It’s likely that you’ve already got your own website (I hope!) but have you really thought about how it portrays you as an artist? You can’t just put your portfolio up there and hope for the best. Oh no, my friend, things have moved on! You need to get out there and sell yourself. And I’m not talking roller banners or TV adverts…

First up, your website. How does it look? If it looks in anyway lacklustre or outdated, it needs to change. You’re in a creative, visually led industry, and your potential clients will judge you by your internet appearance. Your website needs to look amazing. And if it doesn’t, talk to some web designers. Gather opinions, think about how you want to appear (what will best reflect both you and your illustration style) and re-vamp that sucker. If you can’t afford to hire a designer, arrange a barter: one illustration commission for one website, that kind of thing.

Next up, your blog and Twitter pages. Oh, you don’t have those? Get them. They are now an integral part of creating your brand, and that’s what you need nowadays. Make sure the style of your blog and Twitter reflects the style of your portfolio website. They need to be cohesive and eye-catching, defining your work at a glance.

Blogs are a fantastic way to get more people noticing your work. Writing about your illustration process, illustrating a daily diary or posting a bi-weekly cartoon will get you followers, and with followers comes exposure. And that exposure is what leads to some mind-blowing commissions. Get out there and get that work!

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Let’s face it; all of us, whether we consider ourselves illustrators, high-brow artists or mere cartoonists, would love to be able to make a living doing only what we want to do. But the fact is that my graphic novels only have a cult following among my friends and are never likely to sell enough so I can retire to that yacht in the Caribbean I’ve always dreamed of. Instead, we’re forced to pimp our talents out to the highest bidder, dressing up in business suit and pretending professional to secure corporate contracts.

We all pretend we don’t do corporate work, but any artist who says he’s never created something to a direct brief from a client is a liar. Even great painters like Michaelangelo had their patrons, and would have to paint whatever and however they were told to if they wanted their pay cheque at the end of the month. I was watching a documentary about American art on TV the other night and discovered that a lot of the early pop artists – those renegade rebels who rejected all the norms of society – actually painted advert on billboards for a living before they made their name in the art world. It made me feel a lot better to know that someone as influential as Andy Warhol had also sold his skills to the highest bidder in order to pay the rent!

My corporate work isn’t quite on the scale of the Times Square billboards that Warhol and his fellow pop artists used to create, but I did manage to secure quite a lucrative contract with a local company the other day. Well, lucrative compared to the peanuts and money-off vouchers that I usually get paid! Unfortunately, it really is the most depressing contract. I’ve also won – creating a series of logos and designs for the local anti-windfarm campaign which is being bankrolled by a businessman with more money than sense whose scenic view is going to be “ruined” by the turbines. I actually toyed with turning it down, but I can’t afford to be that picky. Maybe I can just do a really crappy job and bring down the campaign from within….?

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Much as I love writing my own graphic novels, and of course reading the classics like “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta”, I have a lot of respect for those artists who have the talent to create an entire story in just one picture. Throughout history there have been dozens of artists who had that talent, from Hieronymous Bosch and his visions of Hell in ‘The Garden of Earthy Delights'to modern artists like Paul Horton and Beryl Cook. The subject matter may have changed since the 15th century, from religion and images of heaven and hell, to modern-day men and women on a night out in unnamed northern towns, but the ability to sum up a story, or even one person’s life, in a simple snapshot is a talent that I don’t think I’ll ever have.

I would love to be able to say so much in such a small space, but garrulousness has always been my problem! There was a short story competition at my school when I was younger with an impressive top prize of £100. The limit was 500 words; my entry came in at a whopping 3,000 and would have won if I could have stuck to the rules. The problem was that I had so much to say, I couldn’t bear to take out any of my carefully-chosen words.

And it’s the same with my graphic novels. I put so much love and effort into creating each frame that it seems harsh to take any of them out! So the idea of reducing a lovingly-created comic strip into just one frame that can sum up a story or emotion seems completely bizarre to me. Why do you think I always have such trouble creating my front covers? It would be great to go back in time and get some tips from Bosch on how to create the ultimate one-frame story. Even if the results were a bit insane. If you’ve ever seen one of his paintings, then you’ll know what I mean!

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Here’s a question which I’m sure many of you will be familiar with: how many times have you needed to convert a file and found the whole thing to be a pain which takes ages? OK, so it is what us illustrators do as our job, so we have no reason to complain, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to save some time in our busy days, right?

Enter Vectormagic.com – one of the best, if not the best, web-sites for converting images into that beloved of illustrated things…the vector! Here’s a quick run-down of how it works (and yes, we all know that you can do this in Illustrator and other programs, but the whole point of this little puppy is to considerably cut down the amount of faffing about. Something which can only be a good thing).

you get 2 free conversions with your email address, so it’s not as if it’s a hassle

Let’s presume you have some hr management software to illustrate for. Now, although you’re very proud of the design, you’re very aware that in illustrator this is going to take FOREVER. What you need is a quick and simple solution which will take the image and simplify it – that would be perfect.

While perusing the web with the question How to convert Jpegs into vectors fast? You come across Vectormagic.com and to be honest, this site – which will happily convert Jpegs, GIFs and other formats into vectors which you can save as PDFs if you wish – just seems too good to be true. But what the hell, you decide to try it out. After all, you get 2 free conversions with your email address, so it’s not as if it’s a hassle.

You try it out by uploading your image and then the site does its business. It takes a minute or two but the result is a fine vectored image with unlimited resolution. Brilliant. All that is left to do is to register your email address and you can get the image onto your computer!

Great, eh? And there really is no catch. It’s actually that simple.

If you adore the program then you can even subscribe monthly to it, so that you never have to go through complex head-scratching format-changing action ever again. I, for one, think that’s pretty damn fantastic! (Or, if you’re feeling a little bit cheeky you can use a few email addresses to do a few more free conversion. Careful, though, this is not unlimited. The site will recognise your IP address and only allow you a few free conversions.)

For more, this time on converting Bitmaps into Vectors, there’s a handy video below…

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A good illustrator will always be in high demand. The increase in popularity of internet all over the world is only accelerating this process. If you are good at what you do, you will be flooded with work from all over the world. In such a scenario, you may find that quality of work can easily come down as you take up more demanding jobs that have to be completed within a specific deadline.

I find the tendency to compromise on quality to earn more money as an illustrator to be very disturbing. In the long run, the audience is going to quickly identify the fact that you are no longer producing quality work. The biggest risk involved in compromising quality is the lack of creativity and imagination in the work.

Illustration is not just about creating sketches that present information in an easy to understand manner. It also involves understanding what makes the audience tick and using the right images and designs to get the message across. A good illustration will not only convey the message but will also create the right tone and feel for the final message being transmitted.

Constant upgrading of skill is very essential to do a good job. It does not matter whether you are working for an individual who is trying to secure fuel supply contract or for an online magazine that is trying to attract the more visitors to its website using illustrations - quality of work must always be high.

Getting this right is not easy but this is going to be the most important factor separating you from other illustrators who reduce the task to a chore that is performed for the sake of money.

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When you mention comics most people think of Superman and Batman, or the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-man. Perhaps some people think first of Amazing Tales and Weird Tales. These are all classic titles from the Golden Age of Comics, but the modern version, usually given the more up-market name of ‘graphic novel’, is far different. Modern graphic novels are usually aimed at adults, not at kids, and can be dark and gloomy, even tragic: think Art Spiegelman’s Maus, about Jewish people trapped in Poland as the Nazis march in; or 30 Days of Night, about vampires massacring all the inhabitants of an isolated town.

Usually the writer of the graphic novel is the king of the format (most writers, for whatever reason, are men). Some of the really big names are Neil Gaiman, who wrote Stardust, the book and graphic novel from which the recent film was adapted, and Alan Moore, author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta, which were also made into films.

The illustrators usually get given second fiddle: their names appear after the author’s in the credits, and are often completely ignored by some readers. On the other hand, lovers of great cartoon art soon begin to recognise the names of good artists, along with their individual styles. They can build up their own reputations and in some cases, it is their names, not that of the writers, that sell the books.

When great art accompanies great writing you have a best-selling format. Alan Moore’s work has benefited from excellent artists. His magical, fantastical series Promethea, about a muse of the imagination, is a classic example. J.H. Williams, Mick Gray, Jeromy Cox and Todd Klein have illustrated the story perfectly, and incidentally, I loved this jewellery of Promethea’s!

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I was at a store looking through some homeware when a feature on cartoonist David Cockrum came on the television in the store. I remember him from a while ago so I looked up his bio.

David Cockrum passed away on November 26, 2006 at the age of 63. He was a comic artist, and his most famous creations include Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus from X-Men.

Mr. Cockrum loved comics as a young boy, and always wanted to be a comic book artist. After serving six years in the navy, he found a job as a comic inker, and worked his way to his first drawing assignment, which was for the Legion of Super Heroes.

He moved to Marvel and worked on creating the new X-Men, which he continuously worked on until 1977. He quit in 1979, but freelanced for Marvel, where his art was featured for various covers.

In the 1980s, Mr. Cockrum created The Futurians, which started as a graphic novel, but soon became a series. Recently, there were talks about adapting it for the silver screen.

In the 1990s, he worked for Claypool Comics, contributing stories for the Elvira series. He also worked regularly on other Claypool Comics titles.

In 2004, Mr. Cockrum, who suffered from diabetes, became very sick. Fellow artists held a fundraiser auction for him, and thanks to the efforts from his friends in the industry, he was also compensated by Marvel for his part in the creation of X-Men.

After his death, characters named “David Cockrum” appear in X-Men titles (a novel and comic) as a tribute to the artist.

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Painting is a very prominent art around the world. Some of them are very expensive and the appreciation of a good work of art varies by people and culture. Paintings are also very expensive as the price of a good number of them runs into millions of dollars. Their expensive nature forces kit insurance especially for ardent collectors. The following paintings are not in the list by the reason of what they cost but by ordinary popularity. It is also not necessarily in order of the most popular. A popular piece of painting that is known almost all over the world is Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. It is also known as La Giaconda and the original is owned by the Government of France.

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh (my personal favorite) according to a professional is a ‘classic painting that invokes emotions from the serenity of the church steeple to the wild abandon of colour used for the late night sky’. The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is very popular as well. It shows Jesus Christ and his disciples eating together before he was betrayed. Corner of the Garden at Montgeron by Claude Monet, a French impressionist is popular for the ability of the painter to capture the changing nature of colour and light. Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory is very famous and currently sits in the Museum of Modern Art in New York for those interested in seeing a classic example of oil on canvas.

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Getting that big breakthrough is the most important thing of all because once you do, everything else will quickly fall into place; a genuine sense of self-worth, a true appreciation of your talents and no more money worries! That means 5 star nights at the Ritz or Bridgehouse Hotel and buckets of self-satisfaction!!!

So how exactly can we get that well-earned break? Well, the truth is that I just don’t know; I am in need of it just as much as the next artist/illustrator/animator! However, I do have a strong suspicion that much of it is tied-up with creating something new and different… Think about it logically; if you can dream up something which has never been thought of before, then it is certainly going to create much more of a stir. And the bigger the reaction you get, the more chance there is of the right person hearing about it!!

This has been proved time and again by artists who are simply out to shock. Causing controversy may upset lots of people, but it will also get your work noticed. Mind you, we don’t all want to lower ourselves into some pit of visual depravity just so we can make a fast buck! No, the biggest secret of all is to come up with something truly original that we ourselves are proud of… because that will tick every box on the rewards list!!!!

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Color is an integral piece of any art; whether you work in animation, fine art or even just design the new range of Pantone espresso cups! But what a lot of people might not realise is that the choice of color isn’t just a visual or an aesthetic one. Certain colour choices in art, particularly at different times in history and in different countries, actually have some kind of symbolism attached to them.
In the western world colours can have different meanings depending on the context in which they are used, or the subject matter of the work being created. For example, using red white and blue – the colours of both the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes – could be seen as making some kind of patriotic statement. Yet red also makes us think of stop, of anger, even of Christmas, while blue is a cold dispassionate colour and is also viewed as conservative, both with a big and a small “c”.
So you can’t just take your paintbrush or pen and start slapping colours around willy-nilly. If you work in graphic design, this is a really important issue, as often you are designing a product, packaging or even advertising. Get any aspect of your work wrong, including the colour, and the project will fail. And that never looks good on a freelance CV!
For example, if you were designing a new environmentally friendly product, making the packaging red, a fiery, bold colour that might make consumers think of heat, or even yellow, a colour which often represents deceit or dishonesty, would both be pretty inappropriate choices. The obvious way to go is green, but if you wanted to mix it up a bit you can always include some shades of brown, the colour of the earth and symbolic of safety and security.

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