Know thyself.

One thing that has been floating in the ether in my brain lately is where I see myself heading. I think some illustrators are lucky; they know exactly where they fit in, or they just fall into working on something they really enjoy and that’s what directs their career. Having that foresight or ability to find their niche is such a good thing– really valuable when you think about it. But maybe you’re like me; you consider yourself a jack of all trades, and you can’t quite figure out where you fit.

My good friend Frank and I discussed our ideas of the ‘rules’ for being an illustrator: and we both agreed that while there are a lot of other important rules, the top one could be ‘Know thyself.’ For a while I was trying to work out where my weaknesses were graphically, stylistically– but that was sort of putting the cart before the horse. Without knowing who to show my work to and where I could feel comfortable, I’ve felt a lot of maybes as to where I could fit in– I could see it, but how could my potential clients? The thing I’ve heard lately has been: “You have a great style. You just need to figure out what you want to do and then pursue it.” So I guess it’s actually more obvious than I thought. Hence this hastily scrawled flow-chart, cementing a lot of things I knew in my head.

I find this indecision really troublesome, but indicative of how I’ve always been– fish or cut bait was the resounding mantra my parents often gave me. And when I actually dissect how my personal work comes about, I realize it’s less about thought and more about bizarre imagery, strange juxtapositions, which leads to a unique kind of language that I’m not sure is so easily translated. Which leads me to noticing a disconnect between my editorial work and my personal work– and I think this may be where one of my problems lie. I could see other peoples’ work collected into a book, both personal and editorial– but mine? It seems less that way. And maybe this means branching out from editorial is important.

Not that this post has really gained me any answers– but it has made me consider more heavily what I want to do. I may not know the hows of accomplishing what I want to do, but I think it’s a good starting point. If you’re at all like me, I would advise you to think about what really engages you and where you do and don’t see yourself. Knowing yourself– your capabilities, limitations, goals and the like– is just as important as developing a style, learning business practices, and promoting your work– after all, how can you start to promote yourself if you don’t know who you are and why you are doing what you do? Of course things change but you need a framework to start, and a sense of focus so you can actually attack the markets you’re interested in.

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Good news: In the coming few weeks we will be attempting here at the Trade Secrets HQ to overhaul the blog– along with a bit of a format change. It’ll be truly awesome, I assure you. So keep your eyes on the lookout!

As a sidenote-

How did you get to this sort of business? I’m curious. Me, I wanted to be an artist as a kid, and then when I went to college illustration seemed like the most interesting to me subject-wise, but then I fell out of it for a year or so until I saw its potential. (Instead I fooled around with printmaking, which informed me greatly really) And then from there I just plunged in after school. But what about you? What drew you to illustration as a job possibility, even if you’re just freelancing a bit so far?

Also, I’m asking you for help here on a quandry: Do you have a email mailing list for your website? How do you run them? Do you use a separate program to use it, or do you compile email addresses by hand and mass email them? What works best? And how hard is it to put a form on your site that lets you sign up?

See, the main reason I’m asking this is because I did try this once, and I used a feature that was with my webhost that just let me implement a list. But I found out like less than a month into it that somehow it got hijacked and all the people on my mailing list got porn spammail. And quite obviously, I don’t want to do that again! But I would like to do a monthly newsletter thing to keep people updated with what’s new and try to keep work going that way. So if you have any tried and true ways to handle a mailing list without it devolving into spam, I would love to hear it!

Other resources, part 1:

Today I feel a little lazy, so I’m going to pass along the first part of a good little smattering of outside sources that I’ve found that might inspire.

Fellow Arizonan Daniel Davis has some great articles on his website, ranging from useful software to how to self publish. I particularly like his article on finishing your projects (something I’m rather guilty on but am trying to get better!) Well worth checking out.

If you’re stuck, you can always come up with at least a hundred ideas of things to do to jumpstart creativity. See?

This blog seems pretty helpful– it’s set up for selling artwork, but at the same time it also talks about networking and self-promotion.

50 ways to become a better designer–  some apply to illustration more than others, but they’re still kind of interesting.

Character design is something I’m really into lately– this blog dissects it a bit.

If you’re like me, you also want to collect the artwork of the people whose work you appreciate– and so this is a helpful resource of how to handle and care for that artwork.

Of course a golden resource is the portal for Illustration Mundo!

Illustration Friday’s forums include a tips and techniques section that I just noticed and suspect that could have some tidbits of use. I love talking shop, so any technique learning is always fun.

I also wanted to include Drawn.ca’s forum, but it looks like it’s down for the time being… Alas!

There was one other resource, which seems to have deleted itself from my bookmarks or something– essentially it was a painter who gave really blunt tips on how to make it– very anti- hand holding…. but for now I’ll have to keep looking.

Look in the next couple of weeks for art director interviews! Hopefully I’ll get to post them ASAP.