Where is everyone?

I spent most of today watching Anime and reading Manga

I'm painting Oliver Cromwell. Could be worse but I wish I had weekends free - one of the many curses of being freelance.

It's also my daughter's birthday tomorrow and while we've been agonising over what to give her as a gift, she upgraded her mobile phone today and now anything she receives tomorrow will look rubbish in comparison. Bad timing methinks.

Anyway, I pop by often but because I have to log on each time, I often don't, so it may look like I'm not here but I am.

I'm going to be spending much of my time grinding some drawing fundamentals. Still lifes for the win!

@Joe A bit off topic but how do you become a freelancer? I'm stuck in a harsh day job irrelevant to art and I'm thinking of going into freelance.

I intend to do some traditional sketching. It's been too long!!

Plus, I spend a lot of time emailing, so it eats my weekend time sadly...

At least I'm here now!!

Like Joe I frequently pop in but don't log in. I'm at least one of those guests!

Unlike Joe, I'm not painting Oliver Cromwell. In fact weekends are the only time I don't paint, unless its some tablet-poking finger doodle that just gets scrapped.

crankshaft wrote:

@Joe A bit off topic but how do you become a freelancer? I'm stuck in a harsh day job irrelevant to art and I'm thinking of going into freelance.

My line is in editorial illustration so I can only speak about that really. If you are thinking about fantasy/scifi then I haven't a clue other than that the few fantasy illustrators I know mostly have agents.

Spend a lot of time building up a good portfolio - maybe two or three years (this is AFTER you have reached a good level of ability) - and then send out examples to people who you think might be interested.That's basically the starting point. Wait for replies. Request interviews if possible as face to face really does help (unless you're stupid and evil). Look at magazines to see if you can do what others are doing. Look at obscure "trade" magazines to see if they are using illustrations. My early successes were with Nursing Times magazine.

If you are lucky then offers of work will trickle in. You will either have to continue working in the day job (not good for the concentration/time) until you have a steady flow of work - or - you will have to live off savings, which is terrifying. You will have to frequently work through the night for the first ten years. Whatever you do, make sure your first efforts are impressive.

Enter competitions, they will help you cope with deadlines and pressure.
Submit entries to illustration annuals. They are actually quite good for catching the eye of art directors.
Oh, and probably most important of all at this stage, get a good portfolio site online. Do not rely on something like Deviant Art (super amateurish); it MUST be an easily navigatable site displaying your work and yours alone.
Do not work for free (unless it's a charity), you will always get nothing from it.

I could go on...

I'm writing a manuscript. I'm currently applying to graduate schools for university and I have been crazy busy trying to apply to all the colleges I'm interested in. Beyond that, I'm finally getting better. After two rounds of serious antibiotics my stomach problems are finally going away. This means more time for art. Is it possible that we could do bi-weeklies again because I liked how those is used to keep my imagination going.

Joe wrote:

Do not work for free (unless it's a charity), you will always get nothing from it.

How profoundly true!