What makes an illustrator good

As a rule of thumb, you should be out of school for 5 years before going back to teach, and those years of experience will validate you. Your art will get better if you teach.

Jake took a teaching job and right away his work got so much better. Every successful illustrator that Jake knows of that has taken their career somewhere has done personal projects and more importantly finished them and put them out into the world. Ship It. Check out our episode on this here: Ship Happens. This is the only way to avoid burnout as a pro.

Sometimes you do a personal project and it works its way into your professional work. Personal projects and style are so interrelated. Missile Mouse , a side project started in 9th grade, turned into graphic novel deals with Scholastic.

Will did Bonaparte Falls Apart , because Jake convinced him to do the fanart and his Little book style. From doing Kickstarters, having to work with printers, and having to prep files, it has helped Jake work better with clients.

So many people get to a point where they wonder where else they need to go. Simona Ceccarelli : a good example of continually learning. She made it a personal goal, that her portfolio would turn around and be a completely different portfolio by the next year. Be an eternal student. Will was impressed with one of his highly experienced teachers in school who would constantly take notes whenever a visiting artist came to campus.

He was humble and always trying to learn. Take notes. Most illustrators that are doing really well have some sort of an online presence. You can find them easily, they have a website, they are present to one degree or another on social media. Simona has gotten work from twitter and instagram. Not only can you find work but you can start to build your own personal fan base. Personal projects can sustain you if you have an audience that wants to buy your work. Think of Yourself as More Than an Illustrator.

When Will looks at some of the best illustrator many do more than just illustration. And in times of a large, aware online public, it also seems foolish to steal ideas and not expect to be found out. That being said, I'm convinced that you can copy an idea entirely by accident or subconsciously. For each final illustration I make, I provide two or three hopefully original ideas.

That amounts to me generating several hundred ideas per year. The numbers are high. As illustrators, our personal and professional backgrounds are often similar, so the symbols and references we have in our minds may also be similar.

I think that having the same ideas is inevitable at times, however unlikely a mere coincidence seems at first glance. So please reflect on your outrage the next time it happens. For this fee, however, Weidemann had spent endless hours explaining his work to mid-level executives, and sat in many mind-numbing corporate meetings.

He also got a lot of flak from the media when the design was finally revealed. On the surface, making an editorial drawing and one to be used in an advertising campaign is not that different.

The higher fee for ad jobs is justified by the client buying a more comprehensive license. Where is the problem? Here it is: When working on ad jobs, you are usually working opposite a team of people in various positions, who are in turn responsible to a team representing the client. The result is that you are facing a hierarchy — or even two hierarchies — who all have a say on the outcome of what you are drawing.

The result is a strictly controlled environment, and that means many revisions before everybody is happy. Like Weidemann, you are faced with a corporate machine.

Unlike Weidemann, you might not have enough standing or stamina to protect the integrity of your work until the finish line. That is what you are compensated for. While you're studying illustration — either formally, or by yourself — you are exposed to great work by others. You feel jealous of your peers and in awe of the masters. You're inspired, you're confused, you try to create, and then you're frustrated by what you produce and how badly it compares.

And in spite of it all, you're still driven to make something, so you try again. This usually necessitates going to and from the drawing board to work out their ideas with the client.

An Illustrator may also work with software to create the artwork or to scan in their sketches and then color and refine the finished product. They may work in black and white or color and with or without computers, and with paint, pencils, or other drawing tools.

An Illustrator interacts with their customer, which could be an author or editor, or another designer. To do this well, Illustrators need a solid mix of skills that they can put to good use. Depending on the specialty or project, the Illustrator may need an understanding of medicine or science or even how mechanical things work together.

For example, if the Illustrator creates medical school textbook drawings, they may need to know human anatomy or understand some of the mechanics of cell structure. Perhaps the Illustrator is working on flora and fauna; an understanding of botany would be important. If you are great at sketching clothes, you might choose to specialize in the fashion design industry and work as a fashion illustrator.

To become an illustrator for children, you might need previous experience as an illustrator for books. You might also need to be good at expressing emotions through your illustrations. In other words, you need to bring stories to life. Here are 19 Children's Book Illustrations that might inspire your next project. Specifying in your portfolio that you are specialized in a particular field will also be helpful for any potential clients who want to know beforehand if you would be a good fit for their specific illustration project.

If you ever have some free time or know in advance that summer months, for instance, won't be as hectic as any other months, you can take advantage of this and learn new skills during these quiet periods. You can use the free time to take on projects that seem challenging and require you to learn something new in the process.

You can take many college-level online classes on the fundamentals of design or further or re-shift your focus to another industry that might find your illustration skills useful. Most pros in this field will tell you that you won't need a degree in illustration to become a professional illustrator.

Instead, when you have free time, treat each block of time as time for learning, watching video tutorials, and attending as many online courses as you can. A great tool to get you started is Vectornator.

You can even offer online courses for new students on how to make digital illustrations. By teaching others, you'll also learn more in the process, especially if you have to research to prepare for your classes. Even if you do not need to research anything in advance, the sole process of having to show your students how you do what you do will be helpful to you.

Teaching them the different illustration processes step by step will help you grow as an illustrator expert and as a professional in the long term.

This step is essential whether you work as an employed illustrator or solely as a freelance illustrator. If your goal is to become an illustrator and create your own business without relying on one employer, it's vital to always be on the lookout for new clients. Keep in mind that researching is also time-consuming, and you'll need to work overtime to find those clients and build relationships with them.

Set mini goals, and work towards achieving them. Doing some work for free here and there while you are still studying or completing a non-paid internship right after graduating are good alternatives to working on personal projects.

Once you gain some experience and are trying to make it as an illustrator, you should set your sights on long-term goals like owning a business or publishing a professional art blog. By seeing yourself as a business, other people will also see you like one and take you seriously - meaning they will stop asking you to create illustrations for gaining exposure aka working for free.