Let’s see how we can apply these lessons to our illustration careers.

Don’t Let Go

No matter how lofty our dreams may seem, never let them go. It’s especially difficult to see a way to make a solid living as an independent illustrator in these current times of financial strife. But the surest way to fail is to give up. Hold on to those dreams no matter how unrealistic they may seem. You’re an artist. Creative solutions are your calling card. The only thing that can stop you is you.

Hesitation is Bad

Spending time thinking about things that can go wrong in your career, why it’s the wrong time, that your work isn’t good enough will only prevent you from taking those first important steps. So many artists fail to achieve their goals because they hesitate. Hate to bring up the cliché, but the longest journey really does begin with a single step.

Have a Plan

Once you’ve started, it’s important to have a road map. Take the long view. With the end in sight, plan out the steps it will take for you to reach that goal. And don’t just concentrate on the difficult steps. You should also plan for successes. That way you can be prepared to take full advantage those positive situations.

The Move is the End

While you are planning, don’t forget all the little things that go along the way. These can be logistical details like setting up a website, getting business cards, obtaining a business license, keeping accurate records, billing, collections. All the little details that go into building your career, each of these steps are vitally important for you to reach your final goal.

Know How to Rest

It’s easy for artists to get in the habit of burning the candle at both ends. When inspiration strikes, pulling an all-nighter to work it all out seems like a perfectly rational thing to do. That’s also the quickest way to burn yourself out. Late nights and long hours are a given for us artists. But even we masters of the line need our rest. Whether it’s a few hours here and there or a full day, take some time to do something other than illustration or client work. You’ll return rested, focused, and ready to knock it out of the park.

Fear Sucks

Failure is always a possibility. But focusing on potential failure leads to fear which leads to doubt which leads to bad work. If you fear failure, you almost invite it and you may even subconsciously sabotage your work. You cannot control failure. Focus instead on the things you can control. You can control the quality of your work. You can control your interactions with your client.

Opposites are Good

As artist, finding new solutions to mundane problems is second nature. Every illustrator must design a business card or two in their careers. How can you turn such a simple concept on its ear to make your card design stand out among the crowd? Certainly, sometimes the most straight forward design is the perfect answer. But whenever possible, break out of the box and push your work to the unexpected.

Strength Doesn’t Equal Success

In climbing, your legs are supposed to do the bulk of the work. Your leg muscles are the strongest in your body so it makes sense to use them to get you up that wall. For illustrators, your fundamentals will carry you in much the same way. The newest version of Photoshop, that shiny new Cintiq, that state-of-the-art 8-core Mac, all of those things are really shiny. None of them will make you a better illustrator. Focus on your fundamentals, anatomy, design, composition and you’ll go far. It’s the hands that use the tools that’s most important, not the tools themselves.

Learn How to Let Go

After putting countless hours into a piece for a client, it’s sometimes difficult to not shed a tear when they reject it outright. You need to have some separation from your work. You should take pride in what you do, but you can’t take criticisms personally. If it doesn’t work for the client, it doesn’t work. Move on and try to turn in something that does. Or move on. But don’t take rejections personally.

Climb On

The next time you feel the dread of doubt beginning to wash over you, shake it off, chalk up, grab a rope, and climb on. There are mountains to conquer and you can’t get to the top unless you rope in.

Faster is a Lie

Sorry, but it’s true. Faster is a horrible, horrible lie.

You don’t actually want to draw faster. Unless your client or boss wants a series of gesture drawings, striving to physically draw faster will cause more problems than not. Instead, focus on drawing efficiently.

Merriam-Webster defines efficient as “productive without waste.” For illustrators, this means eliminating anything that might get in the way of drawing and identifying repetitive tasks that can be streamlined. Speed turns out to be happy biproduct of efficiency. If you work efficiently, you will find you are indeed working faster.

Prepare the Chamber

The physical space where you draw greatly effects your efficiency. If your space is cluttered and unorganized it gets in the way of you drawing. With efficiency in mind, create a space that maximizes your drawing time.

Invest in a decent drafting table. You don’t need something that will transform and roll out, but you will need a sturdy enough table that you can set to a comfortable angle. Drawing on a flat table forces your body into an awkward position. You have to hunch your back and strain your neck to get a proper look at what you’re drawing. This creates a lot of unnecessary muscle strain and you will tire faster preventing you from drawing at your best. A drafting table will allow you to set your drawing surface to an angle that allows you to sit up straight allowing your body to relax and just draw.

Along with a drafting table, you will need a comfortable chair that allows you to set height. Once you’ve found a proper angle for your drawing surface, you want to find the right height for your chair. You want to be high enough so that your arms feel relaxed and natural while drawing. If you sit too low, your arms get folded up creating unnecessary tension in your arms which tires out your muscles.

Put all your supplies in their own place so you always know where they. This lets you spend more time drawing and less time fumbling around for pens or ink or paper.

To Rock or Not to Rock, That is the Question

Most of us illustrators have some tasty jams running in the background as we work. The noise occupies our ears and lets us concentrate on drawing, right?

Wrong!

Sorry, but your poor brain meats can only concentrate, and I mean really concentrate, on one thing at a time. If you want to rock out, get your groove and turn up the jams. If you want to draw, draw. Turn off the radio, the iPod, the TV, and draw. Efficiency is all about eliminating distractors and as long as there’s something rocking out in the background, part of your brain is processing those jams. When all of your brain is totally devoted to drawing, your creativity will be free from distraction.

While we’re talking about distractors, turn off your email, chat client, twitter, anything that will get in the way of drawing. Just draw. Draw!

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

Drawing more often will most certainly improve your work. You probaby have a sketch book or two lying around already. Sketchbooks are great for capturing ideas. But they’re also great for working out problems. If you fill your sketchbook pages with things that you know you can draw well, your problem areas will still suffer. Use your sketchbook to work out your weak points. If you hate drawing hands, fill an entire book with hand sketches. If hair is your bane, take a few pages to work on those hair styles. Focusing on those problem areas will improve your work overall.

Just Draw

Draw, draw, draw. The more you draw, the more efficient you’ll become. You’ll have more confidence in your work and discover short cuts. Instead of using small strokes to draw large curves, you’ll might find yourself drawing those lines in one motion. As you draw more efficiently, the time it takes to finish your pieces will decrease.

You will, in fact, draw faster.

Day Job vs. Freelance, the Eternal Struggle

So you’ve decided to draw pretty pictures for a living. Awesome! I could kiss you! Now you have to decided what kind of illustration gig you’ll be aiming for, day job or freelance. Sure, you can choose to do both, part-time day job and freelance. But you can’t serve two masters. Eventually, you must choose.

The day job option offers stability. Typically, your beginning annual salary will be much more than your first year of freelance income. Your employer will also provide benefits like health care, dental and vision plans, paid vacation, maybe even a retirement plan. If stability is your main concern, you can’t go wrong with the day job. However, you may find that there are aspects of the day job that do not mesh with your artistic personality. You may have to conform to a dress code. Your hours are set. You will have to commute. You will have pointless meetings, progress reports, status updates, and endless tedium to get in your way. And your employer will limit your creativity. Oh, they may say they want innovation, but really, they just want someone to fill a cube. Of course, there are always exceptions. But at some point, even in the nicest full-time day job, you will hit a creative wall imposed by your boss.

Freelancing offers flexibility. That sounds brilliant! But be careful. As a freelancer, you will find yourself living from pay check to pay check. In a day job, if there are slow days, you still draw the same pay. As a freelancer, slow days mean slow money. You will have to provide your own health care. No one will pay you if you’re on vacation. And you might not be able to afford a retirement plan. The life of a freelancer can be unpredictable. But what you gain in creativity can’t be matched! You make your own hours, work from home, choose your clients, wear what you want, create brilliant work and reap brilliant rewards. In a day job, a job well done means a pat on the back and maybe an ice cream. As a freelancer, a job well done can lead to more interesting work and higher rates!

You could center an entire blog around this subject and there are a few. In particular, Monster Cutie endorses Freelance Switch for all the advice a freelancer or freelance hopeful could ever want. Whatever path you choose, there are a few basics to keep in mind that will help you survive.

Your Work is Awesome! Now Get Over It!

It is vitally important to have passion for your work. Every piece you do speaks about your abilities. Even if you’re working on something that absolutely bores you to tears, you must find something in it that interests you. Your lack of interest will always show. Having said that, it is also vitally important to divorce yourself from your work.

If you wish to draw for a living, you’re going to have to develop a thick skin. Your work is freaking awesome. Otherwise, no one would bother giving you money. Congrats. You rock. Now get over yourself.

If you cannot take criticism, if you are unwilling to change, if you can’t be bothered to listen to your client, your career as a professional illustrator will be before it’s begun. Yes, you may have spent weeks on the most perfect illustration of your career. But if the client wants to change something or scrap it all together, so be it. Save your masterful illustration for your portfolio, swallow your pride, and get back to work.

The Client is Always Right, Especially When They’re Wrong

Remember this mantra: The client is always right, especially when they’re wrong.

Learn it. Know it. Live it.

Your client or, in the case of a day job, your boss is paying you to draw pretty pictures. Your livelihood depends on their checks. If they suddenly want something changed or something completely different, you must do your best to accommodate their wishes.

Now, if you’re very clever, you may be able to convince your client that your way is the best. This must be done with elegance and subtlety. You must use your Jedi mind trick to convince your client that your idea is really their idea. However, if your client resists your Jedi tricks, you’re stuck. If they want that neon green star in the middle of your elegant illustration, keep a copy without it for yourself and slap that ugly thing on there.

“How else would I maintain my reputation as a miracle-worker?”

Strive to deliver on time. You may not always hit your deadlines, but do your very best to deliver on time. Setting realistic deadlines is essential to meeting them. This requires a lot of planning and is a topic we’ll cover in greater detail in a future segment.

Put on a Happy Face

Networking is essential for landing both full time jobs and freelance gigs. Personal connections and word-of-mouth have landed me more work than any job site or classified job posting. I find this is true with almost all of the illustrators I have met. Again, this is another topic that will require a future post.

I Gotta Believe!

Drawing for a living is just as fun as it sounds. Like any other job, it comes with a lot of hard work. Unlike other jobs, there is no set illustrator career path. It takes skills, perseverance, and at times, a little luck. But if you believe in yourself, you can achieve great things.

I hope some of this proved useful. Future articles in this series will focus on more specific techniques and tips to achieving great awesomeness as an illustrator. And as always, if you have questions, suggestions, or additional ideas, don’t hesitate to post in the comments.