Evaluation and Revised Personal Promotion Strategy

This module in general Has proven to be a real leaning curve for me . Having to plan,  organise and promote myself  in an independent  and professional manner has been very stressful but rewarding for me .

I am very pleased with my promotional Items. They all turned out exactly how they wanted to and received good feedback,  Particularly my Postcards as they show off my work in the best way and highlight new skills which I would not have tried had It not been for this module. By experimenting with different ways to print I came across a simple, yet effective way of creating images which I plan to explore more in the future.

The cards are effective in showing my skill and providing my crucial contact information and by varying them and getting a range of designs, this means that I will have differing cards to present to different clients .

My bookmarks and key rings will also do very well in promoting me , particularly at  conventions and other events where I showcase my work and can sell little examples of promotional items, they will work well because the characters I have chosen for these items were positively received  and in time I hope that I can make more of them to promote myself with. 

The Stickers will hopefully do the same , but as they didn't arrive yet I am not sure if they will be included in this module . I will update as soon as they do though and will hopefully be here in time for my presentation. 

I have looked at possible CV ideas but as of yet there is not many illustration related experience on there yet apart from my work experience and a few older forms of art and film jobs.

I hope to get this finished at some point and build up my CV as it will help me to gain  some placements in jobs such as production design and some storyboarding.

Having the Mock Interview With tutors the week before Hand in Proved to be a very helpful exercise for me . I am not the best at talking in presentations and I have been trying to better myself with this skill. Having my tutor tell me to slow down and show off my work slowly and confidently as well as reassure me that my interview and work was up to standard really helped ease my tension and anxiety regarding the interviews and I feel a lot more confident showing my work to others now. 

I have found the workshops enriching and valuable as I found that I knew very little about the industry I was about to step into and now feel a little more guided as to my future plans and what to do in regards to some finance , agencies and other important areas that I will be facing once I leave University and head into the world of work .

Through all the stress and doubt this module has given , I am very glad to have been able participate in it . I knew very little of what I wanted to do and It all seems a little more clearer to me now. I feel a lot more comfortable going into the world of work with this head start of knowledge and material which I know some students do not have the opportunity to explore.

I feel that I know my work and practice much better and have set plans for what I want to achieve and how I can get there.

After the interviews I plan to go to the london book fair  on the 8th of April and talk to some of the people there and gather as much information as I can regarding submissions and standard of work and this will hopefully be an opportunity to show my portfolio .

My plan is to go to  talk to the companies I mentioned  such as Knockabout , Selfmade hero and and a few others. I will be asking about submissions and give them my details and will also bring my portfolio to show them examples of my work such as  my FMP work . I have designed  business cards to go with this project for this reason . This is basically a way of me  finding out what I need to do to get my work up to the standard for publishing as well as talking to people about my work and promoting myself.

Over the easter holidays I will be looking for opportunities at home but getting in contact with William Simpson again and looking into getting in touch with Uproar comics.

I will also be looking up contacts for concept and production internships for some local film companies to gain experience in the field and hopefully a more permanent job opportunity.

I would be looking for work with story boards and Conceptual art but also would be looking for a role in character design or production design.

 I have my  postcards and business cards to give out as well as a possible CV as I feel this will be needed for jobs like this and it better to be prepared for this .

 I plan  will attend  local Conventions in Northern Ireland and Ireland such as Q con, Belfast MCM, Arcade Con, Nom Con, Eirtakon and some Conventions in the UK such as London MCM. I plan to get a table for at least 4 of these conventions to promote myself with my work such as  prints, sketches and promotional items such as my stickers, bookmarks and keyrings as this may serve as another route to gain contacts and experience .

I would like to be Self Employed and freelance , but I worry that at the minute I have very little Experience and little knowledge of finance ect . The workshops I have attended at University have been very helpful , but I am still worried about it . That is why I will be trying to apply for an agency , as I feel there is a bit more stability and security there . I have looked at a few Agencies like Folio and Illustration Web who represent a lot of Comic and conceptual artists as well as places like Action Artist who specialize in representing Conceptual artists and Storyboard Artists.

For the time being I will be promoting myself while trying to gain a place in an agency until I feel that I have enough experience and knowledge to try to publish and work for myself .

A look at my Promotional Items

After looking at some sites to print off my Cards and Postcards I decided Moo was the best option . I found the site easy to use but was disappointed that I could not use all my designs as I had to limit my cards as I found that Moo would not let me change the back of my card and not all my designs would suit the same back as each was custom designed .
My Cards did however Arrive promptly and looked exactly how I wanted them to look.

                   

This is one of my designs featuring my characters from my Final Major Project Comic which I wanted to use to promote my comic to the public as well as promote myself through my images.    

   

The second card I designed Was also to promote my Comic. With a single image of one of my characters designed to look like a playing card

         

                                         

This is the third and final image for my Business Cards. Demonstrating my concept illustration skills as well and  an example of my digital work .

                       

                       
These are my final postcard designs , I think these turned out the best as they are  eye catching and a really good example of my work .

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After receiving my cards Promptly from Moo , I then extended to look at my other items such as Keyrings, Stickers and Bookmarks.

I ordered the stickers off Moo, I was a little worried that they not be delivered in time for my presentation so I wanted to have some security in terms of my Promotional Items by including my bookmarks and Stickers into my many items.

                                                                               

My Sitckers arrived the day before hand in and I was very relieved to see that they have turned out exactly as I had hoped they would , if not a little small.

                        
 
                       

Being Small , they are perfect for handing out to people or for selling , they make perfect little promotional items and will I think they will be received well at  the conventions I attend. I plan to give these out with every piece I sell or as a sort of 'wearable business card '.

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As well as having these promotional Items finished I have also been working on my CV.
at the moment I have been working on a mock up of my CV and adding information to it, as I have not had much art experience to add to it recently I have decided to just work on it and add these experiences as they happen and when I feel that I have enough to write about I will finish the CV and have It printed .
It will help me to gain work in places such as production companies or any other field of work that requires an Artists CV.

Using Social Media

Your online  Presence will be very important as an Illustrator as lots of Clients will spot your work this way as it is a good way to get recognised and a following for your work .  so it is a really good idea to have a few sites just for your work online and in particular on Social media sites.

Tips for facebook

- Images for facebook tend to be more engaging
- about 100-250 characters for text posts.

-Its provides

* Two way conversation.
* Feedback
* A chance to promote yourself with Exclusive deals and Promos
* Timing-  You can Relate your posts to dates that are popular , for example holidays and events.
*  The chance to reply to your followers.
* Opportunities to provide Sneak peeks of your work to gain hype.
* You can schedule your posts for when people are online to see your work .
* you can link posts to your website.
* you can queue posts so you can still post even when you yourself are not available.

I find that my own facebook page has helped me promote myself alot better than before and i can reach a lot more people this way , Its an easy platform to work with and its popular.

Flickr

- Order your photos as the last five are the ones people will see.
- Tag your photos.
- Reciprocation is important.
- Share, Comment and Favourite.


Linkden

- A good site to make connections
- Employers list jobs there.
- Updates
- A professional image.

Pinterest and sites like Tumblr and Twitter and Blogger.

- Very popular and lots of people use them on a daily basis.
- Very easy to post something with links to sites and images.
- A place to view your  portfolio online.

Photographing your artwork

Bullet points from a talk Georgina gave us on photographing Our Work:


- Scan your images in as CNYK.

- Take a look at Sites like shrimpsaladcircus.com [15] who give very helpful tips on how to photograph products .

- Choose natural backgrounds-  at the moment these are very fashionable.

- Wood and Brick- Contrasting textures making the image interesting compositionally and texturally.

- Zoomed in a detail shots as well as full frame shots. show of little details and  show off your product in lots of contrasting shots.

- If you have items such as Posters and wrapping paper. put them into practise. use it for its function and photograph this .

- Colour balance-  White Backgrounds.

- When photographing books, Include:
* Details.
* Hands in image
* Show examples of pages , end papers and spreads.


- Use Natural Light rather than artificial .

- Make sure there is not too much shadow.

- Props and lifestyle shots

- Emphasis on Special Features.

- Still life shots.

- If possible, Hire out a space.





                                                       

Talks with Artists

Sarah Horne

[11]

Sarah Horne is a Well established Illustrator with a specialty for  Childrens fiction and picture books .
She was invited to come into our University to give us a talk on her work as well as work in the Industry which was extremely helpful and insightful for us . It gave us the opportunity to talk to a Professional Illustrator and for some her advice was very helpful when it came to showing her their current children's book projects.
I was able to take down quite a few notes during this talk about her progress and advice for us .

Process

Sarah went into great detail about her Process of creating her images which I then bulleted into a simple production guide which was very helpful :

- Sketch Stage- Lots of thumbnails and roughs . experimenting and playing around.
- Tweaks and Amendments- Working with roughs to start to flesh out and  start to finalise image.
- Final Art - Finalising it all after deciding where everything goes and its looks good.
- More Tweaks and amends - After showing final images leave room for crits and changes and fix .
- Cover Art -  This is the final touch .

It is important to get a good work structure that is effective for you . 

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Sarah then gave us tips about character design which I found really helpful :

Ask a lot of questions about your character -  Who , What , Where , When ? - this helps you get closer to the characters sore and find out what kind of personality they have, they more you know about them the more you can bring them to life on the page and the more real they become to the audience.

Beware of Cultural Bias-  you need to think internationally when it comes to your work , especially for children's book characters such as animals. for example. a bear is a good international animal and is well known whereas something like a hedgehog might not be as well know.

Eyes-  They are the window to the soul and very expressive as well as a strong contact point with he character to the audience.

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Sarah's advice proved to very insightful for us and gave us a small taster of the industry. I also took some bullets for this section:

-Children's book publishing is a small world. - and connections are vital.

- Take on Board Client Comment's.

- Find the Right Publisher for you. -  most of the time its about great working relationships.

- Be easy to work with .

- Input as much as you can.  - Show initiative and bring more than is required to the table.

-Do your best on every job you are given . 


Earning a good living 

- Be careful on how you operate regarding Tax. -Keep receipts and accounts.

- Hire an accountant.

- Spread your nets.-  Editorials, Cover art, Licensing , Events and School visits.

- Avenues for passive income- Royalties, PLR and DACS

-Pick your battles.

- Learn that it's not the end of the world if you say no.

- Schedule work carefully - Build up a view of the year in advance.

- Public landing art - PLR

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Tips for your drawing skills :

- Keep drawing. - The more practise , the better you get.

- Draftsmanship. - Hone your skills

- Keep Sketchbooks.

- Draw for pleasure

- Observe

- Keep Visual Diaries. 

- Art directors and Publishers are looking for a Unique Strong Voice.

- Have Influences

- Take a risk -  Have faith , Be brave, Experiment , Show your hand ( but be careful to do this in the                               right context , not in Facebook or Twitter.

- Patience-  Don't Force and Idea. Go with it and watch it unfold. It can take a while.











Will Simpson 

[12]

Several years Ago , I was Lucky enough to do a comic book Workshop with Northern Irish Comic Artist  Will Simpson, since then I have tried to keep in touch with him as much as possible through emails and talking during conventions. I find the advice He gives on the discipline on comics and storyboarding to be very helpful and he has influenced my practise greatly , as he was one of the first people to show me how to  really drill a particular method and  way of working .

Will is an accomplished and well known Comic Artist turned Storyboard Artist .
He's know for his work on Judge Dredd in the 90's , as well  as  his work for many other titles such as The Hellblazer , The Punisher and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight .
Since Early 2000, He has taken to collaborating with many film and television companies to draw up storyboards , His most notable being for the television adaption of  "Game of Thrones".

[13]

Because He has worked in the industry for so long, I find him a great connection when it comes to asking for advice and looking at as influence for my own personal practise.  He is the reason for my detailed thumb nailing and planning stages of my work .
Last year when we were asked to interview artists Will was one of my first choices, since then I have kept in touch with him in emails , at present he is working freelance so I am able to get lots of advice from him and hopefully in during Easter break I should be able to get in touch and talk to him more about the industry and hopefully get a few ideas of what to do next after University.

Sydney Padua 

[14]

During Second Year we were asked to interview artists considering their practise and about their work.
One of the Artists I interviewed was Sydney Padua, An animator and illustrator whose Webcomic 2D Goggles is a great influence on my own work. She  responds to historical facts and figures in her own unique style via the comic and brings a whimsical and engaging way to enjoy research and history.
By emailing her and keeping in touch with her about her work, I got some insight into how she works and how she got into the industry. Hopefully I will be able to keep in touch with her still as she is a valued opinion in my eyes as what she is doing at the moment is what I want to be doing in the future.

My Website.

My website is going to be a very important promotional platform for my work . It provides a way of clients to contact me, view my work and it means I can give updates on my work and progress of projects.

I used 123.reh to obtain a domain name and then used a platform which I have alot of confidence with , Tumblr, to host my domain name.
At some point in the future I would like to be able to build a website or employ a website builder to make a website dedicated to me and my work but for the moment tumblr provides a good service to suit my needs as I can upload images and posts easily, show links to my other sites such as my online portfolio and facebook page and I can customise my page and layout.

By providing A link to my online portfolio on carbonmade I will allow clients to access my page to learn more about me and then explore my work . I think this was a good choice for me as I could possibly get international clients in the future and this is a good way for them to see my work before they contact me . 

I will continue to build my website to a professional level and add links to things such as separate blogs for my work and an online shop where people can buy prints and products such as books and small items that I produce. 

Ideas for Potential Clients , Patheways and Promotional items

Before going the Book fair , I wanted to look at possible publishers for Graphic Novels that I could talk to and show my portfolio to .

Knockabout Comics [5]

One of the more well known publishers, Knockabout is one I remember fondly from my teens. Reading Alan Moore's Comics and thinking that someday I would be able to publish comics with them .
When I heard that they were going to The London Book Fair, I saw this as an opportunity I couldn't pass up .
Knockabout tend to specialise in publishing and distributing underground and alternative comic books, therefore this seems like the best place to ask about my own work and If i can, I would like to show them some of my work and get some advice about what I should consider doing with my comic in order to get it published by a publisher of graphic novels.
As knock about already have a title with Alan Moore, "The league of Extraordinary Gentleman " which explores characters from victorian fiction, I doubt they would want another title based on lesser known figures from folklore. But I want to try anyway and see what they think of my ideas and maybe give me advise as to how to better it so that its of a standard to be published . 

SelfMadeHero [6]

Self made hero are a Uk based Graphic Novel and Manga Publishing company  who specialise in adapting  works of literature such as Shakespeare, Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle.
These are another recognisable Publishing Company for me , I have read some of their works and really enjoy them and I believe I would really enjoy working for them . I want to look for them at the book fair and ask them a few questions about work and submissions and show them some of my portfolio  work to someone if they are available.
In terms of my Final major project, they might be interested in its concept and style and I have a good chance of getting something from this company as my style lends well to their work and I am more than happy to work on the work they produce.
I will leave my card with them and a few bits of promotional material and talk to them about my work to gain some advice . I  hope to leave a professional impression on them by showing my confidence in my work and how eager I am to work for them .


As well as looking into publishers, I also want to explore the possibility of an Illustration Agency. 

Sam from Eye Candy Illustration Agency [7] came in to talk to us about her agency and gave us all the opportunity to show her our portfolios . I found this very helpful and made me intrigued into looking into possible agencies which would cater to my work .
Sam seemed pleased my all our portfolios and mentioned  to me that I need more of my most recent work in there because it is the stuff that looks most established and more like me, I have now updated my Portfolio to cater this .
I found Sam’s talk very interesting and helpful as It gave me a little idea as to how an agency works and what they like to see as well as trending illustration forms and submission processes. I also found it really helpful that she looked through my portfolio and helped me see that there is still alot to be worked on.

I have been looking into some agencies as I like the idea of entering one.  I would rather have somewhere more stable than freelance  and I am happy to do commissions and work for others and have no objection to going down a more commercial route until I have some experience in the field of illustration .

Eye Candy is a very interesting agency , and one I would maybe be interested in submitting a portfolio to . I found that while Sam was talking, I found the stability of an agency sounded more appealing to me, I am not great with financial details and since i have very little experience in the field of work just yet, I would like to have the option of being part of an agency. where I do commissions for advertising, magazines and books to name a few.
By looking at some of the resident Illustrators work that Sam brought in , I could see that I need to really work on my own personal practise and I was very happy and interested in what she was saying as she talked about illustrators and their work and this seemed to give me alot of confidence in my own work .

as well as Eye candy, I have found some agencies which might suit my Comic/ concept needs.

Folio Illustration Agency [8]  is definitely a possibility. From what I can  see on the website, they represent a varied range of Illustrators and artists with a vast amount of different styles , techniques and genres, from children's books to traditional/ vintage advertising posters.
A few of these have caught my eye, as I looked through the artist's gallery I was able to spot a few Comic Book Artists and Concept artists and this to me sounds promising.
Looking through the Comic and concept pages, I was able to see a lot of different artists work and from there I was able to decide that I am definitely would consider sending my work to this Agency . Not only is it an interesting collective of artists and clients. the fact that they have specialised in two of my pathways makes this agency very promising .

I have also taken a look at some others such as Illustration Web [9] and Action Artists [10] but i will need to look into these a little more closely as the end of term approaches . 

 

I am also going to chase up some graphic novel companies at the london book fair such as knock about comics to get some pointers on submissions and maybe show my portfolio. I will be going to ELCAF in June where I will hopefully be able to showcase my Comic and will be promoting my work at both events via postcards, business cards and the zine.
During the Easter break  and Summer I will also be exploring opportunities closer to home such as Northern Irish film industry production and concept opportunities as well as a growing comic scene and artist centre in major cities such as Belfast, Derry and Dublin.
I have been in touch with more illustrators from my authorship module last year. Keeping in touch with Northern Irish Comic Artist and Storyboard artist William Simpson and getting in touch with one of my favourite web comic creators illustrator / animator Sydney Padua and got to ask her a few questions about her work and process. 

My Promotional Items. 

-Business Cards.
-Post cards

-Posters and Zine 

-Stickers
- Key rings and Bookmarks

Having to go out into the industry with products which will help promote myself .

Business cards 

Business cards are the perfect promotional item as they can be distributed to clients and kept for a later date when your services are needed. I designed 5 different business cards, going for three options due to time and pricing. I got the cards printed from Moo.com  because a classmate had gotten some cards made from there and they looked really professional. I had a little trouble with the site as I had made 5 custom designs for my cards and the site would let me change the front image but not the backs so I had to narrow my card designs , deciding to go for 3 separate packs and using the other 2 options as Postcards.
I felt that two of the cards should reflect my comic and character design aspect of my work . so I decided early on the I would create two designs which involved some of my characters from my final major project work .
The other card was to show my illustration/ concept art side to my work and I went for an image I thought really looked well and would demonstrate my some of my digital painting skills. 



Postcards. 

I always enjoy getting postcards and handouts from illustrators as it makes an interesting showcase of their work and also makes a nice small piece of artwork from them that you can keep.
I had been experimenting with ways of keeping a limited palette for a Risograph print but ended up liking them as smaller pieces and decided to use them as postcards.
I think they look very well in that format and they are very eye catching and a really good sample of my work .
I got two designs printed from Moo.com and they look very well and should be very effective with they're bold imagery and colours.

Stickers. 

As I do make a lot of Fanart and pieces that lend themselves well to smaller products and i was thinking about creating some stickers of my character designs and smaller images so that I could showcase my work this way at conventions and other functions. I have had an idea for stickers for a while now and decided to get them printed out from Moo as a small sticker book for now so that i can take this to conventions and other Fairs.


Bookmarks and Key rings

Just like the stickers, these items would be a great way of promoting myself at conventions and less formal functions .
I decided to try to do a mock up of a bookmark of one of my characters from my Children's book from 2nd year to see would these work. they did so I will be getting these printed out at some point .
The keyrings also worked well. I used on of my sticker designs and one of my pirate images. 
I can now bring these to events to promote my work . 

Zine/ posters

One of my classmates asked me to do a zine around the theme of ‘retro’. I have created several images to go with this zine as well as a portrait image . Because I have a interest in history and period as well as genre fiction , i decided to do a few pieces based on these interests so I firstly create two images based on retro futurism , sort of “land of tomorrow “ images which look very well when put together and another image based on two of my favourite silent film era stars , buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. 

I had originally wanted to do the futurism images as a set of posters to advertise myself but decided against this for now and decided to keep the for postcards and the zine 

Postcards

my business card designs

When Planning My cards. I decided to split my cards so that I would have a set for each of my pathways, One for Comics and the Other for Concept. 

When Planning out designs for my cards, I looked back to to the work I was doing for authorship last Year. It consisted of a few cards featuring my characters from my comic and another was of a character design that I had developed  last year. 

                

these were really rough sketches in my older books and I really wanted to try to develop them alot more so they could be of use to me .
As one of my characters is named Jack and he is quite a rough and roguish character, i decided to try to play on his name and nature a little bit and make a playing card based on his character. 

This is the image I ended up with originally  , which I then scanned and coloured on photoshop to look like this

For my second card.I decided to include my two main characters  from my FMP Project, this way I can promote my comic as well as show some of my character design skills. 

I Inked and coloured the characters traditionally and then scanned in and edited and coloured more on photoshop, adding texture and background . 

For another design , I decided to use an image which I completed on photoshop for a Cover submission , I really liked this image and thought it showed off my photoshop skills  so I decided to use this for my business card for my concept pathway.

Licensing and Commissions / Tax and Self Assesment

Limits to a license. 

- Use

-Area

-Duration

-Exclusivity 

Pricing Workshop

We were given the task of estimating the following Commissions prices :

- Magazine Illustration- One month  , Full Page, National Distribution. 

- Coffee Shop Mural - One place Wall mural .

- Large Company Financial Papers- 1 Year,  6-7 weeks work . 

- Guardian Illustrations - 1 week , x4 Quarter Pages. 

- Silk Screen- Limited Edition with £ 250 going to charity. 

We were then told the real prices for these jobs and needless to say I was very surprised. I wasn't expecting the prices of some of the jobs and it made me very hopeful if not a little daunted. 

Relicensing -  amount raises as you go into further territories such as US, Australia etc. 

Duration - paid more for longer durations. 

Exclusivity- Can sell copyright and buy rights to own an image. 

Fees 

Fees vary according to:
- The use of the image.
- The amount of work involved.
- The Illustrators reputation.
- How tight the deadline is .
- The attractiveness of the job.

We were then given a rough guide to pricing which I personally found very helpful because it gives us a rough idea of what we should be earning for jobs and which ones might bring in more money depending on the company, duration and your own skill and reputation.


After this guide we talked about Re use Fees, Rejection Fees, Cancelling, Rights Grabs and Damage.

This workshop proved to be really really useful and really helped me understand how I can make the most out of commissions if i know what I'm doing .
By this point I was already considering an Agency but by the end of this workshop I was certain this was the way to go for me as I am not the best at business or financial just yet and would appreciate having the kind of stability as agency gives  you until I feel that I am ready to try going Freelance.
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Tax and Self Assessment 



This is a very important factor in your work , particularly for a freelance Illustrator .

- I need to keep a record of receipts and online statements.
  - as well as costs such as travel costs to work and phone bills.

- Get in touch with the Tax Office.

-  Cash Books and Petty Cash and Small Transactions , Receipts

- Keep Cash Records.

- Keep everything to do with your business  such as receipts and payments safe.

- Hire an accountant .

- Tax returns .

- You can be either Full time or Part time with freelance.

Portfolios and interviews.

There are many different types of portfolios on offer for artists to showcase they're work and we need to know which will work best for us individually.

Types of  Portfolio

-Note book Folder.
-Digital Portfolio
-Bound Book
-Boxset
- Concertina.
-Folder / Physical Portfolio


Clients will differ on what they want to see. some will prefer to look at a digital portfolio and decide from that weather they want to contact you for a one to one meeting or some prefer to look at a Physical Portfolio and an interview first.

Size     A4-3

roughly 10-20 images is a good amount .

With a good consistency of images.

No original Artwork in the Portfolio.
Print out good Quality Reproductions.
Choose Quality paper.
There is no need to mount your images.


Portfolio Interviews

- Investigate 

Find out about Companies, Agencies and Publishers.

-Read Interviews
-Respond

Find out about Terms of Payment.
- Commissions
- Updating Portfolio
- Exclusivity

Publishing - What other Countries is your work going to be published ?
                  - Royalties

Researching Promotional Ideas- How other artists promote themselves.

As there are a multitude of ways for me to promote myself I began to explore how some artists have decided to do the same. looking for inspiration and ideas that I can then modify for my own promotional items.

I began to look at sites and blogs which had a range of different ideas of different illustrators promotional material , look at these really helped me to find inspiration for my own items.

Some Blogs like  Tea and Crayons [1]  had really useful material and images to showcase how some artists have came up with some simple and extremely effective  ideas for self promotion  .
I had been considering the fact that  postcards could potentially be a very good item for me as my work lends itself  well to small items  and they would be a effective tool for both agencies and for conventions . I found another useful site based on illustrators postcards that they have used as promotional material called Illopromo [2] , I enjoyed looking through these to see how they differ depending on the skill and style of an artist. some are simple and effective to show the illustrators abilities and others are more zany and eye catching for the client to look at and leave and impression. both methods seem to work well  and it all depends  on the clients taste  because these will differ.

I found Pinterest Invaluable for looking at promotional material and how to present your items.
from my pinterest board [3] for this module , you can see that there were many different ideas that I was considering for my Promotional item  such as tickets and ballots and tote bags which I never got to really explore but it give me a few ideas for other future items and how to be creative about my work .

I also explored some different promotional ideas which where a little more out of the box.
one of these was a really interesting idea for a digital artist which was to use video and to use time lapse to show the process of the illustrator on their digital platform  , a good example of this was the "run piano" illustration time lapse video:

[4]

I thought this was a really interesting and a very effective way to show clients how you work and gives them a small taster of your work . It works very well and it is creative and simple and a really good way of promoting yourself and getting examples of your work out there .


other ideas are drawing nights,  putting on a show or gallery viewings of your work .

About me and my work - defining what I do .

I am an artist whose work spans over many mediums. most notably traditional pencil,  pen and watercolour work but more recently moving into some digital colouring.
My work is defined by my unique line work and texture as well as the subject matter. preferring to look at the fantastical and a romanticized view of the world we live in or one I have envisioned . 

Most of my work revolves around characters and concept  . determining characteristics from a single character profile or image and determining a narrative from there. 

My work is well applied for character design and story telling such as storyboarding, comics and conceptual art/ character design. 

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what defines my work?

my work in pencil

my work in pen

my line work

my use of texture

figures

the content and context

the style 

when looking at my work and trying to examine it in a little more detail i came across this:

My work in pencil- I tend to be very sketchy with my pencil work and its this that gives my work movement . i’m usually very tentative when inking my work and colouring it  so i enjoy my pencil work  as it is much looser and free . I prefer to work in a less permanent matter which gives me room to make mistakes and changes .
I add quite some bits of texture to my pencil roughs to give me a sense of how it would look when inked.

 My pen work - my work in pen has gotten considerably better in the past year , the amount of texture i use in my pencil work is coming through with the pen work and often enhancing my work. My work tends to look very well in black and white or greyscale which makes me think if this might be the right way to go about my project. often i find that once I colour my images, they sometimes lose the effect that they had when they were just black and white, this is why I usually keep a few copies of my progress in my images .

My line work - I tend to use quite fine lines for my work , sometimes buffering and thickening the outline of my subjects to make them stand out more. this method has worked well for me as it develops a good contrast between my fine detailed work and my thick outline definition. 

my quality of line is very specific to my own style and is often how people can distinguish my work from others, this is due to my influences and my insistence for working in pencil.

My use of texture- Texture is very important in my work and i usually achieve this through my line work, i enjoy making complicated and effective patterns in clothing , often opting to a very fine and detailed way of working. the same can be said for hair and backgrounds. my style is very recognizable by the amount of texture i place into hair and clothing in particular. I enjoy adding texture to my work even if it does take quite a bit of time to finish a piece at times.

Figures-  my figures are also very distinctive, they are often very exaggerated , the limbs are often elongated and my favourite figures to draw are often lanky and thin which is probably due to my early influences of Tim Burton and Harry Clarke, whose figures often tend to have the same elongated qualities, making them look slightly distorted or fantasied .

in terms of facial features my drawings have been described as “elf like” or “cute” and last year I tried to stray away from this a bit , drawing alot more masculine characters and working of different ways of drawing body types and expanding my style, I also found that i have a knack for drawing beards and facial hair very well.

Content and context-

i have said that most of my work tends to focus on figures and people and this is very true. i enjoy drawing people and i relish the challenge of creating characters for my own narratives.

My figures tend to hark back to another period of time, and this is probably due to my fascination with history and a highly romanticised view of the world. i tend to draw things as i wish they were and so my figures often don clothing and mannerisms that aren't necessarily modern or incredibly true to real life . 

my early illustrative influences of Edward Gorey , Tim Burton and Brett Helquist definitely play a part in why my style has settled on this.
Im not very interested in drawing modern representations of things, I tend to stick to what i think the past might have been like or my own visualisation of what our world will be like in the future, therefore my subjects tend to be based in a highly fictionalised or stylised setting that I have envisioned.I have break away from this a little bit by drawing some modern settings and characters in my spare time and trying to develop this more in my research project and this hopefully make me into a more flexible illustrator.