My Sci-Fi Environment Design tutorial is finally available for purchase through my store. The tutorial is $21.80 with tax and is broken into 4 parts, so be sure to select all 4 parts when you are checking out! Some stats again.

Format: Quicktime HD 1920×1400
Length: 149 minutes
Extras: Layered PSD, Brushes

I figured I would give everyone a little update with how my Sci-Fi Environment Tutorial is coming along. I seem to finally have pushed passed the plethora of bugs from Camtasia and iDVD, so I give you THE SCI-FI ENVIRONMENT TUTORIAL DVD OF DOOOOMMMMMmm!! As you can see I am in the process of printing and cutting out the DVD inserts and the DVDs themselves. As always, I do all of the filming, editing, printing, cutting, and distribution by myself. It takes me a long time to create a tutorial, so it really sucks when I find out that everyone is pirating my videos. For the first few months after I released my first two videos I couldn’t find any torrents. As soon as the torrents started becoming available my sales dropped to nearly zero. I found one site where my tutorials had 30k downloads. I know there isn’t much I can do about it and pirating is pretty much inevitable, but it still sucks when you put a lot of work into something and people just steal it. I’m trying to tell myself that probably at least 90% of the people that pirate my tutorials are people that wouldn’t have bought them in the first place, but even if 1% out of that 30k bought my video, that is still 300 sales, which is more than I have sold per video. Oh well, not much I can do about it. Just because people pirate my videos should I punish those that do buy them by not producing new tutorials?  The short answer is no. Pirating has hit every industry hard, so does that mean people should stop making music, or movies, or video games? All people can do is continue to create bigger and better products in hope that people will support their efforts.

Bah, anyway, I’ll tell you a little bit about my process and equipment and whatnot. So I filmed the video using Camtasia for Mac. For the audio I actually used a program called Wiretap Studio. I find it easier to hit play on the Camtasia timeline and record the audio with Wiretap while I watch so that I can time the audio correctly. After that I have to export each section (I broke the tutorial up into 5 parts). Once I had all 5 parts exported, I had to put them back into Camtasia and export them as one large file. I was then able to burn that one file onto a DVD using iDVD. After that I use a program called Epson Print CD to print the DVD with my Epson Stylus Photo R1800. For the DVD insert I used Photoshop and then printed it on double-sided glossy paper with my Epson Artisan 800. I then have to cut each insert out using a good old exacto knife and a ruler. I was able to make 15 DVDs before I ran out of ink and paper. At the end of April I am attending Wizard World Con in Anaheim and in June I’m going to Singapore and Kansas City for a Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix, so I will have these DVDs available there for purchase. I may only make a few available through my site for now so that I can have some to sell on hand at the shows.

Right now I’m getting my digital download ready, so I should be able to have them available for purchase in the next day or two. The digital download will be $21.80 and the DVD will be $33. Why the weird prices? Well the state of California makes you pay sales tax on everything you sell, so I need to charge sales tax in order to cancel out the sales tax I have to pay to the state. So not only do I have to pay federal tax and state tax, but I also have to pay state sales tax and city business license tax, yay! Basically I am being taxed 4 times for everything I sell. Gotta love America. Some quick specs:

Sci-Fi Environment Tutorial
$21.80 – Digital download, 4 parts
$33 – DVD, 1 Disc
Length: 149 minutes
Bonus Material (digital download): Layered PSD, Brushes
Bonus Material (DVD): Trailers, Brushes, Portfolio Gallery

Holeeee crap. Creating this new tutorial has been quite the epic journey of fail…Camtasia (and iDVD) fail. I’m sure if you’ve ever worked with Camtasia before you will know that it tends to crash…a lot. I had a lot of crashing problems with it back when I was making the Female Hunter and The Final Charge videos, but nothing like now. I even had problems with it when I made my Liche Priest video way back in the day. Let me just say that my Camtasia is up-to-date and both of my computers are up -to-date.

One of the most annoying problems I have with Camtasia is the bug where you export a video…it goes through the entire export process, and when it finishes a dialog box pops up saying that it is finished and you can reveal the file in the finder. Clicking on the “reveal in finder” button does nothing. So I go to where I saved the file…no file. I check everywhere, no file. I check my hard drive space before and after, no change, which means it just spent 2.5 hours exporting nothing. So I say hey, maybe it just screwed up…I’ll try again. Another 2.5 hours later…nothing. So I think maybe it is the computer. I change computers, 2.5 hours later, no file. So I think it is the file itself, I change files, 2.5 hours later, no file. I think maybe if I try changing the export options…2.5 hours later, no file. Good lord. I google the problem and many other people have the same problem. Someone suggests saving the file to your documents folder…it worked for them. So I try it on both computers…2.5 hours later, no file. So I try using my PC instead of my Mac…but as you may have found out, you can’t transfer Mac Camtasia files to PC Camtasia. Boo. Guess what else, all videos recorded with Camtasia are saved as Camtasia extensions and guess what, no other program can open them…so…I HAVE to export them…but it won’t work. I had this same exact problem with my Female Hunter AND the Final Charge videos. Sometimes it would fail, and I would try again, and it would work. Sometimes it would fail two times in a row, and I would try again, and it would work. No settings would change, no files would change, nothing. I would just hit export again and it seemed to work or fail at random. Now I’m thinking, “holy crap I just spent like 2 weeks on this video and I can’t get it to export…I’m screwed.” Oh, by the way, the file I’m trying to export is only an hour long. 15 or so hours later I give up and go to bed.

I think maybe I should try breaking the file up into two smaller parts. One annoying change Camtasia made recently is that all videos recorded in a project are saved into the project file instead of being saved in another location. This means that if you duplicate the project it will duplicate all of the videos. If you don’t want duplicates, you have to go back after the fact and delete them by hand by clicking “show package contents” in the finder. An hour or two later and finally the first part exported. Let the clouds part and the sunlight shine down and burn my eyes out…something actually worked! So I tried the second part, and it too exported. Now that I have the first half of the video exported, it is time to do the last half. During this whole time I was speaking with TechSmith support, and after going back and forth with them and not coming up with a solution, they finally said “Camtasia has a known issue with not being able to export longer videos. We will try to address it in our next patch.” So if you plan to make a video that is longer than 30 minutes, be ready for an ulcer. The thing that is weird is that I was able to export much longer videos before…but I guess maybe one of the new updates screwed things up…I dunno. So you might be thinking maybe this is just a Mac issue…well I used Camtasia on my PC for the Liche Priest video, and it had just as many problems. It tended to cause my entire computer to crash while I was filming…very awesome.

So armed with the knowledge that I can’t export longer videos, I tried to export the last half of my video. I broke it into two sections and exported them, both worked. I started to listen to it and I realized I forgot to change some of the audio properties. I go back and make the fixes and then export again…surprise surprise, the bug is back and it didn’t export anything. All I did was change an audio setting and now it doesn’t export. So I leave everything the same and just hit export again…magically it worked this time. Yay for random bugs.

You may think my bug issue is over, but not so fast there buddy. Now I am on to my crashing issues! Someone had asked me about adding captions since they have a hearing disability, so I figured I would go ahead and do it. See all those black boxes with audio waves in them that are above all of the green boxes with audio waves? That is the caption timeline. In order to write captions you have to click on one and then start typing as it plays that section of audio. Seems simple enough, until you click off of it. Crash time. It doesn’t crash every single time you deselect the caption timeline, but I would say between 20-40% of the time it will crash. Now I’m saving my file about every 30 seconds in case it crashes. Here is the kicker…in order to save you HAVE to deselect the caption timeline. If you have it selected, the save option is grayed out. BUT, in order to save you have to deselect and risk the program crashing. Kind of a Catch 22. At one point it crashed 7-8 times in a timespan of typing less than 10 minutes of captions. The other awesome thing is that it takes 1.5 minutes for Camtasia to reopen my file after it crashes (yes I actually timed it). I have autosave set to 1 minute, but still, having your program crash that many times in that short amount of time starts to add up to a lot of time lost. Oh, and it isn’t a file or computer related issue…I have tried using captions on two different computers using many different files. Maybe I am just lucky. It could be a Mac thing…maybe I should try it on my PC.

I also mentioned problems with iDVD. I wouldn’t really call it a bug, but rather just poor implementation of the program. I guess you get what you pay for (same with Camtasia). In iDVD you can make it so that it has a “Play Movie” button. BUT, it only works if you have 1 movie file. Since Camtasia wouldn’t allow me to export one large movie file, I had to break it into 5 parts. If I try to make a DVD with iDVD, I can’t make the DVD play through all 5 parts back to back. You have to select part 1 from the menu…watch it, and when it is over it will take you back to the menu where you have to select part 2…watch it…go back to the menu…select part 3…and so on. That is really annoying and something I don’t think anyone would want to deal with when trying to watch a video. I did find one bug that caused iDVD to crash. If you select something on the timeline and hit “smart delete,” half the time the program will crash. Wee! As of right now I probably won’t release a DVD version of my environment tutorial simply because I don’t want people to have to go to the menu 5 times in order to watch the whole thing.

Update Oh man…so I was able to stitch all 5 parts of my video together with Camtasia and export it as one file so that I can burn it to a DVD. I created my DVD project in iDVD, tried to burn it, and after about 30-40 minutes, I get an error saying something is wrong with the menus…the menus that COME with iDVD. So I think maybe it is just a glitch. I try again, it fails again. I try deleting the stuff out of my library/quicktime folder like people suggested…didn’t help. I deleted my entire project and created another one like people suggested…didn’t help. I tried saving to a different location like people suggested…didn’t help. So I decided to completely change the theme and bingo, it finally worked. It took 6 hours to burn one dvd because of the encoding time. The first one always takes the longest, but now it only takes 30 minutes to burn one DVD. Soooooooo, I will have DVD versions available when I launch the tutorial. Sorry, the DVD version does not have captions. If you want captions you will have to get the digital download version.

So yeah, with all of the crashing and the bugs, I have lost several days of work. Gotta love it! I should probably just invest in Final Cut Pro, but the $1k price tag is a bit steep. Maybe if I worked on videos all the time it would be worth it, but it has been almost a year since I last created a tutorial. When, you may ask, will my tutorial be finished? Well, the tutorial is done but I’m still in the process of trying to add captions. The other thing about the captions is that Camtasia will only allow the option to turn them on and off if you export it to YouTube or Screencast.com. If I want to export it as say, a quicktime file, I have to either leave them on all the time or leave them off all the time. That means I need to export two versions, one with captions and one without. This also means doubling my chance of running into the export bug. Adding captions is a lot more time consuming than I had anticipated (especially with all of the crashing), so it might be another week or so before I am finished.

After a 13 year absence I made my return to Vegas! I think this was the first real vacation I’ve taken from work in probably 4 years or so. Usually the only time I “go on vacation” is to signing events, but at the signing events I’m still drawing and signing cards for 8-10 hours a day, plus sometimes I take playmat drawings back to the hotel to work on if I didn’t get a chance to finish them during the day. I guess you could say I took a vacation from work when I drove from Virginia to California…but I was driving like 15 hours a day…which actually ended up making my CARpal (hah, car…) tunnel worse than painting. This time my schedule worked out perfectly and all of my deadlines ended the day I left. In order to prevent myself from doing any type of work, including personal, I left my computer behind. It’s actually kinda funny because I’m making a big deal about going on vacation and not working…but I was only gone for two days. I make it sound like I was gone for two weeks or something, but no, in reality I only went two days without working. Most people take two days off from work each week . I may end up needing a vacation from my vacation. I haven’t walked this much in years. I think yesterday we walked probably at least 6 miles. I haven’t done that since I lived in San Fran. I’m too old and out of shape now. When I got home yesterday and took my shoes off I noticed that I had blown 3 holes in my sock…the sock was hole free earlier that morning.

Anyway, Vegas was great. We stayed at Mandalay Bay, my first time there. It was a cool hotel, not as fancy as some of the others, but still cool nonetheless. While we were there we went and saw Cirque du Soleil’s O (at the Bellagio). All I have to say is that it was amazing. It was by far the coolest show I have ever seen. As an artist, I felt incredibly inspired to go home and paint. This is a must see show for everyone. If there is one thing you should do while in Vegas, it is this. I’m actually listening to the soundtrack as we speak. They were selling them after the show and it was definitely worth picking up.

In the typical Daarken fashion, I forgot my camera so I had to use my iPhone. Time for pictors, wee!

Aria…I think.

Smoked turkey crepe at Max Brenner.

Our hotel, Mandalay Bay.

My cupcake of awesomeness. Unfortunately my ganache center fell on the floor ;___;

View from our room window.

Dinner at Dos Caminos.

Rushing to see O.

Shooz

Gru’s stolen Las Vegas landmarks.

Kobe burger from Burger Bar, home of the $60 burger. The $60 truffle burger was a little too rich for my blood, so I stuck with the cheaper one. This one is Kobe beef with Avocado, Bacon, and Blue Cheese.

I leave you with this, a $30 love box from the room’s mini-bar. I made sure to stay clear of that sensor plate.

This is another very popular topic and one that never actually receives any concrete information. How much do I charge as a freelance artist? How much indeed. I still don’t know the right answer for that. I’m not sure why, but for some reason talking about money and how much a person makes is considered rude, taboo even. People look the other way and pretend not to hear you when someone asks how much you make. Why is that? Are people afraid that person will leak your information to their less than savory buddies who will then proceed to kidnap you in the middle of the night and ransom you off for large amounts of monies? Maybe your subordinate makes more than you and you decide to go on a rampage through the office? Maybe artists are afraid they will be blacklisted by their clients if they leak any info? Or maybe people are embarrassed with their income because they don’t think they make enough? I’m not really sure. While growing up I was always told never to tell anyone how much I make because I would be kidnapped…but that is just my experience.

So how do you come up with your rates? Well, unfortunately dictating your own rates isn’t as common as most people would think. Most companies have a set rate they pay, and if you don’t like it, you can hit the road. I would say at least 90% of my clients have set rates that they don’t negotiate on. Client x pays x amount for an illustration, and that is that. I’ve tried negotiating these rates in the past, but they were always in vain. You may ask, how do you know which clients have set rates and which ones will negotiate with you? Hah, that is a good question. From my experience, large companies tend to have a set budget, and therefore, a set rate. Usually the clients I can name my own price with are individuals, people looking for artists to work on their own private project. Also, working as a freelance concept artist in the video game or film industry offers a fair amount of negotiating, although the client still has a budget they want to stick to. Clients that only pay a set rate (for illustrations that is) will usually come right out and tell you what their rate is when they contact you. Clients looking for concept work (film and video games) will usually ask you what your rates are because they want to hire you for the cheapest amount possible. They still have a budget, but if they can hire you for x instead of y, then they can take the remaining budget and use it elsewhere, or get more concepts out of a person.

I know I know, I still haven’t actually said how to figure out how much you should charge. All of my rates have been figured out through trial and error. I come up with a number and tell the client. If they say ok right off, I know I probably bid too low. Next time I might try asking for a little more. If you bid too high, they will usually make a counteroffer. If they say “Nope, that is too much. See ya,” you can try lowering your price, but Clients usually don’t shut you down and leave after one bid. There are a bunch of freelance calculators online, like this one. It is actually pretty complex. It takes into account all of your business costs, personal bills, how many hours/days you work, how much you want to make in profit, etc. Bills are easy to calculate, but trying to decide how much of a profit you want can be tricky, especially since this calculates an hourly fee. Most of the time clients won’t pay by the hour, but rather by the illustration or asset. Now you have to take that hourly rate and figure out how long it will take you to create your illustration and base your fee on that amount. I always hear that you should take your bid and increase it by 20%. Or was it that you should take your client’s offer and increase it by 20% because they always bid low…I dunno.

This whole secret underground rates thing can be a real detriment to the art industry. I feel that a lot of artists are being underpaid because no one ever knows how much to ask for. Usually people tend to undersell themselves too, either because they think their work isn’t good enough or because they think client x couldn’t possibly pay that amount. The art industry is also very competitive, so you have a lot of other artists bidding low just to get the job over another artist. This just perpetuates the cycle because clients then become accustomed to paying a low rate to their artists. At the same time you have artists that are just starting out who need to take lower paying jobs just to get their foot in the door. This could also contribute to why clients aren’t as willing to negotiate their rates. They know they can get other people to work for amount x, so why pay another artist amount y. If you are super awesome you can probably get y instead of x, but you need to be super awesome. So maybe artists should always strive for quality over quantity since that will get them the higher paying jobs? Plus with the internet and the vast amounts of pirating going on, the industry has taken a big hit. I know after my tutorials started being pirated my sales dropped to nearly zero. There are sites like PayScale or Salary.com that have reports based on job types, but to me the rates seem a little low. The other thing about these sites is that they aren’t very specific. “Painter/Illustrator” could mean just about anything.

After four long paragraphs I still haven’t given you a concrete answer as to how you should figure out your rates. If you have trusted art buddies, try asking them for advice. There is also the Graphic Artists Guild book that talks about rates, contracts, and industry practices. It is definitely something worth having on your bookshelf. The other really cool thing about this book is that it comes with sample contracts. Creating good contracts is another very important aspect to being a professional artist. You need to protect yourself in as many ways possible. Again, you come across the difference between working with large companies vs. private clients. Large companies will always have their own contracts that you have to sign, and the terms are usually non-negotiable. Private clients may or may not have their own contracts, so it is up to you to create one. Many times private clients haven’t worked with an artist before, so they won’t know much about writing contracts and you may have to go through several rounds of negotiating the terms. Becoming acquainted with contract lingo is key. Have you ever noticed that contract jargon is ridiculously hard to understand? Well that is done on purpose. If you can’t understand what the contract is saying and you sign it anyway, you may be signing away rights you never intended to sign away. Learn the lingo and make sure you know what you are signing. If you don’t, ask.

After almost a year I am getting close to releasing a new video tutorial, yay. I asked around for suggestions on what I should make my new tutorial about, and most people said an environment. Sooooo, I decided to go ahead and do it. As I’m sure most of you know, I am not really known for my environments. Most of the environments I have painted are still under NDA and will probably never see the light of day, plus they are all fantasy environments. Instead of going with what I know, I decided to go out of my comfort zone and paint a sci-fi environment…one with architecture to boot (another thing I don’t really paint very often).

Right now I am in the process of editing the video. After that I will need to add the audio and create a trailer, so I’m not sure when I will be finished. I hope to have the tutorial finished in the next two weeks or less.

In the Final Charge tutorial I asked for questions from the audience and I wanted to do that again. If you have any questions you want to ask about my process, my thoughts, the industry, or anything that comes to mind, just leave me a comment on here or on my Facebook page and I’ll try to answer them to the best of my ability. Thanks!

Woop! Well I just finished up an 8 painting project with a new client a week early and turned in 3 other paintings yesterday along with 12 armor sketches for another client. Now I just have 9 paintings to finish by the 11th (5 paintings now, I wrote this a few days ago).

In keeping with the previous entry I figured I would talk a little more about the freelancing industry: dos and dont’s, expectations, common sense, and just plain common courtesy. Now I realize I am still probably considered a relative noobie in the industry considering I only started in 2004, but I have experienced some things that I wish people had told me back when I was in school.

Disclaimer – All of these things are my opinion and you have to take them with a grain of salt. As with my other post about workload, everyone is different and not everyone has the same amount of bills. People also come from all over the world and therefore have different bills, different government requirements, different healthcare plans, etc. Some people can get by with only a few projects a month while others need more to support their family. You have been warned!

Convention Etiquette

I love going to conventions because I can meet artists that I admire and buy cool loot from their tables. There are a few things to keep in mind though when you race up to an artist and plop down your treasured items to be signed.

Fans

1. Running and screaming is a good way to show your enthusiasm, but it might make the artist a little uncomfortable and dive for cover under his/her table.
2. If you have 100 cards you want signed, only ask the artist to sign a few and then get back in line for the rest. I honestly don’t mind signing 100 cards at a time, but the other people in line might get a little upset…especially if the next person in line only has 1 thing they want signed. Update – I’ve actually had to change my policy to a 20 card limit due to my carpal tunnel, waiting time for my line, and other reasons like flippers telling me the only want my autograph so that they can make money off of me.
3. If you tell an artist to draw whatever they want, don’t get mad if they draw something you didn’t want.
4. Say hi and thank you, especially if an artist says hi to you. I know some people are shy or nervous, but usually when someone says hi you should say hi back.
5. If you have a specific request for a drawing, try and bring reference for the artist. I know what Wolverine looks like, but do I remember enough details from memory to make an accurate drawing? Probably not.
6. Don’t get mad if the artist needs to take a break.
7. If you say you will be back later to pick up your drawing, don’t forget.
8. If you have an artist do a drawing for you and the artist is charging for it, do NOT run off with the drawing without paying. I had someone who worked AT the event steal one of my drawings.
9. If you ask an artist for a drawing, be polite about it. Here are things that I have heard that an artist never wants to hear:

• “If you do a drawing for me, will you actually put some effort into it? I don’t want to pay for something that you don’t put any effort into.” Just because an artist makes drawing look easy, doesn’t mean it is for them. Drawing takes years of practice and experience, and part of the job of a professional is to make it look easy.
• “Artist x does drawings for free, so can you waive your fee and do a drawing for me for free?” Some artists may feel bad about charging for drawings, but keep in mind that an artist makes his/her living from selling their art. Artists also have to cover their travel costs, hotel, materials, etc.
• “Can you make sure your drawing looks good?”
• “I had artist x draw this for me at another show but I’m not sure if you will be able to draw it as well as artist x.”
• “Your drawing isn’t detailed/good enough. Can you please work on it more?”

There are some things an artist needs to keep in mind too. I have been guilty of a few of these things myself. I know at my very first Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix I was really nervous and not comfortable at all with drawing in front of a large group of people. I think the very first drawing I did for a fan I actually said “sorry it isn’t better.” Now that I have some more shows under my belt and I am getting more comfortable drawing in front of people, I don’t have as many problems.

Artists

1. Say hi, be polite, and answer or fan’s questions. Many fans are probably already nervous or shy, so greeting them with a grimace and a knife in your fist probably isn’t a good idea.
2. Never apologize for your drawings and always be confident and proud of the sketches you make for fans, even if you aren’t. If your fans know you don’t like your drawing, they won’t either. You would be surprised at what a good attitude can do.
3. Try and be as accommodating as possible with your fan’s requests. If a 5 year old girl asks you for a drawing of a unicorn, don’t be a jerk and tell her you are too cool for that.
4. Don’t complain. No one wants to hear you complain about how you don’t want to draw a jeep full of green pigs wearing cowboy hats. If you really don’t feel comfortable with a fan’s request, you can always politely decline or suggest something else.
5. A first impression is the last impression. If you act like a jerk to a fan, you can be sure that fan will spread the word. Besides, it is never fun to finally meet a person you admire only to find out they are a jerk.
6. Don’t forget your pens! The first show I went to I didn’t bring anything. I didn’t have pens, prints, cards…yeah I was a noob. Dan Scott had to teach me the ropes…and let me borrow some pens.

Dealing with Clients

Whether you are a freelance artist or an in-house artist, you are going to have to deal with art directors, producers, and just people in general. For some introverted artists this may be a challenge since their communication skills might be a little lacking. Just remember that as an artist your job is to meet the needs of your client. You aren’t hired to draw/paint whatever you want (although there might be some clients that allow you to do this), you are hired to bring the client’s ideas to fruition. You also have to realize that each client has a different goal in what they want to achieve. Some may need to target a mass market and therefore need a cookie-cutter idea that will be sure to sell, or is less likely to fail. Other clients may want to push the envelope and ask for something completely crazy. Your job is to be prepared for any scenario and complete that project in a professional manner.

This doesn’t mean that you have to be a robot and always follow orders without question. If you have concerns or suggestions, make them. If you disagree with a client’s idea or you think you have a better one, just explain to them why you think idea x would be better or why it might work better given the parameters of the illustration/concept. Sometimes you will be working with a client that isn’t an artist. If they ask for something that you know won’t help the project, let them know. Maybe their suggestion destroys the composition or maybe their color choice doesn’t fit the mood they are aiming for. This is where an artist’s knowledge can help create a stronger piece.

Each project is going to be a negotiation and a collaboration between many parties. Students or aspiring artists who aren’t in the field yet may not realize that what you create won’t be completely your own. To think anything you create is solely yours is a little naive. Again, you are working to meet your clients needs. You may physically paint the piece, but you are working from the ideas and direction of another person. This is especially true if you are working in the game or film industry. Not only are you working from the direction and input of the art director, but you also have other artists that might work on your painting. You then have modelers who may change things in your concept, texture artists that might change things, and animators that might animate your concept differently than what you may have envisioned. This is true with illustrations as well. Covers will have to pass through art directors, possibly editors and graphic artists, maybe even the CEO of the company. If you have problems taking orders or allowing others to change your painting, then art probably isn’t the ideal career for you.

What a lot of players and fans don’t realize is that the illustrations/concepts they see aren’t always what the concept artist/illustrator envisioned or even wanted to do. All the player sees is “oh look, another female warrior with big boobs and hardly any armor.” What they don’t realize is that the artist has art directors telling them they have to make her boobs bigger, or you have to make her wearing skimpier armor, make this look more like game x, make everything super bright and saturated, and so on. Since working in the game industry I’ve had to face a lot of this criticism. So the next time you see a big breasted female warrior in a chain mail bikini, don’t be so quick to blame the concept artist.

Learn to take criticism. If you can’t take it, then you better find a new career. I have no problem with constructive criticism, but when someone doesn’t have anything good to say and they give no suggestions as to what you can do better, I admit, I tend to be a little defensive. The thing you don’t want to do is argue with a client, especially if it is a client you have never worked with before. Once you’ve worked with someone for awhile you can gauge how much you can push back and how well they will take your suggestions. What you really don’t want to do is tell your client to go screw themselves. The art world is surprisingly small, so you don’t want to burn any bridges. If a client wants a change, you need to find a way to make the change whether you like it or not. I admit, I used to have a problem with this when I first started my career, but I chalk that up to inexperience and just a plain misunderstanding of how the industry works. When I was in school my teachers always told me that whenever a client wanted a change you were supposed to charge extra for that. Sadly, that is not how the industry works…at all.

But that idea is dumb!

At some point in your career you are going to receive a brief that you think is stupid or silly. Part of your job, and probably one of the most challenging, is coming up with a way to take that stupid idea and make it cool. Instead of telling the client they are dumb, just smile, nod, and find a way to inject something you like into their idea. As an artist you can pretty much take any idea and make it cool. Your attitude also plays a big part in this. If you start a project saying “this is so stupid, this illustration is going to be dumb,” then you are going to cause yourself a lot of stress and frustration and you may produce something that isn’t very good. You have to say “this idea is dumb, but I’m going to find a way to make it awesome.” Maybe you receive a brief that tells you to paint a pink hippo that is riding a bike. Depending on your lighting, composition, and execution, you could find a way to make that into a really cool illustration. Remember, attitude is everything.

Hurry Up and Wait

You will quickly find that part of your job is to hurry and finish, only to wait for feedback before you can hurry up again. Yet another aspect of freelancing that you will have to juggle. You may think you have plenty of time for a deadline, but you have to take into account the time it will take your client to give you feedback and the number of times they might want you to make revisions. Now multiply that by every project and illustration you have under your belt and you’ll begin to understand the balancing act you are about to undertake. Sometimes you may only wait a few hours for feedback while other times you can wait up to two weeks. In other words, don’t procrastinate.

Speaking of deadlines, many people wonder how long it takes me to complete a painting or how long I am given for each project. Deadlines can vary anywhere from a few hours to a month. I’ve had some cover work that had a 3 day deadline. That is from the time I am contacted by the client for the job and the time I  have to turn in the final painting. I think I was contacted on a Friday and I had to turn in the painting Monday morning. Other times I have a week to complete a cover. Concept work can have even faster turnaround times, often times they want something after one day. The other week I had to do 9 character concepts in one day. Each one took about 1.5 hours to complete, so that is still 13.5 hours of work for one day. Although typically with freelance concept work they give you easier things to work on since they don’t have you in-house. They save the more complicated things for the in-house artists since they know it will have to go through more revisions and filter through more hands. Freelance concept work usually consists of armor designs, weapons, icons, and texture swaps for armors. These things are fairly easy in terms of approvals. I remember back in school people would moan about a two week deadline for one painting, but in reality, that is pie. I’ve been to three different universities, and I must say, college homework is a breeze compared to work in the real world. Just something to keep in mind if you feel your college workload is too high.

Full Plate

Freelancers live or die by their paychecks, so make sure you have enough clients and projects to spread your income around. You don’t want to go one or two months with no income. This can be tricky since you never know when new deadlines might come up. In the beginning of your career you might not have the freedom to turn down projects that may not seem that interesting or that may not pay as much as you had hoped. Your goal is to make enough money so that if there is a dry patch, you can handle it. I would say save enough for at least 3-4 months worth of bills. How may you ask can you achieve this? By learning to become independent. By that I mean that you don’t depend on one or two sources for income. What happens if your primary source of income doesn’t give you any work or they reduce your workload? The way you can create a safety net is by making sure you have many sources of income. Maybe you have an online tutorial that trickles in some side income, 4-5 clients that give you steady work, an iPhone app, DVDs that you sell online, conventions that you attend where you sell prints and drawings, an art book, there are countless possibilities. I’m not saying become a marketing whore, but just be smart. After all, your job as a freelance artist is to go out and find work.

Now that you have clients and projects, you need to invoice. I use a Mac for all of my work (yeah yeah, you PC users are probably groaning) and I invoice with a program called Billings. It is a great program that allows you to keep track of your clients, projects, invoices, and it has the option to time how long you spend painting if you are charging by the hour. You can customize your own invoice templates too. I tried another program called Macfreelance, but it wasn’t nearly as good as Billings.

Paint with Integrity

Always strive to do your best. I have been a firm believer in always producing the best work I can given the circumstances, regardless of the pay. Maybe I’m a sucker for this belief, but when the audience looks at your work all they are going to see is the work. They aren’t going to say “hmm, I bet artist x didn’t spend a lot of time on this piece or put much effort into it because the pay was lower than some of his other projects.” All they are going to see is a crappy illustration and think you are a crappy artist. I put the same amount of effort into a painting no matter what the pay is. Of course it also depends on the deadline for each project. If I am given 2 days to complete a painting I will obviously not be able to put as much time into it as opposed to one that has a month deadline. All I am saying is do your best with what is given to you, leave the pay at the door. Again, this is just my opinion. One drawback from this type of thinking could be that clients receive a certain standard of quality for a lower price, and therefore, they continue to expect artists to reach that same level of quality for that same price. So if you feel that something isn’t worth the pay, then maybe you should just decline and look for other projects.

Death and Taxes

Everyone’s favorite subject, taxes. As you may know, everyone has to pay taxes. Paying taxes has been drilled into our brains since birth. The same is true with freelancers, although it is a little different. As a full-time employee you have taxes taken out of each paycheck automatically, not so with freelance. Since nothing is taken out of a freelancer’s paycheck, you are required to pay quarterly taxes called Estimated taxes. This is something the IRS expects you to figure out on your own. I love how important life lessons like knowing how to pay taxes is never talked about in school. They just expect you to know everything automatically.

Figuring out how much to pay in estimated taxes can be tricky since, as the name implies, it is an estimation. You have to try and guess how much money you will make in the coming year and base your estimated taxes on that amount. As a good rule of thumb I save at least 30% of each paycheck and put that aside for my estimated taxes. Estimated taxes are due on April 15th, June 15th, September 15th, and January 15th of the coming year. Ok, let’s put this to an example. Right now it is March 3rd, 2011. So far this year I haven’t paid any estimated taxes for the 2011 tax year because the first payment isn’t due until April 15th. How much will I pay on April 15th? Well, I have to guess how much money I will make this year, take roughly 25% of that amount and divide it by 4. That is how much you should pay each quarter. This is only a rough guess. You probably won’t owe that much since you have to calculate your deductions and whatnot. Save all of your receipts. As an artist you can write off a lot of things, like art supplies, health insurance, computers, software, art books, etc.

Now this is very important…get an accountant! The best advice I can give is to just hire an accountant. Figuring out taxes, deductions, paperwork, and all that is a lot of time and stress. Time that can be better spent working or taking a vacation. The price of an accountant is definitely worth it in my opinion. They can also help you figure out a more accurate amount for your estimated taxes. Oh, and you have to pay estimated taxes for federal AND state, don’t forget. Not to mention if you sell products, like prints or DVDs, you are required by law to have a seller’s permit in your state and also a business license in the city you live in. Every state and city is different, so be sure to check.

Back to School, or Not

This is another topic that everyone asks me about. Do I need to go to art school to become a professional artist? The short answer is no, hell no. I’m sure all of my teachers are shaking their heads right now, but it is the truth. Basically what it boils down to is do you want to experience going to an art college or would you rather just stay at home? Everyone is different in what they want to experience or achieve and everyone learns differently.

As for myself, I graduated with a BFA in traditional illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco back in 2004. I had a great time there and I learned a lot. Did I need to go there? Absolutely not. Did I want to? Yes. You have to ask yourself, do you want to experience the college life? Things like living in dorm rooms, meeting and hanging out with people that have similar interests, going to class and being pushed to be a better artist by your fellow peers, meeting and learning from industry professionals, attending figure drawing workshops, making industry contacts, the list goes on and on. The downside, of course, are school loans. Art schools can be very expensive and it is very common to go $100k in debt. Do you want to spend the next 20 years paying that off? Some people think it is worth it while others think it is a waste. Again, it is up to the individual.

I will say this, you will never be asked for your diploma or even where you went to school. Clients are only interested in your ability, not where you came from. I’ve worked with almost 20 different clients, and none of them ever asked me about or required that I have a degree. I also know tons of industry professionals that are either self taught or they dropped out of school. With the internet at our fingertips we have the ability to learn anything and everything. The amount of reference material, online tutorials, online classes, and just plain information in general is staggering. You can go to an art forum or social networking site and talk to legends like Brom or Todd Lockwood. What I’ve noticed over the years is that people are getting better at a younger age, and I think it is because of the amount of learning material that is so readily available on the internet. Nowadays you can find 18 year old artists that are freaking amazing, and I’m not talking about this being a rarity,  but rather this is becoming commonplace. Just go to CGHub and look at people’s profiles, it can be very daunting. BUT, and there is always a but, teaching yourself requires a lot of dedication and focus. Are you the type of person that will push yourself to draw everyday, all day long? Are you going to go out of your way to learn and better yourself, or are you going to sit back and play video games? Some people need the motivation and inspiration a school can offer. They need that outside force telling them they have to finish their homework by 3:oopm tomorrow.

Online resources/tutorials
Massive Black
Gnomon
3DTotal
CGHub
Conceptart.org
CGSociety
My store
My free YouTube tutorials
Feng Zhu’s YouTube tutorials
Dave Rapoza’s Livestream
Schoolism

I know everyone says this and it sounds so cliche, but your college days are probably some of the best days of your life. Do I sit around and reminisce of my college days? Sometimes, yeah. Let’s think about it. You are probably around 18-19 years old, you move out of the house for the first time to a new place, possibly a new state, you are meeting new people and going to school for something you love, and a lot of people aren’t worrying about rent or jobs. Most students will probably get a school loan, while the rest might be lucky enough to have a college fund. Either way, you probably aren’t worrying about how you will pay your bills. If you have a student loan, yes you have to pay it back with interest…but seriously, how many 18 year old kids are sitting around stressing about paying back their school loan, not too many. I know a lot of people that were excited about their school loans because that meant they could take that money and buy a new computer. So you are now in this new place, going to a new school, meeting new people, living off of a school loan so you don’t have to worry about rent and you probably don’t have to worry about a job right now either (most of my friends didn’t have jobs, including myself), sounds pretty good right? If you do go to school, be sure to take advantage of it. Ask questions, make friends, make contacts, attend every workshop possible, and go to class with a good attitude. What you put in is what you will get back. Oh yeah, try to find out which teachers are the good ones. Every school has good and bad teachers, so you definitely don’t want to get stuck with the bad ones.

Whew, longest post ever. If I think of any other good tips I’ll try and post them on here. I hope this helped! Thanks!

Updates

Crit!

No I don’t mean hitting for more damage, I mean asking for critiques. As an artist I am happy to critique other people’s work, but please be sure to understand that it may take me a few weeks or maybe even a few months to get back to you. I always try to reply to every e-mail, but sometimes I become distracted or I forget. If you haven’t received a reply, just send me another e-mail, but please don’t send another e-mail if it has only been a few hours or a day since you sent the first e-mail. If you are sending an attachment of your work, please be sure to resize your images. My inbox can only hold a certain amount of space, so please don’t send 10 meg attachments. Make sure all of your files are 72 dpi. It is also much easier for me to critique a piece if I can see the entire image without scrolling. Opening an image and only seeing a knuckle is a bit unreasonable. I’ve also had people get mad with my feedback or tell me they don’t care about what I have to say and that they are going to continue doing what they want. If you can’t handle constructive criticism, don’t ask for it. If you plan to be a professional artist, you are going to receive criticism ALL the time.

Hah, well for some reason a bunch of stuff came out on the same day. Six WoW cards and my Warhammer cover all came out today. Actually I received the proofs today, so I’m guessing they were released earlier. I think the Icecrown cards came out back on the 1st.

Anyhoo, this was the first time I was able to paint a Worgen. Pretty fun I might add. I think since this set I’ve painted at least one Worgen for every set, but they haven’t come out yet. I actually just finished up 3 new WoW cards earlier this week, although they probably won’t come out for another 6 months or something.

Blood for the Blood God!

My new cover for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Omens of War, was announced today. Hmm, not sure what else to say about this piece. I did end up having to go through several iterations on the helmet and axe design, and I’m not sure if it was for the better. I also had to redo the horse’s armor. I always wish I had more time on a painting. If I could, I would go back and add more to the large banner in the background. Looking back at it now it seems too flat and boring. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Ahhh, the glamorous life of a freelancer. Everyone wants to be a freelancer right? Make your own schedule, sit around all day playing video games, wake up at 3pm and party until 5am, finally pursue that lifelong dream of learning how to make sock puppets with your free time…that’s what the life of a freelancer is like right?  Wroooooong. Well, mostly wrong, I do play a lot of video games. I must admit, I had some of these preconceived notions back when I was young and inexperienced. I’ve come across a lot of people that think freelancers can pump out one painting a month and just sit back and enjoy the rest of the month doing whatever it is they do…like I dunno, collecting coins and eating rice crispy treats. Ok ok, I do have a Domo-Kun piggy bank full of shiny coins and I do enjoy the occasional rice crispy treat, but you know what I mean.

I think Chuck said it best in his post about the life of a freelancer, although I have Chuck beat in terms of commute. All I have to do is sit up in bed, slightly move to my left and pick up my computer. I can then sit in bed for the next 12 hours working and then, you guessed it, put my computer back down and go to sleep. I won’t repeat anything that he already talked about since he is 100% correct. What I do want to do is give students a better understanding of what the life of a freelancer is really like and give them a peek at my daily schedule.

Being a freelance artist is not easy, there is a lot of work involved. People always ask me how I balance my work life with my personal life, and the answer is I don’t have much of a personal life. If you want to be a freelance artist and be able to provide for your entire family, be prepared to give up a lot of your personal life. There was one point where I went 6 months without playing a single video game. I can almost feel your sarcastic responses, but for me that is a big deal. I’m sure there are artists out there who make enough money from a couple paintings that they can sit back and relax, but I am no where near that status. If you are a regular joe like me, you gotta work your ass off.

So behold! The all powerful freelancing calendar of doom. All of the orange entries are paintings that I have to finish for that given day. One thing to keep in mind is that even though there might only be one orange entry, it can mean that several paintings are due for that project. Today there are 3 orange entries, but in reality I have 8 paintings that I have to finish. The other day I finished 9 paintings in one day. I am currently juggling projects for 6 different clients. Depending on my workload, my work week can be anywhere from 40-120 hours/week. Yeah you can make your own schedule, but you still have to put in the hours. Chuck mentioned how he feels guilty about taking a day off, that is completely true. I think in the past 4 years I’ve only taken maybe 4 weekends off. Even when I’m on “vacation,” a.k.a. at a signing event, I am still drawing and signing cards all day long. Sometimes I have to take work back to the hotel because my playmat queue gets too long. Some people may say “you should be grateful you are getting that much work, stop complaining,” or, “stop taking so many projects then.” Well, if I don’t take that many projects then I can’t pay my bills. I’m not trying to be ungrateful or complain, but simply show that freelancing can take up a lot of time. I actually count myself lucky that I get this much work and I wouldn’t change it for anything. One good thing about this much work is that I can support my family, but the downside is that by the time I had reached 28 I had developed carpal tunnel in both wrists and cubital tunnel in my left arm. What really worries me is that it only took 4 years of working for me to develop that much damage. How much longer will my career last? What will I do if I can no longer paint? Just something to think about and to keep tabs on. Make sure you have good work habits and take frequent breaks. I’ve talked about this many times before, but it is really important. Take good care of your wrists. If I can prevent other artists from damaging their wrists then it is worth beating a dead horse…with a stick…with a nail on the end.

Now you may ask yourself, what is the moral of the story? If you want to pursue a career as a freelance artist be prepared to work, a lot. Don’t let people tell you being a freelance artists is a breeze or that it isn’t a real job or that you will starve as a freelancer. I know when I attended state universities if you mentioned that you were an art major people would stifle a snicker and turn their nose and probably say something like “art isn’t a major” or “ah, that must be an easy a.” If you have the drive and dedication you can live very comfortably as a freelancer, just watch those wrists.