I always feel like I'm in the gray area of this chart. I like what I am drawing, but that's about it. Maybe it's because I rarely show my work to anyone?
I made the decision to concentrate more on character design, posters, comic covers and commissions. I have dabbled in comics and other projects but I don't enjoy sequential art or drawing the same thing over and over without creating something new. My worry is (especially as you mentioned people rarely get work doing one thing they want to do unless they are always in the industry), do I stand a chance in the character design world if that's my primary focus?. I have a lot of insecurities about the paths I am taking as I want to some day make my freelancing full time. I have had a few small jobs and a few bigger jobs this past year. I would like to get more work down the path of character design alone. Am I doing the right thing by focusing on a couple of things I really want to do despite not breaking my way far into the industry yet? Any advice on what I need to do to find more character design based work as opposed to random illustration jobs?
Hey, Brookes. This is a great video, and I wanted to ask your opinion and maybe advice on something I'm facing now: I've been a commission artist for 3 years now and recently I raised my prices because I've been selling my art very cheap in order to gain popularity over the years, and my family is having financial problems lately, my father lost his job. However, that caused a huge decrease in the number of commissions I recieved, so I had to be less selective and accept many commissions I didn't like, do stuff I wasn't confortable, and draw stuff that I can't and I don't want to post online, and I fear that because I'm posting less and less stuff due to it, I'll start losing followers and clients. Also, because of the financial needs, I've become exclusively a commissions artist, I very, very rarely draw anything for myself, and I'm not trying new stuff I wanted to explore, so currently I'm trappend betwen the bottom and the top of the chart, and I'm not sure how to get out of it. Could you give me an advice on that, please? thanks anyway for your time.
Definitely sounds like a tough place to be in! I think you need to be marketing yourself to a higher clientele. Offering really cheap art is a really rough thing to start out doing, so getting out of that place people have put you in, as a cheaper artist, will take some time. But you've already made a good decision in upping your prices. Find new ways to show your value to clients, and don't take on the clients you don't want or don't respect you. Instead of taking on bad projects in desperation, it might be helpful to take on other non-art work in the mean time. I wish you all the best! Let me know how things go.
I suppose I could be more present in other websites than just Deviantart, wich is my main site, to gain more potential clients. I could also redesign my page to make it all look more professional and appealing. One thing I did consider is making a Patreon, but I'm still not sure what rewards I'd offer. Those are the first ideas I can think of right now to promote myself to more people. Thanks for the advice, hopefully it'll help me get on a better track :)
Hey, Brookes. THanks for your advise. Just wanted to let you know how things went. I'm fine, I've found another non art job that is able to sustain me and help my family. This means that Because of that financial security, I can now dedicate to a lot more passion projects and experiments and studies, which is helping me learn a lot. Thanks a lot for the advice. I really appreaciated it and I still love your videos :)
I have a question, How do you make a character with a disibility, disorder, or vision/hearing impairments? I have a character that's blind, and she has to be blind in order for the story to unravel. Its difficult to add clothing or accessories that will describe her because her sibling chooses her clothing and helps her change.
I don't know any blind people. But... I suspect they care far more about how their clothing feels and if its practical, then about how it looks. Since they can't see it anyway. So maybe have a bit of the sisters style in there. But focus on things like, if your character has a certain hobby, job or has a preference for how certain things feel. Just try incorporate that into the design. Make her wear a lot of wide clothing, or maybe clothing that obviously all has a certain texture.
I'm a comedian with a disability and also I went to school for animation. Doesn't matter what your character is. Always find a mission statement for your characters (including all the characters ard ur protagonist or antagonist). Why are they doing what they're doing. Why why why.
Thankyou so much for making these videos, I take physical notes on all of them and a few other youtubers. :) I'm planning an outlined and thought through webcomic so I really apreciate this information
Kai Has A Long Name It is in development still, it's going to be printed by me locally (in Mexico) but it'll also be on Webtoon, you can follow me on Twitter @AVmangaka to look forward to it 😄
Brookes Eggleston - Character Design Forge Thanks! 😆 I spent much time making conceptual items for Zelda, Xiaolin Showdown, etc and made some in real life with my cousin that really worked (kinda dangerous now that I think so) so I have plenty of material and motivation!
