Microstock Report for December - and year end totals.

 

This is the year end report for my first year of selling stock illustrations.  I was surprised at how much I ended up making.  You can see the total for yourself, but it came out well above $3000 between all the sites.  Some were successful and others were very disappointing, but all of them contributed towards quite a happy year in microstock.

The top moneymaker and overall good stock site was, once again, Shutterstock.  This month was quite a low one - as all across the board (with the exception of Istockphoto) the stock sites stalled out because of the many holidays...but Shutterstock was the clear winner for the year.  It was the first site I signed up to and the best overall - I had a steady stream of downloads every day (which prompted me to check it several times a day) and even a large chunk of 'on demand' downloads (which are almost $3 apiece).  And, what was quite a happy day this last month, I finally had a referral that actually uploaded images.  So far I have a list of about 10 people and it wasn't until last month that one of them actually made it through the approval process and uploaded images.

What's nice about a referral is that they get to live their own separate microstock life, but every download they get, you'll get three cents.  I ended up making over 16 dollars from such downloads.  I'm also glad that the website that I stumbled upon that gave me the final push to get into microstock is getting 3 cents for every one of my downloads (Thanks again Cory!).

Anyway - second on the list was Istockphoto - I started late with them...and almost gave up entirely.  But I kept reading that this site was the hardest to get into and had the most complex uploading process...but that it ended up being worth it.  And it's true.  It's one of the leading sites for microstock - and even though you end up with less downloads per day, each one is worth more money.  And even though this site didn't really get going until May (all my other sites were up and running by March), I still made about $550.

One site that was the biggest disappointment was BigStockPhoto.  While they're one of the big 5 or so stock agencies...they have fallen hard.  I made $3 last month and half that this month.  I believe it to be the fact that Shutterstock purchased them, and people are waiting to see what happens from that...because it wasn't until that was announced that the downloads almost completely shutdown.  But it's too bad because they have the easiest uploading process (the bit where you only have to upload your eps files and they'll generate their own jpg preview.  All the other sites you have to create your own jpg preview and each site has their own size parameters).  Oh - and one other disappointment, but I didn't expect much - there was this site called VectorNexus - I ran into them through a microstock message board.  I uploaded a couple of images and had a couple of downloads...but their site is no longer on the web.  I believe they went under...but since I only put four or five images on there in the first place, I didn't see it as that much a waste...although they never paid me out for those two downloads....

All in all - I'd say that microstock is quite a fun side project past time.  It can be a greater money maker if you're willing to put the time into creating good images.  Or it could be a steady stream of extra cash (as it is for me) where you only spend a couple of hours every month keeping things fresh by uploading a few new images.

my new promotional postcard

So it's been quite a work in progress...but I finally finished this postcard...and I'm going to be sending it out in the new year.  It was quite a monster to work on, but its been a lot of fun.  The front of the postcard is on the left and the back is on the right.

IF: Undone

If you're hung up in a tree you wonder how you'll ever come undone...actually - the undone part isn't so bad, it's coming undone and unharmed - that's the real trick.

This illustration was a beast! I think I've been working on it for the last 3 weeks, at least...and I've been thinking about it for a little bit longer than that.

A few weeks ago I did a little doodle:

I did that as a doodle because I had to draw my characters after several failed attempts at a lawn gnome (those are terrible drawings and will never be posted). And this sketch turned out good enough that I thought I should finish it.


It ended up being quite a good illustration - or, at least, for me - it was good enough that I wanted to send it out as my next postcard to children's book publishers. But I now needed to tell the rest of the story. What could I put on the back of the postcard? The obvious choice to me was either to show them in the plane or landing. I thought landing would be more dynamic, so I set about thinking about what that would entail.

The drawing was supposed to be very simple, and the more I drew it the more complex it became. Suddenly (well...after 3 weeks of drawing and/or revising) I had this detailed (photoshop) illustration. I might cool down the red of the bricks, but I think it turned out pretty good. So good, in fact, that this is going to be the front of the postcard and the skydiving is the back...

Fox Hatched

This one took a bit longer than the other ones.

Hatched and Cracked

This was just something I thought up...wondered how it'd look...so here it is:

IF: Hatched Skunk

I thought I'd try out a couple of other characters in eggs...since the topic on Illustration Friday is Hatched...

IF: Hatched Panda

This actually turned out better than I thought it was going to.

I was at the San Diego zoo about 5 or 6 years ago and found, in the gift shop, some really cute little glass statues of various animals hatching out of eggs. The cutest one was this little rhino. And what made it better was, at the time, a rhino had just given birth, so you could go to the exhibit and watch this cute little baby rhino running around and coming really close to the fence. So I had to buy the baby rhino in an egg statue.

Since then I've seen this trick a lot - a cute little animal or character will get even cute if you put it coming out of an egg. It probably trips some sort of sensor in our brains that makes us coo at babies (like when one of your friends has a kid and everyone comes over to hang out but ends up just standing around in a circle staring at a baby that's not doing anything...but nobody can look away).

Anyhow - I like these little characters I've drawn, and putting them in costumes or in cute situations seems like the next step...next think you know the panda will be wearing a frog or a pink bunny costume. Stay tuned!

The Panda has landed - revised

This was originally going to be the back of the postcard (that I'll mail out to publishers and clients)...but now I'm thinking that it's better than the front of the postcard...

I printed out my adobe illustrator cleanup to add in a background...but the more I added, the more in depth the drawing became...and I thought it might be more impressive as the main image. We'll see though...because of the amount of detail, it'll take forever to paint...

Before you go crunch on the ground...

It's probably better to end up in a tree. Of course, I think in this story's case, the panda would have been fine wherever he landed...but he seems pretty thrilled that he ended up stuck above this nice couple in their backyard...

This is a much more involved illustration than some of the previous square animal but I want to show that I can draw scenes, and not just characters (as this is going to be sent with the other skydiving illustration to different children's book publishers).

This illustration still isn't done - I'm still debating on whether or not the panda should be on a telephone wire, or a tree limb...and there still needs to be a house or some sort of background nonsense...my first thought is to put a field back there, but that doesn't really show off too much skill...so I'll be adding a full background...

I did a quick color fill just to make it easier to see which direction the illustration is going. I am definitely leaning towards putting a tree there for the panda to be stuck in...

IF: Crunch...on the ground...!

So I'm working on a followup to the skydiving animals I did a couple of weeks ago. It's been really tough trying to figure out what the outcome to that illustration should be. It's taken me all this time and countless drawings trying to work it out.

I've finally decided on this:

It's, obviously still in rough form...but I'm going to clean it up today in Adobe Illustrator and then print it out and revise my lines in blue pencil (which is just how I always work...the above illustration was the original drawing scanned into the computer - you can sort of make out perspective lines trying to line things up and correct wonky directions...I've already printed it once and gone back over it with a blue pencil).

Originally I kept drawing the panda bent over a branch of a tree and the other skydiving characters around him...or slamming into the ground with a big crunch (which is probably too graphic for a children's book style illustration)...but the idea of the panda stuck on a telephone wire (that part isn't drawn yet) and surprising some folks who were just sitting in their backyard sounded like a better idea).

Hopefully I'll have this drawing done later today and it'll be ready for color.

IF: Crunchy cereal!

I had this old drawing from a children's book dummy that I was working on based on my character Adelia.

When I saw the topic of the week for Illustration Friday (Crunchy) I automatically thought of eating crunchy cereal...which is what Adelia is doing here:

I dusted off the old adobe illustrator drawing and painted it in photoshop this very morning. Sure I sort of cheated by having such a nondescript background, but it's only there to frame Adelia eating her deliciously boring looking cereal.

I was told by an executive at Nick Jr (Nickelodeon for smaller kids) that my character Adelia needed a mouth, so I've been toying with what she would look like with one...which is why, when I finished this illustration, I went back in and drew a mouth. I kind of think it's a stronger piece...it shows more that she's eating AND enjoying herself...

What's nice is that there's a website called Foodista - from what I can gather, it's a website that's all about food - and the link above is for cereal. They e-mailed me just this morning because they found my blog in a search and liked the above drawings. I thought that was nice enough that I'd post a link to their website (plus, they asked really nicely). But anyhow - if all that talk about cereal gets you craving some food - hop on over to foodista...and you just might find something tasty.

By the way - I'm currently addicted to Granola - so that's my cereal of choice...especially the Target brand (Archer Farms) ones. There's blueberry with flax (whatever that is) and there's another one with chocolate bits. Terribly good.

Oh, and if Oatmeal counts - that's the only choice one should have (unless, of course, you know someone that's willing to cook a full blown meal) on a cold day. I live in Southern California, which means it's warm most of the time - but every once in a while (like last week) it can get quite chilly. And it's only chilly for someone that's used to the warm weather. Anyway - if Oatmeal counts as a cereal (it's a hot cereal...but when I think of cereal, I usually only think of the crunchy stuff you pour milk over) then I'd like some oatmeal with plump raisins. And that's all I have to say about cereal.

Christmas kids

I did this for Shutterstock. One could say that I'm entrenched or even entangled in the world of microstock imagery. I've been at it since March, and the best thing is that I don't have to focus that much on it, and the images still sell...mostly on Shutterstock and Istockphoto, but also on some of the less popular sites. It's something that I can't stay away from and even after all these months I check the download status every day (well...twice a day on Istockphoto and probably 8 or 9 times on Shutterstock).

The original idea was to create some 'doll' cutouts that one could place different clothes on. These are the first of such things...only there are no other clothes, just what they have on their backs. But I'm going to redraw them with minimal clothing (just enough to keep them decent) and then have a variety of options on the side that people can add.

It's an idea...we'll see if it works...

This was the original version...just a bunch of kids in winter garb...

On both of these, my wife - who is an amazing color stylist and is currently working as a texture artist at Nickelodeon - recolored them. She always does an amazing job!

Also - I had to start a new blog counter because I changed the way my blog was laid out. That means that the 28,000 views I had previously are no more and I'm starting over today (december 3rd) with a 0000000 counter...we'll see how high it gets before something happens and it too has to be replaced or restarted.

lil' thumbnail of a dog and livingroom

This is just a little doodle I did during the thanksgiving holiday (as well as the Adelia drawings from the previous post. I'm just trying to think of different areas like a living room - where it's just normal and sterile and boring...and I want to put my characters into that to liven it up. The reason why is that I was at an illustrator event at the beginning of November and did a portfolio review with an award winning illustrator (and one that is constantly working).

He told me that you can't just have drawings of fantastic action...in your portfolio you should also show that you can take someone's script (children's book or otherwise) and create all the scenes from the book...and, in a way, make the mundane bits interesting. You're not always going to have the characters skydiving or having a pig pull a skunk in a wagon through a field... You also have to have them in the quieter times.

So my current idea for my next postcard (after the skydiving one) is to have the square characters sitting around their living room and reading.

Also - the scribbles on the page are from my 3 year old niece who saw me drawing and wanted to draw me a picture.

Adelia thumbnails...

I work at Nickelodeon - and while we do all (or most) of the regular cartoons in our building, the nick jr stuff is mostly taken care of elsewhere. And the headquarters for Nick Jr (programming like Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer and Olivia) is in New York, so we almost never see the people who work on them.

Why that matters is that all the big executives for Nick Jr are in New York, and if you want to pitch something to them, you have to go to them. What's quite nice is that the Vice President and the production manager came to our little studio in Burbank a couple of weeks ago and sat in a meeting room for an entire day taking our pitches....

It was great meeting them, and I showed them this character that I've been working on for the last couple of years named Adelia (you'll see her all over my blog and/or website - www.isaacmarzioli.com). They loved the character but probably won't use her because of how I designed her. I intentionally drew her without a mouth because she started off as an adelie penguin and that pointy nose was originally a simplified beak...somewhere in the design process, the character became more stylized. The beak became an upturned nose. My thought was always to have her as a character that has a narrator, and while she isn't a mute, she doesn't have to say anything to get her story told.

This is the original picture of Adelia


Concept art for the original Adelia Design

One thing you have to be able to do when you pitch a character or a show or whatever is be willing to adapt. While it's your job as a designer or illustrator (or, more broadly, a creator) to come up with the original concept - it's their job to hone it and refine it into something that can be watchable and hopefully successful. I'm trying to redesign Adelia with a mouth to get the VP's attention that maybe this character is still a viable option for them, but at the same time I'm hoping to show that I am willing to revise and that I can work with critique.

I expect nothing to come of this, of course, but it can't hurt to try. If things don't end up working out then I can always go back to my original design of Adelia.

I'm still trying a couple of different ways to incorporate a mouth with the character. Do I make the mouth a full part of her head shape? Or should it be more stylized and appear on the one side of her face (which I like more because it's smaller and cuter and stays out of the way of the rest of the head design). Anyhow - I'm still working at it...

Microstock report for November 2009

November was kind of a down month for all of the vector sites. And while I did finally have time to upload a couple of new images, there was nothing that really clicked with the stock buying public.

Shutterstock is still the highest money maker with almost $147. This site has been pretty consistent for the last few months - each time around the 140 dollar range.

Istockphoto was a little bit of a disappointment after a $70 and a $106 couple of months. This time around it dipped significantly to $60.

I'm hoping to add more christmas images, but once again, I don't know if I'll have time. Also - with it being this close to christmas, I might have missed my window of opportunity....maybe I should focus more on valentines day.

Skydiving

I previously posted the rough drawings for 'unbalanced'. And, here it is, in all it's colored glory.

Prints are available at Etsy - http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34594454

IF: Unbalanced...in the head.

You'd have to have some sort of brain imbalance to attempt sky diving (or bunjee jumping or deep sea diving)...but yet people do it all the time. In this case it's four little animals. And they're all crazy.

This is my second pass at the illustrator clean-up. I still need to print it out (for a second time) and revise it before I can set about coloring it.


The major difference between this one and the previous cleanup is the addition of the fox character being yanked back up from opening his shute.

EDIT: the finished illustration is in the next post...

Falling with style

I don't know why I keep drawing this character falling...

I did this quick sketch about two weeks ago and I really liked how it looked...the angle and such...it looked quite nice. And I guess he's diving rather than falling...but it amounts to the same. I should probably do both drawings because they sort of relate. He could be hanging out in the park with friends, and thinking about doing such dangerous and fun things...while the actual skydiving could be a dream sequence. Or something.

This is the quick cleanup of the above drawing:


The way I usually work is that I do a thumbnail (or, at least, a really small drawing) in my sketchbook and then scan it in and do a rough cleanup in Adobe Illustrator. I print that out and make revisions, rescan it and re-clean it up (and sometimes, if it's still not looking right, I"ll print it out a second time and have another go with revisions)...and then I color the hell out of it in Photoshop. Anyway - I'm still at the beginning stage of this illustration....

Rock out with your ---- out...

I've never understood that saying. I guess it rhymes with rock...it doesn't sound like what one would be doing if they really were rocking out. It's more the stuff of sickos and perverts...but everyone has their own passions, so if this one is yours, at least make sure the women and kids are at a safe distance before you start whipping it about.

Anyway - this is for a client - they wanted a rough color drawing to go with a pitch. I can't talk about what the project is, so as to maintain the integrity of the idea. It does kind of blur the line between reality, exaggeration and cartoon.

It was kind of strange working so rough...and a bit hard using a wacom to trace line art in photoshop (I'm used to doing it in Illustrator, or at work on a cintiq)...but while there was a lot of ctrl-z action, I did manage...

If it's too loud...turn it down.

Here's the second version of this character. My sketch is a little more realized after talking with the client. He wanted an older rocker and less of a stage setting than a loft. So I entirely changed the background. I probably should have just finished this drawing up and sent it off as a final rough, but I enjoyed drawing it, and I really like this client, so I thought one more (possible) stage of revisions wouldn't be so bad.

All of these revisions (from the original drawing) were done in Photoshop. I was just using a wacom, which is why it's a little more sloppy, but with a bit of color, ya won't even notice the slop!)

SCBWI postcard contest

So yesterday I was at Illustrator Day in San Gabriel. It was a small event with several good speakers who talked about the children's book market.

There was also a portfolio contest (which it seemed that every attendee submitted a port for) and a postcard contest which I counted 23 entries.

This was my postcard:

I thought it was a great idea (that my two main characters were bursting through the front of the card and on the back you could see the exactly what it would look like if you could actually flip the illustration over)...but the execution was a little lacking...it felt like there was something missing and I ended up not having time to finish it before the cards were due (back in October). Also, my original concept was that I would actually tear open a piece of paper and scan that and put my characters behind it...only to find that I couldn't tear the page to look enough like it should (like in the drawing above).

In the couple of weeks from the due date of the postcards to the conference I was able to finish another version of the cards - this time adding the look of lined paper (created in Adobe Illustrator for Shutterstock). And while this definitely helped add some interest to the piece, it still feels like it's missing something. Ideally it'd be nice if there was some sort of mirrored picture on the back of the postcard so when you flipped it over you'd actually see the back of them, but also what they're looking at (which would be you) so you'd also see yourself. This postcard won't be complete until I can accomplish that and kind of blur the lines between reality and lame postcard contests. Of course it was only lame because I didn't win...but I entered a postcard I wasn't completely happy with, so it was also expected.

From the event I learned that postcard mailers do actually work. This one girl (who did win) did a postcard that actually folds out into another (and bigger) picture, and then even folds out to an even bigger and full sized illustration. What's smart about her mailer is that each picture relates to the same story as the last and inside, when the postcard is all unfolded is another, smaller return postcard. Does it do the job? Who can say yet, but it's a very cool and different idea. I also learned that Chad Beckerman, the art director at Abrams only wants to see postcards and, like many art directors, uses that to look up new talented artists - but doesn't want to see bigger or more extravagant mailers (portfolios or anything more than a postcard) because he feels like he can get enough information from a postcard so anything else is a waste of time and money.

Just got back from Illustrator Day...

and boy are my arms tired!

Actually I'm really just tired in general. I was paying all sorts of attention at the conference...and gabbing. You have to do so much networking and talking and networking and smiling and talking some more. It's nice though when you get into it...but it's a sloggingly long day. It's the worst when you have to stand nearby while you're waiting for the big art director or art rep to finish talking with another conference attendee...I only pulled it off by shuffling, fidgeting and looking awkward. That's the best way to go about it...

In the meantime I did some drawing...there's a lot of sitting around, so I was able to get to the sketches for a project I was just commissioned for. Character design roughs for a pitch. It doesn't have to be a fully realized character, but just the mood and tone for what they want. This is the first sketch:

Now - it's not bad, but it's also just the first try. And, mind you, I don't draw people too often...much less adult people. I then had to keep trying, especially since I was drawing in my sketchbook amongst all these really good children's book illustrators (or at least people, like me, making the attempt). So I went on with this one. It has more of a story and kind of a cool idea that just hit me while I was zoning out during one of the breaks (not during one of the talks, because I pay close attention).

Definitely better - but there was still a more interesting part of his story that sounded like fun to draw...at first I was just drawing a bunch of heads trying to find a better look for the character, but then this idea/pose struck me...starting with the face biting off the head of a small rodent:

I just scanned all of these in to show the client (he wants approval before I move on to the complete color rough)...and I did a small bit of touching up and adding a little bit of color to help the mood. I'm sending them off and we'll see what he says...

Microstock report for October 2009

This is the microstock report for October of 2009.

This month was quite nice...as once again I didn't have much time for microstock, but yet we still did quite well. The total for all of our companies was $345.70.

Shutterstock once again leads the list. We made just under a dollar more than last month, and only uploaded 3 files (none of which were downloaded). What's nice is that we have had 7 people sign up as our referral, but this month was the first time that one of those referrals was accepted and started making money on Shutterstock.

Second on the list was Istockphoto once again. It's been a pretty good second place...and the only reason it's not doing better is that we don't have more files uploaded. This month was the first time on Istockphoto that we got an EL (an extended license) which is a $28 download.

The rest of the sites weren't terribly good or bad. Fotolia continues to disappoint from where it was when we started uploading...it used to be our third best earner and now it's falling below both Stockxpert and BigStockphoto. The biggest disappointment this month was 123rf. We had 13 dollars last month and then only a single subscription download this month...that resulted in only 35 cents...just terrible. I'm hoping it turns around this next month...but we'll see...maybe the 13 dollars was an anomaly...?

All in all it's been pretty good. The top three sites (Shutterstock, Istockphoto, and Dreamstime) are pretty consistant...and while it's hit or miss for the rest of the sites, they all continue to make money and it's been in the $300 range for the last few months...which isn't bad because my regular job at Nickelodeon has kept me from really focusing on any stock images...so it's nice to still be making money without spending any time on them whatsoever...

IF: Frozen in ice

This is my sketch for Frozen:

I'm hoping to get it cleaned up and colored for real...but we'll see...

postcard finished...?

This is the first 'finished' version of the postcard...I'm thinking of a couple of things I could do to the card, so there might be some changes...but this is it for now...

This is the front and the back of the postcard. The idea was to have the animals bursting through a plain piece of paper and you can see into their world -and the back of the postcard is the backs of them. Ideally it'd be nice to have a mirror there so when you turn the card around you actually see yourself or what they would see from that angle...but instead it's the whiteness of nothing...or something like that...

Postcards...

These are getting closer to being finished - I just have to do the breaking through the paper bit of it...but the characters themselves are cleaned up and colored. I thought it'd be smarter to do the entire character (rather than just the bit that showed through) in case I wanted to move them around any...

My friends will catch me

This was an alternate to the other postcard that I'm currently working on for the SCBWI Illustrator's Day 2009 in November (in Los Angeles). I liked the idea of this rough because there was much more going on than the breaking through the paper idea of the other postcard idea.

This, clearly, isn't sized for a postcard like the other one is, I only drew the characters as my roughs...which meant that after I was done cleaning them up I realized that I needed to put them into some sort of environment - the idea of a path in a park is a theme running through my square animal characters...so I continued with that...

The back of the pig character is still (obviously) a very unfinished rough...

SCBWI contest: postcards

There's this SCBWI event in November called Illustrator's Day 2009. They're doing a postcard contest, so I thought I'd see about throwing something out there with my characters.

My idea consisted of having my two square animal characters waving through the torn paper on the front, and then when you turn the postcard over, it's the back of the characters. I'm still working with it, and am currently thinking about redrawing the skunk character...


The due date is coming up pretty quickly (it was originally due on the 2nd of October and has been pushed back to the 7th)...so I think I'm going to finish up this postcard and then, given time, I'll see about reworking the skunk character...

Microstock report for September 2009

Once again the highest earner in September was Shutterstock. It was down a little from the month previous, but I guess the new images didn't generate as much interest as we would have liked...I have a bunch of Halloween illustrations that I'm hoping generate interest, but not so far. But even without a popular image, the site still continues to impress with constant and steady downloads.

Istockphoto - is still impressing me. It's our BME (an abbv they always use meaning Best Month Ever) on this site...and we're also up to 55 images (they are very selective with what they approve as apposed to Shutterstock which will accept most anything...which is why the Shutterstock is almost at 500 and the istockphoto portfolio is only 55.) What's nice about Istockphoto is that while you'll get less downloads per month, each one is worth more...I expect Istockphoto to just continue to grow and I'm excited to see the numbers as the days go by...

Third up is (always) Dreamstime. It was such a disappointing month in August - so it's nice to see it rebound a bit with $34.52. The biggest problem is that Dreamstime was freezing my internet explorer whenever I tried to upload an image - I finally switched to Firefox and was able to get it to work.

Fourth was a surging
Bigstockphoto . We had tons of sales early (3 dollars here, 50 cents there) and then suddenly it dried up...still ended with $18.50 for the month, but the way it started made it look much more exciting than where it ended.

A big surprise this month was 123RF.com. I had written this site off as well as Crestock because we weren't getting any downloads off of them at all. But suddenly this site shoots into 5th place with $13.51! I was quite surprised, but it got me to upload a lot more illustrations to their site. It would be nice if it continued...and if it continued to go up...

Fotolia has been quite a disappointment after a stellar start back in March. We did better this last month ($12.45) than the one previous ($4.55 in August)...but downloads are way down and few and far between. We're still dedicated to them because we're at 99 downloads currently (and when we reach 100, that's when a small pay increase kicks in).

Anyway - this month overall was better than the previous one. We made a total of $318.48 between all the stock sites we are on (9 total)...and I just uploaded some realistic baseball caps to each one...so hopefully that one takes off and I can report BMEs in every one...see ya next month!

IF: Pattern part 2

I mentioned it in my last post - but this is my most successful piece on Shutterstock (a site where one can upload their illustrations and/or photographs and make money if anyone downloads them...):

And what one must do when they upload their work as stock imagery is have a variety of options (such as variation on shape and color and composition)

What follows are the original images I created with these dots that eventually led to the image above.  If I never continued to experiment on this theme, I would have never run across my most successful image ever:

               

I had 6 versions (some were really bad and weren't uploaded) before #7 (which is the good one up above).  Spurred on by the success of all of these files, I continued with these ones (the first one, is my second most successful dot pattern illustration):

          

The third image (just above) with the 3D looking dots was accomplished using the 3d effect in Adobe Illustrator and then applying a warp effect.

And finally I decided that I had jumped the shark when I finished with this image:

  

It's just really really really lame.  But I thought i was creating a really cool pattern with these tube dots.  Turns out that wasn't the case...and it hasn't had one download.  But I don't blame people, it's a horrible looking piece.

I did revisit the theme a couple of times more, with color changes (because I can't ever stop)...

     

So when I say I'm done with this theme, I really only mean that it's on hold until I can think of another way to apply the dot pattern in an interesting way.