3 Point Perspective: The Illustration Podcast

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 wondering if he just got lucky or if it was really good. Will was an early adopter of E books on Amazon and they his did really well and so he assumed that if he made interactive ebooks for the iPad they would see similar success and basically they totally failed, because people don’t buy iPad apps. 21:20 Failing Forward Failing Forward The subtitle of the book is: turning stepping stones into success. If you want to be a boxer you have to take hits. Your failures can motivate you and give you energy to persevere. Will would get upset when, in college, he’d show work to his wife and she wouldn’t like it, and he’d get frustrated that he couldn’t even impress his wife let alone others. So he would analyze his work and then used that frustration to keep working and get better. David Hohn, his wife was a graphic designer for Nike so he had a high bar to hit when he went home and showed her his work. Lee’s wife, Lisa, always has critique on his characters. Jake’s wife, Alison, always is straight up honest with Jake. Jake has to recognize that his target audience often isn’t his wife. But when it is something she likes she loves it and asks him why he doesn’t do more work like that. Jake’s mom would always give him a good ego boost, but not really any helpful critique. Sometimes your closest family will be your biggest fans or your biggest critics. Lee’s mom on the other hand would give him brutally honest critique. He never really drew, but it was raining outside and he decided to draw a picture of his great dane, he showed it to his mom and she said, “He looks deranged!” Will would always get critiqued that his drawings of children always looked too old. He was frustrated because he didn’t know how to fix it. He was putting the eyes in the adult places, and then he would add extra lines that are visible but unnecessary that would age his characters. Hard lines for the collarbone or the sternocleidomastoid (neck) muscle really make characters look older. One day he did a drawing that looked like a kid and his wife told him, “Now that looks like a kid!” But he lacked the skill to analyze it and figure out how he did it, so he used that drawing for reference and it took him a while to figure it out. People can really do a number on artists feelings pretty easily. 32:00 Critiques For more depth be sure to listen to: Critiques What do you do when you don’t like it but other people do? Skyheart cover story, Jake redid his Skyheart cover and asked for feedback from Will that he liked it better, and then most people online and Jake’s kids told him to go back to the original. Jake told Will, what everyone was saying and Will, said, “Yeah, I didn’t want to tell you…” Now Jake makes sure that Will gives him his honest opinion. It’s hard to have people around that can really give you an honest critique. We know how much of a letdown it is to get help and then have to change a bunch of things. But that critique is so important! Usually for Will, his best work is the work that he got lots of feedback on. Sometimes we just want to go into our secret lair and come out with a masterpiece, but often times it fails because we didn’t get help from other people. Receiving other people’s critique and feedback really accelerates our growth and the the quality of our work. Anna Daviscourt She has a 1 year residency at Adobe working on a book for them right now. Lee is her mentor, and they have an open dialogue and critique which has made her book really good. One of the reasons the Star Wars prequels turned out the way they did is because George Lucas was surrounded by “yes men.” You don’t want to surround yourself with “yes men.” Ironically, you need to surround your people who are willing to tell you “no”. Put yourself in a position to receive critique and then listen to those critiques. That’s a way to circumvent failures and then you can use those failures as stepping stones. It. Better to have a little failure than to wait and have a bigger failure. 39:45 Will’s Failures: Beginning of Will’s career: we have this project and are looking for illustrators, are you available? He would only get 1/10 of those. Puff the Magic Dragon A Marvelous Toy Will was really close to getting to illustrate the Marvelous toy book, which was a sequal to puff the magic dragon (which is still selling really well) Steve Cox got to illustrate the book. This is so true, there are all of these jobs that get talked about, there are so many books that you hear about or that get talked about. Especially for the first 5 years but even later. Lee would get all of these proposals and even some animation studios that were maybe interested in using his work to make a short, and then radio silence. It is quite disheartening. How to Catch a Bogle: Lee did a sample illustration and a couple of sketches for the cover and he thought it was a no brainer that he would get to illustrate it, but then he didn’t get it. So these hopeful opportunities that don’t pan out are plentiful. Mid Level Failure Lee did a childrens book, did a whole dummy, it goes to acquisition and then you assume that It’s a long letdown, it can cover 6 months of your life. It’s not like one painting It’s out of your control, maybe marketing got these sales reports and they feel like another book would be better. Or maybe something really similar comes out. If they had just rejected it right out of the gate, it would be easier 48:50 Jake’s Failure He was working at Blue Sky and there is this unspoken hierarchy that character designers are at the top, and he was on a lower level. He got thrown a bone by the director, they needed some background characters. Jake dropped the ball, he fumbled it. He did his best but basically they just yawned at his result. He realized that maybe his character designs aren’t the best for this animation studios or for animation in general, but he realized that he wanted to move into a place where his designs could be appreciated. Find the audience that appreciates it. When people think of Jake Parker they don’t hink of him as a character designer but see him now as a comic book artist and children’s book illustrator. Maybe now he is more experienced and would have done a better job on it. Jake has put his effort, emotion and interest into projects that he gets satisfaction out of and if the audience gets satisfaction from it all the better. 54:50: High Level Failures Will’s High Level Failure: Will was getting a lot of work but not as much as before, he and his wife were doing really well before while she taught school and he did illustration, but then she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and couldn’t keep working. He was still getting good assignments and money you could live on but because they had been living outside their means, and they didn’t have her extra income so they got into financial trouble. Will saw these people around him making good money and he felt sorry for himself and felt like a failure, and that he was letting his family down. So… he almost quit to become a prison guard. All of the guys around Will were correctional officers, they were making 6 figures, and their wives worked and the central valley of CA is affordable. Will saw that these guys didn’t go to college and they have these really comfortable financial situations. Illustrators are more like dentists have to study and perfect their craft and he felt he should be making more. He felt really sorry for himself, he wasn’t honest enough with himself to say, “We got ourselves into this situation.” He went and took the PCA32 class and got unofficially hired but then he was talking to the CO’s in his neighborhood and heard all of these horror stories, they were telling him not to do it. He felt like a failure he had a 15 year long career in illustration, it was a cop out. No one that did that job was having a meaningful career. It felt like giving up. How did you get yourself out? He talked to his wife, his bishop from church, his neighbor who was a nurse at the prison, everyone was telling him not to do it. His bishop told him that he saw what Will was capable of doing, had seen his children books, and that the gifts that he had should not be squandered this way, and that he had developed these gifts that would be taking away from people and he wouldn’t know what good he had done. Jake has really seen the positive influence on others through Will’s youtube channel, art, and on him personally. Will and his wife were in a sticky financial situation and it really took learning to live within their means to help get them out of that. Just because someone else has something you shouldn’t get it just because they have one. Live below your means so you can save every month, you will experience lean times. Carrie Henry, “I hope you are putting money away because this isn’t going to last.” There are so many benefits to living within your means. Including happiness by not being tied to needing to have everything. Jake had a great job at an animation studio, but wanted to develop an independent career. He had an opportunity to teach at BYU in Utah, where he could have benefits and health insurance along with a couple days a week to work on his publishing work. But that job at BYU disappeared because after a couple of years they told him they wanted him to have a degree. He didn’t have So he found a full time job and gave himself a year to get 6 months of work lined up. The year came and went and he didn’t have 6 months of work lined up, he was really stressed and he was really down on himself, he doubled down on himself and he started to post on social media and posted daily and tried to post daily. He then landed a really good job from Google that would last them a couple of months, and he knew if he did a Kickstarter, and he got another childrens book. He added it all up and realized he had his 6 months of work he was looking for. That was 5 years ago, and he’s been doing it ever since, but it hasn’t been smooth but it’s been a steady trajectory upwards. It would have been easy to quit and just stay at that new job for 10 years, but he had a vision or a goal and he stuck with that. You never know what the future holds in store. There are always curves and things you didn’t see coming. No matter how good you are you will still experience failures. This is true for life and especially for a career in art. Once you hit a certain point it doesn’t mean that those things will go away. Typically all failures have a silver lining. Use every failure to look at what went wrong, what you can do differently, and how you can learn from it and be better. LINKS Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo Alex Sugg: alexsugg.com Tanner Garlick: tannergarlickart.com. Instagram: @tannergarlick If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These p odcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. 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.

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 70’s you had to live in one of those big cities, but nowadays with the internet you can stay connected. 27:31 The Inbox Zero Method, Jake Back in 2017, Jake had over 500 emails in his inbox, and he declared Email Bankruptcy, he took all of those emails and stuck them in a “Bankruptcy” folder. This is his new Inbox Zero Method that he used in 2018: Make a folder in your inbox called the “action folder” Create different folders for different projects/categories. Set aside time each day or every couple days to go through your action folder. I.e. send someone that file, or write that thank you response. Any email that takes less than 2 minutes to respond to, just do that right away, if it takes longer then put it in your action folder. Previously Jake would sometimes check his email 5 times an hour and then it fragmented his time and he wasn’t able to accomplish as much. The best work happened when he had 2 or 3 hours to get in the zone and focus on deep work. Don’t live in a state of constant distraction. Don’t let the email control you, you control your email. Lee has this program called Self Control and it allows you to choose the sites that are distractions for you: i.e. News sites, email, etc, and you can plug those sites into the app and create limits for accessing those sites. I.e. You can’t access any of those sites for the next 4 hours. Lee’s Distraction Websites: Instagram Gmail Facebook Some news source Craig’s List So anywho, when he clicks the button on Self Control it removes those distractions. Be Careful, Will Story: One of his best friends runs the comic con side of his business and does all the scheduling, taxes, going to shows, etc. And then pays Will his portion. Will and his business partner sent this person to run a booth for them in different parts of the country and this person had helped them $700 dollars. They sent him to another show and Will had a Facebook friend that tabling next to the man, and that friend emailed Will telling him that the person working for him was always showing up late to the show, and would leave the booth for hours at a time. So when the guy running those shows came back Will and his business partner, Wane, talked to him about that email they received and he admitted that it was all true. You really need to know the person that you are taking a chance on, and when necessary make sure there are checks and balances in place. Storytelling differences: Lee tells the point he wants to make and then gives the supporting details. Will tells the story and and supporting details and then he gives the lesson or takeaway. Jake likes to create orderly lists and bullet points. Truly be a Content Creator, Lee Being a content creator is where all of the fun and all of the income truly happens. Lee is in the process of making patterns, and books to pitch and he is having so much fun. He is making so much content that isn’t even being asked for, and then is going to see where it will go. He’s having a great time and he hasn’t ever had this much freedom before. Your ideas and your ability to come up with things will be rewarded. Those who not only illustrate but also write their books have a better chance of being picked up by a publisher. Those who take the bull by the horns and go above and beyond just being an illustrator can do really well. You feel like you are more in control of your future when you go the extra mile. The best thing that Lee likes about having being a content creator nowadays, is that there is now a Plan B. Before you would have to just shop your work around to different companies and publishers, but now there is Kickstarter. Worst case scenario: nobody wants it, then you can kickstarter it and make it yourself. Jake disagrees that being a content creator over executing someone else’s vision this is the only way to be successful. More and more today people want visuals and good images to go with their company, and there is work for people who have craft. With that said though, don’t let your side projects die. We aren’t saying that there is no more work for people who don’t create their own content and write their own children’s books, instead, we are saying that there are more opportunities for those that do. You can become entrepreneurial. Will was not entrepreneurial, and now he is. To do any personal project and have it be successful takes a lot more than just art. Each project is almost like it’s own business. A Kickstarter project involves logistics, marketing, etc. You should learn some business skills to help out with the other side of things. Be a content creator, it’s not entirely about getting work and being successful, it’s about reaching your full potential. Don’t just be a hired gun all the time, take time to do your own work too. There is something special about creating for your own project. Not everyone has that itch to do personal projects and be entrepreneurial, some people love working at a studio or just having a real job. And for them that is all of the creative fulfillment that they need. Making your own things, finishing things, and doing those personal projects gives you confidence that you can take with you into other endeavors. Take Time to Just Draw For Fun, Jake We all can get so caught up with deadlines, and drawing for specific projects that we forget to draw just for fun. There is value in drawing for fun and you never know what may come from it. Just take time to scribble and draw just for fun. Just like a kid, draw not for anything, just draw for fun. You never know what is going to happen. Jake drew this robot and colored it and because of the colors he chose it ended up looking like an avocado robot. So he drew a bunch of other “food bots”, and they were all just for fun. Someone took his Hamburger Bot and made a 3D sculpt from it, and then with his permission made some real 3D printed statues from his design, and they have even been made into stickers for Art Drop Club . All of that just from Jake choosing to draw for fun. 2018 Remorses: Jake wishes he had drawn all of Skyheart before the Kickstarter, instead of after. Jake feels like he could have been using all of that creation time of Skyheart as a build up to the Kickstarter. It would have been a better final product, and it would have saved him from a lot of stress. The great thing is that we can learn from our mistakes! In the past, Kickstarter may have been more about helping to fund something that never would have been done. Now it feels like it has shifted to becoming more of a pre-order and the money is just needed to fund the production of it. That’s it for today, we hope that some of the things we learned last year will be helpful to you with achieving your personal and artistic goals this year. Happy New Year, everybody! LINKS Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo Alex Sugg: alexsugg.com Tanner Garlick: tannergarlickart.com. Instagram: @tannergarlick If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These podcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. 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.

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 with a story that ends in a satisfying and meaningful way. You can say, I know that I want the story to be about this..., but instead of thinking about how it starts, think about how it ends. Then you can work backwards and reverse engineer it. Some stories are serious, and others are just fun jokes. Like Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. The story is along the lines of a really good joke. It is simplified, toned down, and has a great punch line. Think about the jokes that you are drawn to. Funny picture books are just illustrated jokes. Every element is essential to help tell the joke. [I Want My Hat Back] (https://www.amazon.com/I-Want-My-Hat-Back/dp/0763655988/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1546029594&sr=1-1&keywords=I+want+my+hat+back) No David! It is very loosely a story, but there is this interaction and story, and then it ends with the resolution of his mom hugging him. Writing a simple short book that is also satisfying is very difficult. Dr. Suess was amazing at creating stories that were deep. He started off as a political cartoonist and a lot of that carries over into his children’s books. There is a lot more to it than what you see on paper. Horton Hears a Who, he is making a commentary about the U.S. and Japan after WW2. The Cat in the Hat, his message and commentary on authoritarianism. The Lorax, it is about environmental stuff. He is so good at making a story that is interesting on two levels. But with these stories the story isn’t overwhelmed by the message beneath it. The surface story is also interesting. Too didactic, is a warning zone. Don’t make it too preachy! You want it to be fun and not focused on preaching. Jake has got this note, editors don’t want it to be too strong a message. It has to be more underneath the story. You can’t be hit over the head with a message. “Don’t Run into the Road!” It’s not a story. There was this big name author that tried to create a story about that, but it never really sold anywhere. Preachy stories are really off-putting. Beating reader over the head never works. We don’t read children’s books to be preached at. Early Influences What are your top 3 books as a kid? Why? Why do you remember them now? Will: The Francis books, Will was fighting with his sister, and in the book the brother was being mean to his sister. The book showed the perspective of the little sister and how she was really hurt when he was being mean to her. It really hit him and helped him see that he was being the bad guy. It made him self reflect, and had an impact on his life. Rick Walton: if you set out to teach a lesson, that’s fine. But if you have to make the right decisions to make the story good, and those decisions take you away from that lesson, then follow the story. Jake: Richard Scarry books, Where’s Waldo books, stories with the faintest of stories but lots of amazing visuals. Early influences play a huge role on who you are as a creator. Those early influences stay with you for your whole life. Lee’s dream: to listen to the radio in 30 years and hear that a book he wrote had an impact on someone. Lee: The Pink Elephant with Golden Spots. These kids are in an empty house and they find these keys that open a magic wardrobe, and they discover a pink elephant with golden spots, that ends up being taken to the zoo where all the other elephants make fun of it, but all of the visitors want to see the pink elephant, and all of the other elephants paint themselves to look fun and crazy like the pink elephant. Lee still cherishes that book. These things stick with you for the rest of your life. Will: I Wish That I Had Duck Feet We want to be unique. We want to stick out. This book is an influence on him and his work. Jake, what inspired you to draw robots? Yukito Kishero’s Battle Angel Alida was a big influence. Appleseed was full of robots, and in the back the artist, Sherow, would show robot designs with cut aways showing the insides of the robots and how they worked. Jake likes to offset the high technical, really detailed robots with cute little animals. Richard Scarry liked cute animals driving cars and Jake likes cute animals with robots. Jake likes the engineering aspect, the form and function of drawing robots. Star Wars is amazing, and they have all of these books showing cross sections of ships and how things work. How do you avoid being cliche? You need to connect dots that haven’t been connected before. Just write a great story, that is totally original. It’s that easy! Anything that is unique and original, there is an element of the familiar and there is something that is unexpected. This is why it is vital to fill your creative bank account. Where are some unlikely connections? What are the interesting things that you notice? Notice the things around you. Look for things in your life that are unique to you. Look for problems in your life and find ways to solve them. Lee’s real life question: “What if it didn’t stop raining?” Led to him creating a story about a girl who encounters that problem, it doesn’t stop raining. Find the problems that you are going through personally and then solve them in interesting ways. If you are stuck on doing the monster under the bed something then you need to do something unexpected. Seinfeld, comes from real life. There is a level of richness and charm that has to come from real life. Have fun telling and coming up with your own stories! LINKS Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo Alex Sugg: alexsugg.com Tanner Garlick: tannergarlickart.com. Instagram: @tannergarlick If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These podcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. 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.

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 offer. You need to know your process inside and out. You really need to understand how long things take, comps, scanning ,etc. At this point you should be thinking about your schedule. If everything feels good to you and looks good to you then you accept the offer. Then your agent and the publisher will go back and forth about the money, royalties, do you have rights to the artwork, etc. Usually you want to retain rights to use it in your portfolio, and on your website. You want the rights in case the book takes off and they decide to make other products, like pajamas, mugs, posters, etc, so that you can get royalties. Receiving Your Advance, and Getting to Work Once all of this is squared away then you sign the contract and at that point you get an “advance”, this is upfront money. This protects you as an artist because you get money upfront to see you through the creative process. This is how an advance works: Let’s say you have a $20,000 advance. There are two options: ⅓ signing, ⅓ delivering final files, ⅓ book is printed. ½ siginign, ½ delivering finals (more common). The advance is against the royalties, so you would start making royalties after making the $20,000. Then you get a check and it feels really good depositing it. We like to be real in this podcast. And you don’t get the check immediately upon signing the contract. When you sign it, it still usually takes 1-2 months for you to actually receive the advance. Publishing is weird, horses still bring you your checks. This speaks to the idea that you need to be good with your money and learn to budget and plan ahead. Also in the contract, it should outline the game plan for the actual production of the book. It is usually around a year or 2 years later. The reason is that once you have started creating some art, then they can use that artwork to start selling the book to bookstores, libraries, etc. This all happens well in advance. Stores and libraries all are projecting and trying to predict what will sell or what will not sell in the future.All of this starts to happen as you start sending them files. Usually your production time is 6 months to a year. It takes forever. If you just sat down and just worked on the book and nothing else, you could get it done in maybe two months, but there is all sorts of back and forth, getting feedback, receiving notes, and making changes. Marketing people usually give lots of their feedback on the cover, they judge books by their cover. Production Process Process in a Nutshell Send in initial rough sketches, get feedback. Then do a final illustration and get that approved for the finished look of the book. Receive approval. Then once that is approved, final sketches. Then do the rest of the final artwork. Then turn it all in. Then there are notes on the finished artwork. Then make any necessary changes. Then they get all of the work and they have a lot they need to do on their end with it. It’s so simple, right? It sounds complicated but they are directing it, and so all you need to do is meet your deadlines and respond to their emails. You are working intensely with other people and so there are people skills. You work back and forth with a lot of different departments and people. You are apart of a team, and it’s not like you are just creating an image for a class. Final Check on the Proofs After all the art is in their hands, then they will go through and format it, they will format the type. They will prep everything for print. At the same time, you will start bugging them and telling them that it is time for that second check. You aren’t quite done yet. A few months later you will get proof back, usually you will get prints of the book, physically. And you will see what the book will look like in print. They are larger and are not cropped at all. You look through it and make sure that the color that they are printing is matching your screen. If it all looks good then you let them know or you can ask them Lee will try and send in a couple of finished images and also color swatches of where the color should be. Lee sends a hard copy proof, and then they can match it as best they can. He sends them his intention for how it should be printed. Because if everyone is looking at screens, then they might all be getting something a little different, they are trying to hit a moving target. After the proofs then you get the FNG’s, short for Folded and Gathered. These are the folded sheets, and it is what the book is really going to look like. This is where you can go through and double check everything. It’s probably too late to fix minor things but if there are major things then you can try and catch it before the book is printed. True Story: First time Will went to ALA, his publisher was sending him out there. His editor told him that he will see those “FNG’s”, and he couldn’t tell what was going on and if she was mad about something. FNG’s. There is this lingo, and little terms that get thrown at you that you never learned in school. Book Reviews After the FNG’s are approved then you will receive some advanced copies. The finished book. Not just you but other people like librarians with a book review audience, book reviewers, other publishers and agents, all people who are connected to this book somehow will get the books so that they can start reviewing them and telling people what they should think of the book. What you are looking for at this stage is for good reviews. A starred review on Kirkus is usually a good sign. The reviews are usually heavily focused on the writing and is not as focused on the illustrations. If you do not get a “starred review” not a 5 starred review, but a starred review, then people will look at the book as a miss, and it most likely won’t be a commercial success. Reviews. A lot of reviews are kind of arbitrary because the people reviewing them aren’t artists and the reviews are being given by individuals. Lee did a book and the review was saying that the book was quite poignant, and full of emotion, great. However, he drew a girl without a helmet, and got a bad review because on one page Release Day Book comes out, you are tweeting, and posting on Instagram about the book deal. There is some marketing that you need to do as author or illustrator and it all leads up to the launch of the book. If they want to and if you can, then you may be sent on a book tour. This is quite rare though. Book tours are more reasonable when you are both the author and illustrator. Publishers are hoping that at least one of the books they published will get an award. Every eighth or twelth book they publish is paying for all the others. You go on a book tour, and then you go home, or your book goes onto a best-seller list. You usually find this out, a week or two after the book is published. These accolades are not essential but feel good. Getting onto the The Best Seller Lists, sometimes it’s really easy to gain your way or you can sneak your way onto their lists. Even more important than the Best Seller Lists for how your book is selling is the Amazon seller rank. If you are anywhere under 10,000 for best selling books on Amazon, then you are Bonaparte Falls Apart is seasonal but it was in the 700’s. David Hone’s Christmas book gets into the teens on Amazon’s seller ranking. Basically he is receiving off the charts royalties. Periodically you will receive a royalty statement. Gives you a break down of how many books sold in different areas. It tells you how much you still need to pay off of your advance. And if you have paid off your book’s advance, then you get a royalty check. Death or Eternal Life for a Book Then your book will either die and go out of print. Or it will continue to get royalties. If it goes out of print, then you retain all of the rights and you can self publish it or you can find another publisher. If it never goes out of print then you continue to receive royalty checks for it. You never know what’s gonna happen. The publisher does a lot of work. They do a lot of heavy lifting. So you can look at it this way, you are getting paid to create and you are also receiving free advertising. Big advance or big royalty? Your sales record follows you around, if you have a big flop then it can hurt your future deals. There is a balance between advances and royalties. If they can’t get a bigger advance, then you could ask for a bigger royalty. School visits, Jerry Polada does a lot of school visits, the fact that he does school visits every week and that volume of visits and work he does can help him with getting books sold to publishers. LINKS Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo Alex Sugg: alexsugg.com Tanner Garlick: tannergarlickart.com. Instagram: @tannergarlick If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These podcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. 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.

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 work? Lee has done 24, 25 books and still feels like he hasn’t been able to hit the mark of his best work. Of all of Will’s books, Bonnaparte Falls Apart is doing the best. It was published by Random House and it is the book where he had the most freedom. As a rule of thumb, the smaller the publisher, the less freedom you’re going to have. Lee: is working with imprints of Scholastic and Simon and Schuester. Jake has worked with Chronicle and Harper Collins. These publishers are at the top of their game, they allow you to do your best work with creative freedom and they will give directional nudges, and are not overly micromanaging. Smaller publishers may micromanage and have silly requests. Will will approach art directors and show them really rough sketches and tell them that they are for their eyes only, don’t show these to the editor. This allows him to pitch concepts without having to do a lot of detailed sketching. You need to prove yourself with a new client and give them some nice sketches before you start showing them really really rough concepts, so they can know what your sketches entail. The caliber of client does change the answer to this question of how satisfied you may be with working with a publisher. Some smaller publishers will micromanage. A good example of trust and a proactive solution mindset. Jake noticed when the book was nearing completion that they had left out a spread and were a whole spread shirt, so he proposed an idea for a final spread and the author, editor, and everyone liked his idea and let him carry it out. The Twelve Sleighs of Christmas Throw good creative ideas out there, if you don’t really have a good idea, don’t throw ideas out there just to throw it out there! What to do if you don’t agree with the art director? You can definitely push back more the more confidence and experience you have. Would you do that as a beginning illustrator? Pick your battles, it can’t be a daily thing. Every project will have issues. you know there is going to be some push back to what you do. You are going to want one or two of your ideas, to be really gutsy and push back. But it can’t be a daily thing. When considering pushing back against feedback given, always ask, “Is this worth it? Is this more important than the other things that I really care about?” Pick your battles. Check out our monthly drawing challenges at SVSLearn.com! Be solution-oriented. If you need to make a change and it’s not your idea, then you need to love the change or revision. Will has loved something about a book and then had that thing changed and then he was able to love that new thing even more than the thing before. We are resistant to change because we have attached value to something and then when that is attacked we feel unsettled. Skeleton at Dinner Being a student, almost anything you pitch is accepted and your teacher just wants to see you create good work. As a professional, that isn’t the case, many things you pitch won’t be accepted or agreed with, but you have to keep a positive and team player attitude. When going into professional job, realize you are going to be apart of a team, it helps you have a better mindset. In regard to illustration, Jake likes to have the mind of a mercenary. You are hired by the author and the editor and they have a vision, he will, 9/10, go along with their vision. One good reason for this is that the editor has been through this process so many more times than you, and she works with a marketing department and has seen designs and books succeed and fail. Normally she or he knows what they are talking about. Jake tends to go with their feedback, unless maybe it is something specific that he feels strongly about. Push back on only a handful of little things. Trust their vision. Have you ever refused to change something? Jake, never done it. Lee, did this once. Did icons for a magazine and they got caught in this ongoing never ending revision loop. As artists we are all caught in this paradox where we are wanting to make money and also wanting to enjoy out art and this fun career path. Sometimes you need to know when to say yes and no. Sometimes you say yes, because there is a really good paycheck. Sometimes you say no, because it doesn’t fit with your brand or artistic vision. Will lost his rep by saying no. The art director was really upset because everyone wanted Will, the illustrator to rewrite the book, and Will knew that wasn’t his job or responsibility, and refused to do so. He lost his rep but stood up for himself. Soon after that publisher actually went out of business. Being an illustrator does not mean: “I will illustrate anything for anyone in any style.” I.e. Lee doesn’t do likenesses in his illustration work. Know what you’re good at and know what you’re not. You don’t have to be a Jack of all trades. But you also don’t have to limit your skill set but you can limit what you do. Is there a way to feel out the publishing team before you do a book for them, to make sure you see, creatively, eye to eye? Some questions to ask early on to help you feel out the your compatibility with the project and team. What images of mine did you see that made you think of me? Why did you pick me? How do you see this project happening? Am I primarily working with the editor or the art director. You want to know what you are getting into. Will’s friend wanted him to do a logo, and Will agreed to do it but had his friend show him 3 of his favorite logos so that Will could get a feel for what his friend wanted. Make them send you stuff that fits their vision, so that you have a better idea as to what it is that they want. Sometimes you have to spend a lot of money on your furnace. You have to stick with it having a consistent online presence, you need to build an audience a fanbase, when you are in need they will likely support you! How long do you wait on getting feedback on thumbnail sketches? It can take as long as 3-4 weeks. Worst experience with an art director? Everyone has nothing to share. Will already shared his. How to become friends with your art director? People like to work with friends and with people that they can relate to. Will tries to make it personal, “have a good time… this weekend”, “I’m going to be doing this, this weekend” Be kind and be their friend. Jake likes to follow them on twitter or to comment on their art if they are an artist to find connections and build friendships. A lot of Wills art directors are return clients. He has had 5, 10, 30 projects with the same art directors. Think about it, if you do good for someone, then they will count on you and look to you as a go to person. Be fun, be interesting, be a good person, care about them, show interest in what they’re doing. They will want to keep working with you if you produce good work, and are easy to work with. One more idea, send your art director or publisher a card or a print, and do something extra like that for them. Lee sends his new publishing clients his Kickstarter book so they have a really strong taste of what his process and finished work is like. We hope you liked this discussion, this is a good thing to talk about because working with art directors, it’s part of what we do! 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.

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 first time doing a job like this, and so what do you think would be a fair price?”, etc, people will find you and your humble honesty endearing and be there to help you. Power of Persuasion, People Skills Sometimes we look at persuasion as a negative term, as manipulative. But it’s not, and those things are different. It’s kind of like you get more bees with honey. Let’s say you’re a beginning illustrator, and the client asks if you can take on a project, you say, “let me check my schedule and get back to you.” When maybe your schedule is wide open. Sometimes it’s a little bit of a game, “What’s your rate?”, well, “What’s the budget?” That’s a vital question if you want to make illustration a career. You need to make your client comfortable, they’re nervous working with you if you haven’t worked with them before, do all you can to clarify and show excitement and interest, so that they feel comfortable and good about hiring you. Will wanted to get a Yorkie, and there were 100 people who were wanting it. Will wanted to try and get the owner to let him buy it, so he tried to reverse engineer the person’s perspective. Ask yourself, “What would I want to hear, if I were them? What would I not want to hear, if I were her?” Assess the situation and look for how it can benefit you and the person you are working with. Think win-win! Show that you are excited, be human. Don’t be afraid to be excited and to show it! The 33% Rule You have relationships that you need to maintain. There are executive relationships above you, peer relationships people who are next to you, and there are people who are “below you” (not in a condescending way) but they are maybe not as experienced at something. Focusing on all of these relationships helps you see where you are at in your career and in your ability, acknowledge what you need to do to get better and enables you to help those who are further back on the path than you are. As you help people who are further back, you learn and grow more. Your skills will increase as you have to teach people the process. As you spend time with people ahead of you, they pull you up. You’re the sum of the 5 people you spend most of your time with. That means you need to put people in your life who are better than you. What to do if you are the best? If you are the rockstar of your group? Jake was at an art studio, and eventually people above him had moved on and left, and one day he realized that he didn’t have anyone to look up to and to push him to be better, so immediately he started looking at higher up studios with artists light years ahead of him, and he ended up getting a job there and grew so much within just the first 6 months. Healthy competition can help push you to be a better artist too. Teach You don’t have to. But if you can do it, it’s so rewarding. You give so much to your students, and they give you even more. Your students build a great circle around you, and it increases your quality of life. Some people have different personality, and like being alone more. Will’s case for why you should teach: When you have to break something down, and have to explain something, then you are creating different pathways in your brain and you have epiphanies as you are teaching. You are held to a higher standard: if you teach your students to do something then you are more accountable to try and apply what you teach in your own work. Most of the most successful illustrators that he knows of, all have done something to teach and share their knowledge and experience. As a rule of thumb, you should be out of school for 5 years before going back to teach, and those years of experience will validate you. You’ll be a better teacher and have the students respect. Students smell blood in the water and they can tell if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Your art will get better if you teach. Jake took a teaching job and right away his work got so much better. Personal Projects Every successful illustrator that Jake knows of that has taken their career somewhere has done personal projects and more importantly finished them and put them out into the world. Ship It. Check out our episode on this: Ship Happens Not the continuous project on the side that never gets finished. This is the only way to avoid burnout as a pro. Sometimes you just want to paint or draw something that’s just all entirely yours. Sometimes you do a personal project and it works its way into your professional work. Personal projects and style are so interrelated. You can’t work on personal project without developing your style and artistic voice. Sometimes they turn into bigger things. Missile Mouse, a side project started in 9th grade, turned into graphic novel deals with Scholastic. Little Bot and Sparrow, a 10 page story for a comic anthology became a children’s book. Inktober was a personal improvement project, now it’s a world wide art challenge. Will did Bonaparte Falls Apart, because Jake convinced him to do the fanart and his Little book style. When you have a personal project you have to answer questions and solve problems that you don’t have to when working on a project for someone else. From doing Kickstarters, having to work with printers, and having to prep files, it has helped Jake work better with clients. Yearn to Constantly Improve So many people get to a point where they wonder where else they need to go. Simona Ceccarelli: a good example of continually learning. She made it a personal goal, that her portfolio would turn around and be a completely different portfolio by the next year. “Eternal student.” She was a scientist for years, but she loved art and started studying it. Be an eternal student. Will’s interview with her. Will was impressed with one of his highly experienced teachers in school who would constantly take notes whenever a visiting artist came to campus. He was humble and always trying to learn. Take notes. Have an Online Presence You can have great art, but if no one can find it, then you won’t have any work. Most illustrators that are doing really well have some sort of an online presence. You can find them easily, they have a website, they are present to one degree or another on social media. Simona has gotten work from twitter and instagram. Not only can you find work but you can start to build your own personal fan base. Personal projects can sustain you if you have an audience that wants to buy your work. Think of Yourself as More Than an Illustrator. When Will looks at some of the best illustrator many do more than just illustration. Strive to combine an additional skill with your illustration: i.e. writing, programming for a game you’re making, maybe it’s a board game so you’re combining it with your creative ideas for making the game, etc. Develop another skill that you combine with illustration. You combine things and can create something that is more than the sum of its parts. Some artists transcend the idea of being a hired gun, or “just an illustrator.” You’re never going to be paid as much as the creator rather than just the artist. You have to stand out in some way, you have to be unique. It’s important to create that mindset that you are a creator, even if it’s not illustration, even if it’s something completely different. Sometimes while working on other things you’ll receive insights and inspiration for your art. It’s all about how you define yourself. “Illustration is one of the things that I do, but I’m able to do lots of things.” There is so much more to life than just illustration. Be more than just an illustrator. Taking classes: Jake reads books and learns from them, art and non art, Jake did a marketing class, and went to a conference. Lee has this spark and wants to take some art classes, onsite. John Love watercolor workshop Lee did it. Will would like to get into Plein Air painting, has never done it, but wants to get into it. Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo Tanner Garlick: tannergarlickart.com. Instagram: @tannergarlick If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These podcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. 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.

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 digital, and half traditional. That way you will get pushed and those two halves will begin to complement one another. Jake was blindsided last year by Inktober contention over digital vs. traditional. Jake lives in this world of traditional and digital and going back and forth between both. He sees digital as valuable and the best thing that has happened to art; and that tradition is valuable and the best thing that has happened to art, there wouldn’t be any digital without it. Inktober was created to focus on linework, don’t have to worry about color, but just keep it nice and simple. You can still do that challenge with a stylus, you can still make it simple and beautiful digitally. There are certain lines you can’t do digitally that are easier to do traditionally, learning to create those lines digitally is a skill in and of itself. There is value in doing the Inktober challenge digitally. It’s a different skill. However, there still are things to learn from stepping away from digital and doing traditional. Jake did a post encouraging digital artists to do traditional, that offended some people. People took it as him saying that they wouldn’t be getting the full experience. However, there is value to both digital and traditional, they both have their virtues. Jake didn’t mean to invalidate people. Jake took Inktober on as a personal challenge. Lately Jake has tried to ink digitally more with the iPad and Cintiq, and saw how there is something special to digital, both traditional and digital are so useful. Still should be simple with just line work and maybe a splash of color and don’t create full color paintings. If you normally work digitally, try it traditionally! Inktober, all about doing it daily and improving as an artist. Be Creative Will, don’t worry about what others say Inktober has to be. You can try to be different. There are not Inktober police. When people are saying you’re doing something wrong then you are on to something. After Picasso got others to start doing cubism, a cubism group quickly emerged and they kicked him out, however now he is the only one that is well recognized. You don’t want to be an “if only” artist. You don’t want to be an artist who can draw “if only” they have the right gear with them. You want to be able to draw with anything around and draw and paint with them. You don’t need all this stuff. Inktober for writers, there was a writer who writes a little story to go with each daily prompt, and there is a group of writers that have gotten together to share their Inktober stories. That’s great! Well if Inktober means that you can just do anything, then it doesn’t mean anything. There is a reason for it, but you can be creative and do what you need to do. Contests Zebra, Adobe, Pentel, Blick, and Kingart are all doing Inktober contests. There are contests. It could be that they are looking for traditional instead of digital or a dash of color. If you are going to enter contests, be careful that they don’t own your work. Pentel did a contest, they said that they own your artwork. They said that you could use it for anything they want to use it for. People were upset with it. Their lawyer looked at it and Inktober’s lawyer looked at it, and it has specific wording to be able to use that work to post it and share it on their channels, not to use to advertise on their products. They went in and adjusted some wording. Really be aware of what the contest rules are, just be aware. If the contest is worth it, then maybe do artwork specifically for the contest for exposure. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter has similar wording to these contests. There are some risks and things that you just have to deal with, that’s just apart of being an online artist. The Power of Inktober Jake never would have imagined that Inktober would have turned into what it is today. He started the challenge to have: Constraints, Accountability, he tries to be a person who does what he says he’s going to do. Wanted a way to get more exposure as an artist, and a reason for people to come to his art blog. Inktober is still all about getting better at art, and getting people to want to come look at your work. Inktober has changed a lot of people's lives, got them in the habit of drawing, and boosted their followers. Inktober is like New Years, it’s a time when people say, “I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna make it happen.” It’s a line in the sand. Happy drawing! Thank so much for listening! LINKS Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo Tanner Garlick: tannergarlickart.com. Instagram: @tannergarlick If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These podcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. 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.

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 artists at comic conventions can range from $20 USD all the way to $600 USD. Jake uses fan art he sells at comic conventions to get people to come look at his table where he also has pieces from his original stories. He uses this as a way to expand the audience for his original content. How to start [47:23] When trying to get into art fairs or comic conventions it is really important to understand the market. Lee tried to sell at CTNX with Jake and Will and his art did not fit that market. Step 1: Go visit the shows not as a fan but as research. Take notes, take photos, be detailed and focused. Step 2: Make inventory. You can’t do a show if you don’t have things to sell. Start with prints, prints are cheaper and easier to sell. Make sure to use archival ink and paper so your work doesn’t fade. Jake Parker says “every sell is a person you touch.” When you sell a print you are building a relationships with that person. There is a lot of repeat customers, so if you use cheap stuff you lose that future business. Prints generally have low overhead cost with a high markup price. T-shirts per-unit cost are higher and they can be hard to sell and keep the proper sizes in inventory. Stickers are also harder (higher per-unit cost and lower markup price). People often just want the image so they will buy the smallest size just to get it. Don’t lose sales by selling products with higher per-unit cost. Jed Henry is a good example of this, at shows he only sells one size. Ukiyo Heroes Start small and work your way up. Both with what show you start with and with your inventory (not small products but a smaller product list/inventory). Check to see if there is a show within an hour of your home. This is a good way to start small because you have lower overhead costs. Lee white: “Stay local until you get your market figured out and then start branching out.” It is important to know there are different niche markets in each show. So know your work and who it appeals to. Comic conventions are generally easier to show at then art fairs. Art fairs are curated so. For example, Lee only gets into about half of the art fairs he applies for. List of every convention in the USA Specifics on how to get into art fairs [01:06:29] For art fairs start with craft fairs, they are easier to get into. These shows are usually in the winter and indoors. Art Fair Sourcebook. Has art fairs sorted by region, how many people attend and how much they spend on average. This source is expensive, but it is good data to have when catering to an audience with a larger budget. Zapplication is another good resource. Horror and success stories [01:07:55] Will Terry: For his first show he printed 1000 of each print, 23 different pints, so 23,000 prints total. He couldn’t even fit all his inventory in his car. Printing alone cost him $5,000 USD. He figured he would be showing at a lot of conventions so he was offsetting the cost. At his first show he only made $1,500 USD. After that he was pretty nervous. But luckily he was able to make it up over time, but it was scary after that first show. Lee White: At his first show he sold an original, but didn’t bring any bags. So had to give the customer his original art in a trash bag. At a different show, Lee was busy setting up his booth, running to and from his car. When he was almost finished he realized the fanny pack he kept all his money in ($3,000 from his last art fair) had been open the whole time. Almost all his money flew into the wind before the art fair even started. Jake Parker: At a show in 2018, one of his tables was set up against and facing the wall. So he moved the table. Luckily no one told him to move it back even though it was obviously extending further out than anyone else’s. Also at that convention he had made a display structure out of foam core to hang prints. It kept falling over and he had to keep taping it. Overall it was just bad presentation. Convention etiquette You have to learn convention etiquette. Watch out for ‘booth barnacles,’ they are attendees who stay for way too long and get in the way of making other sells. Jake has a polite way to remove booth barnacles. He waits for an opening in the conversation and sticks out his hand and says “It was so nice to meet you thanks for coming.” After that they usually leave. Also don’t just bring your portfolio to show and expect artists to review it. Always ask if there is a time to show them, don’t just assume. A good way to get a very quick and honest critique is to ask “what is the one main thing I should change in my portfolio?” For more information on critques listen to [Episode 10: Critiques] (https://www.svslearn.com/3pointperspectiveblog/2018/8/8/episode-10-critiques) Gear Information forthcoming. LINKS Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These podcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. 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.

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/] (This Is Not My Hat)[https://www.amazon.com/This-Not-Hat-Jon-Klassen/dp/0763655996] If you were to win a Caldecott, publishers try to lock you into your next book deal. You become known for this award and it makes you a distinguished illustrator. There are Caldecott terms to book deals that stipulate how payment changes if you were to win a Caldecott. Should you change your art to win? [31:40] Will feels as if you need to change your art style to win a Caldecott but Lee sees that Caldecott winners of the past have very different styles and are really all over the place. There are books that are Caldecott material and there are other books that aren’t but are still wildly successful. Why is I Want My Hat Back distinguished and Fancy Nancy not? Fancy nancy is extremely commercial and sells well but not as literary. (Fancy Nancy)[https://www.amazon.com/Fancy-Nancy-Jane-OConnor/dp/0060542098] There are books that have a balance of the two like Olivia. Olivia won a Caldecott and also became very commercial. (Olivia)[https://www.amazon.com/Olivia-Caldecott-Honor-Book-Falconer/product-reviews/B0018SYWI4] There are many things that precede winning a Caldecott. There is networking and knowing someone that can get you in the right circles and in the right places. Being connected and known is very important. Dan Santat is a great example of a person that has been around the block before winning the Caldecott. He spoke at conferences for years and was really well known along with producing great work. (The Adventures of Beekle)[https://www.amazon.com/Caldecott-Medal-Dan-Santat/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A6288856011%2Cp_lbr_one_browse-bin%3ADan%20Santat] It’s true that winning a Caldecott seems as likely as being hit by lightning. Step One: Write your own stuff Step Two: Be Jon Klassen Step Three: Speak at SCWI Actionable item [41:29] Here are some actionable things that might not get you a Caldecott but moves you in the right direction. Believe in your work and keep moving forward with it. Think about what is the type of creator you want to be and what best fits your personality. You don’t need to be award winning to be successful. If you are just trying to mimic other people you will always be a few years behind, of course you can learn from others but really do what you love and develop your own unique style and voice. Do the thing that you love to do and that you are good at and eventually the world will catch up. Nuances of a Caldecott [50:04] There are so many books that are great and when it comes down to choosing a winner the committee starts considering the nitty gritty. They start to think what doesn’t work about the books- does the book’s cover have room for the sticker, what is the paper quality like, what is the font, what is in the end paper etc. Things to consider [53: 56] Be like Jon Klassen in the sense that he was trying to be himself. If you are trying to copy someone that has won you will be always be behind. Create the thing that only you can create. Also consider that design matters and having a good sense of graphic design is important for the whole package. Chris Van Allsburg is a great example of this. He combines his art with design to create a great book. His pieces are beautiful and leave room for type. Great artists have a great graphic design sense and some create their own fonts for their books, i.e. Jon Klassen. The Caldecott can be a motivator, and can push yourself to create on a higher level. You can ask yourself, “Is this Caldecott worthy?” Chris Van Allsburg Summary [01:07:00] Consider writing Be unique Consider the details Drive yourself to create something good and worthwhile! LINKS Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These podcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. LINKS Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These podcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. 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.

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 Lee’s process of getting started on a project: Email and express interest, email about the budget, analyze the story, then do very loose sketches that thumbnail the book (2 weeks), then he tightens up the loose sketches, and start painting. What is the process for you, Will? Once he did a book in 3 months but that was awful, usually a book takes 6-12 months. A life as a children’s book illustrator: you need to be comfortable with these really long deadlines. You need to be comfortable working on a 9 month long project, if you are at a studio then you might be working on a project for 2 years plus. This is one of the reasons that Jake wanted to leave the studio work life: the early blue sky stages are super fun, but other times you have to work on a single scene for months and constantly got revisions and sometimes it became unfulfilling. Jake has been away for a while, and has thought about going back, but realizes that he has the lifestyle that he wants already. One of the big pros of being a children’s book illustrator is that you are in control. You have control of the product. Ultimately, when you have the final product in your hands it is largely all yours. It is very satisfying. Lee loves to use Adobe Indesign to layout his books, and it can seem daunting to learn to use a new program but it is definitely worth it; it can be really powerful for laying out a book, it is the way to go for multi page documents. Will likes to work on the ipad, it is his mobile studio. He uses it to look at all of the different pages too. He chunks out time and give his focus to the design work, sometimes even working in his car to keep focused. Biggest Pros and Cons of Being an Illustrator: The pros of being an illustrator is the freedom to make your choice of how your schedule looks. The freedom can be a blessing or a curse. You can go see a movie on a Tuesday morning, or go on a bike ride during the day if you want to! At a studio, that doesn’t fly. If you like collaborating, and working in that environment, with different people, and all of the bustling that goes along with that, then maybe Enough freedom is actually a bad thing. Here is an important point: most people don’t make their full living as an illustrator. The number of things that you You might do a couple Maybe doing art all the time isn’t the best way to make your art. Maybe having a real job where you are interacting with people in real situations will spark your creativity and it goes into something that doesn’t have so many strings attached. As an illustrator, everyday isn’t bliss. Sometimes you don’t feel like creating, or it may feel monotonous, but likely that’s how every job is from time to time. What would you do if you couldn’t do art? Teaching doesn’t count. Jake: fantasizes about managing and operating a bookstore, or working in concessions at a movie theater. Lee: physical therapist, or the guy that works in those little booths at a campsite. Delivering pizza was fun as a kid. Will, has fantasized about running a restaurant. The grass is romanticized on the other side. What’s the biggest frustration of being an illustrator? Will: sometimes when you read the manuscript from an author, even if you like it there are things that you would change. Another thing would be when you feel you really understand the story and the editor has differing views. A lot of the aggravation is based on our perception and attitude. Biggest pro is the flexibility. Don’t take it for granted. Jake: the biggest aggravation, or stressor is the lack of steady income. You might make 3 months income in one and then for the next 2 months, drip drip. The freedom in your schedule, is amazing. Jake had the flexibility to go and help his wife with a project, and he could stay later or come in early. Another thing: Jake has 5 kids, and insuring all of the family, is really expensive. It is a huge burden. To them though, having a family is more important than having a nice car. Jake barely remembers what his older kids were like during During the day, Jake could eat lunch with his kids and take breaks to play with them. The family life was a lot better. Biggest pro of entertainment job: consistent money, consistent job, and being surrounded by some of the most talented people in the world. TV has more layoffs. Usually at an animation studio you have a lot more stability. There is enough work that if you are talented and good with people, they will keep you on. There are a lot of people vying for animation jobs, although there are lots of different studio jobs there. There is no career path to being a book illustrator. There are so many gray areas. Lee: Early aggravation, of not knowing how to navigate the terrain. There are a lot of online resources, youtube, and huge sources of revelation. The art of books are so valuable. It is really rewarding to come in and get to work, and your whole day is spent trying to tell a story. LINKS Svslearn.com Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White: leewhiteillustration.comInstagram: @leewhiteillo If you like this episode, please share it, subscribe, and we’d love it if you left a review! These podcasts live and die on reviews. If you want to join in on this discussion log onto forum.svslearn.com, there is a forum for this episode you can comment on. 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.