Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The Dirty Work Of Illustration


Not that illustration is dirty work - unless you're working in chalk pastels...no, I mean the dirty side of the business...which is, the BUSINESS SIDE. None of us got into this business for the business right? -and if you did then someone gave you the business! If we had really wanted to become business people we would have majored in business and would probably be failing at some facebook knock off right now wondering how much longer the V.C. capital is going to last. Instead we're trying to find some freakin time to do what we love amidst the dreaded task of satisfying assignments we might not really want to work on and doing the dreaded business tasks.

This isn't going to be one of those sugar coated pep talks where I tell you everything's going to be alright. Not going to be a top 5 list of things you can do to make it easier. The fact is -the business side is often what separates the successful from the dreamers. It's like taking out the garbage - if you don't do it regularly it will pile up, get in your way, and stink up the place worse than shell fish rotting in the sun. On top of that your great ideas stack up and stagnate. You'll be one of those people who says, "I could have done that" or "I had an idea like that" or "That didn't really take that much talent"...yeah? you're right -what it took was getting up and doing the dirty work of making it happen (and failing a lot). The phone calls. The leg work. The ordering. The research. The face time. The follow up. The lunch meeting. The emailing back and forth. The planning. The lack of sleep. The writing. The bounce back after rejection. and all the other stuff that goes into taking your art and combining it with an idea that people want - like this one from my friend Jed: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1499165518/ukiyo-e-heroes?ref=live

Some times illustrators get lucky. I've known a few to stumble on a great project that happened to really take off and find enormous commercial success. Most of these illustrators already put in the work and created their luck so to speak but again - they're rare. For the rest of us it takes tenacity of immense proportions to push through project after project hoping that we figure out a way to make more money.

It's easy making the dummy book. Easy making the promo piece. Easy doodling in the sketchbook. Easy designing the cover. Easy shopping for supplies. Easy doing what we love. But to be successful you have to be willing to face and embrace the uncomfortable. The mundane. The embarrassing. The tedious. The repetitive. The boring and the dreaded. The successful person is often zombie like. Knock em down - they get back up - over and over and over again. In this business you're going to have to get pretty dirty if you want to make a living at it.

18 comments:

  1. Hi Will..
    Youre right! Many of us are "Illustration Slaves" for the big Illustration-Industrie Wheel... and hope to get out of it with an own great idea, charakter or whatever... Sit there all day long and earn successfully money with that what we love to draw. With an big Publisher in the Background who loves what we do and sell it..:-) Wouldn´t it be great??
    Some Illustrators reached it... youre right they are rare... Its the same in Germany or all around the world i guess.:-)
    At time i am an employed illustrator.. and totally cached by the big Industrie Wheel :-/ Its fun...and safe with an monthly income ..but in my freetime i try to realize my own "Projects" and blog some stuff (http://normanhundert.blogspot.de/)
    and try not to loose my pioneering...dream of my own story as an Illustrator:-)
    sorry for my poor english..Im just a man.. ;-)
    ..ah and Great Artwork :-)))

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    1. Thanks Norman - I'm glad you're still working on your own projects! And your English is much better than my Deutsch!

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  2. Great post Will, and a nice super creepy illustration to go with it ;) I hope that you are well and that you have been having a wonderful summer.

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    1. Thanks Karen - great summer getting all set for a really busy year - and a lot of business tasks. :)

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  3. I Will Be That Zombie! This was a great reminder Will. I shall no longer put of the business... or the Bidness for that matter.

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    1. To be or not be the Zombie - that is the question - I always try to ask myself if I'm doing a particular task because I'm avoiding something else more productive but less fun? If the answer is yes - I try to persuade myself to do what I really need to do (with the promise of a reward) :)

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  4. Awesome, Will! And of course, everything you said also applies to any creative endeavor, not just for illustrators! We have the same experience creating, and then marketing (ugh!) our apps!

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    1. Absolutely! It's always easier to avoid what really needs to be done and it seems to have taken me 20 years to finally settle down and force myself to work on the "not so fun" stuff...and yes - no creatives exempt. :)

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  5. Great post, Will. I wish I could disagree with you, but I'm living it! e

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    1. Ha ha - I wish I could disagree with myself! :)

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  6. Thanks. I visited each one of the links to the other illustrator sites mentioned in your article. All the sites were excellent resources. Thank you so much! Tutorial CS6

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  7. Thanks for a great post. Totally relate.

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  8. Thanks for the great article Will. I really do need to think about this more. I have two more weeks on my day job and then I'll be officially a full time freelancer so I better get to terms with the business side of things or I'll be starving...lol

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    1. It gets easier and easier - like anything that you make a regular part of your life...so much so that it really isn't that dirty to me any more - but boy did it used to be...

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  9. Nice article, Will. I appreciate your candidness on the subject. I wish my illustration professors had been more open about that side of things when I was a starry-eyed,young artist. But knowing me, I probably wouldn't have believed them,anyway. Sometimes the best lessons are those learned through experience.

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  10. Thanks for the great article!I just new into illustrations and your aticles are really so helpful and motivating.We always try to ignore the true facts of life but if we don't face them we are never going to be successful!I have done few small projects some were good but some of them were not so handsome money interest wise but I have certainely gained some experience in the end thats going to help in my next endeavour.
    Thanks Will for sharing so candidly!

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