IF: Modify - Escalating the juggling - the story unfolds...

These are a couple of pieces I did for my art gallery show at Nickelodeon Animation (which, sadly, is ending it's run next week). I modified a few key elements in the first illustration to make it more interesting.

So I've done this piece - which I'm posted already - but in an attempt to push the boredom on the panda's face, I changed his eyes to have him look away...

"how to lose your cush juggling job"

I really thought that worked.

In doing this piece - I had conceived it in two parts (originally it was three, but I don't have the time to do another one as the gallery show is in two weeks!)...the above illustration was part one...the jester isn't really hacking it...

My second piece was originally going to include chainsaws, but seeing as how this was going in a gallery where children would see it (at Nickelodeon), I decided to do a tiny bit of self editing...I know the gallery doesn't let you put up paintings with guns in them...and while I don't really know their rule on chainsaws, I figured it was smarter to take it out and go with a bowling pin. Plus, it was pointed out to me, that the chainsaw might take away from the thrill of seeing the jester juggling a cat.

"how to keep your cush juggling job"

Now that's some fine juggling!

IF: Craving - excitement...

I've conceived this piece in two parts - this is the first picture where the 'king' is bored with his jester. (and in the second picture, which I have yet to draw) The king, craving excitement, has his jester up the ante by juggling something more fantastical (I'm thinking chainsaws...but we'll see)...

So anyway - this is the first picture, and I'm going to work on the second picture, hopefully finishing it by this weekend...




EDIT:


I had a couple of (people I respect give) some constructive feedback about this piece - so I redid several bits - I changed the ball colors that the skunk is juggling (as well as moving the top ball down a little bit, so it was overlapping some of the rock background and not framed by one of the rocks), I also changed a bit about the carpet - moved it away from the wall, made the circles on the right hand side smaller, and made the pattern blend in more...I like the changes, and I think it's a stronger piece!

IF: Craving - pancakes!

I did this piece for Dreamstime.  They do a contest every month based on a concept - this month it's cooking. So that contest fit well into hand with Illustration Friday and their concept of craving - because who doesn't crave pancakes (more on this at the end of this post)....



When I have the chance, I'm going to redo this piece for other stock agencies - because of the nature of the contest at Dreamstime, everything you submit has to be exclusive with them - so I'll have to change it to something like the kid flipping burgers outside or something. But the character, the perspective, and the colors are already in place, so it should be easy enough to change around for other stock illustration sites.

Who doesn't crave pancakes? I used to say me. The problem was that we had them every day for years. Were they cheaper to make? Was it because they were easier to make than a normal breakfast (normal for my family was eggs and rice - mashed up, of course - and a side of bacon or sausage)? All I remember is that we'd have this doughy brown circle on our plate every morning...and no amount of syrup was going to get that entire eaten...a nice side effect is that because my stomach was eating itself (as there was nothing else in there), the lack of carbs in my diet kept me thin.

Sadly - the years of pancakes gave way to the years of oatmeal...but that's a whole other blog. The good news is that IHOP played a significant role in bringing pancakes back into my life...having a variety of pancake types to choose from definitely helped, as did those long years where I swore off pancakes completely...

These days - if you're craving a particularly terrific pancake, and you're in Los Angeles - you should check out Cafe du Village - it's a french cafe in the Larchmont area and they have the best brie cheese sandwich - but also some pretty great blueberry pancakes. I can't get enough of them...

Finished Parade

I worked on this piece nonstop for two weeks...I thought it would go pretty quickly, but there was just so much to do. I created this (as well as many other pieces) for a gallery show I did at Nickelodeon Animation back in July.

It's good and bad that the show has come and gone...bad because I was working at every possible minute to finish just one more piece (I ended up having 4 extra illustrations in my show because of this) and I was getting burned out...but it was good because a lot of art was able to come out of it...and it was all stuff I probably wouldn't have thought about if I didn't have to impress all these animation folk.

IF: Adapt - making the parade

This is my 'big' piece for the Nickelodeon art show I'm doing at the studio in July...I'm hoping to have several more whipped out before my deadline (end of June)...but we'll see...I have to finish this one first (which should be by Thursday or so)...This is still a work in progress, so maybe I shouldn't have posted this drawing...but I really like how it's coming together.

As you can see (if you look closer) I have indicator lines where the shadow will eventually go...so those lines (which I did in adobe illustrator back when this was just a simple line drawing) will eventually be deleted and shadow will take their place...

It's been quite a struggle...as I've gone way beyond my comfort level and did a piece with so much detail and way too many characters...and I have to adapt my style to encompass all of this, which is difficult, but, if nothing else, this art show was a good way to challenge myself. but I have less than a month now, and lots of illustrations floating up in my head that want to come out...

Microstock earning for May, 2009

May is over...yet another month has gone by and brings us more money via passive microstock earnings.

The whole point of these sites (stock photography and illustration websites) is to upload files and sit back and watch them earn money. Passive is kind of misleading because the real fact of the matter is that the more files you upload, the better chance you have of earning for that particular month.

Take, for example, Shutterstock - We (my wife Tracey and I) uploaded 148 files in March (we had a lot more free time on our hands apparently...and it was our first full month doing microstock, so we were full of verve!) and even without the pay increase (that we reached in April) we still made $254.86. In April the total downloads were down by about a hundred, but because of the pay increase (from 25 cents per download to 33 cents) we made $284.81 and only uploaded 62 files. In May we've been extremely busy with freelance work, so we were only able to muster 13 file uploads. And because of that our downloads were down and our total earning was at a 3 month low at $223.50.

But considering we spent a combined 2 or 3 hours creating those files in Illustrator, we still came out pretty well...

A (tiny) bright spot for the month of May was Istockphoto. We've been trying since February to get accepted (they had all sorts of wacky rules and regulations that, for one reason or other, got us rejected 3 times...heh)...and finally we were accepted into the fold in April...only to have the majority of our files (even the most popular of our shutterstock files) rejected. It was disheartening, but a small batch made it through each week and we ended up having a small portfolio of 31. And for the port to be that small and still come away with the second highest earnings for all of the stock companies we're a part of is pretty terrific. And when we finally have more time we'll have time to upload more and build on this small, but impressive portfolio...so good things will happen soon enough.

Dreamstime was the next surprise of the month. They came on strong from the previous month (from 28 to 43 dollars)...and while there were lulls in downloads, there were a bunch of expensive downloads...which is always nice.

In any case - we still made almost $350 for the month - without even really trying. And that's the beauty of Microstock. I almost regret the hundreds of files we made back in March (because we were throwing things up online...not really taking the time to craft quality illustrations)...so when I do end up having more time (probably in July) I think that'll be a major focus...and we'll see if bigger sales follow...

I'd suggest that anyone should take the time to sign up to one or more of these agencies - with Shutterstock being the easiest to get in to as well as the easiest to earn money at. Second would probably be Istockphoto - but they're a bit harder to get approved, and they are quite strict with what they approve...

IF: Adapting

This is a portion of the illustration I'm currently painting...I've procrastinated for the past week on it...but I'm finally at it - It's about half way done now...I had wanted to finish this weekend, but it looks like it'll end up going into next week a little bit.

What's been the biggest struggle is adapting these real life animals into these square little critters. I have a group that I've been drawing for a while (the panda, pigs, and skunk) - so I have those under control - but it's the other animals that I'm working through...



I've done several revisions to this piece when it was just a line drawing - a piece of that was assigning an animal to each character that I had drawn...but through that I still had to go back into the illustrator file and revise the fox character several times before it looked enough like a fox (for my taste)...like adding the darker hands, feet and ears...which I previously hadn't thought about...

Anyway - as you can see, there are a lot of characters still to color (and this is only a portion of the piece....so I'll be here a while...

But it's coming along - and I'm enjoying the process..even though it is a little slow....

IF: Adapt - The sun...

It's been a pretty quiet month on shutterstock for Tracey and I. There just hasn't been any time to put anything new up - and it's reflected in our sales...

What one should be doing, if they want to have any hope of being successful at stock illustration/photography, is adapting to what the market wants...and/or adapting to what the season dictates...like it's summer - so the sun or 4th of july or picnics or things of that nature might do well...

Today I was able to throw this up - but just like all the things we've done this month for stock illustration, it's been very cheap and very easy...(and cheap and easy doesn't usually sell well)...but I wanted to put something up...to try and help the next month start on higher footing...

This was the rough I doodled as I was on the phone this morning:



And - because it's for stock illustration - you have to do it all in Illustrator (vector) to have a chance at it selling. I think it could have turned out cuter...or whatever - I'm thinking of redoing it where the sun is lying out on the beach...but we'll see if I have any time...

I also would have liked to have put some gradient shading behind the sun - but I couldn't get the colors right in Illustrator...so I had to go without it...




This weekend I'm going to be working on coloring the Parade drawing I did a couple of weeks ago...hopefully I'll be able to finish it by Sunday night...

IF: cracked - gallery showing...

This is the first piece that I have done specifically for the gallery show I have coming up in July. I wondered whether or not to post any images on my blog - but most people aren't coming to the show anyway - It's going to be in the main hallway at Nickelodeon (the animation building)...but I feel like that's more pressure as other professionals will be walking past these images all July long.

Anyway - I cracked and decided to post the finished images. I originally did this as an illustrator drawing, but I really didn't like how little texture it ended up with...so I always knew I would have to repaint it...and in photoshop.

IF: cracked - freelance project...

So I was commissioned to do this piece this week. Take an electric scooter and crack it open to see the inner workings. Officially it was to render a line drawing of an electric scooter with half x-ray view.



We ended up adding color to add interest and to have it read a bit better. By we, I mean the client asked and I obliged. We ended up doing a second version as well showing the direction of power/electricity as it went through the scooter to how it all works...



It was a fun project to work on - and both will be shown as posters in a museum back east (along with the actual scooter). And, hopefully, these scooters will be on sale to the public soon enough...

Illustration Friday: Parade - cleaned up...

I posted a rough of this drawing earlier this week...it's taken me quite some time to get this done. I still need to print it out and do another round of revisions...but once that's done, it's just a quick little clean-up (again) and it's finally on to color! I hope to have it done by this weekend and (if I can manage my time correctly) hopefully I can start on another piece...maybe even finish another piece? Who can say...



I might have mentioned this before (I only say this because I HAVE mentioned this before...and probably in each of my posts since I found out for sure), but I have the gallery at Nickelodeon for the month of July...so I have to bust out some really nice pieces...hopefully this turns out well and will end up on the wall...

Illustration Friday: Parade

I have a small gallery show coming up in July...so I've been trying to push myself to create some killer pieces for this show.

This is the first one - and I have Illustration Friday to thank for it...when I think of a parade, it always has to have a band playing. Nobody really likes the band parts, but they're quite the parade staple. My first new illustration for my gallery will be this one...

I started with several thumbnails


and scanned it into Adobe Illustrator. From there I cleaned up the rough lines and added a little bit of perspective lines to help out. Then I lightened the lines and printed it out so I could do some revisions and add a bunch of detail.



Anyhow - this is what I have so far, I'm about to clean this up in Illustrator - and I'll print it out and revise it - and then it'll be ready for color. Hopefully I'll be able to find some time to finish it this week...

Microstock earning for April

When I originally started this report, I was following the template set by a couple of other microstock earners - and I reported my percentage, but not my actual numbers...but throughout this past month i found a bunch of other people who were very candid with how much they made, and I decided that it would be more fun to do it that way.

April was a good month on several sites, none better than Shutterstock. In April we saw our overall total rise above $500 lifetime total which is the first milestone for a raise. Our individual downloads rose from 25 cents each to 33 cents. And an on demand download went from $1.88 to 2.48. We've been on the site since February - so it took us about 2 and a half months to achieve that goal. In all we made $284.81 on Shutterstock.

What was suprising was that our second highest microstock site was Stockxpert. They came on with a bang with this one -

selling three times on April 1st for a total of $14 dollars. Overall on stockxpert we made $36.80 - it wasn't a giant total, but it was consistant...there were downloads throughout the month, not every day, but most days...

In third place was Dreamstime. I expected better things out of them after March - but April started with a whimper...and continued...and it was hard to check our numbers on this site as they stayed the same for too many days in a row. In all we reached $28.10 - but it was on the back of a three files that sold for 5 dollars at a time. One bright spot is that one of our files was downloaded a total of 5 times since it's been up at Dreamstime (which means it's more expensive for anyone else wanting to download it...I'm not sure if that hurts it's chances of getting downloaded again).

The rest of the sites were also very disapointing - with the exception of vectorstock. But I had such low expectations for that one that reaching 8 dollars was quite a surprise.

Istockphoto was the hardest nut to crack. It took me over two months to finally get approved (even trying my most popular files on shutterstock got me denied). And once I did get in, three quarters of my files were rejected for one reason or other.

This file

Which has been downloaded over 200 times on shutterstock was turned down...as were many others...We have over 400 images in our shutterstock portfolio now...and only 23 in Istockphoto. I had heard so many good things about istockphoto...and so far they've just been the most difficult and (because of the hype) the most disappointing. I expect as we get further into microstock and figuring out what's appropriate to upload it'll get better. But for now I'm just disallusioned with them.

Anyway - overall it was a good month. I uploaded less images in April than I did in March because of real freelance and work...and while that resulted in less downloads overall for Shutterstock, we netted more money (because of the raise, and more ODs this month).

I expect to make a lot less the next few months as both Tracey and I will be busy with work and freelance and my gallery show at Nickelodeon (coming in July) - but what's nice about microstock is that the files that are currently up will continue to sell (definitely less, than if we were consistantly uploading new stuff, but still, it's nice to make money without actually having to do any more with it).

IF: Theater

So apparently I have a gallery show coming up at Nickelodeon in July.  It's funny because I had petitioned about 2 years ago and was given this date...and since the time dragged on and on and on, I almost completely forgot.  Then, on Saturday morning, I woke up with just the hint of my dream left...in it, I was being told that my gallery show wasn't good enough so they would need to bring in another artist to fill out and save the show.  And that reminded me that I just might possibly have a gallery show in July.  So I have 2 months to make this happen.  I have about 30 images I would be confident with putting up, but I want more...a hell of a lot more...

This is a rough for the Illustration Friday theme Theater.  Now that I have a gallery show to work towards, these sorts of roughs will actually get finished up.  I'm hoping to have it done by the end of the week...

And in a bit of terrible news...my visitor counter has disappeared! I went to the website that hosted it and it too had vanished (or would not come up...). So I had to start over...it's all very sad.

planting a tree

It's weird not posting something about either Shutterstock or Illustration Friday - But this won't be going up for stock imaging sales, and Illustration Friday has moved on to "theater" as a topic...I would imagine that this image would be hard pressed to fit into that narrow category.

I was about three quarters of the way through this drawing (in adobe Illustrator) when I suddenly wondered why I hadn't done it in Photoshop...It was fun doing a complete illustrator piece, but it was also limiting (for texturing purposes)...

So I think I'll recolor it in photoshop...eventually...

IF: Impossibility

This is a picture (not quite done, but it needed to be posted) that is full of impossibility.

It turns out it's impossible to actually dig your way to china. For a little panda wanting to go home, he needed another option.

Another thing is that they're impossibly cute. Even in this unfinished piece, they're so cute it hurts.

I was also going to say it was impossible for a panda to be holding a shovel and trying to dig to china, but it's probably more highly improbable...

Oh - and finally - it's impossible for me to draw these characters holding something over their heads and actually have their hands reach...why did I create them with such stubby arms?

IF: Fleeting - Summer Day

A summer day's bright sunshine is fleeting.



This is my first version. I want to add a farm in the background (I have to add a lower ground plane...). We'll see if I can get to it...I've already uploaded this one to Shutterstock...and I'm just waiting to see what happens when it gets approved (like, will anyone like it enough to download...?)

IF: Fleeting...

When I saw the word this week was Fleeting - my first take on it was a fleet of ships or trucks or something of that sort. What I had drawn recently was a fleet (a rather small fleet) of tie fighters (those are from Star Wars).

But that's lame.

Today is Easter - and I fully expected to sleep in. But the cat likes to wake us up around 6:30 am to remind us to feed him. And when I fed and watered the cat, I went back to bed only to find that I couldn't sleep. Cats suck. They don't celebrate Easter.

But since I was up I decided to do some illustrations for Shutterstock.



If you didn't notice - these are variations of the same drawing. I drew this map way back when I started Shutterstock, but those drawings didn't sell too well. But I always wanted to redraw it (with better color) and see if I couldn't get these to sell.

The problem with Shutterstock, is that success (in the form of downloads) is fleeting. Some images start with tens of downloads the first day, but as each day passes it makes less and less until it completely disappears. But by continuing to upload new image one can maintain relevance and continue success. It's a neverending cycle (unless you don't wanna do it, then it ends pretty quickly).

IF: talisman

This might have been more suited for the IF last week - Subtract...because what else do you do with beer, but subtract it from the glass?



I also did a bit of subtracting (took away the glass) to make an abstract beer background:


I wasn't going to post this into Illustration Friday - because what I'm annoyed with most on that site are people who post in without having it relate to the topic. And then I came up with Beer is the Talisman of the masses.

And boom. It works. And to all those who might try and disagree, too bad! It's perfect!

I did these images last night for Shutterstock...I'm excited to see if they sell at all.

Speaking of Talisman...I don't know if anyone else played that game when they were growing up?


I was introduced to it when I was about 11. I loved the game so much - it was just like Dungeons and Dragons...only less nerdy and Talisman WAS a board game (and not a make it up as you go along nerdfest).



I got all the expansions to Talisman (original expansion, The Adventure, The dungeon, the horrible Timescape, and Talisman City)...except for the Dragon expansion set which came out in 1993. I don't know why I didn't get it, I just know that when I finally decided to check it out, it was no longer available for purchase.

What happened is they revised the whole game and changed the art (for the worst, in my opinion)...all the characters went from scruffy looking cool art to bubbly cartoons. I never bothered to get the new edition.

Just this last year, however, they revamped the game one more time. The art wasn't as bad as the last edition - it still had a cruddy children's cartoon look, but it wasn't as bright and gaudy and distasteful. I still didn't buy this version, but my brother in law did. What's nice is that the new version went back to the rules of the good edition of the game.

So that's what I think - when I think of talisman. Besides beer, that is...

Microstock earnings for March

Things took a turn for the better in microstock earnings. Two big things - Shutterstock pays out once again (the only site to do so) and I actually started selling consistantly (if slowly) on some of the other sites. But I tripled February's numbers thanks to all the sites I'm signed up with...

Sadly - it wasn't until the last week of March that I finally got accepted into Istockphoto - and in that week's time I still have yet to have a single download.

Shutterstock - 76% of my total microstock earnings. They're the most fun because they produce the most downloads. I'm getting at least 20 downloads a day on Shutterstock. So, if nothing else, it's a lot of fun to visit every couple of hours and see what's been downloaded. Each download nets you 25 cents (I'm just about a hundred dollars away from $500 lifetime on Shutterstock which will raise each download to be worth 33 cents). They also have On Demand Downloads which net you $1.88 per. I've been averaging about 1 of those a week (it really depends on your images as to whether or not you'll get those). The final week of March I got 5 of them...so it was a nice way to end the month. And finally Shutterstock also has Extended License downloads which I haven't gotten yet. Usually those come easier to photographers, but I'm still hoping for some eventually (they net you 25 dollars). Anyhow - that's Shutterstock....a terrific site to be affiliated with.

My latest images for sale at
Shutterstock:

My most popular images for sale at
Shutterstock:

Fotolia - 7% of my earnings for March. I got nothing from them in February (my first month)...well, 60 cents...but this month the downloads were coming! And steadily. I'd go a couple of days without one, but then someone would download 2 and then another couple of days and then I'd get 4...





Big Stock Photo - 6% of my earnings for March. I was surprised by this one. It was basically all on the strength of this image:

That image sold as a vector and as a jpg several times. What's different about Big Stock photo is that they don't have subscription downloads (like Shutterstock...the 25 cent downloads), so you get fewer downloads, but each one is for more money.

Dreamstime - 5% of my earnings for March. I was very disapointed with Dreamstime. I had a few downloads at the beginning of the month and then nothing for almost two weeks. The only reason I ended up making as much as I did is that this file sold twice within two days for 5 dollars each (which is the most I've made from any one image at any time from any site):

And the rest - 123 Royalty Free, Crestock, Vectorstock, Stockxpert. Total they equalled 3% of my total earnings. Stockxpert is the hardest on vectors (there are so many little variables for why something gets rejected)...what's nice about them is that the reuploading something is an easy process...but they were incredibly frustrating...and all said and done Stockxpert netted me $2.40 for March. Is is worth uploading images to? The two brand new places I signed up with - Crestock and Vectorstock - were kind of slow too - Crestock was the easiest to upload files to (I made 5 dollars from 7 downloads) and Vectorstock was the hardest (you have to upload each and every file individually...plus they want a jpg preview version that's a very specific size...which is annoying because all the other sites have just a minimum size...that's means you have to resize each jpg for vectorstock...and I only had 7 downloads for 1.75. That's right, they're also a 25 cent downloads, only, like Crestock, they're new and don't have much traffic...so it makes it hard to want to waste the time uploading to their site.

Anyhow - that's my microstock earning report for March. It was a fun month (but mostly only because of Shutterstock). My goal right now is to get an image into their top 50. Our highest downloaded image was this (which was surprising):

It was uploaded on the 16th of March and already has 95 downloads! It was so simple too...

So...we'll see how April goes - I'm on 9 microstock sites currently...8 hours old and already have $7 on Shutterstock!