I Love Luci

One tool that most illustrators (of a certain age) couldn’t live without was the Luci, short for Lucidigraph. It’s essentially a projector. It has a little loading bay that you put a photograph or drawing into. You then turn the lamp on and the Luci projects the image down upon your drawing table surface. It’s a huge timesaver and guarantees that you’re faithfully reproducing (in contour lines) whatever your subject is.

When my wife and I recently moved into a new home I got rid of several things in my illustration studio. Oddly, the only one I got a little misty-eyed about was my Luci. At this point she was about 34 years old. The Luci pictured in my accompanying illustration looks just like the one I had. She had been with me from the beginning of my freelance career. She had seen better days, but she had also helped me create a lot of really cool illustration over the years. When I took her to the landfill it felt like the last scene in Old Yeller.

I do have a brand new Luci. It’s a lot smaller. It works well, but it somehow doesn’t feel the same. I still love my old Luci.

You're Fired!

Firing anyone isn’t fun, at least it isn’t for me. Yes, I do work for myself and no, I don’t have any employees other than me. This isn’t the start of a bad Abbott and Costello routine. I’m talking about firing clients.

Like most freelancers, I am very grateful for the clients who have been a part of my illustration business, both the current and the past ones. I work really hard at my craft. I’m always trying to improve both the quality of my illustration and my interaction skills with clients.

Sometimes it simply doesn’t work out. Sometimes it’s a budget cut by a client who expects me to take less pay now for the same amount of work I did last year. More frequently it’s a communication issue.

After over 30 years of working as a freelance illustrator, I have a definite way of working that is streamlined and sequential. I get as much upfront input as I can from the art director, author, or publisher. I then produce pencil sketches. I expect any major changes to be made at this stage, the pencil stage. Changes beyond this stage tell me that the client isn’t really paying attention during the pencils stage.

Too many “cooks in the kitchen” is a real problem for us freelancers also. Art and illustration, by its very nature, is already quite subjective. Pleasing just a singular client is a challenge. When you have multiple people making decisions by committee, the odds of having a happy and productive working experience really diminish. I have been in the middle of a project when the number of people who needed to make decisions about the direction of my work went from 1 to 2 to 5 to 10. That's very difficult environment for anyone to work in.

I really loathe having to walk away from a client. It's an action of last resort for me. There are always things I need to learn and improve upon in these various client situations too. I play a part in some of the dysfunction and miscommunication. If I leave any of these situations without having learned anything then I’m not paying attention either.

Magazines!

I love doing illustration for magazines, for several reasons. Perhaps the main reason is because those assignments come in and leave pretty quickly. From the very second I get a magazine illustration job it's a whirlwind of activity: Understanding the impetus of the story I have been selected to illustrate, finding the style that the art director/creative director wants me to use in illustrating the piece, gathering the reference I need to execute the piece, initial sketches, honing the sketches until it's time to do the finished art...etc. I just love the entire process. Then there's the thrill of actually seeing my work printed in a publication. That excitement is still there after all these years.

In the past year I have seen a resurgence in my magazine illustration assignments. Even though there are fewer magazines being published now than there were 5-10 years ago I haven't let that discourage me from reaching out to magazine art directors. Even in writing this blog entry today I realize it's time for me to produce another magazine-themed promotional postcard.

My Favorite Thing About Social Media

As a working freelance illustrator I need to have clients, customers, an audience. Having an audience quite often can create clients. Whether it's someone who shares similar interests or just someone who really likes your work or a combination of the two.

Being active on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram has produced new clients for me. That has been an awesome development from social media. I wish all of these platforms had been around when I first started freelancing in 1984.

It has also given me the ability to put my work directly in front of people who I might not have been able to reach years ago. The piece above was a relatively quick caricature I did of Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff from Mystery Science Theater 3000, one of my favorite television programs ever. When I finished this piece I tweeted it to Conniff and to the official Mystery Science Theater Twitter accounts. They both liked it. Instant access to people who not only have meant something to you in your life but also may be future creative collaborators keeps me creating new content for all social media platforms.

It's All About Me

When you are a one man company it is all about you. I am the marketing department, the sales staff, the janitorial crew, the creative department and the CEO.

My personality doesn't really allow me to be as forceful and unrelenting as I definitely should be when it comes to self promotion. It just doesn't come naturally for me. My work is solid and I provide excellent and attentive care to my clients. Most first time clients end up becoming regular clients so I know both the work itself and the experience of collaborating with me are good.

I definitely need to produce more promotional postcards and be more direct on all platforms of social media promoting myself and my work.

As uncomfortable as it makes me feel to say or write it, when it comes to my business and attracting clients it's all about me.

Putting It All Together

When you have worked as long as I have as a freelance illustrator you are faced with constant challenges.

The most important challenge is the most obvious one: How to attract and keep new clients. Finding and fitting the pieces to this puzzle vary for each individual artist. I know some who have had great success with an agent. I know of others who bought ads in national directories and had tons of work come in from that.

What has worked best for me has been a combination of a couple of methods. The most successful tactic I have used has been precise, individualized marketing. When I have selected a very specific client and focused my marketing efforts towards them I have more times than not landed them as a client. Usually this entails sending specific illustrations from my vast reserve of work that specifically looks like something they would use. Sometimes I even create an illustration that the potential client won't have any problem imagining being used for their purposes. This separates me from the crowd of creatives trying to get this client's attention.

Direct mail promotional pieces have worked well for me also. There are so many great digital promotional printers now. I can very easily design and illustrate a specific, targeted piece for one or just a few potential clients and get a short run of that same piece.

Just because this way of solving the puzzle has worked for me doesn't mean I'm not looking for new ways in the future though. My presence on the various social media platforms has brought me new work and clients also. This is a relatively new way of making that puzzle all fit together that excites me going forward.

The Money Chase

Like many freelancers my income fluctuates during the course of any given year. For the vast majority of the time I am swamped with work. There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to allow me to get all of the work done. Equally important, the pay is good.

One of main goals for this year though is to start producing products based on my illustration that will generate income all the time. Many illustrators have stores on their websites. These stores sale apparel, prints, books, etc. I have had so many people ask me how (and where) they can buy my art. I will make my work more commercially available to consumers, clients and friends.

In the next couple of months I will be exploring the best ways I can get my work into the hands of people who want to purchase it. My main focus though will always be on giving my clients the very best illustration and collaborative experience that I can. 

Ideas

When writers can't come up with ideas or motivation to write they are said to be suffering from writer's block. I've yet to hear of an equally descriptive term that describes what we artists are dealing with when we are stymied in a similar fashion.

Frankly it's a problem that I rarely have. My problem (if it could even be categorized as a problem) is that I quite often have too many ideas for any particular potential illustration, whether it's for a client or myself.

When I am searching for ideas and/or inspiration I do have a few tried and true methods that always seem to generate sparks of creativity. The first is to exercise. I am a runner so that means lacing up the running shoes and hitting the pavement. I have designed and illustrated many wonderful pieces of art in my mind while out for a long run.

Another great idea starter is to just flood my mind with imagery. Quite often I'll plug in some key words that encapsulate the main part of the illustration I'm conceptualizing into Google Image Search. The results of these searches never fails to get me sketching some ideas that quite often end up working very well.

I also keep a pad and pencil on my nightstand next to my bed. On occasion a great concept for an illustration comes to me right before I go to sleep. 

These are the methods that work for me. Every creative person I've ever met have their own unique way of generating ideas and inspiration. 

Trash Tuesday Movie Riffing Logo

One of my favorite things about being on Twitter is the ability to connect with people who enjoy the same things that I do. I follow several artists, writers, sports fans and fellow lovers of both classic and very cheesy films.

Movie riffing has become a part of popular culture, thanks in no small part to Mystery Science Theater 3000. I riff with several friends a couple of times a week. On Tuesday nights we riff a bad movie under the hashtag #TrashTue, which stands for Trash Tuesday.

A couple of months ago my friends who host this weekly program asked me to design and illustrate a logo for our group. They wanted a werewolf in a movie usher's uniform. I had a great deal of fun designing and painting this piece.

My Fine Art

I've always been very proud to be an illustrator. There have been very few things in my life that have given me as much pleasure as delivering work to clients that not only matches what they are looking for but exceeds what they were expecting.

However, in my heart of hearts I have always considered myself a fine artist who just happens to make a living as an illustrator. From my first drawing lessons at age 8 at the Prattville, Alabama YMCA to my time as a student at both the Art Institute of Atlanta and The Atlanta College of Art I have always immersed myself in the study of art.

A few years ago one of my clients was describing me to a prospective client. She said, "Tim is a very good illustrator but I have always considered him more of a fine artist."

I like that description. 

The detail above is from an acrylic painting entitled "The Benchwarmers."

All-nighters

Just a couple of weeks ago I had to pull a couple of all-nighter sessions. Because of a simple miscommunication between myself and a wonderful client, I found myself having to complete about 3 weeks worth of children's book illustrations in 1 week. I got it done.

When I first started out as a freelance illustrator over 30 years ago all-nighters were not all that uncommon for me. I was one of the most sought-after comp artists in Atlanta. Storyboards, comped-up magazine ads...etc. As you can imagine quite frequently this was a great deal of work needing to be produced with sometimes cruel deadlines.

I'm a grandfather now. Let me rephrase that. I'm a grandfather who needs his sleep now. An all-nighter when you're 25 years old doesn't take the starch out of you as much as it does when you're...a grandfather.

Swamped!

I am as busy as I have ever been in my 31 year career as an illustrator.

This is somewhat remarkable due to the fact that I walked away from my biggest client 4 or 5 months ago. Virtually from the day I made that decision though I have been aggressively pursuing leads. I have also attended a couple of publishing shows. All of these efforts have resulted in new clients and an avalanche of work.

It's not just the new work and clients that excites me so much. It's the demonstrable fact that there are still plenty of people who are looking for illustrators...whether it's in publishing, advertising, professional sports teams or corporations.

The biggest lesson I've learned this year? That's easy: They can't use you Tim if they don't know you exist.

Here I am. Looking for an illustrator?

SHOUT!

A couple of months ago I walked away from my largest client.

The work wasn't challenging any longer. I was becoming less and less enthusiastic with each incoming project. This company, a publishing firm on the east coast, didn't seem particularly interested in improving the quality of the work that they produced either. It was obvious they were very happy with my work. I had been selected as their 'Illustrator of the Year' for 2014.

I want more.

I want to work with companies, art directors and project managers who will challenge me. I know there are clients whom I haven't met yet who will see in me and my work great possibilities. That excites me.

So I am here today to SHOUT! Shout that I am an illustrator...an illustrator who loves being an illustrator. Shout that I am an illustrator who will explore every possible solution to make your project stand out from the rest. Shout that I will make the creative process as easy, enjoyable and streamlined for both of us and I can. 31 years of experience as a freelance illustrator, with 7 Addy Awards has given me that confidence.

Birthing a New Website

I put up with my old website host Zyweb as long as I could. The technical help they provided was very inconsistent. I suspect this problem was aggravated by the fact that they are located in Great Britain and I'm here in the U.S. Whenever a problem came up over the 10 years I was with them I had to wait at least until they woke up over there to read my complaint and deal with it.

Sometimes my website would inexplicably be down for a few days at a time with no real explanation or reasoning.

In searching for a new website provider I knew that they had to meet at least 2 requirements: 1-It had to be a U.S.-based company. I need to have someone here so that the response time to my questions can be dealt with quickly, and 2-The host needed to be illustrator-friendly. I need to have a website provider whose web building apparatus allows me to get into my site and change images quickly and frequently.

So far Squarespace is fitting that bill. There have been a few hiccups. As a matter of fact even as I write this Squarespace is working on a couple of issues that need to be corrected. But I think it's going to work out.

Birthing anything involves a little bit of pain and frustration doesn't it?