If You knew How Much I Used To Struggle!

I know I've talked about this before but I really want you to know 2 things:

1. This art thing that you want to get good at takes a long time - a lifetime really.

2. It's really fun when you start to put all the pieces together and start creating images that gather an audience!

To this day I still have a problem drawing in front of people. I have no problem painting in front of a group but I'm so unsure about my drawings I get really self conscious. This fish for instance goes through a really rough loose stage that changes form many times before I start to see things I like. Often I don't like where it's going and have to start over from scratch - that would make a really fun demo wouldn't it?...and the fear of that happening is paralyzing - so I don't often draw in front of my classes.

I gave the assignment to create a "Fish King" character in my Imagination and Visual Literacy class at UVU and invited my students to send me images to post - some of them took me up on this invitation. I hope they realize that they draw better than I did when I was going to college. I was put on "probation" for being such a horrible artist.

Oh yeah - it was my son Aaron's idea to put fish hooks in his lips - credit where credit's due!

I love the diversity you can see in their work. By nature artists want to be different. Artists want to show the world something they've never seen. Check out Dallin Orr's and Todd wilson's work.

Are We Creating Too Many Artists?

I often get asked these three questions: 

1) Are you worried that you are helping too many artists - that will one day take away your business?

2) Why would you help other people learn how to make story apps and ebooks that will ultimately compete with yours in the market place?

3) Aren't you worried that you will have a bunch of artists copying your style?
I was happy to finally be able to make this video to explain my position on the abundance mentality vs the scarcity mentality. I would love to know how you feel?

"How To Draw Everything" FREE online Class!

We're doing it again! Another Free online live class at SVS. This time we've upgraded our service to allow for up to 500 attendees. All you need to do to attend is click this link and register anytime before the class begins - you can even do it right now.

You can send this to anyone who you think might benefit from a beginning drawing course. We changed the time to 12:00 PM MST on Thursday Jan 30th to accommodate many of our students in Europe and elsewhere. We noticed that we had many people in some of our other classes that had to either stay up or wake up at 3:00 in the morning. So this one's for you Europe! If you're here in the states perhaps you can take a long lunch and tune in with us!

Jake Parker has designed this course for the student who is trying to develop better drawing skills or for the student who is just starting out and wants to develop good habits. It should last between 1.5 and 2 hours and all you need is a computer or mobile device to join us. Grab a sketchbook and draw along with us. If you can't make this class it will be available in our store on Friday.



Also - I've been asked about the difference between online schools like our SVS and attending an illustration or animation at a University or art school - I give my take in this video - I'd love to know what you think. One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that we have quite a few art teachers at art schools and Universities using our videos to enhance the learning experience. We aren't any better than those teachers but often teachers want their students to hear the same things from other teachers. I do the same thing when I'm at University - I often show videos from other artists to reinforce the principles I'm teaching.

Nice Reviews and Sneak Peek at Gary's Worms

I'm so excited to talk about the reviews Gary's Place is getting as well as talk about the sequel to Gary's Place.

First: We have the new updates in that fixed the ending of Gary's place and we submitted it to Digital Story Time and The iMums. Two of the top review sites for children's story apps. Digital Story Time gave us 4.5 stars and The iMums gave us 5 stars! I couldn't believe it! I had to start looking at the competition on those sites and found that many of the other apps in the 4-5 star range are being produced by big publishers like Harper Collins and Disney. It felt really good to be able to start and finish this project with Rick and my son Aaron with help from Tabitha Thompson's wonderful voice acting - and to be able to complete!

Second: Since we're finally rolling I'll share our sales stats from Google Play, Amazon, and iTunes in a future post. I don't expect to sell thousands of these overnight. I don't think digital publishing works that way for the most part. I've got my eye on the long term goal of steadily building a brand. I've had a few of my peers ask me why I seem to be so hell bent on making apps? Why work on a project like this without any guarantee of success? Why not spend more time in traditional publishing markets? Why risk? Do you hate traditional publishing?

I love these questions - keep em coming! :) No I don't hate traditional publishing - I illustrated 3 books last year and loved each one of them. I look forward to illustrating more in the future. I'm having the time of my life working in a medium that is expanding my knowledge and skill sets. I'm enjoying the collaborations I'm making with Rick and my son Aaron - who's very creative and is actually a major contributor on interactive, animation, and content ideas. I count myself extremely lucky to be able to afford the time to work on these. But probably the biggest reason is that in order to succeed in anything artistic there needs to be risk. I've learned to embrace it. This doesn't mean that I don't hear nasty things from the voices. There always there but I've learned how to cage them quicker and keep them locked away longer.

Many are afraid of digital publishing. Some are wishing it away. Some are ignoring it. I would just like to point out that it took nearly 50 years for the automobile to become mainstream. The early contraptions were noisy, expensive, unreliable, and inefficient. People  made fun of the early adopters. Many were hoping they would fail so everything would go back to normal. I can't predict the future but I doubt we will move away from digitally delivered and enhanced storybooks for children. This means that I won't have to worry about my creations going out of print.

Third: My plan is to steadily and slowly build a quality brand. Each new app will advertise the previous story apps and each previous app will be updated to advertise the newest story app. They say slow and steady wins the race - we'll see. I keep hearing about artists who make an app and never make another one because they didn't sell enough to justify the effort. I think this is a mistake if they could afford to continue. Think about some of the most famous picture book brands out there - like the Olivia stories...or the Skippyjon Jones books. They weren't created in a year or two - it took a LONG time. It took risk from their publishers.

If you've bought a copy of Gary's Place I'd love to hear what you think! Also if you wouldn't mind giving us a rating in the app store - that will help - good or bad!

Homework for Painting Color & Light Class

This week I'm sending out homework for our Painting Color & Light class at SVS. If you're in the Live or Video Recorded classes you should have gotten an email from me with details for the homework assignment. If you're not in the class you can still download the following images and practice adding value and color to them. Class begins in about one week! You can check out our schedule and content of the class here:  http://schoolofvisualstorytelling.bigcartel.com/painting-color-and-light

Gary's Place Now Available For Android

In this post I'm going to write about what we've been doing with Gary's place and some of the mistakes we've made along the way - and give information on how to contact my son Aaron for help with your app.

First: Gary's Place can now be found in the Google Play and Amazon app stores for Android devices - YAY! We are charging a dollar less since it's optimized for iPad and stretched a bit on many of the android phones and tablets.

Second: I'm not sharing sales data yet because we really haven't gotten off the ground yet - I've been holding back because of all the problems we've had - ARRRRG! Sales data coming after we start advertising.

So lets talk about the problems and subsequent updates:

When we first uploaded to iTunes and waited and waited for the approval we were horrified when we downloaded the app and saw that it was called "Build 17" on my iPad in the title below the icon. NOOOOOO!!!!! Let me just say that while Apple is "user friendly" for consumers they are 180 degrees from that for developers. It really feels as if they don't care about helping you AT ALL! When we uploaded the app file Apple asked for the title of the app - which we filled in with "Gary's Place". But they don't use that to put under your app icon - instead - they use the file name -BUT THEY DON"T TELL YOU THAT.

So...update #1 was to fix the name.

Then one of my online friends - Elizabeth - informed me that at first she read the ending as Gary moving back in with his parents at the end. Hmmm - I thought - that's not good. So I asked Jan Watford who had reviewed Gary's Place for her blog if she read it that way as well - and she said, "Yes - isn't that what you intended?" .....crap.

So...Update # 2 was to fix the ending and reducing the overall size of the app...and that update just went live for iPad.

Then my son Aaron (who's been working really hard on all of this) thought we needed navigation to make it easier to pick a specific page in the app and go directly there. It will disappear after a few seconds so it's not in the way.  I've been so busy with a large freelance assignment that I haven't been able to give it as much attention as it deserved. But he went ahead and did it and it makes using the app sooo much easier - here's a screen shot of what update #3 will look like.

So Update #3 will add a navigation bar to quickly jump to any page and reduce the size even further.

Rick Walton has now written the next story and I'm starting to layout the entire app - and loving it!

My son Aaron has decided to help other people with their apps as long as they're using Kwik. He's spent the last 3 months working with Kwik and has gotten pretty good at it. He's offering to coach you or build your app - you can visit his site right here: http://www.atanimations.com/

"Working with Color" - Free Class!

We're going to be holding a free online class this Tuesday Jan 14th at 7:00 pm MST (9:00 NYC - 6:00 Cali) and anyone can join us. This class is another "prep" class like last Tuesday's Light and Shadow class. These two classes are meant to prepare our attendees for our Painting Color and Light class at SVS. Some of our students have gone through college art programs where they've covered the basics that we're offering in these free live classes. If you haven't had rendering or color theory classes you might want to join us on Tuesday. If you can NOT attend live you can always pick up these classes in our store. 

We had 100 spots available for attendees last week and we were shocked that they filled up in minutes. This week will probably be no different so we apologize if you cannot get in. Last week we had people join us from all over the world and we're sorry that some had to join us at 3:00am! If you would like to try to get in go to our facebook page for the link https://www.facebook.com/schoolofvisualstorytelling - then try to join just before 7:00 pm MST. 

We are looking into a service that will provide us with more attendee spots for future free classes. In our paid live classes we only take up to 25 students but you can always pick up the video recordings after the class.

This weeks class will go over all the basics of color and is designed to be the perfect intro to our Painting Color and Light class that begins at the end of this month. We only have 5 spots left in that class and you can read all about it here:  Hope to see you in class!

Should You Work In A Studio or Freelance?

I received a great question from someone trying to figure out what moves to make in the near future. I think many artists are in this same situation so I decided to answer the email in a video post. If you don't know whether you should work for an animation studio or try to publish your personal projects or freelance this video might help you make your decisions.

Join Us Jan 7th & 14th For Our Free Live Classes!

We are offering 2 FREE LIVE CLASSES to everyone!

Join us for two free live classes with Jake Parker and I. These classes are "prep" classes for our Painting in Color and Light class, but are open to everyone (even if you've never purchased a class from us before). After these live prep classes are finished, they will be placed in our online store for sale.

Light and Shadow
Tuesday January 7th
7 pm MST (9 pm New York / 6 pm California)
To get the link to our Free class just sign up on our facebook page. For those who left or sent their email address to me you should have received this link in an email.
* You don't need a microphone to participate but if you'd like to ask questions, please be prepared to use headphones and a microphone.

Working with Color

Tuesday January 14th

7 pm MST (9 pm New York / 6 pm California)

To get the link to our Free class just sign up on our facebook page. For those who left or sent their email address to me you should have received this link in an email. 

* You don't need a microphone to participate but if you'd like to ask questions, please be prepared to use headphones and a microphone.

More Info on Painting Color & Light Class

First: These Santa images will be part of our homework optional assignments in our "Painting Color & Light" class. We'll be offering finished drawings to use for practice paintings of various color and lighting situations in our LIVE class. Recorded class members will also receive the homework assignments but will not receive the critiques. In a few weeks we'll send out all of our homework options so students can pick and choose what they want to work on during the class.

Second: Because we have so much information to give out on our upcoming Painting Color & Light Class we have decided to offer a few short prep classes.  These classes will be FREE for those who can attend them LIVE online. We will offer the recordings in our store afterwards for a fee but if you can make it on January 7th at 7:00 MST you will be able to join us live for free - we'll send out links to join our GTM session so put your email in the comments below if you would like to receive the joining links. We will upgrade to a higher level of software to accommodate over 100 attendees if there is that much interest.

We'll go over many principles that you would learn in a color theory and rendering class to bring students up to speed for the "Painting Color & Light" class. It's very helpful to be able to hit the ground running when we start our 7 week class and we want everyone to feel like they understand what we're talking about in that class. (did I say 7 weeks? yes - we added another critique class for our LIVE students!) Below you will see the material we will cover in our prep classes:

Light and Shadow What is value and how is it used? What are gradients and how do they work in a drawing? Can drawings work in mostly light values, dark values, both? Lighting shapes What direction should my light be coming from? How does light fall on a sphere, cube, cylinder, & human form? What is the relationship between the darkest dark and lightest light? why is reflected light important to show form? What are cast shadows and what happens to their edges? What direction do shadows go? What are occlusion shadows
Painting Color What colors should I buy or use? Are white and black colors? Should you ever use black? What happens when you mix various colors? What are cold & warm colors? What is a vibrating color? What are color opposites? What’s the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary colors? What are tints, shades, and gradients? What is a triad? How can you neutralize two colors? What’s is a complimentary color scheme and an analogous color scheme? How can I get rich color in my painting?

Our email list is continually growing and all our upcoming classes and announcements are sent out to our email list first. Put your name and email below to stay up to date on what we're doing at SVS!

"Gary's Place" LIVE for iPad - Steps 8 & 9

Build the app & submit to the app stores.

So much has happened in the last few weeks! We finished our app - submitted it to apple - got it approved and started marketing it!

In the following video I interview my son Aaron who used Kwik to develop our Gary's Place app. He also submitted it to the Apple app store and we talk about that as well. If you're into this stuff you might find our video useful as you move forward with your own story.




Check out reviews of Gary's Place:
Rob Smith
Jan Watford
Digital StoryTime
TheiMums
Bestappsforkids

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Painting Color & Light Online Class

I'm very excited to announce our SVS Painting Color & Light class that is now available on our website. I'm not sure what I like painting more - color or light - so why pick? Let's do them both! Actually you really can't have color without light and vice versa so it makes sense to have a class dedicated to the exploration of both.

The class will start at the end of January and will run for 6 weeks each Tuesday. You can see all the details here.

This class will also offer some very detailed assignments - I'll blog about them later as we get a few weeks out from the start of the class - but I have already designed them. Students will have a choice of 3 assignments at various levels. Also - there will be two prep class sessions in early January that we will offer for free for those who are new to painting, have never taken formal illustration classes, or need to brush up on their value and color skills. These prep classes will be offered for free if you can attend the LIVE video taping but will be offered as a video in our store if you cannot make the Live session. I'll announce those dates very soon. We'll use an upgraded version of GoToMeeting so we can accommodate a large number of attendees.

Adding luminosity to your paintings can make the difference between "good" and "AMAZING!"

Oh, and we'll also be featuring Blue Sky artist Ty Carter - he's been taking the animation industry by storm with his amazing luminous paintings! Check out his work here and check out the class here.

Flying Fish Character Design

This was one of my studies for our upcoming character design class this Saturday - it's been a blast preparing for it. I love taking time to develop personal exploratory work. For those of you already signed up I look forward to meeting with you during and after the class in our personal sessions! Thank you! http://schoolofvisualstorytelling.bigcartel.com/

How To Make A Story App - Step 7

Add sound effects to your story app.

This was one of the funnest parts of the creation process. I was amazed at how much sound can "sell" an animation or idea - it's pure magic. Looking at your little animations work is great but they are silent by themselves - adding the right sound brings them alive.

Tips: I used freesound.org for a bunch of the sounds I used. The sounds are free to use as long as you give credit to the artists in your project. I only used "public domain" sounds and "creative commons" licenced sounds. The agreements can be easily viewed and read on their site.



I also created some sounds using tinyvox on my iPad and then altered them in Audacity. I couldn't find a good digging sound for Gary but I knew what I wanted - so I scratched my pant leg  - I know - weird right? but it made a pretty good sound. Then I doubled it up in Audacity, changed the pitch, and cleaned up the front and back end and it was perfect!

Kwik allows you to use both mp3 and wav files which you can create in Audacity. My total learning time in Audacity was about one hour from fooling around with the program and watching youtube videos produced by 8 year olds. One of the most important things you can do with your sound files is to chop off the dead space at the front and end of the clips. You don't want the users of your app to hear hiss or crackle before the actual sound is about to play.

Stay tuned as I'll keep sharing my progress on "Gary's Place" which I plan to submit to Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. in a few weeks. I'll continue to blog about this process even sharing my sales stats when it hits the various app stores! If you're wondering where the first steps are I started this project back in September 2013 - check these links:

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Steps 8 & 9

Extra Video for our Character Design Live Class!

As an added bonus we've decided to rope in Disney artist Shane Lewis to start our video series off right. Shane is going to record a "Character Design: First Steps" before our Power Day and anyone who has or will purchase the Live class before Dec 14th will get this one for free - we still have space left.

Shane has taught character design for BYU and brings a unique method of creating unique characters that have proper emotions, gestures, stance, costumes and details that are appropriate for your story - he goes deep getting into the psychology of the character. At Disney he creates characters and story boards for some some of their games like Cars 2 and Toy Story 3. Jake Parker and I will get together with Shane to make this video in a conversation style - we like this format because we can challenge each other to bring clarity to the principles that Shane will teach.

So this is what our lineup looks like:

Shane Lewis: First Steps - psychology of your character
Jake Parker: Design principles, shape, gesture & keeping consistency in your characters.
Will Terry: Exaggerating from Life, simplifying form, & proportion
Brandon Jeffords: Character design demonstrations
Jake Parker: Action & Emotion

This extra video will only be included in our LIVE class. It will become available for purchase after the class as a separate video in our SVS store. Our goal for SVS is to develop a video library that will give any student the tools needed to continue their personal improvement. We plan to constantly create new classes to challenge artists at affordable prices. 

If you can't attend our live session you can always pick up the recorded version to watch at your leisure - our early bird discount ends when the class starts on Dec 14th 2013.

Check out the class right here.

Artists Should Always Have A Personal Project

I've wanted to make this video for a while - the idea of having a personal project in the works at all times during an artist's career. Personal projects require a different kind of thinking than satisfying an assigment or commission. In the video I make a few cases why you should push yourself to create your own creations and how to go about it.

How To Make A Story App - Step 6

Record the voice narration.

On my last app "I Eat You" I used the iPad app "Tiny Vox" to record my own voice - making all the crazy fish voices and generally making a fool of myself. It was fun but now I'm in app making 2.0 and for Gary's Place I decided to hire a professional! But back to Tiny Vox - wow! what a cool app for only a couple of bucks. If you're on a budget you can get good clean sound tracks with this little gem. The built in noise cancellation leaves the front and back end of your sound clips hiss free.

But I got really lucky that I ran into Tabitha Thompson from our SVS classes. She was looking into the whole process of leveling up her illustration skills as she's already a talented writer. I mentioned that I was looking for voice work and she said she would love to provide a sample - it was amazing - I only found out after the recordings that she was trained professionally.

Tabitha Thompson has an advanced-level degree in theatre from Cambridge, England, and has worked as a professional actor, singer, and dancer since 1989. You can contact her at tabitha.voiceact at icloud dot com.

Then I worried that I wouldn't be able to afford her - but her rates were really reasonable - so I paid for 3 hours of her time which included driving down from Salt Lake. Then I paid for an hour of time with a sound studio. Since I'm in app creation 2.0 I wanted to leave no stone unturned. My goal in making this app is to give reviewers, moms, dads, kids, peers, very little to find fault with. 

I tried to give as little input as possible during the recording since I'm really just an illustrator. I told myself, "Let Tabitha feel free to explore her art as you enjoy being left alone to explore yours." The result was really fun. Being the professional she is -she nailed it on the second take. I only asked her to re-read a few lines twice for a few reasons she wouldn't have understood without seeing the illustrations.

The sound guy (Ryan Haldeman part of the “kid history – youtube” team)  used wetransfer.com (my favorite large file sharing site) to send me the voice recordings. Then I used Audacity to cut the long sound files into page segments. We all thought it would make a better product to have Tabitha read the entire manuscript – rather than break each page for my convenience. I think it gave her a much better flow and rhythm...and it's super easy to cut the file on your PC or Mac.

Audacity is a free program you can download and you can learn what you need in about 20 min by watching various youtube videos. Want to learn how to cut a file? Just ask youtube: “how to cut file audacity” then watch a 5 year old lay it out – could you have predicted this 20 years ago? Ha! Oh – one little trick with Audacity. You'll want to export your files in mp3 format (if you're working with Kwik) – BUT Audacity can't do that for you because of the pesky royalty Audacity would have to pay to let you do that – instead – try to export to mp3 from Audacity anyway – Audacity came up with a link when you try to save that takes you to a 3rd party web page where you can download a tiny program that works behind the scenes with Audacity to magically create mp3 files – in fact after you install that second program you can just export mp3s right from Audacity.

Stay tuned as I'll keep sharing my progress on "Gary's Place" which I plan to submit to Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. in a few weeks. I'll continue to blog about this process even sharing my sales stats when it hits the various app stores! If you're wondering where the first steps are I started this project back in September 2013 - check these links:

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Steps 8 & 9

Breathing Life Into Your Characters

I'm very excited to announce our newest SVS class - "Breathing Life Into Your Characters".

Like our Painting in Photoshop Power Day that we had a few weeks ago this will be an all day event on Saturday December 14th. There will be a limit of 25 seats for the online LIVE class which will be recorded for those who can't get in. Some have asked us - "If I attend the LIVE class can I still get the video recordings of the class?" - yes - they come with the tuition.

Our headliner this time is Brandon Jeffords - head of story at Sony Pictures Animation. He worked on the animated film: Cloudy With A Chance Of  Meatballs 2 which came out in September. Brandon is an awesome artist and communicator and will be demonstrating how he comes up with expressive characters full of life. This class will be a little different as Jake and I will both be in the classroom with Brandon...we'll be monitoring the chat, helping attendees ask their questions, and of course coming up with plenty of our own questions.

 

Jake Parker and I will share our working methods of creating characters for children's books, story apps, collectibles, and comics. We've worked out a schedule to highlight each others strengths while assisting each other in each session. Creating memorable life like characters is one of the first steps in creating great story art and this Power Day is going to be a ton of fun!

To check out all the details for this class just click here.

How To Make A Story App - Step 5.5

Finish the artwork. (for earlier steps keep scrolling down)

Shoooeeeee - that took a while!

I'm not going to even try to explain how much fun I've had with the art work in this story app...it was like...nope...not going to even try.

Of course it has been an incredible commitment and sacrifice. Lots of work with little or no guarantee of financial reward. I even had to turn down PAYING work to have enough time to work on it - which will cause some to question my sanity. But those same people will probably say it was a good move if this pans out financially. Show me any thing of value in this world that didn't come with some crazy idea and a lot of sacrifice? For me the journey is worth it alone. I'm content because I'm seeing my idea come to life. How many people can say that? Will it make money? We'll find out as I plan to publish all my sales figures right here on my blog.

Check out the other 5 steps:

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Steps 8 & 9

Photoshop Power Day Videos Now Available!

We just wrapped up the most amazing day of learning how to paint in photoshop I've ever been involved in! The video recordings are finished and ready for you to download right NOW - and they'll continue to be 25% off for the next too weeks until November 10th.

It was so much fun to teach and learn from Zac Retz, Brooke Boynton Hughes, and Jake Parker. I have to give a special thank you to all of you who participated LIVE in our virtual GoToMeeting classroom - your questions and comments made it so valuable to me and the other teachers. Thank you for being so patient as we worked through our tech glitches.

Here is my finished demo painting that I made for the class - always fun to have an excuse to paint something just for fun!

You can learn more about the class here or purchase the HD video class right here.

We have more classes coming soon so leave your email in the comments below or email me at will@willterry.com to be put on our mailing list for future class announcements. We are working on our website right now and our 2014 class schedule. Our goal is to provide instruction that works with current University and Art school illustration and animation programs or with those who have never attended formal art training.

Where Are My Freelance Jobs?

I have been blessed with many connections in the illustration world and many more since I started this blog a few years back and those connections seem to be growing. Every day I get asked questions related to the freelance illustration markets -from how to improve the craft of illustration to how to find markets and clients and I spend a fair amount of my time answering them. I enjoy this time each day.

I made a series of youtube videos on the subject I'm about to discuss a few weeks ago.

In the past month I have been offered three different freelance projects for publishing companies all of which I turned down due to the lack of budgets. I don't want to seem ungrateful - beyond the fact that it's flattering to be wanted - I realize that I'm in a different position than many illustrators since I've been at this a while and have spread out my income streams. I defend the right of our clients to offer what's in their own best interest as we must decide to accept or reject based on our best interests. Some people complain about the price of a water bottle at the gas station...but they don't have to buy it.

But it's the latest offering that I wanted to discuss. If you've gone through an illustration program on a University or art school level you know that illustration rates have either stayed the same over the last 100 years or gone down. The offering I received this week was half of what I used to get paid from this client. This made it very easy to turn down but that's not the point. The point is that what I've been saying (please watch my youtube video if you haven't already - all 3 parts!) is coming true. Prices that have at least "held" for decades are now going the other direction. We are competing on a global scale at many levels. With the ability for individual artists to publish their own music, books, videos, etc the big companies are having to adapt to the competition. It's one reason entertainers like Jimmy Kimmel are releasing anonymous videos on youtube (twerking girl catches on fire) to generate traffic back to his show. Our clients - the people we want to hire us are suffering from the noise just like we are - they are competing with us when we release our own products.

If you look at every potential consumer of your products as having a finite amount of attention per day - in other words in my case a mother will only read a certain number of books or story apps for x amount of time each day to their child. Every quality product that is released has the potential of sucking a certain amount of time out of the pool of consumers. As a result publishers have been going through massive layoffs. Some of this could be due to the recession and slow recovery but I believe that our industry has been hit by a "perfect storm" if you will. The internet is allowing artists and publishers all over the world to work together and compete, technology making creation faster and delivery quicker, a recession, and the ability for anyone to publish cheaply and in many cases - free.

AND education is getting cheaper for illustrators with online options - like our own SVS, Folio Academy, Chris Oatley's classes, Justin Gerard and Cory Godbey's Lamp Post Guild, and many others. This isn't going to go back to the way it was. The number of good and great illustrators is only going to grow. BUT guess what? I think it's wonderful!

I'm doing the best work of my life and getting fewer good paying gigs than ever and I hear this over and over from friends and acquaintances. Why do I think it's awesome? Because I believe illustration is going to become more honest and pure leaving only room for the truly dedicated and passionate artists. The artists that are willing to risk it all for a chance to engage their audiences with emotionally provocative art. Taking on mind numbing, politically correct, predictable, risk free, follow the leader, anemic, cookie cutter, tasteless, agenda driven, thoughtless projects are getting really expensive to produce - because nobody is buying them. I'm up for the challenge - bring it on!

Last year I filled in as an adjunct teacher for a neighboring University to UVU. I was asked to teach the business class for illustration majors. I decided to toss out the playbook we used 15 years ago (put your ad here - generate a mailing list - send out post cards - the end)  in favor of teaching the type of ideas I share in my youtube videos about developing your own projects and testing them in the market. It was appreciated by some and rejected by others. It really bothered me that some of the students were unhappy with what I was sharing. They asked, "Where are our Freelance Jobs?" "We want you to tell us how to get work."  I probably got more pissed off than I should have - after all - they did everything they were supposed to. They worked hard in the first school - got great grades in the second school  and were promised a bright future if they got good grades in the third school which they did - top of their classes. Then they met me in the business class at college where I told them - no - it's all different - it's about what value you can create in a product - that you create on your own time with your own money- and there's no guarantees. Who would want to hear that after being promised a job.

I emailed 20 of the who's who in editorial illustration (I'm talking society of illustrators award winners) asking them if what I was attempting to teach was misleading and false. 17 wrote back telling me (and them) that my advice was spot on and that they have had to make many alterations in their freelance careers in the last decade to stay viable. One said, "I lay awake at night trying to figure out my next moves...what am I missing?" Only one said that business has never been better. We read their letters in class - you could have heard a pin drop. The editorial market has probably suffered the worst with hundreds of magazines and newspapers shutting down or going online only and cutting much of their art budgets.

Where are your freelance jobs? For some there will be nice opportunities but for the majority you're going to have to afford yourself the time to do what you love and if you're dedicated, passionate, and smart enough to make the right products that change people emotionally - you'll do just fine. Just a decade ago the idea of creating your own animation, books, games, recordings, HD video, used to be next to impossible without a middleman. Now it's like there's a yellow brick road leading to your DIY projects. The tools have been created for you - hardware, software, websites, etc. The question is really up to you...how bad do you want it?

Jake Parker Will Throw Down On Power Day!

As a special bonus Jake Parker will add his tips and tricks on how he uses Photoshop to our upcoming power day! This was never part of the original class because he was knee deep in a few big projects but when I sensed he was nearing the end I asked and he delivered. So even though he we won't have time to fit him in on the Saturday event his videos will be bundled with the class video recordings.

So for those of you who are seeing this for the first time here's the skinny: On October 26th 2013 we are going to be holding a LIVE online Photoshop class taught by 4 illustrators/animators. Each artist will demonstrate how they use Photoshop to create their personal style - so you get to go behind the scenes and see what tools they use, how they use them, etc. While the class is going on we will be recording the GoToMeeting session. The attendees of the LIVE class will also get to download the recordings to watch over and over later on.

BUT - you can also choose to purchase the recordings only for half price. So why buy the Complete live class? The benefits of the live class: the ability to ask questions to the artists, (even how they broke into the business), my beginning painting in Photoshop tutorial (for out of the box users), and a half hour one on one session with me after the class the following week which can be used to help with your portfolio, work, advice, etc.

You can view the class here: 

And see who's going to be teaching here:

Jake's videos will be bundled with all the videos from the class for a total of 5 artist demos. I think this class is ideal for the artist who wants to switch over to using photoshop to create illustrations or for the person who wants to combine photoshop with their traditional work. We have been sold out for a few weeks but 2 people dropped down to the Lite version for schedule conflicts - so there are still 2 seats available for the Complete class - you can purchase both the Complete or Lite class right now. Either way your videos will be delivered the day after the class via download. Check out the class.

Color Studies for Photoshop Power Day

Just finished a few color studies in preparation to our Photoshop Power Day coming up in a few weeks. I like having everything ready to go long before I get into the online classroom. This way I can pack as much information into my lesson and efficiently cover lots of ground.

Having some color ideas worked out ahead of time takes some of the decisions away so I can focus on the techniques I'll be teaching. Working digitally has made it much easier to make these experiments in just a few minutes...I have about 20 minutes into these studies but being able to move forward with confidence is invaluable. 

Also - the Complete version of this class WAS sold out but we had a few people with schedule conflicts that asked to drop down to the LITE - video only version of the class. So there are 2 spots left as of today if you're interested you can sign up here -but if they're gone you can still sign up for the Lite version.

All of the information on the class

My Speech To Illustration Students - Part 1 - Will Terry

This is the most important message I have for up and coming illustrators and those that are still in school! This is the advice I would want to hear if I were planning a long career in illustration.

How To Write A Children's Book

I'm very happy to announce TWO things this morning. The launch of Ann Cannon's Folio Academy video - "How To Write A Children's Book" and our Fall 30% off Sale at Folio Academy on the entire store! (use code: fall3)

Ann is a very accomplished author of children's books so about 6 months ago we asked her if she would be interested in making a video tutorial. We wanted a lesson designed specifically for illustrators and beginning writers. I'll be honest - I wanted that video for myself. With all the possibilities of indie publishing both traditionally and in electronic form becoming available - the demand for the kind of information packed in her tutorial is going up.

It took us a while because Ann is a busy woman who also writes a weekly column for the Salt Lake Tribune but we finally got time where we could all get together. I really hope this video helps the illustrator who wants to create his/her own story.

....AND - you can get it for 30% off for the next two weeks if you use this code: "fall3"...after that the sale ends.

Here is one of Ann's latest books and you can check out the tutorial here.