Microstock report for September 2011

Another step backwards in the licensing world.  It's only microstock licensing, so no big worries.  We haven't put any new files into the sites this month (and really only two illustrations since spring)...so it's to be expected that there won't be big returns.  With that said we still are averaging above $200 a month without having to do any more work.

Shutterstock is the best microstock site out there.  From the very beginning (when we started in February of 2009) we uploaded 10 images and they immediately started making money...and it has stayed consistent ever since.  We've just crossed the $5,000 since our start with this site.

Istockphoto changed their rates for people who aren't exclusive with them and it's really hurt our numbers.  Istockphoto started to net over $100 a month for a time, but it now fails to bring in anything worth being proud of.

Dreamstime is a site that I was starting to think would pick way up.  They have a contest every month with a theme that you can upload to...and so any new illustrations usually went into that.  Not to win, but because each illustration would be worth more if downloaded.  Now the majority of our downloads on this site are from our contest illustrations, but they're still not selling too frequently and Dreamstime still finishes behind Istock...

Everything else stays in the $10-$25 range for the other sites...they're small, but you can usually count on them to bring in some loose change.

I signed up with two new stock sites a few months ago - Veer and Stockfresh.  Neither one is selling terribly well...we've had a total of two sales on Stockfresh and are averaging one download per month from Veer...so I lump them into the same category with Thinkstock (another site that doesn't produce much) and together they combined for $13.80 in sales.

So that wraps it up!  Go sign up with Shutterstock, it's worth the time!

Harry Potter rough drawing

I was one of the lucky few that was invited to experience Pottermore before they went live in October.

It's a pretty fun site - they're still working out a lot of kinks - the biggest being that the server isn't big enough to handle all the traffic just yet (so the site keeps kicking people out).  Anyway - it's quite nice to go through the books and further experience the world of Harry Potter.  The nicest thing is there are a lot of unpublished writings of J K Rowling about characters (and backstories), objects and scenes.

I was inspired to draw this (on a cintiq in photoshop):

 

And I guess it's not terribly accurate to the story...because Harry Potter was never in his cupboard under the stairs reading his Hogwarts acceptance letter...but I could clearly see it in my head and wanted to draw it...it seemed like a nice reveal - to have this kid who spent the first 10 years of his life in misery and to suddenly have that all flip to become the most popular kid in the entire (wizarding) world with the arrival of a single letter would be mind boggling.

Here's the Adobe Illustrator cleanup:

I was hoping to convey the mix of emotions that would hit Harry upon finishing the letter.

Squaremania: Pig color

I'm doing a series of illustration of each of the different Squaremania characters.  This is the little girl pig.  This is still considered a color rough because I did the whole thing in adobe illustrator.  I still need to finalize what the color combination will be and then color it (for real) in Photoshop.

Squaremania Roughs

I'm working out some of the characters - and in the process I want to spotlight them with their own illustration that spotlights their particular trait or something significant about them.  Here are two characters - a female panda and a little gal piggy.

microstock report for August 2011

 Shutterstock made a lot of cashola this last month.  It was a nice upswing from the last couple of horrible summer months.  They say that microstock sells poorly in the summer, so it's nice to pull out of that as we registered lows in Dreamstime and Istockphoto last month.

in August Shutterstock sold 2 ELs for us (that's a $28 license...as compared to the usual subscription downloads of 35 cents each or the ODs of $2.70).  With those two ELs Shutterstock powered our monthly earning back over $300.

Dreamstime and Istockphoto did the normal $40s in sales.  And everything else just puttered along as they've done since we joined their sites.

So far it's still a lot of fun to check the totals and see what's sold on a day to day basis.  It's nice that old images that were done a couple of years ago are still selling well...and that even though we're uploading few, if any, images each month we're still making money!  It could be more, but we haven't been investing the time.  You have to put in the work if you want to see results...

Squaremania: Rough drawing

This is a rough drawing I worked up in Adobe Photoshop.

Squaremania: Panda Family

We're working on a project and this illustration is one of the first to come out of it.  It's an alternate version of a previous Panda Family piece where you only saw the backs of the parents...Anyway - i wanted to change it around so you could see the entire family.

I did all the lines in Adobe Illustrator, and colored it in Photoshop.

IF: Influence...za!

Illustration Friday's topic this week is Influence.  I did a piece already for that, but had another idea - it wasn't really the same word, but it sounded a lot like it!  Influenza!

It's like the Italian equivalent...only it means something completely different.  The idea stuck with me, so i had to draw it:

I also wanted to draw a different kind of stylized kid - usually I have really round cutesy faces...but that didn't seem like it would work for this illustration. 

And this is the cleaned up and colored (in Adobe Illustrator) version.  I might revise it to push the sickness a little more.  When I get sick, this is all I do - sit in bed and moan and whimper...but a cartoon character should have an ice pack on his head and maybe a thermometer in his mouth...and maybe some sweat from the fever.  So we'll see...

Squaremania: Peeking

I did a similar drawing previously...but This one is the panda as a baby that I'm developing for another illustration - I cropped the picture at the lower part of his eyes so that way it looked like he was peeking over something.

It was drawn by hand and then cleaned up and colored in Adobe Illustrator.

I thought of this as part of creating mock up pieces for licensing artwork.  A company slogan or logo could go below the panda...and how could those cute little eyes do anything but influence someone to purchase whatever the panda endorsed!  That's the idea anyway...

Squaremania: Panda on a square hill

This is the latest illustration for Squaremania.  I wanted a triumphant panda standing on a square hill.  I working on getting the whole world feeling like it belongs together by trying to incorporate a square motif.

I thought it'd be nice to add a couple of the other characters, so I went back in and quickly drew them on their own hills.

Wario time!

I just did a picture of Mario, but I couldn't stop there because he's boring.  Ever since Nintendo debuted Wario, I've been a big fan!  Especially for all the mario kart and mario party games.  He's terrific and we've had a successful partnership.

"I'muh Gonna Win!"

Mario Kart is an obsession, if there ever was one.  You  win all gold trophies in the easy level, then the medium, then hard...and then it opens up mirror mode where everything is backwards and you have to win gold there as well.  THEN (!) there's an online option where you can play against real people and you play random levels in hopes to finish in the top three to win points.  It's fantastic.

Microstock Report for July 2011

This month took another hit...a lot of our regular companies, like Dreamstime and Istockphoto, just did not sell.  Shutterstock remained consistent.

Also - two smaller companies that we upload illustrations to (Vectorstock and 123RF) have both done nicely the last few months - with 123RF having achieved our best month in sales for the site.

We uploaded several files to each of the sites, so it was nice to see a little spike in activity after that, but we're still missing that big illustration that'll jump start the selling back to where it was just over a year ago...

What a square adoption

I was working on this illustration way back in February when my computer fell apart on me and I was left without Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.  I had to wait until the computer came back from the shop and I could see whether or not any of my files were salvageable.

The computer decided it wasn't on it's last leg, and I upgraded to CS5...and then I forgot about this illustration.  I'm currently updating my website (www.isaacmarzioli.com) and I discovered it again while going through my files.  I didn't have a background on it, and while i originally was going to have them in front of a supermarket, I went with a more whimsical background.  I almost drew eyes in on the hills, but everyone is doing that these days, so I refrained.

I did the illustration to commemorate our adopting two little kittens from Forgotten Animals of LA.  They're a fantastic organization that goes in and rescues strays and finds homes for needy animals.  And what's nice is that they have huge hearts and really care about what they do.  They even take in sick animals that the owners have given up on and get them treated.

Our two cats are the ones in front - they're twins. 

Mario plays the Wii

I've been holding off buying a Wii because I knew I'd get addicted.  Sadly that resolve to stay away came to an end when I was offered one for free.  So what was I supposed to do but take it?  That was a month ago, and I've been playing Mario Kart ever since.  Its an obsession that just got worse this morning when I finally hooked the Wii up to the internet.

At work someone e-mailed us that there's an art gallery called "Super Iam8-bit" with artwork based on the old 80's video games.  So all of that inspired me to paint this.  I drew a rough in photoshop, cleaned it up on a separate layer, and then colored it.

Of course, I look more like this playing video games:

IF: Gesture

Originally I wasn't going to do a drawing for this week because all I could think of when I thought of the Illustration Friday topic of 'Gesture' was this:

And I couldn't have my cute little characters flipping the birds - although when I first started out my brother and I had a comic strip and something similar to this was our first gag - a penguin standing on an iceberg flipping off a flock of birds as they flew by.  Juvenile, but it cracked us up.

Anyway - I originally drew the hand, but decided it was better to 'blur' it out...as we all know what she's doing.  And Adelia (the character above) is really too classy for such things.

I then thought about scanning in some old gesture drawings:

I still ended up quickly drawing this gesture drawing of a snooty waiter, but then it clicked and I started a revision of an old Adelia illustration:

I'm having to completely redraw Adelia as I want her to look younger and cuter (so I'm making the eyes bigger and lowering them on her face - and the squaremania characters went through a big change from where they started as her side kicks...But this, if finished, would make a better drawing for Illustration Friday - a kind gesture of cupcakes.

Dreamstime - I love living in the city

I think this is something that's nice about life in the city - those moments of peace and tranquility that parks can bring.  Because of all the people and traffic and noise, it's nice to be able to escape into these little oasis of nature.

I did this simple illustration for Dreamstime.  They're a microstock agency that holds a monthly contest.  This month it's "I love living in the city" - and all the images submitted relate to that in some way.  I wanted to do an illustration in photoshop and have it be a little rough and simple with bright colors.  I probably should have added a couple of cars, but I thought this was good enough.  I just submitted it, so we'll see if they think it's good enough to compete!

IF: Stay

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Stay."

This is a rough I did in Adobe Illustrator

Then I added a new layer and redrew and colored it:

I decided to do the entire drawing in Adobe Illustrator so I could upload it to the microstock sites I sell art on.

What are microstock sites?

Shutterstock is the best of the best - as far as return on the time invested.  I've been on the site for over 2 years now and I've always made more than $100 a month - and most months I don't even upload any new images!  You start by uploading 10 images for them to review (they have to be high quality photographs or vector art).  Once that's approved you can start uploading any and all images you want to sell!

Dreamstime: This site doesn't sell nearly as many images as Shutterstock, but what it lacks on volume it makes up for in the amount each sale is worth.  And they run monthly contests for illustrators and photographers, much like Illustration Friday, only instead of just showcasing your work, you can also potentially win money.

Istockphoto:  This site is one of the classiest sites, but since the sales have slowed in recent months, it's not at the top of my list.  Each sale is around $3 and they really scrutinize each illustration.  I have over 700 images on Shutterstock, but only 112 on Istockphoto (because the cheaper stuff gets turned down).  The other thing too is that Istockphoto doesn't have a referral program.  If you sign up by clicking on one of these links, I'll get a taste of your success - and it's not money that comes out of your royalties, but extra icing on top!  It's tasty for all involved.  Except Istockphoto.  They don't care about referrals or people.

There are many more sites, but those are the top three.

Dreamstime Illustration/photography Contest for July

I did this illustration for the Dreamstime contest this month:

It's a bit of a departure for the style I usually use...

The contest this month is about the 'love of the city'.  I thought it was a sarcastic contest topic at first, and all I could think of was people sitting in traffic, or pigeon filth and rats...but apparently there's some people out there that dig the big city...and they wanted images to prove it.  So I did a stylized cityscape in the background and filled it in with a bunch of stylized characters walking in the foreground.

Microstock report for June 2011

This last month I was able to work on a couple of new illustrations.  They were really quick and small, but it was nice to upload something after a few months with no new images.  Some of them sold on Shutterstock, but so far they really haven't taken (at least not yet):

 It was a series of variations on these two kids (smiling, arms open, handing each other gifts).  I thought they were cute.  When I have time, I'll probably try and draw some more with these characters.

Anyway - on to the report!

Shutterstock continues to pull in more than a hundred dollars a month.  In June we had our first EL of the year - that's an extended license and it sold for $28.  So while we had some microstock sites netting less, Shutterstock stays pretty consistent.  It helps also to have a referral who is currently more successful than our own site because we get 3 cents for every download he gets (we made $15.63 from that alone, which, if you think about it, means he had over 500 sales/downloads for the month while we had 286).

The EL was the entire sign language alphabet

A huge upset came in the form of Dreamstime which finally made more money than Istockphoto.  Sadly it means that Istock is losing steam these last few months and Dreamstime is staying fairly consistent.  Dreamstime also had two really big sales (one for $9 and another for 5.50) at the end which helped push it over $40 for the month.

All the other sites continued to make their pennies, but every bit counts!  And they're really just sitting around slowly collecting money, so I like to keep them around.  I have a couple of new files in the works, so we'll see if next month works out any better!

And if you want to start selling your own artwork on these sites - sign up through one of my links!  You have to upload a couple of files which they'll decide whether or not you're good enough, and then you can just start uploading to your heart's content!  It might sound daunting, but it's rather easy.  And vector files sell better than regular files, so warm up those illustrator skills!

Happy Adelia

This is one of the first new cleaned up versions of Adelia - with her new look (it's really just a revision of where her eyes and nose sit on her face).