IF: Patterns on stock...

I've been uploading images to Shutterstock since March...and I've had my share of hits and misses.  One of my best pieces on Shutterstock is this dot pattern:

A smart way to go about working in stock illustration is to have a variety of options within a particular subject matter. I did several dot patterns that eventually led to the above illustration (which is our highest earner on Shutterstock). What follows are two more variations (although there ended up being quite a bit more...some sold well for a while, but nothing replicated the success of the original image...I still consider it worth while though as those new images did lead to more downloads).

This one was a combination of the original image, a quick change of color, and a 'grunge' pattern that I created. Apparently grunging up a picture is very hot on stock illustration, although I don't believe I've fully grasped the concept.

This image kept the color, but I attempted to change the dot pattern in an interesting way by having it do less of a waterfall look, and more of a swooping motion. I thought it added a lot more action to the piece.

Anyway - here's another way in which I expanded my Shutterstock portfolio:

I started with this quick image:
Obviously these are very (VERY) simple colored eggs. It sold a bit around Easter (which was when I created the image). At the same time I did a rose illustration that I turned into this seamless rose pattern background:


Then I took those roses and the eggs and combined them to create Easter Eggs with a very complicated rose painted on:I have a lot more illustrations on Shutterstock - you can search under my name - or sign up yourself and sell your own illustrations, just click on anywhere that I said Shutterstock (except for that one) or at this link - http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=325258

Anyway - thanks for reading! And I'll try to do less of a stupid ad for the next Illustration Friday...but the topic of pattern led me to my stock work...

IF: music - the choir

I did this piece for Shutterstock. It's one in a number of illustrations that I put up on that Stock photography/illustration site. Well...I actually didn't put this particular piece up - there's this small piece here...

The giant infinite number of kids picture was actually too memory intensive for the stock site...so it will only live on here...This drawing started out simply as single kid drawings:


These were variations on one prototype, then I turned them into angels singing on a cloud:


and then back into little kids who were just singing on stage. I think an important part of uploading stock imagery is to have a lot of variations on one theme - first because it allows a prospective client to have many choices, and secondly because if they like one, maybe they'll like another and download both...or because you never know which one will be the 'successful' one.



There's an abstract dot background that I did way back in April:

And this one was my 4th or 5th variation on the dots in perspective...but somehow and for whatever reason this one is the one that took off and has made over $100 all by itself on Shutterstock.

IF: Welcome

Last week I did a picture of the Panda flexing (I'm thinking of calling him pepper, but I'm not sure yet because pepper panda is horrible...character names usually shouldn't start with the same letter as it's been quite played out).

Since then, I haven't really had time to do another illustration - but I modified this one to where his flexy arms are now welcoming arms and he's standing on a mat, waiting to be welcomed into your home (the mat even says welcome, just to hammer the point home).

And, I guess, this one has more of a background, but still maintains it's simplicity.

IF: Strong - panda flex

So I just did a couple of quick photoshop sketches for this week's illustration friday topic.
This is my panda character flexing his little heart out.  All the ladies want to be him and all the fellas...um, also want to be him...?  Anyhow - enjoy the muscles people...

I only wish this entry into this week's topic wasn't so late - I had this in my mind for a few days - and it would have been nice to redraw it in Illustrator and then revise it and clean it up again and paint it in photoshop for real...but time is pressing...at least I got this out before the week was over...

lil' girl on computer

This is another illustration I did really quick for Shutterstock. I liked this because I did a little bit of a brushstroke on it...sure I just used the default brushes that come with Illustrator, but I manipulated them in a way that worked for this illustration...and it brought a bit more interest to an otherwise simple drawing.

Now for those of you who don't know - Shutterstock is a stock illustration/photography site. You sign up (by uploading 10 pictures, which, when accepted means you can start selling stock images!) and you can upload any and/or all of the pictures you want. Shutterstock has the easiest approval rate of all the stock sites (with Istockphoto being the hardest)...and usually the most return. I've been signed up since February and even without uploading many pictures the last three months I'm still clearing $100 each month.

And while that doesn't sound like that much - a bunch of people can make quite a bit more - there's this one gal in Germany who's user name is AKaiser who frequently has 4 or 5 images in the top 50 (meaning that each image is selling at a minimum of 10 times a day or more)...so she probably pulls in over a grand each month. She's pretty great though - her images are always on the cusp of what's popular on stock (and usually she sets the standard that everyone else copies).

Anyway - there are levels that one can achieve with Stock - you can do it as a hobby or as a hard core enthusiast and either way it's a lot of fun (especially when your stuff is downloaded).

One last thing - during the first $500 you make on Shutterstock, each download is 25 cents. When you reach 500 (to 3000 dollars) each download is 33 cents (that's where I am right now).

IF: Strong...Puppy on Rug

I've been a part of stock illustration/photography sites such as Shutterstock. You make money when people download your pictures.

Recently I've been terribly busy elsewhere - and as such, my stock illustration submissions have been a little subpar. While not terrible, they just weren't as strong as they could be if I had given the pieces a little bit more time or attention.

Anyway - I'm working on strengthening my stock portfolio - and this is one of the firsts in that line...I'm going to try a bit of cartoon work.

Shutterstock illustrations...

Just a couple of little things I've put up on Shutterstock...hopefully they'll sell...

Microstock report for August, 2009

This month surged in some places and sunk to new lows in others. I finally had more time to do some stock images - I added over 20 images to Shutterstock (some good, some bad...some had pretty decent starts, but never ended up going anywhere).

Once again Shutterstock was tops.  I made $162 while uploading 20 or so new images.  I'd say quite a few of those 'new' images were reworkings of older images.  Total time spent on creating new images was still very low...and that lack of time and care might have kept those new images from reaching any substantial download totals.  What's nice to know is that if you upload new stuff to this site - it seems as if people will search through the rest of your portfolio and download other things (older illustrations that haven't had downloads in forever were suddenly getting multiple downloads).  And other illustrations that had a similar theme to newer ones were also getting downloaded.  So while it didn't seem to effect the totals of the other sites, Shutterstock really pays off to keep a constant flow of uploads...

It also helped that we had our first EL download on Shutterstock.  An EL is an Extended License agreement, and instead of the usual .33 cents per download, these are $28 downloads.  These types of downloads are rare in general, and even rarer for illustrations.  

Istockphoto wasn't nearly as good as last month ($52 as opposed to $65 in July), but the last two months have been the most successful months on this site...and I've got more images approved than ever before (I used to get denied 9 out of every 10 images I uploaded)...so I think I'm getting the hang of what they want and how to format my files appropriately.

One big disappointment was Dreamstime - the downloads happened every couple of days like they usually have on this site - but this time there were no big downloads (everything was .35 rather than a couple of bucks or 5 dollars here and there).  I also wasn't able to upload any of my new files because the uploading page kept freezing my internet.  I'm going to try again soon enough, and maybe the bigger downloads will start back up.  On an upside, I finally have my first referral that's actually uploading pictures!

The last one I'll talk about is Fotolia - They were an incredibly disappointment.  The worst thing is that they've got a new uploading process that's different from all the other sites (you have to have a higher res jpg zipped in a folder with the illustrator eps file).  This is very different from where they were 2 or 3 months ago where I only had to resave my eps file as a svg (a vector format that wasn't as popular as they first expected that was web friendly), and upload that - and it made it's own jpg preview.  On top of this, I uploaded almost as many files on this site as on Shutterstock, and yet I saw absolutely no uploads.  It's frustrating because it was one of my middle of the pack microstock sites, and it's just stalled.  I keep getting a ton of views for my pictures, but no downloads.

Anyhow - this month, except for Shutterstock, it was going to be hard to compete with the previous month or so because I got ELs on a few of the other sites (Dreamstime  in June for $28, Fotolia and StockXpert in July for $12 each).  So while this month made about 30 dollars less than the previous two months did (the last two months were in the $290's), my microstock sites still generated enough business to make it interesting and fun.  That's the biggest thing for me - as long as it's interesting (and it's mostly Shutterstock that's providing the most interest) I'll keep creating new illustrations.

IF: Wrapped, mummy finished!

Well, even though it is obvious to go for a mummy illustration when the subject is wrapped (that or some form of present), it's still always a good way to go. Because any time you can draw one of your characters as a monster is always a good idea.

And, apparently, I like drawing my characters as monsters as I've already done a penguin frankenstein, a penguin igor, a little kid Freddy Krueger, a little kid Jason (from Friday the 13th), and, even though he's not a monster, a little kid Ash from Evil Dead 2 (he kills zombies). Oh, and I drew Adelia as a zombie. I just have to make sure to keep little kid Ash away from Zombie Adelia...or it could get messy...

IF: Wrapped - mummy style...

I think a bunch of people will have this same concept for the Illustration Friday topic of wrapped...it's either going to be mummies or presents.  I saw one guy do a whole crowd of people wrapped up in condoms (like in the Naked Gun movie, where they're practicing safe sex)...so that was one fella thinking outside the box...as for me, I'll jump at the chance to draw a zombie or a monster (especially a classic monster)...but, of course, I have to do it my way...so here's a cute little skunk mummy about to terrorize!

skunk mummies stink

This was about a 20 minute rough - from start to finish - it's a really rough photoshop drawing, and would have gone quicker (most of my roughs are a lot quicker) but I wanted to add color and post it up.  Usually I'll just do a basic drawing and copy it over to illustrator to work on my lines and correct my perspective and finalize my drawing...and, of course, I'm going to do that with this one as well, but I thought I'd post up my color rough...

IF: Impatience - Panda relaxed...

I was incredibly impatient with this piece - which made me post an incomplete illustration of it earlier this weekend...but I finally finished it.

The difference might seem minor - but I think they really help the piece out. First of all - it was originally too big....there was just too much empty space...and even after I finished the light coming in the window, it still looked too open and empty...So I cropped a bit out - added a poster that was in the original drawing (I actually had two posters, and when I was in the cleanup phase of this illustration, I turned one of the posters into a window and got rid of the other poster altogether).

It's definitely a much stronger drawing.

IF: Impatient - onna bed

I've been working on this piece for about two weeks now - and I'm very impatient about getting it done and getting it online. I already posted my thumbnail and cleanup version of it - what I have here is my first color pass...

I thought about this piece during the Illustration Friday week of Idle. It seemed like the perfect weekend afternoon...lying on one's bed bopping out to your favorite tunes. The bit I haven't finished is the sun coming in the window - I'm struggling to figure out if I want to see the sun, or if there should be a cloud or a tree or a cloud AND a tree or what. The thing I do know is that I do not want the sun shining directly on the character....now I know animals like lying in the sun as it comes through a window - but I hates it! I could see sitting on a heating vent in the winter, but lying in the sun, in my opinion, is miserable. That's why I decided my panda character wouldn't like it either.

This picture, I guess, is showing the opposite of impatience...so try and ignore that aspect if it... I'm almost finished coloring, and I couldn't wait to put it up...

Microstock report for July, 2009

It seemed like it was going to be quite a disappointing month in Microstock. Shutterstock

took quite a hit because, once again, we didn't really upload any. We really have been losing out on ODs (which are $2.49 downloads) which have really dropped off from the last couple of months. My gallery show is over, so when I have some spare time, I've been trying to do some small things for these sites...

Anyway - Shutterstock still leads the pack (with $117). They're still the easiest to upload to, and have the easiest acceptance of all the microstock sites. And it seems like you get more downloads from Shutterstock than from any other site...

Coming back into second place was Istockphoto. With $65 it was Istockphotos best month ever. It's actually quite impressive (to me) because of how small our portfolio is (37 images).

In 3rd place - and it was expected to drop - was Dreamstime - http://www.dreamstime.com/res1220499-high-resolution-pictures - Last month we had our first EL (extended license) which accounted for 25 dollars all by itself...this month our total was a bit lower...but the downloads were constant (a couple every day or so) for a total of $29 for July.

What was surprising was how much we made on Bigstockphoto ! Last month we were at an all time low of $7 (for the entire month!). It came roaring back into 4th place with $25.50. And it wasn't just one or so images, but a bunch selling throughout the month.

On Fotolia - we got our second EL - it was a vector EL this time - so it only accounted for 12 dollars, but made for a decent showing on Fotolia (which seems to have slowed way down from the first couple of months)...but we still ended up with $23. http://www.fotolia.com/partner/200987314

And finally - the last one I'm going to talk about is Stockxpert. I was surprised that it ended up in 5th place on the list with just over $20...because we always got downloads on this site...the only thing is that a download or two a day (and consistantly) at 30 cents a clip doesn't add up to that much. Once again we got an EL (our third total for all sites...I've heard it's hard to get ELs for illustrators...people usually reserve that pricey download for photographs) for Tracey's Chocolate Strawberry.

It wasn't such a bad month because some of the sites picked up the slack of some of the slower ones. I expect Shutterstock to pick back up because of some new uploads...and Istockphoto, even with a small portfolio has been very consistant. We were only off the pace of last month by a couple of dollars ($4.27 to be exact)...so all in all, not so bad for the 3rd month in a row where we didn't really upload anything. It's quite nice to make 300 dollars (almost) for not doing a bit of work (mostly)...! I'll report again next month!

IF: Idle panda

This is a rough for a new illustration I'm doing with the panda (one of my little square animals):

I did a quick rough drawing in Photoshop - very rough because I was using a wacom (it's easier with a cintiq)...and then I copied it over to Illustrator and cleaned up the lines and adjusted my perspective.

Hopefully I'll be able to get to the color and have it finished by the weekend.

IF: Idle

lil' bloody Jason Voorhees

This works a couple of ways. Jason just sits idlely around waiting for kids to stumble into the creepy campsite...and then he kills them. Secondly - Jason has been around so long and even though his movies are hard to take serious, he's a horror icon/idol. And sure it's the wrong spelling of Illustration Friday's topic (idle), but the second sentence of this paragraph explains all.

This is one of the pieces I had in my Nickelodeon Animation Studio art gallery show. I previously posted that picture earlier this year (when I did it) but I had a couple of people interested in this print - I had done a 'clean' version of this picture (which I was inspired by the old mcfarlane toys...where they'd sell a clean and regular version of a movie monster...basically it means with or without blood.). The clean version was for the studio...I knew that Nickelodeon doesn't let you put up images of guns and violence...I don't think they would have protested too much about this illustration, but just to be sure I had my 'innocent' version for the gallery.

I thought the people interested in this print would get a kick out of the bloody version, and when I showed it to them on my computer, I had two sales! I thought I'd take the piece a little bit further and bloody up the machete as well.

July Art Gallery at Nickelodeon

On July 10th I finally had my art gallery open at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank. I interned there on Dora the Explorer (in it's first season) in 2000 and have been working there full time since 2002.

It's an incredible place to work...and one part of that is the art gallery they maintain in the main hallway. It's the hallway everyone walks through (from production, to artists, to celebrities. As I put my illustrations in the gallery Alfonso Ribeiro asked me for directions to the security desk to sign in) and I've always wanted to have a solo show there.

In 2007 I came back to Nickelodeon after a small hiatus (between the cancellation of Danny Phantom, the non pickup of Splattapus, and the renewal of Fairly Odd Parents, which had been originally shelved in 2005), one of the first things on my mind was to schedule a gallery. I figured in the few months between signing up for it, I'd have plenty of artwork to show off. They like to plan things very far in advance which meant the gallery was booked up through the end of 2008...and the first date available was July of 2009. It seemed like forever away, but at least it would give me plenty of time to work on my art.

the oldest piece in my gallery - from 2006 - it's a watercolor of a chinstrap penguin

Cut to April of this year - I've had the gallery on my mind on occasion, but I usually didn't think about it - and by April it was the furthest thing from my mind. Luckily for me, I happened to wake up one morning and it struck me like a revelation. Did I have a gallery still? I hadn't heard anything in all these long months, so I figured I'd better check into it.

The very last piece I did for the show (finished on Thursday morning)

What's nice is that I haven't been wasting my time. I had two different areas of interest that I wanted to explore - vinyl toys and children's books. I switched back and forth between ideas and when I checked with the person in charge of the gallery, I had over 35 pieces that I was confident I could use in the show. And since it was only April, I still had three long months to draw like mad.

The gallery right before they announce the opening

The next thing I knew it was June, and instead of drawing and painting (digitally) I had to turn my attentions to finding a color printer place and finding matts and frames for all the art. It's quite a daunting task to accomplish, so I'm glad I had my wife there to help me out. Some time in the next week I'll upload each illustration individually, and you'll see how much of a help she was (everything not in a black frame and black matt is her choice...I can do the art, but I'm terrible at being creative with frames).

Here's me in the gallery after having finished putting up all the titles and prices.

Here's the food spread (thai food and fruit)

The full gallery - wine on the right and thai food on the left

Zebra Berries for Mommy (cover) and other children's book art

A few of my early Adelia pieces

Igor Penguin and a couple of (older) penguin watercolors

Some of my early Penguin watercolors (from 2006-2007)

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Some of my square animal children's book (style) illustrations

Some of the newer Adelia pieces I've done (between late 2008 - early 2009)

It was a pretty great show. I spent half the time leading up to the show wanting it to be over and then in eager anticipation. On one hand I just wanted the art up but didn't want all the attention, but on the other hand I was looking forward to seeing people enjoy the work that I've spent the last two years producing. The thrill part of it won out and I had a good time.

Drawn by all the free food and the chance to hang out (as well as all the nice art, or so I was told) - there were a lot of people. The food was all gone before 6 (but there was alcohol until the very end...so they had the important stuff covered). It was a lot of fun and I was completely flattered by all the positivity and compliments.

One of the pieces that sold on Friday night.

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It was nice to see it all come together after all this time. I ended up with 52 paintings - between my watercolors and digital illustrations.

IF: Shaky and wobbly swing

I don't know if you've ever done this when you were a kid - but when someone was deep in thought on a swing....you charge at ramming speed and push them up and over. Now, when they're on board (or paying attention) they just start swinging and everyone has a good time. But when you catch them off guard, the swing goes all shakey and wobbly as they freak out and try to stay on (sometimes you just end up pushing them to the ground, and that's even funnier). That's what shaky said to me and that's why i drew this picture...

This is the finished version

Short Stumpy Giraffe: Revision

I changed a little bit about this piece - it was pretty much done, but just needed a little push. I added tears to his eyes to make him a bit more pathetic - and then I set about the time consuming task of self coloring the lines - it's not such a hard thing if you're doing the entire illustration in photoshop - but I like to keep my vector lines (that I draw in Adobe Illustrator) in tact, which means that any changes to the lines have to be done in Illustrator.

So here it is - in all it's finished glory - I just have to print it out and frame it...and it'll be ready for the gallery show (all the artwork is due this thursday morning at 10:00)...after two years of waiting, and forgetting, and working very hard...the show is finally here!

Microstock earnings for June, 2009

This month was the second in a row where we had no time to upload new images. We had a total of 9 images uploaded to Shutterstock (three were just variations on another design) but none of them really did anything. Tracey did this image:



Which I was quite impressed with - it was done entirely in Adobe Illustrator - and it looks so photo realistic to me - and while we've had some bites on it (downloads), it hasn't taken off like I expected it to. Hopefully some chocolate strawberry eaters out there will start taking notice and download it (and download it a lot)...

Shutterstock was still our highest earner with 149.74. It's still the best site as far as consistant downloads and it's the easiest to get accepted to (as well as having the most lenient of file acceptance rate of any of the microstock companies)

What surprised me was Dreamstime - they do a contest every month and the topic for June was cooking - so I whipped up a little drawing of a boy making pancakes (and Tracey colored it) - it didn't win the contest, but yesterday it was downloaded for 25 dollars! It's the single highest amount we've received for a file, and it pushed Dreamstime into second place with just over $70 for the month. http://www.dreamstime.com/res1220499-stock-images

the third place finisher was Istockphoto - like Dreamstime, they were the only two microstock agencies to end with a higher total than last month. Our uploads are very slow on these sites (only 3 for dreamstime and 5 for istockphoto), but it hasn't affected our download rates (which have also gone up on these two sites)...

The rest were kind of disappointing...Stockxpert had consistant downloads all month long - but it was only 1 or two per day - which ended up at a low 9 dollars...and the rest of the sites are barely worth talking about...

Whoops - I did forget (for the second month) to list Fotolia on this list. They made a comeback in terms of monies - just under $20 for June. But the downloads are so few and far between...it was rather disappointing to ever check the totals. The only good thing is that the choco strawberry was downloaded 3 times (for a total of $3.90)...hopefully next month it'll pick up - but i doubt it. What sucks is that this site was only accepting vector art as svg files (a terrible vector format) and this last month they finally caught up with all the other agencies and started accepting things as eps or ai files (the accepted Adobe Illustrator versions of vector art), but since I had already uploaded the majority of our stuff as svg files, I expect we're missing out on a lot of sales because they're all the old format.

Anyway - that's the month of June for microstock...once again it was nice to clear $300 (with the addition of fotolia) without having to put in any work. That's why I got into microstock in the first place...was that way my illustrations could sit around collecting me small amounts of money instead of dust...so far, so good!

IF: Worn Out - Trying and failing...

"Evolution wiped out the short and stumpy giraffe"
11x14 - Lines drawn in Adobe Illustrator
Color painted in Adobe Photoshop

I made these characters with extremely short arms and legs - the only reason being (besides looking weird with long limbs) is that shorter arms looked cuter. But because of that I seem to only think up pictures where one of them is at a disadvantage because of it. In this picture I wanted to get a different angle than what I usually draw (three quarters front view) - so I chose a down view to help accentuate the giraffe's shortness.

I also wanted to do this one because giraffes are very iconic in their markings - and I hoped that even though I compressed it into a cube, that it would still read as a giraffe.

Anyway - this is yet another piece for my show - I'm still looking at it as not finished, but it's almost there...