I often think I should take up some sort of hobby beside drawing. Model building seems like it could be fun — what could be more exhilarating than assembly? Or instruction reading? Though there is one significant problem — I don't really care for decorating my home with tchotchkes, or baubles, or knick-knacks. Whatever you call the crap that takes up all the flat surfaces in a home.

For a while there, I was learning origami, the ancient art of bending and yelling at paper until it becomes dirty and wet from my filthy fingers. This was a fun distraction, but all too soon I had built up a sprawling army of doves, cranes, boxes, stars, and some sort of rabbit or dog. This then triggered a unique mental crisis. where I'd just stand there, my mind oscillating, one moment thinking this is obviously trash, and the next thinking I spent 3 hours trying to get these wings to flap — I can't throw this out!

In the end, my dove/crane/box/star/rabbit-dog army bivouacked in my office closet for over a year, before I was finally emotionally detached enough that I could break the loop and toss them away. So I imagine that moments after finishing an elaborate model ship, my life would come to a crushing standstill, my body wasting into nothingness, doomed to stand there vibrating, unable to scuttle my three-masted piece-of-junk Junk for all eternity.

Yup — better to be cautious and find a safe hobby. Like Crossword Puzzles. I've never been able to fill out more than three clues on one of them. No chance of emotional investment there.

I can easily identify with this — it took me forever to be able to eat a mushy banana. I also don't care for eating the end of the banana, that part that gets impaled by the little spike at the bottom of the peel. Yet I do it anyways, because potassium helps me grow. And it's surely working, because all around me I see signs that I'm maturing.

For instance, I spend much less time thinking about my outsides, and much more time thinking about my insides. I worry way more about my prostate than I ever did about my hair.

Also, I am no longer satisfied by anything I build with Legos. When I was a kid, I had enough imagination to pretend that the big flat 16×8 piece with wheels on it was a car. Now, I refuse to accept that any discerning Legoman would pay good Lego money for a vehicle with such obvious flaws. For heaven's sake, there's no ignition!

And lastly, I started to make a conscious effort not to use the word "fucking" as an adjective in daily speech, replacing it with the much classier word "rather". Observe:

I'm... uh... still getting the hang of it.

When I was younger, I thought acting must be a pretty easy job, and consequently didn't give actors much credit. This might have been because it's so much easier to weave intricate webs of lies when you're a teenager. But as an adult, I've come to understand acting isn't easy. I certainly can't do it. I tend to not be able to keep a straight face, and it takes me forever to memorize anything. Plus, I'm barely comfortable watching sex scenes, much less performing one.

I can't imagine Mojo being much better than me, though for different reasons. First, he seems to have seems to have sub-par language skills, and secondly has major problems working in a team environment. I mean, he works well enough with Lewis, but that's because Lew is an exceptionally accommodating monkey.

I suppose for the first couple weeks of a show Mojo isn't a terribly bad cast member. But pretty soon the rest of the actors start to notice their glamour shots have all been pre-autographed by "Mojo The Magnificent". And it just escalates from there, until one day the show is delayed because he's put on every costume — and all the make-up — at the same time.

For some sort of one-man show I think it was.

Reviews weren't too bad.

Being a parent is tough. Though, having no children myself, I can only say that through my experience as a child who made things tough for his parents. And of course, I can observe the toughness of parenthood through my peers. I am now passing the phase in life when all my friends are wedding, and entering the phase where they're begetting.

I do slightly understand the difficulty of parenting through my experience of pet ownership, but this usually isn't anything a real parent wants to hear about. On numerous occasions I've made the mistake of countering a "my child does this" story with a "my dog does this". I can understand a parent being insulted by this comparison — unless of course their child is feral, in which case I turn out to be a better parent than them even without a kid.

For a while now, I've fielded emails from folks looking to enter illustration as a career. And for that same while, I've been replying with an almost uniform compendium of tips, thinking to myself it'd probably more efficient to just write a post instead of having to type the same answers over and over. But I always held back, the chief reason for it being that I never really felt qualified enough to give such advice in as public a forum as this site.

These days, I still don't feel super-qualified, but I have made a great deal of progress since those first anxious months of 2004. And as I get older, and more established, chances are I'll forget how it was at the start, and forget the important points that can really help a beginner. So I figured it was time to at least write something.

With that in mind, I'd like to share some lessons I've learned about entering the field of illustration:

There Is No True Path

The first thing to get straight is that every illustrator is going to have a different path to success. Ninety-percent of illustration work out there is freelance work, and you make a living in freelancing by keeping your eye out for good opportunities, and pouncing on them. So don't worry about doing things "right" — the only things you can do wrong is curling up into a ball and whimpering when the path forks.

Protect Your Love

Not everything you draw should become public. You need to preserve your love for drawing — there needs to be art you do for fun. Find a balance between what you create knowing someone will see it, and what you create for yourself.

Don't Give Up

Many would-be illustrators seem to quit illustration after a subtle war of attrition, where tiny roadblock after tiny roadblock wears down their passion to make a living by the pen or paint, until finally they give up. I've gone through some very lean times as well, and I certainly understand the feeling. But I truly believe that anyone can make a living if they just keep at it long enough. If you can draw, chances are there's someone out there who will pay you to do it — you just need to keep trying to find them.

Give Yourself Time

I'm a strong believer that instant and overnight success are absolute poison. Don't look for the big job that will instantly launch you into the center ring; you'll often find you might not have the experience you need to keep you there. When starting out, look for small, short jobs that you're confident you can handle, and build your career slowly and patiently.

Have A Goal

When I left my old job to try my hand at illustration, I set two relatively achievable goals — make a living doing something I love, and earn enough to support both Kim and I within five years. I'm three years in now, and while Kim can't quit her job just yet, we can at least split the house bills. Every job I have is measured against those end goals to help keep me focused — if a job won't meet both criteria, I don't take it.

Understand What You Have To Offer

Try your hardest not to underestimate the value of what you do. The ability to illustrate is a skill, a skill some have and some don't. That means you have something you can market. It's especially important to remember that when starting out, because the public in general perceives illustration as a cheap commodity. Remember, when you take a job for a mere pittance, it hurts the illustration community at large; that means there's one more client out there with the wrong expectations on price.

Understand Copyright

This is a tough subject to address with any brevity, but a basic fact you should know is that everything you create you own; a client pays you not only to create the art, but then on top of that they're paying you for rights to use that art. Some clients want to buy the copyright to that art outright (at a standard cost of 200-300% the price of production), or just pay for certain small rights — for instance, the right to use that painting on a website for a year (I'd say... 15-25% the cost of production, but this varies in negotiating). Writing up a contract and not specifying what a client can use the work for is irresponsible. The Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines is a helpful resource for industry standards. I also found that it was useful to see how much rights-managed artwork on stock photo sites would charge, and use that to help you judge an accurate percentage. Oh — and just so you know, purchase of the original artwork on a client job is negotiated separately as well (usually at 100-200% the cost of production).

Be Fair In Business

Business should not be a cutthroat endeavor, where you're always looking for an upper-hand. Negotiate with clients; understand what they want, and help them understand what you can give, and find a price you're both happy with. Your talent might bring in first time clients, but your integrity, honesty, and responsibility is what will bring them back.

Protect Your Liberty

I didn't get into illustration to rock the world. I don't want to win awards, and I don't want to be a millionaire. I just want to draw for a living. Not being seduced by high-paying or high-profile work allows me to turn down jobs, and do the work that makes me happy. Whether or not that can work for you only you can judge; but if you want to draw for a living because you love to draw, that's what's worked for me.

Hedge Your Bets

It can be difficult starting out to earn money and pay the bills. If you plan to go into illustration, there's three ways you can provide for your future when times are tight: have a nest egg in place, have a supportive working spouse or parent, or have a part-time job. With luck, you'll eventually carve out a place in illustration, and be able to support yourself. Starting out is hard — jobs are few and far between — but if you weather the lean times, opportunities will come.

Find Your Market

There's numerous markets for illustration. Some people want to do children's books. Some people want to do greeting cards. Investigate the different markets you could work in, find the one for you, and concentrate on getting work there. Just don't be too picky at the start. A job is a job when you're trying to make a living.

Have A Portfolio, And Maintain it

This should go without saying. No matter how good you are, no one can hire you if they can't see your work. And remember, not everything you've ever done goes in your portfolio; a portfolio should reflect the kind of work you want to do, the best work you do. If you're unsure if something should go in your portfolio, then it doesn't belong there.

Build A Reputation, Not A Network

While friends and former clients may have the capacity to push jobs your way, you need to earn that recommendation. If you're honest in business, and if you do good quality work, the people you've worked with in the past won't hesitate to give out your name. And then you'll have a network.

You Will Get Screwed

Accept it — there will be times where you get screwed. It's inevitable. One day, you may look back and think — damn, I should have charged more, or damn, I shouldn't have sold off those rights. Or perhaps even... damn, this guy hasn't paid me and I can't find him, or damn, these guys are using my art without permission and without paying me. You will get screwed. But don't let the fear of that keep you from trying. Every time you make a mistake, you learn something. And it would be impossible to make a right decision every time, especially starting out, and being unfamiliar in the industry. But you CAN minimize the degree of screwing by taking a few precautions from the start:

Try and find as much information as you can on trade practices, industry standards on pricing, and charging for copyright. Again, I recommend the GAG guide, with the caveat that it's not a magic book that you open and you immediately have your answer; I often have to use its numbers as a starting point, and have to come up with my own figures (which mostly has to do with the fact that illustrating for the web is still a relatively new market). And there's plenty of other literature out there, I'm sure (recommendations welcome, my fellow illustrators). And while I haven't been in contact with any Graphic Artist Guild members, I have spoken to a couple people who've contacted them and gotten some helpful advice.

Always, always, always work with a contract. A good starter contract comes with the GAG guide. If you just can't interpret the legalese, write up something yourself that dictates in plain language what the client is asking you to do: what it is you're supposed to illustrate, how much they've agreed to pay you, how many rounds of revisions they're allowed to have, when the job starts and stops, and when you're supposed to receive payment.

Try and get deposit from a client (either a half or a third of the final fee) up front. When a prospective client is willing to plunk down actual funds to get the project started, you know they're committed to the job just as much as you are.

When starting out, and not completely sure of how much you can deliver, it's best to play it safe and take small jobs that don't overwhelm you. And make sure there's plenty of room in the schedule to protect you from accidents and mistakes when creating your piece (my biggest problem with early jobs was getting to the end and hating what I did, and needing to start over — luckily, I always had time to do that).

I know. Getting screwed is still a dreadful thought; but even the smallest peon in a huge company is just as susceptible to a swift kick in the weekend plans. And I'll tell you, one of my major motivations in leaving the agency world was that if I was going to have to fix a fuck-up, I'd rather it was my fuck-up from now on.

Experience Is Your Best Asset

There is no substitute for experience. A thousand tiny little lessons in business, drawing, and administration can't be taught or downloaded. You may want to conduct yourself like someone who's been working for five years, but you can't. What you can do is put yourself on the right road right now, and consciously try to avoid delaying things because you think you're not ready.

Ask For Help

One of my biggest struggles starting out was finding other illustrators who could share their wisdom. Part of this has to do with me coming out of a web design background, with absolutely no illustration contacts. But here and there I contacted a couple names whose work I appreciated. And while (sad to say), the majority of them didn't reply, the few people who I did get to talk to really help alleviate a lot of the burdensome doubts I had when started out. I encourage you to ask for help and advice when you need it.

Give Help

Like I said, I didn't get a lot of support from a majority of other illustrators starting out. Consequently, I've tried particularly hard to answer anyone who's written me with questions. I'd advise anyone else starting out to do the same, when they have a chance. And if you're balking because you don't feel qualified enough to answer, even that is a good enough reply for someone just starting out.

Do what I say...

So there's some of the lessons I've learned since starting down the long road of illustration. I can't say I always practice what I preach. I'm certainly guilty of underquoting for a job, and I definitely did (and still do) my fair share of curling into a ball and whimpering. But they're still practices I try to adhere to, ones I truly believe have helped me through these years. I certainly hope they can help you.

Additional Notes

Regarding hourly rates versus flat rates, Niff makes a great point in the comments. As an illustrator, it's in your best interest to quote flat rates. It will be easier for you to quote the cost of selling copyright, since that's usually done as a percentage of the final production cost, and it also keeps you from penalizing yourself for working efficiently.

As some of you may or may not know, last week was South by Southwest 2008, the interactive web conference. I made the trip again this year, and it was lovely to have been unshackled from the desk for a weekend. One welcome bonus to making the trip was the chance to fill up my sketchbook, and one welcome bonus of that was the chance to document one of my many lunch adventures in comic form, as seen above.

(Hands behind back, looking around ol' Bearskinrug Manor)

Very well then. Everything seems in order here...

We now return you to the Great Bearskinrug Hiatus, already in progress.

Well I hate to say it, but after 3-going-on-4 years of weekly BSR posting, I'm going to take a hiatus of sorts. Between an uber-job I can't quite talk about yet, my other recurring online duties, and a work pace in January that resulted in no weekends, something has to give before my brain or my wrist do.

I will, of course, still be answering email, shipping store items, and also posting at The Superest.

But if there won't be a new article for a month or two, I'd want to leave everyone with a Mojo comic. Feel free to take your time reading it. Perhaps a panel a day. Or if you read it too fast, and want more, there's always 296 other comics and articles to read.

Decompression initiating in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Here's a page from Sketchbook Eleven, dating this comic at... oh around 2004. Wow. It's four years old. Since then, I've been on real Beef Tours, led by real cows. You'd be surprised how much beef comes from the ass. Well, not the ass, but the cow tush.

Though I suppose the amount of donkey meat we consume would be surprising as well. For instance, in Lucky Charms, three of the seven marshmallow varieties are actually burro. I won't tell you which ones — I mean, I don't wanna get sued here. No one can afford better legal representation than a leprechaun.

That's right! Here's another spread from Sketchbook Eighteen, containing the autobiographical comic Mail Call. I always said to myself, 'Kevin, never do any autobiographic comic work — it's just too cliché', yet here I am breaking my own rules.

Actually, I never made that rule. But I'm making it... starting now!¹

Looks like the world will never know the amazing but untold truths of my life. At least in comic form. I may come out with an autobiographical movie, provided I can play Porthos, my evil twin. Some other schlub can play me. Porthos is the one who wins the lottery, and discovers a planet.

What planet?

Saturn.

They already discovered that.

Yeah, but he didn't know about it.

Footnotes added at a later date...

¹ This vow really didn't last long.

After drawing this comic, I realized that owning a dog has actually made me less of a dog person. I think partly because I wasn't aware that dogs could be as annoying as Ernie often gets. Also, I never realized just how territorial dogs are. Walking down my street is like running a gauntlet, where half the dogs want to just come and play, and the other half are telling Ernie and I to stay the hell out of their yard or they'll yank his innards out through my crotch.

Still, I remain more of a dog person than a cat person. I used to be a cat person, until one day when I was petting a cat, I realized it was drooling. I expect that from a dog — so no loss of respect there. But seeing an animal so normally prim and proper, doing something so undignified, changes your perspective. It's like seeing your university professor fall down a flight of stairs onto a cactus.

I can't say I'm excited for this new year. The final days of 2007 seem to have hip-checked me out of my normal schedule. Now, as 2008 starts up, I find it's much harder to get motivated than in previous years. Perhaps because I lack quality incentives like the sparkling trophies pictured above.

Not to give the impression that I'd want all those trophies. Tormentor of the Year is really just for devils. Who wants that job? Having horns severely limits your hairstyle options, and trimming hooves is much more difficult than trimming toenails. Well, except for that pinky toenail.

Little guy is a bitch to reach...

That cuts it — this year, no more trimming the pinky toe. The first step to evolving that baby out of existence is to ignore it. Then it dies of loneliness, and falls off the foot. I'm pretty sure that's how we lost our tails, what with them all hidden in the back there.

I wouldn't mind getting a little visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past. There are certain things in recent years I could get a second look at. It would be great to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in the theater again. Perhaps I could travel to that field trip my fifth-grade class took to Harrisburg, and prove that Danny Fulton ate my lunch on the bus. I could even zip back to Saturday, and figure out where I left my wallet. It's not in my jeans.

Maybe it's in the car. I'll check.

Update

It was in the car.

A hat made of produce seems like a great idea, but the advantage of having fresh fruit only an arm's length away is outweighed by having a hat that rots away before you can even finish it. God help you if you live in a country with giraffes — you're essentially wearing bait. But still, it's a step in the right direction.

See, the Fruited Hat really only scratches the surface of a hat's potential beyond mere head-covering. Ideally, hats should be designed to carry anything you're already carrying in your pant or jacket pockets. Why, with the right top hat, I could carry my wallet, a phone, my keys, and probably a bag lunch, leaving me free to wear some pocket-less clothing for once. Like a unitard. Or an evening gown.

I could probably keep my spare change on the brim, too. Though I couldn't bend over or slouch. But hey — if I'm wearing a top hat and an evening gown, I'd definitely want to maintain proper posture anyway, or I'd look pretty out of place at the country club. And when I need to tip the valet, I just tip my hat. It's like a double-compliment.

Now that says class.

When it comes to getting people to contribute to a charity, I think I'd still actually prefer the above method to a phone solicitation. Some of those bullets could pierce my skull, sure — but at least none of them will follow me to my home, and give my address and phone number to other bullets. I won't receive a phone call from the National Bullet Fundraising Drive, and then the Regional Bullet Fundraising Drive, then the State Bullet Fundraising Drive, until it gets down to the Local Bullet Fundraising Drive — the bullets that actually put their life on the line for me — and I have no patience and no money left to support them.

Anyway, it's much more pleasant giving money away when it's in person. I like the game of trying to get my change in that little hole on top of the Salvation Army charity bucket, and while a bell might not be the most complex of instruments, a concert is a concert.

There are people in this world who celebrate humanity. Who admire the human form, and take great pleasure in art that captures man in his basic daily life. Conversely, there are those who find nature's complexity and inexhaustible inventiveness to be an unmatched area of artistic study.

Then, there are those who would prefer a bastardized version of both.

If you feel you're one of those people, perhaps it's time to look into purchasing the set of four peoplemals now on sale at Gifted: Coudal Partner's Holiday Exclusives Swap Meat.

Comprising four 6"×9" Peoplemals — Ladger, Penghim, Manther, and Eagirl — each character in this set has been letterpressed into Classic Crest 130# Natural White stock, so even if you've recently lost your vision due to an accident at the laser pointer factory, you can still feel the art and find satisfaction. Ladger's fur is remarkably bumpy.

Peoplemals In Person

If you happen to be in the Philadelphia area, and are interested in seeing some of the original Peoplemals art in person, they're currently on display at Mugshots Coffeehouse & Cafe, located at 21st and Fairmount Ave, right across from Eastern State Penitentiary. Should you wish to score some free crudités, feel free to come to the opening on Thursday evening, the 13th, between 6:30 and 8:30, where I'll choose one of the original paintings to be ground up, and served as a one-night-only coffee blend.