The Illustrator’s Guide

You’re not selling an illustration.

You’re selling a result for your client:

- Does it stand out on a shelf?
- Does it explain an idea?
- Does it help tell the story?
- Does it make the product more desirable?
- Does it grab attention?

Find out what your client wants & help them achieve it.

Your income as a freelancer is directly related to how much value you create.

Stop thinking “Clients don’t pay me enough”

Start thinking “How can I become more valuable to clients”

When you figure out how to do that, the money will follow.

These 3 books taught me a lot about illustration.

None of them are about illustration.

The next illustration you create might be the best one yet.

The next email to a client might land you your first paid gig.

The next social media post you read might send you down a time-wasting rabbit hole.

What are you going to do next?

Illustration career path:

Start broad, try everything.

- Find out what you’re good at
- See what clients want from you
- Discover what you enjoy the most

Go deeper on these things and let the other things go.

Become the go-to person for where these things intersect.

Take your phone off your desk.

How many times has social media interrupted your creative work today?

0
1-3
4-8
9-15
More?!!

If you want to make meaningful progress in your creative career, upgrade the way you interact with social media.

Practice illustration every day for 30 days.

Then decide what's working and what isn’t.

Stop trying to figure out the best way to do it before you have the evidence to prove it.

Take action first, then reflect on the results.

Shortcut to becoming a professional illustrator:

1. Create lots of illustrations
2. Show them to people who could hire you or give you feedback
3. Repeat

Skip the other stuff and focus on these essentials.

How to create your first illustration portfolio in 6 weeks:

- Write down 6 subjects you want to illustrate
- Sketch 3 ideas for each one
- Pick your favourite
- Develop 1 illustration each week for 6 weeks

It doesn’t have to be perfect

What you learn from V1 will help you make V2 even better.

When you’re learning illustration, quantity is more important than quality

Making more will sort out most of your problems.

- More drawings
- More emails to clients
- More bad ideas
- More requests for feedback

Quality will come naturally when you focus on quantity.

Happy New Year!

Is this the year you make your creative career goals a reality, or do you need to spend another year planning it?

If you want to support one of your fellow illustrators on social media…

When they post something:

- Spend some time looking at it
- Like it
- Share it
- Comment on it
- Visit their profile

These are signals that what the artist has posted is valuable and will help increase the reach of their post

If your work looks like 100 other illustrators’ work, you have a 1% chance of winning the job.

If your work is unique, you’ll still have competition. The client may be choosing between three or four styles for the project.

I like those odds a lot better though.

If you're new to illustration...

Don't worry too much about your ideal client.

Instead, think about how you can make yourself ideal for lots of different clients.

If you want to illustrate children’s books…

Practice drawing a main character over and over again

- In different poses
- doing different activities
- Wearing different outfits
- With different facial expressions

And make sure it looks like the same character every time

After you create an illustration, ask yourself 3 questions:

1. What did I do well?
2. What do I need to improve?
3. What will I do next time?

It takes 2 minutes. Writing it down forces you to analyse your own work, which will help you improve.