Scratchmann - Illustration 101 : streetwise tactics for surviving as a freelance illustrator

Hot Tip! Setting Up The Perfect Studio for Success

Once you get into the business of illustrating you're going to be spending most of your life in your studio, so it's important, now, if you're just starting out, to set it up in way that ensures that you and the people who share your home will be able to live and create art in harmony.

Often, when we're in our early days, our studio is a corner of the living room, or, even worse, a corner of the kitchen table, so the first things that we need to establish are boundaries. You need space to work in and it's vitally important that those who share your living quarters respect this. However, it's equally vital that you show respect for the people around you. Illustrators tend to be scruffy characters - I certainly am - and, therefore, if you want to live to a ripe old age it's essential that you keep your muck well within your own designated boundaries, and don't leave pots of paint on your mother's best rug or have your flatmates tripping over your airbrush, Mac or that towering stack of reference material that you're finally going to sort out in 2029.

Take heed! Alimony is costly, tidying up after yourself is much cheaper.

Of course, the best of all studios is a room of your own, or, if you are lucky enough, an old barn or outhouse well away from the rest of the household. Just make sure that it's someplace with a door that you can shut so you can be as messy as you like without fear of aleniating the indigenous members of your home.

How you furnish your studio is, of course, up to you, but I'd recommend at least two desks / work tables, one for your Mac and Wacom tablet and the other for physical work; a filing system (beat-up old metal filing cabinets can be bought cheaply from second-hand office equipment suppliers - they tend come in various shades of puke grey but you can paint them up to suit); an easy chair or couch, if you've got the room for it, for those days when nothing works and you need to stretch out; and, of course, your music system. I can't live without Radio Four and i-Tunes on the Mac, but I also have an antiquated old system that plays tapes and vinyl for those days when nothing other than the real thing will inspire me. (Hey, I'm in my fifties - make allowances!)

Lastly, flooring is very important. I like white walls in my studio and when I was fitting out my current one I fell in love with the idea of a white carpet as well. Boy, was that a mistake! Yes, it's restfull on the eye, but I'm always spilling things on it and it's now a wonderful shade of dirty grey. I do everything on the Mac now! I foolishly said, then yearned for chalk pastels again, and gouache, and dip pen and ink, and building 3D model collages etc, etc.

Take my advice, have painted or varnished floorboards or easy to clean lino with a nice cosy rug for your feet at your desk area.

Introduction -

Why Use Illustration?

An illustrator is someone who couldn't make up his mind between fine art and graphic design

anonymous

We live in an age where images are cheap and ten-a-penny. An art director can slip a stock-art CD into her Mac and illustrate a piece of work faster than it takes her to reach for the phone and ring you up. So why should a client actually use your services when she has hundreds of quicker and cheaper options at her finger tips?

No two illustrators will give you the same answer to this question, but, for my money, a client will only use a real live illustrator when she wants Vision . A real illustrator, and I mean an Illustrator with a capital I, provides qualities that a pre-conceived image cannot, and clients know this. A real illustrator is always inspired. She thinks in pictures. She has images dancing before her eyes. You can easily survive without an art school diploma, but you'll get nowhere in illustration without Vision . Art Directors can get off-the-peg images anywhere, so when a client actually goes through the effort of commissioning you she needs something more than just a quick picture - she needs that vision.

Illustration is a very funny business. It is, on the one hand, nothing to do with art and, on the other, everything to do with it. Clients don't use us because they want art per se . They use us because they want our art to sell something with. What will sell better? A pack of Jaffa cakes in a blank wrapper or a pack with a beautifully executed illustration of ripe juicy oranges, dark, dark chocolate and spongy-biscuits that are so tender and fluffy that you just can't wait to sink your teeth into them?

I love photography, but there is no photograph in the world that can compete with an illustration to do a job like this, and that's why clients hire us. They need our art. They may think of us as mere sales-aids, which might be true, but our very sales ability lies in the heart of our Art, our Vision. That is what clients need and what we as illustrators, no, damn it, as artists, have to offer them.

If you are serious about becoming an illustrator then you have to believe in Art as a method of Communication. This doesn't mean that you have to forsake your principals and constantly churn out bland stuff to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to please clients - true art will always win the day and is worth fighting for - but you must be able to produce and enjoy art that speaks to many people. If you really want to stick carcasses in formaldehyde you might be happier in a gallery rather than illustration - but remember that we are not the poor cousins of fine artists. Brad Holland, Janet Wooley and many others have proved that illustrators can be just as artistic as anyone on the walls of the trendiest gallery and still prosper.

Illustration, like any artform, is about finding your niche. If you love glowing pictures of food and happy families you will do well in advertising. If you like more complex imagery, editorial and publishing work will embrace you. If you live for pulpy, punchy images there are thousands of book jackets just crying out for you. The possibilities are endless. However, whatever field or combination of fields you decide on, at the end of the day it is your vision and artistic integrity that really matters.