Illustrator talk

Sarah Horne children’s book illustrator

 Sarah Horne’s work has very strong characters and is humorous. Her main media is pen and ink. She does a range of books from pop up to young adult and tends to do a lot of work she enjoys which is something that comes with experience over time.

  Thought out her talk Sarah gave us a lot of helpful tips:

-Draw from real places and then add your own spark this is the best way to make magic feel real

-Mix up what you do, try not to get type cast, do one off drawings that will go in your portfolio

-Get a good work routine

- If you’re working on a book always do the cover last

-In young fiction the cover is very important

-Draw lots

-Craftsmanship hone your skills

-Keep a sketchbook on you at all time

-Draw for fun

-Observe everything

-Keep a visual diary of daily things

Character design tips

-Who, what, where, when, know your character inside out see them in 3D

-Beware of culture bias; think internationally a bear is good international animal a hedgehog is not

-Eyes! They need to be readable because they are a strong contact point; it’s how we relate to characters.

-Don’t ignore tips from publishers about style are something to consider, don’t ignore them.

The client

-It’s a small world and clients talk so be nice because reputation is important

-Take on board all comments

-Don’t just goes with any publisher find the right one with a good working relationship

-Be easy to work with

-Input as much as you can, show you’re inactive and bring more to the table than required, it will be appreciated and remembered.

-Do your best work all the time

Earning a living

-Always keep track of your tax and money

-Spread your nets try new things like editorial, cover art, licensing, events and school visits

-Look for avenues for passive incomes like royalties and PLR (PLR – Pays out when your book is rented out a library, you agree this with the author and editor.)

-Pick your battles

-Learn that the sky won’t fall if you say no to a job

-Schedule work carefully, build up a view of the year in advance so you don’t get swamped or say no when you need work

Art directors

-Have influences and be inspired

-Take a risk, have faith and be brave and experiment learn new skills

-Always beware of copy write and idea thieves don’t put all your ideas online

-Be patient, don’t force and idea go with what you've got and watch it unfold. Fully formed ideas picture books can take days or years.

  After this talk it has helped me to see I don't want to just do children's books although it is my main goal, I want to do comics and other work just to keep my ideas fresh and to break up what I am creating and working on. I will also take that I must be nice to everyone as people talk and a bad reputation wont get me work. I feel after hearing this talk I am more prepared for what might happen when I meet children's book publishers and show them my work.

Pricing

  Pricing can be very difficult thing to as you don’t want to undersell yourself this is why agencies can be helpful as they will help your price your work but if you don’t want to sign on with one you can join or use the AOI website (http://www.theaoi.com/). The AOI are there to help freelance illustrators who don’t have and agency, every year they update their information on fees, pricing and copy write issues.

  Fees can be worked out by the amount of work that the job will take, any changes need, a tight deadline, attractiveness of the job and your reputation at the time. 

Magazines and newspapers

   When the art directors look for an illustrator to hire they will already have a set budget that they can use, and the budget depends on the company the bigger the company the bigger the budget. This is something to consider when you approach or are approached by these companies so research who they are and how there paper is distributed.

-A cover will pay about £500-1000

-Inside illustrations pay about £150-400 depending on the size

-Full page image inside pay about £450-800

Book covers

-Book cover prices can mainly depend on how popular the writer is and how it will sell and pay can range from £400-1000

Recorded covers

  This is very similar to book covers the pay will depend on how popular the band in there industry

Educational books

-Double page spread £300-500

Children books

  When you work on children’s books it’s a long job that can last 6 months or longer. When working out what you will be paid you agree with the writer or publishers and acceptable fee then times it by the number of hours you think it will take. Generally you will be paid £3000-5000 for the whole book; the payment will come in 3 instalments that you will have decided with the person you’re working for. Usually you will be paid for first ruffs, completed images and then when the book is published. They are currently trying to change this as it can take a few years between you completing your end and when the book is published. 

Greetings cards

-£150-250 per design

Brochures

-Covers £400-1200

-Inside £150-1000

Packaging

-£250-1500 depends on design and company

Advertising

-Quater page Black and white £600

-Full page £1000-2500

Posters

-£500-4000

 When you create an image for a company it’s a good idea not to hand over the copy write for that images as if they wish to keep using the image every year they will have to pay you a steady fee. Generally a re-use fee is 50% or the original fee paid.

 There are times where you will work hard on an image and then the company decideds they don’t want to use it but they still have to pay you part of the fee depending on how far you are along. If you were at the rough stage they will have to pay you 25% of the original price if you are at the art work stage they have to pay 50%. There are also situations where you’ll finish the piece and the company won’t like it or want it changed too much in this situation they will have to pay you 50% or the original price and no one owns the copy write usage of that image.

 Sometimes you will sign on to a job and the company will have problems or will just cancel the job but they are still entitled to pay you.

-Before roughs 25% of the original price

-Delivery of roughs 33% of the original price

-Delivery of the artwork 100% of the original price

 And other stage will be worked out accordingly. But if they pay you 100% of the money they will still have the right to that image because they paid you.

  If you work on a job and they keep changing the brief you are entitled to ask for more money as this what not what you originally worked out at the beginning of the project. 

Copy write

  It’s never good to give away copy write not just because you won’t get any royalties but because they could sell your image on and it could then get used out of context.  They would also have the right to change your image. So it’s always wise to read the small print on all contracts. 

Making a portfolio

   A portfolio should consist of your best artwork as it the first insight into what you do. It’s there to present and sell you. A successful portfolio consists of 15-20 pages of images that you are confident to defend and talk about when asked probing and inquisitive questions. I think a suitable size for a good portable portfolio would be A4 to A3 as you need to be able to carry it around. A good portfolio needs to be tailored to what you want to do or who you’re going to see so maybe having more than one would idea, so a portfolio for children’s books and one for editorial work. My main portfolio will be for children’s book as that is the main illustration work I want to get. I will try to make my portfolio as consistent and free flowing as possible so it reads like a book, I will make sure that all my images are strong but, make my last and first my favourite and strongest as this will be the last thing the person will see.

   The main things to remember when making images for a portfolio are:

-Equal boarders around all images

-Get the images printed professionally and on paper that presents your images best, for me it would be satin

-Keep it looking professional

-Make it easy to take your work out so if the interviewer wants to look at it closer and talk about it you can

-keep it interesting mix up your layouts, such as centred image, two images on one page or three thumbnails showing the best bit of your images

Interview tips

When you have and interview or showing find out as much about the company as you think you will need to know like what titles they have published and what they use such as paper or printing quality. Talk clear and do not babble plan what you would like to say and maybe point out things about your work that you think will help sell your work. Listen to their criticism you can disagree but consider what they say as they are part of the industry and will have more knowledge than you. Keep it friendly but speak correctly and don’t be scared to show your passion about your work it’s your life and they will want to hire people who are enjoy and are passionate about what they do.  Also remember keep eye contact and thank them for their time then email them 3 days later expressing your gratitude again.  Also don’t forget to leave your promotional items with them so they have something for them to look over and remember you by.

My portfolio
  After looking at tips on how to make a successful portfolio I decided to only use images I was confident with and could talk about. After deciding on these I decided to make my portfolio A3 sized due to most of my images would fit better on A3 and I wont lose any of the detail of the cut images. This portfolio is tailored to getting a job in the children's book industry, so I have picked images that are colourful and most of them are related to children's stories.

   After looking over my images I have found I only have 14 pages and thought though a normal portfolio would have 15-20 I would rather have images that I personally like and show my skills off the best than fill it our with images I am not so confident with. To print my portfolio to the best quality I did some test sheets so I could see what paper my work best prints on.

In the end I chose the paper that kept the colour best in the print and that came out the best quality. 

Purpose

  The purpose of this blog is to help me make a clear decision about what action to take after I finish university. I know I want to get into children’s books but I will need other avenues to look into as well while I find the right publishers. This will also help me research into weather I want to get an agent or other routes I could take. This blog will be important for me as it will help me collate all the information I can find in one place so I can review what my best options are for my future decisions. I am expecting to maybe not fully make a decision about what my next move is after university but to have a good solid list of people to contact and a list of agencies I can contact if I decided to go with one.

  Defining where I am now

  Currently I am very passionate about narrative illustration a lot of my work evolves narratives and is story based aimed at children. I really enjoy illustrating fairytales in a different way creating delicate hand cut illustrations. When I finish university I want to illustrate children’s books in a paper cut style, I know this will narrow my appeal but I really feel that my paper illustrations is what I want to do, I may change the way I use the paper but I know this is my media. The style in which I work may change as I learn and develop more. At the moment my plan is when I leave university I will do part time illustration work while having a part time job this is so I can afford materials and afford to go on trip so I can see as much as I can to expand my visual diary. One thing I will start doing is applying to zines and will work as a free illustrator, this will help get my name out there and meet new people who I could work with in future projects. As a freelance illustrator I will have to consider how to sort my tax’s and if I get an agent or not. Recently over the last year I have started attending comic cons around the country with a fellow illustrator. We do this together as it feels more comfortable to start doing something so big together rather than alone it also keeps costs down when there is two of you. After attending a few comic cons I have found I get more flow through my facebook page and blog, this shows positive signs that the more I attend the more people will recognise me.

This is from our last convention we attended, it was at Birmingham NEC

  It was at this convention we learnt the most as we talked more to an experienced vendor who gave us lots of tips and advice. We are currently taking his advice and getting banners for our next convention, this will help our table stand out and make it more visible from further away. But other than aesthetic tip he gave us other on how to interact to people and tips on how we can present ourselves more successfully.  

  To further my portfolio I feel I need to keep a better visual diary and draw more from everyday life this will help my idea development and my overall drawing skills. In two years I expect to still be working part time in a normal job while part time doing illustration work and will hopefully still be attending convention. I will hopefully be attending bigger conventions in London and Ireland and maybe Paris. In 5 years I hope to be a full time illustrator and have had at least one children’s book published, I will still attend conventions as they will be more about my illustrations for older children and my own narratives. Also by attending conventions I will be keeping up my reputation with fans and that is important as people always talk and this could lead to new opportunities. 

  Recently I have changed my name from an alias to my real name, I have done this due to when I created the name I didn't do enough research and my name clashed with a band so the best way to make me stand apart was to use my real name. I currently have a standard image that I use for my avatar, it’s a self portrait, I use this so people will recognise the image as me.

  My plan to achieve what I want, is to do as much research into all my options before leaping ahead. I will look into other conventions not just local to my area but across the country and into Europe, I will also find other kind of fairs I could attend to promote myself in the correct direction. I am also going to re design my business cards and all other promotional items; I am doing this because I want to make sure I am going in the right direction and am giving clear messages of what I want to do. I will also need to start keeping track on my finances and what’s best to do when I need to order prints and other items to sell. I will also have to consider prices of the fairs and how much it will cost on travel and stay there, this will take looking into and preparation before booking the table. To also help self promote I am going to start entering more competitions and entering to do zines, even if it means working for free. To help manage my finances I will start keeping track of my out goings every month and make a new account so that it will be easier to keep track of. 

  To help promote myself I will create three items, these will be a new business card, post cards and a banner. The banner will be to help advertise where I am at fairs and conventions as it will be large enough too been seen from afar and will attract people to the table. I will re design my business cards to make them more professional and get my postcards created in a way that represents the way I work the best. I will also make a small bag to put a business card and postcard in to leave with publishers, this will keep the items together safely and add a level of consideration to the presentation of my items.