Lil' Girl Praying

This is a variation on the previous illustration - I wanted to do another kid kneeling and praying.  So, to get the effect of it being a completely different illustration I changed the boy into a girl and the shades of blue into pinks and purples.

Links to religion

I've been doing a series of 'spiritual/religious' illustrations for Dreamstime.  They have a month long contest that just ended...and I wasn't able to finish this one in time.  So instead of just posting it to Dreamstime (a contest entry means you have to have that image be exclusive with them), I'm going to upload it to all the stock sites I'm on.

This illustration has been in the works for the last two weeks.  I originally did a drawing of a little girl praying and got a lot of feedback about how kids are usually shown kneeling in front of their bed before bedtime.  So this illustration reflects that feedback.  I scanned in a pen drawing and cleaned it up and colored it in Adobe Illustrator.  I've only been able to upload it to one site so far (Shutterstock) because they take Illustrator 10 files and all the other sites only accept Illustrator 8.

I'm using Adobe Illustrator CS3, but because of the nature and slow evolution of the stock image market, they only accept illustrator 8 files - so I always have to back save it.  Shutterstock has taken a small step forward and (only in the last month or so) started accepting Illustrator 10 files.  That means that for all the sites you cannot use the new filters or effects (such as transparencies) or when it's reopened the file is corrupt or, at least, ruined.

Take, for example, the image above.  It's fine if saved as an Illustrator 10 file.  But if you save it as an Illustrator 8 file - all the blends I did to get the highlights on the kid turn from 2 circles (to get the effect) to 25 or so circles.  It ends up looking like a sloppy color job and raises the file's size.  And then the transparency to get the light effect rasterizes (which is death for vector files) as does the lens flares that went into making the light in the sky.

So - I spent the last two hours last night changing all the blend effects on the boy to gradients and changing the transparencies to a series of different shapes to fake the effect.  And I'm stuck on the light...I might have to completely redo that part.  But we'll see.  Stupid Illustrator 8.

Bedroom Background

Recently on Shutterstock we've been getting a lot of downloads on a bed line drawing I did for my Adelia children's book.  When we first signed up to these stock illustration sites I went through my entire library of illustrator (vector) drawings and pulled out all the characters (such as Adelia) that I wanted to protect (and not sell) and ended up with a bunch of background element illustrations.

So I thought I'd dust off this old illustration and redo it (my wife helped with the color) as a complete image.

Bedroom Background

media: Adobe Illustrator

Holding up the World and Linking Hands

For this image I had to dip into my archive of stock images - the likes of which I've submitted to Shutterstock, Istockphoto, and Dreamstime.  Actually - Istockphoto turned it down because I used a map and they need copyright information on it, even though its my own drawing based on a map...So nuts to them.

But anyway - I did a series of earths last year - as circle globes, and as hearts...and then I did some as green worlds (capitalizing on the whole green fad...which I expect will fade soon enough...fade as the globe warms and we all dry out).  And about a month ago I drew a series of kids - a variety of boys and girls - just each individual little kid standing - and redrew them holding hands.  And voila...instantly a new image (I also took some grass that I had done as a set of gardening icons).

Illuminated Spirituality

This is another image I've uploaded to Dreamstime for their monthly contest.  I wanted to create an illustration (in adobe illustrator) that fit the topic (religion and spirituality) that was also not specific so it's appeal could be more universal.  Of course those familiar with the three wisemen on their way to pay homage to the birth of Jesus are going to draw those parallels.  But it could also be a small group of pilgrims traveling towards a religious place...guided by a light.

My wife originally did a space illustration - and I wanted to use that as my sky (as I really liked the colors she put into the radial gradient that makes the light).  So I wanted to post this image (which we uploaded to all the stock illustration sites) to give her credit for her color choices (and illustrative skills).

Chocolate Dipped Goodness

This is an illustration for Shutterstock:

This was a collaborative effort by my wife and I.  She did all the realistic strawberry stuff and the choco drip down the wall, and I used a gradient mesh to make the chocolate on the strawberry.  It was done completely in Adobe Illustrator - using a lot of blends.

Microstock Report for March 2010

Microstock is still alive and well.  Maybe I shouldn't be the person to toot this horn too loudly - because while I'm involved enough that it's not just recreational, I'm not that far into it that it accounts for any 'real' money...but it's pretty terrific month after month.

And quickly - Microstock agencies are websites where you upload your images (photographs or illustrations).   Then people pay per download to use one of your images.  It can vary from site to site and even from download to download.  We've had sales of .25 cents and up to $28.

Shutterstock, once again, leads the way!  We bumped up our portfolio with almost 50 images this month - and it paid off with our first $200 month since last April!  This ended up being our third highest month ever, which is pretty great considering just last November we were struggling to make $100.  This month was also the third EL sale (which is one of those $28 ones).  They are few and far between, but they're always nice to receive.

Second on the list - and coming in with it's best month ever was Istockphoto.  This is the second time we've passed $100 (this is our newest site as it took the longest to get approved...we've only been up and running since May, whereas we've been members of every other site since the end of February of 2009).  And while it's still the hardest site to get an illustration approved from (this month two different images were denied because they thought it was too hard to see the illustration in the preview window.  I completely disagreed and challenged the rejection...so that's still pending.  What sucks is that it's a page of fish and marine life and it won't sell as well if I have to break the fish into smaller sections and into pages of fewer fish.  I actually tried that and got one approved and the other was rejected for being too simple).  Istockphoto, while hard to upload, is still completely worth it.  And the more images we have on that site should net us more money.

 This is the illustration that was too hard to make out in the preview window...

Third place, as per usual, is Dreamstime.  I originally hated this site because of their uploading method.  You have to upload a high quality jpg and add an illustrator file at the end.  And then it takes about 3-6 days for the jpg to get approved and another couple of weeks for the illustrator file.  And while it's a process, they make up for it with consistent sales.  This was the most sales we've had for a month...but because a lot of them were subscription sales (which are cheaper) we ended up not making as much as some other months.   What makes this site unique and which commands a lot of my time is that they hold a monthly contest (or about every month and a half) where the prizes range from 100-300 dollars.  This month we've slowed on uploading images to all the sites so I could concentrate on this contest.  So far we have three images in, and we'll see how they do (results are tallied in a couple of weeks).  The contests, even though I haven't won, have paid off as all images approved for the contest go into my portfolio at a higher price point (and, about 4 images from contests in the past, have sold multiple times so far).

The rest is a jumble of good and bad.  I've had a best moth ever at Vectorstock, and it replaced Fotolia for 4th highest total.  Everything else rounded out around the $10 range for the month.  They've all been sort of disappointing as it means that most don't sell an image for days at a time.  Vectorstock is different though because they are only a subscription based microstock agency and each one sells for .25....so making 10 dollars is a lot of quarters per month!

Disappointing me most of all (besides the closure of Stockxpert last month) is Fotolia.  It used to work quite well, but now, even with more and more uploads, the sales have been few and far between.  And it's gone from a solid 4th place to 8th (and it'd be lower if I was on any more stock sites)...

Overall it was a great month.  It was my best month so far overall - with a total of $417.  Last April was a great month, and hopefully that proves to be true once again this next month!

IF: Rescue

I did this illustration for the Dreamstime contest about spirituality.  I took my time with this one and completely finished it in Adobe Illustrator.  For stock illustration sites (like Dreamstime) you have to save them as Illustrator 8 files, so a lot of the newer advances in filters and things aren't available (like if you tried to use a transparency it'll become a bitmap which is horrible for a vector image).

At least version 8 of illustrator lets you use blends because thats what I used predominantly to get the soft light effect on the girl.

Now, before I did this one, I already finished 4 other illustrations for this month's Dreamstime contest.  The first two were denied as being too generic and simple (I disagreed, but it's not up to me).  Those two were silhouette illustrations of the three wise men following a star:

Okay - now it is simple, but the sky was a lot more complex, as was the star...and I thought the overall effect was quite nice (and good color)...I tried challenging the ruling and was told that I needed to make it more complex...

It's annoying when it's my own illustrations that they turn down (the last contest had about 80 images and over 500 turned down...), but at least it means that the contest will usually consist of the best images the Dreamstime community is producing.

Anyhow I spent almost a week on the little girl praying image to help rescue my chances of winning one of these contests.  It takes about a week to get approved (it's agonizing watching the image countdown from 160 hours...and it's approximate, so one day it could say 140 hours left and the next it'll be 145).

new piece - praying....

This is something I"m working on - I have most of the illustrator line down, I just have to rework the hands and feet.

This sketch was done on my wacom in photoshop.

Expired and gone to heaven

I'm working up this illustration for Dreamstime.  It's a stock artwork/photography agency that holds a monthly contest.  This month is spirituality and other nonsense.  So I figured I'd see if I couldn't figure something out for it.  You have to be a member of Dreamstime and have a stock portfolio of at least 50 approved images to compete, but other than that, it's free for all.

This is the first attempt:

This is the finished version below:

From a project I was working on

These are a few new characters I've been developing.  I'm hoping to do something with them, but we'll see.  I have a couple of rough outlines for children's book stories, so maybe I can head in that direction and dummy up a book and see if I can't get it published.

In several of the stories I've been working on for these characters, I always liked the idea of the little guy (a ground squirrel named Earl) being too small to actually help out, but making the effort with mixed results.  But because of his lack of ability, combined with his lack of bravery, he keeps the other two from getting too wild or out of control.

lots of kids

I've done a lot of illustrations of anthropomorphic characters...it's all an excuse to not draw kids.  I just had no interest in it at all...and there really hasn't been a reason if you can turn a character into a panda kid or a little square skunk.

But the more I draw, and the more projects I have, I've realized that I should probably practice it up a bit.  It's time to brave that frontier.  Plus, it makes a children's book portfolio a bit more rounded if there aren't just animal characters.

This was my first attempt at kids:

It was okay - very simple stuff...I struggled with hairstyles...but managed more or less.

Then I had an idea of doing a more stylized cartoon version of a kid:

I thought these would be more of a paper doll type of character.  I just never got around to designing all the clothes that they would eventually wear...so I left them like this and forgot about it.

And most recently I finished a group of new kids

This time I actually looked up some hairstyles and I think the results are definitely noticeable.  I'm still working on it.  But I like the direction it's going...especially from where it started.  I actually have about 20 heads and hairstyles (between all the boys and girls) but there' no need to put them all up here.

The next step is going to be drawing them in action - playing softball...jumping rope...and stuff like that.

These are just a couple of other kids I've drawn recently - but they were posted as their own blog, so I'm making the picture really small...

IF: Perspective - Lil' IG-88 takes a break

So this is the final piece.  It's called "Lil' IG-88 takes a break."  It's been about a year since I've done any of these - taking a character and drawing it from my perspective.

 

The nerdier ones of you will know who this is...and possibly what scene it's from...?  And you might even guess who's standing behind lil' IG-88.

As you can see in the original drawing (that I did in photoshop) I originally thought of having IG-88 on the upper step - where all the bounty hunters stand in the original thing...but then, as I thought about what to draw around him, I didn't want to recreate all the characters (because that's not what this drawing was about)...but give an indication as where they are...so I moved IG-88 lower and drew the legs of two of the more recognizable bounty hunters above him.

lil' IG-88 takes a rest - rough drawing

This is the original drawing for one of the illustrations I'm doing for a group show at Nickelodeon this week.  I've got a couple of other pieces, but I wanted to finish off with yet another image from my Heebeejeebees line of popular characters.  I've enjoyed trying to redraw these characters from my perspective.  From Star Wars I've already done Darth Vader and a Sand Person.

This is 'lil IG-88.  And if you don't know him, then shame on you.  He was in The Empire Strikes Back - there's a scene where Darth Vader is sending out a bunch of bounty hunters to find Han Solo...there was Boba Fett, a lizard guy (Bossk), and a guy with toilet paper wrapped around his head.  And standing out amongst them all was IG-88.

I'm half way done painting it (in photoshop) and will be posting that when it happens...

Microstock report for February 2010

 

 This month rebounded from a bit of a slow month.  I guess in any industry you have to be prepared for a bit of a letdown in the month of January.  But in February we uploaded a lot of images and enjoyed the results.

Shutterstock, once again, led the pack.  It's the easiest site to upload images to, and is the only one where we've had at least one download every day.  Istockphoto is second on the list, and while we reached our first milestone (250 downloads) it doesn't do anything to increase our sales or sale percentage.  It's just nice to see that the images are selling on that site.  Istockphoto always comes in second based on a regular amount of downloads (just not as regular as Shutterstock) and the fact that each download earns us about $2.50.

Dreamstime came in third - and it's really settled into that spot.  I had higher hopes for it this last summer when it frequently competed with Istockphoto for second...but at least it's averaging around $40 a month.  In February I tried hard to upload a bunch of illustrations for their monthly contest (still waiting for the results, as the contest ended on the 22nd).  So far three out of the 5 contest images have sold once (and I expect more as the months go on).  The contest is for members of Dreamstime that have at least 50 images online - and you can win up to $300 for first place.  But even better than that (because most of us won't win) is that each image accepted into the contest becomes a top level image.  That means when it sells, it sell for a lot more (for example - a regular file will make 35 cents for a subscription download, but a contest file will make $1.26).

Everything else was disappointing...at least compared to Shutterstock.  Some of the sites - like Vectorstock - are BME (best month ever) but it's still only $9.25.  It's slow, but they'll continue to get better as the portfolio sizes get bigger.

What's horrible this month is the closure of Stockxpert.  They were enveloped into the Istockphoto family and shut down completely.  So while that site only accounted for 15 dollars or so a month, it was still one of the better ones.  And now it's gone.

And finally - the worst site of the month has been Crestock.  I've had files since November uploaded that still haven't been approved.  And when sales do happen, they're the smallest of all the sites at 25 cents a pop.

IF: Propagated with marine life

 

I did this for a variety of stock illustration sites (Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Istockphoto).  I figured that if I drew a bunch of marine life - seals, fish, and others, I could use them in an illustration together, but then also separate them into a page of fish by themselves.

In this one i did a variety of colors, added a shark, and changed all their eye lines so they're looking out at the camera instead of all looking at the small cute fish in the center.

IF: Adrift and in danger

 

I did this illustration for the tail end of the Dreamstime contest.  The subject this month is 'first steps' and is about teaching.  I did a couple of illustrations where a mother teaches her child to walk...and yesterday I filled a sketchbook page with drawings of animals with their young.  I was going to use one of those to finish on the computer - but instead I woke up this morning and drew directly into Adobe Illustrator and cleaned it up and colored it.  I usually pop my cleanup into Photoshop to finish, but I for stock illustration sites like Dreamstime, vector images sell better...so it's always good to keep that option open.

Anyhow - the idea behind this came from thinking of a shark mother teaching her young how to hunt...and the easiest pray is the kind nearest the beach that just adrift with not a care in the world and no idea of the danger lurking under them.

IF: Adrift at sea in color

This is the finished illustration.

IF: Adrift at sea

I've been working on a top secret project for the last month or so - which has made it hard to draw anything else.  What's nice is that I finally finished the project this last week...so i finally have time to do something for Illustration Friday.

This is the original rough that I did in Photoshop and next to it is the Illustrator clean-up.

This is a new character that I'm working on.

IF: Focused and concentrating

I did this illustration for the stock image site Dreamstime.  I've said this in a previous post - but just in case you didn't read that one I have two things to say.  The first is that Dreamstime is for illustrators and photographers to upload images that are then downloaded for between 30 cents and $28 (depending on how the customer wants to license the image).  My second point is that every month Dreamstime has a contest with a different theme (not unlike Illustration Friday)...only the Dreamstime contests have cash money winners (or sometimes t-shirts or ipods).  The only stipulation for entering the contest is that you have to be a member and have a certain number of images in your Dreamstime portfolio.

Anyway - I originally did this image as the above kid walking by himself with no background...and I illustrated a boy version and a girl version.  That image was denied by Dreamstime because they said it was too simplistic.  So I chose the little girl and drew a whole background behind her.  It took almost a week for the little girl walking to get approved...but in the meantime I thought that I would finish up the picture of the little boy.  I moved the crib (from the little girl walking illustration) to the other side of the frame and added a mother behind the boy.  I wanted it to look like she had just let the kid go and this really was his first step.  I thought this illustration would also work for Illustration Friday - as you need to be focused to pull off your first steps without falling on your face.