and wanted to bring it back! What projects are each of us working on? Lee: Currently working on writing two books, and is trying to create a dummy book for both books, and trying to sell a two book deal, or at least have two options for publishers to choose from. Will: Working with four other teachers to create classes for SVS, working on character designs for a board games and a sequel to Bonaparte Falls Apart. Jake: Working on a figure drawing class for SVS that will be pulling the best from all of the figure drawing books to make the best class possible, on a sequel to “The Little Snowplow”, Jake and an author he worked with earlier wanted to do a sequel together and their agents were able to create a deal (stay tuned, we’re not able to announce it yet!). and sent the files for Skyheart to the printer in China. Wahoo! [00:06:10] Why art might not be right for your job? We wanted to briefly touch on this subject because of a letter that we received from an artist named, Mike, in response to Episode 03: Ship Happens. Mike brought up the fact that maybe for a lot of artists out there, art is better as a hobby than a career. Mike went through all the steps and got his first art job… and he hated it. After he finished a couple of art jobs he was wondering why he didn’t want to apply for any other art jobs and didn’t know why he had such little drive and motivation. He realized that for him, and he imagines a lot of other artists making art their job isn’t the best option for them. He is does a weekly webcomic, does art for a board game company, and engages with his audience and is super happy with his art. He thought it would be nice to share with the followers of this podcast that to kill yourself to flounder in the shallow end of the professional artist career isn’t always going to pay off and doesn’t equate to success or happiness. Mike realized that he needed to have his own personal goals and stick to them. Also, that he wouldn’t be happy working on other people’s stuff. He realized that his dream was to have a stable income outside of the art industry and then have the freedom to do whatever he wanted to do with his art. Mike brings up some good points, and essentially hit on the plight on an illustrator; that is, we spend a lot of time working for other people and helping them accomplish their dreams, while sometimes letting our own dreams stagnate. Super successful illustrators do one or both of these things well: Stop advertising for, stop looking for, or stop accepting work from clients that take them in the wrong direction. Or they start doing their own projects, or a combination of the two. To help see the perspective you can compare this to becoming a professional tennis player. With each level of progression there are nuances and changes that need to be made, and it sometimes becomes less about the fun, sometimes you just have to practice because you need to improve. You need to find art jobs that match who you are. Think about your skill level and what makes you happy. That’s a side note that we wanted to hit, now time to jump into today’s episode! [00:15:15] What are the benefits to a critique? You need to see things from the perspective of another and that’s what critiques help us do. Critiques are for students and professionals, alike. We all need feedback and critique. That’s how we grow. Jake was working on Skyheart and decided to redo the cover and when he posted it online he got a lot of feedback telling him that the original was better. [00:17:17] Why you might not get an honest critique? Sometimes we don’t get honest critiques because we don’t create the right atmosphere for the critiquer to feel comfortable giving us feedback. If they think that you want validation and not a real critique then often they’ll just tell you what you want to hear. [00:18:29] How to find a good critique? There are many people you can reach out to for good critiques such as previous teachers, professional artists, critique groups, small social media groups or pods, and artists at art conventional or art shows. Art students have their previous teachers as a resource but this relationship needs to be set up when they were in school. Have you created a positive relationship for them to want to critique you later? Be a good student and be involved, it will pay dividends. Like it or not we live in a transactional society. It helps if there is an exchange of time i.e. buying a print, helping to update their website, handle their social media posts, etc. Time is precious, see if there is something you

Aug 8, 20181h 17m

Ep 9How Much Will You Make in Illustration?

9: How Much Will You Make In Illustration? How much will you make in illustration? [2:06] This is a question every student has, and the frustrating part is that it is often not discussed openly, or is just glossed over in school. Which, honestly, is a bit crazy! Some reasons for this may be that those who are teaching are making too little and are embarrassed to share that, or it may be that they are making a lot of money and don’t want to share that, because they are afraid of coming across as bragging. In this episode, we hope to cut through the fog of uncertainty and shed some real light on what the market is like and how much you can expect to make in illustration, in different fields, and in different stages of your career. Making a life in illustration [4:09] When speaking of how much you make in illustration and of the various fields of illustration we are are ultimately talking about different lifestyles. A children’s book illustrator gets paid differently than a concept artist at an animation studio; the same can be said for a gallery painter or an editorial artist, etc. Each comes with its own unique type of payment system and accompanying lifestyle. There are many different career paths and combinations of career paths and it is wise to consider the environment and the financial situations that come with each. Responsibility to talk about the business side too [6:44] Schools are put into a tricky situation, because they need to recruit students and promise them a great career but the topic of money can be glossed over because the schools can’t guarantee jobs coming out of school. Will finds it necessary to have a talk with about finances with his students in each of his classes, and each time the students tell him: no one else has ever talked to us about this! Comfortable to talk about how much you make [7:45] Money is this weird thing that sometimes people hold so close to their chest. And sometimes people are super secretive about it. It can be frustrating If you have artistic ability, the gamut of jobs available go from freelance out of your home to working full time at an animation studio and everything in between. Jake has taught at Brigham Young University (BYU), and feels as if the animation department there does a good job at helping students create connections with studios; they fly studios out to help conduct portfolio reviews and recruit. They try to get their students lined up with jobs and internships. The hard thing about Illustration is that it doesn’t have a central source providing all illustration jobs, it’s everywhere! You school could fly and editor out to talk to talk about publishing work but they can’t offer 5 years of work like an animation studio can. It can be a challenge to keep consistent work right out of school but there are things that you can do to prepare and gear yourself up to have consistent work; you can start trying to line up work, and start developing relationships to prepare. It can be frustrating when you have no one to talk to about the financial side of illustration but it really only takes talking with a few people to start to get a pretty good idea of what it is like. Hopefully, this podcast will be a good start for you in answering your questions. 6 factors that affect your income as an illustrator [12:26] It can be tricky to nail it all down, and don’t feel bad if you don’t fit into these categories. We are just going to ballpark some numbers and hopefully you can go from there! We’ll divide it up into 2 different categories with 3 different sub categories. Three different income bracket Early pro Mid level pro Pro, seasoned veteran Skill level Exceptional skill Average skill Below average skill It is important to know which you are talking about because if you use a seasoned pro like Chris Van Allsburg as a guide vs a student fresh out of school, you will get very different numbers. People like Chris and David Wiesner have won multiple Caldecotts and are definitely anomalies. You also need to distinguish your skill level with your career because there are students who are getting work in school and have an absolutely exceptional skill level, and these guys are super successful right out of the gate. Chris Van Allsburg David Wiesner Dan Santat We’ll try and focus a lot on average skill level, because people like those described above are outliers, and people with below average skill aren’t really going to be getting a lot of jobs. What you can expect from book publishing [17:23] Early pro $8,000-$10,000 for advances Mid level pro $20,000- $24,000 Pro $28,000- and up Educational publishers won’t be higher than $10,000 Small publishers offer less [19:27] There are smaller publishers and they don’t offer as much. This means you should really think about whether or not it’s worth your time to work with them, consider these questions: Questions to ask yourself before you accept work [20:13] Does it pay well? [20:28] Is it creative or challenging and taki

Jul 25, 20181h 16m

Ep 8Your Creative Bank Account

Your Creative Bank Account What is The Creative Bank Account? We have mentioned it a lot in past episodes and it’s about time we talked about the source of all good ideas: what it is, how does it work and what are the best strategies for filling your personal creative bank account. A creative bank account is something that everyone harbors in their own minds. It is creative capital and you spend this creative capital every time you make something. Creative capital fuels all creative work: poems, drawings, artwork, writing, etc. We are unable to create in a vacuum or closed system. We need inspiration and stimulus from outside sources to fuel our creativity. That’s where the need for a creative bank account. Steve Jobs said that creativity is about connecting the dots. Activity: Begin by drawing two dots. Connect the dots. Then draw another dot. Connect them again. Draw ten dots. Connect them in any way. What is the outcome? This illustrates how as ideas come together it helps to create something new. The more dots you have, the more creative options and combinations you can create! Innovation and ideas occur at an exponential rate. Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of innovation What are the best ways to fill a creative bank account? Expose yourself and put yourself in the position to be around inspiration and creativity. Lee has just joined a collective studio that has bakers, architects, artists, and graphic designers under the same roof. It allows him to be around more creative energy than he would be at home or in an isolated studio space. Become productive and creative anywhere [15:16] It doesn’t matter where you are as long as you are “connecting your dots” and filling your bank account. The internet allows you to fill your creative bank account anywhere. Indirect and direct experience, why you need both [16:19] There are two sources of inspiration for your creative bank account: Indirect Experience - Experiencing something through the filter of someone else, such as film, music, movies, books and Pinterest. You are seeing and experiencing someone else's perspective. This allows you to be up to date and aware of what’s going on in the world around you. Direct Experience - Your own personal experience, for example travel and exploring. Why you should visit the a real library [18:11] Go to the library. It physically gets you out of your space. Libraries allow you to be exposed to material that you would not normally read or see. Going out into the real world [19:21] Interact with the world around you. Venture to new parts of the city and new places you’ve never been. Undoubtedly, there will be something for your creative bank account. Lee was having a really tough time feeling creative after months of getting his house ready to go on the market. Then he had this cool experience with his son by randomly deciding to check out a comic book shop called Cosmic Money. He hasn’t really ever liked comics but after going into the shop they found an amazing graphic novel that re-ignited his creativity. Cosmic Monkey The Lost Path Get out into the world and experience life! The benefits and opportunities of living in a boring place [23:46] It really doesn't matter where you live. There are experiences in rural areas and experiences in cities that fill creative bank accounts. However, being able to interact with other people more can give you a lot more opportunities to fill your creative bank account. It’s all about being proactive. Tips for increasing direct and indirect experiences [24:47] Jake’s artist friend, Jake Wyatt, says to always be reading three books at one time: Culturally required (classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Grapes of Wrath, etc.) Culturally relevant (current books you hear about on NPR, top selling books, etc.) Personally relevant to you (what are you interested in? Fantasty, history, etc.) By reading three different books at the same time you will see different dots and find connections that you might not have seen if you were to read them one at a time. Jake Wyatt Artist dates [27:39] Regularly set a date and set time aside to take yourself out on an artist date! Get out of your own space and normal routine to go to an art gallery, a museum, a bookstore, or out into nature. Go by yourself so you don’t have to filter your experience through someone else. Direct experience to pursue [29:44] To have direct experiences travel, explore, do community service, go to museums, etc. Community service allows to to change your outlook and puts you in contact with people or situations that are outside of your normal routine. Visit Family [30:36] Visiting family pushes you to be in contact with people that have different opinions and perspectives than you. You don’t know what will inspire you! Who knows, maybe your crazy Uncle Joe will inspire a new character. Get out of your comfort zone [32:31] Change the way you do things like travel from place to place or where you create. Take a

Jul 11, 20181h 0m

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