Pod Cast Question - 3 Point Perspective
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My dream is to write and illustrate picture books, board books, and books for early readers. My husband runs his own business, and I'm the primary caretaker and part-time homeschool teacher of my young children, so this is a goal I'm trying to take small but steady steps toward as my kids grow. I'd like to make enough to help my kids pay for college or help them launch into their careers, and be able to put some toward retirement. The older I get, the less interested I am in fame, to be honest. When I think about "fame," the dream seems unattainable. To me, the marker of success would be that I make a story that is true to what I've been called to communicate, and that a child connects with it. That seems like an attainable dream.
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@demotlj I love it!
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@Will-Terry I'd love to write and illustrate a children's book. Will and the gang - do you think it is necessary to HAVE children to write a good quality children's book? I don't, but I was one once! I have retained - I hope - a humourous view of the world if a little cynical. Looking forward to the discussion, Jane in New Zealand
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I think in my dream world, I'd be creating characters for The Star Wars films. I love creature design. I'm a sculptor, and I made a few with this in mind last year. I caught the attention of some Lucasfilm and Disney ppl, which was more than I could have asked for I guess. I'm a schoolteacher and I gotta say, I love that job and having art as my hobby is pretty great. I get home from a job I love, and do a hobby I love. So maybe this is a dream world? It certainly was my hope about 5 years ago.
Here's a sample of my Star Wars stuff.
But I also would love to write a few children's books. If I could have a book I wrote on my shelf at school, one that actually got professionally published... Those kids would HAVE to stop shooting spitwads at my head, right? Right?!
And here's an example of my drawing style. Too much like animation, and I'm workin on fixing that.
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@Will-Terry What a fun topic! I'm currently doing freelance illustration full time and while I love it, I opened my online shop last year and really fell in love with that part of my work. I love developing, creating and selling my own products and not having to answer to any art director or publishing house haha.. I love the challenge of entrepreneurship and the game of finding new ways to make my shop grow. I learn more every day and currently my shop makes up about 1/3 of my income (up from 1/5 at the beginning of 2020!) I really hope that by the end of 2020 this will become my full-time income, but maybe it'll take longer. The wonderful thing is as long as I can keep learning and experimenting, there is theoretically no limit to how much my shop can grow, since I sell 100% digital products. It would be great if this ends up making not just a full-time income, but more than what I earned at my studio job. That's the dream! I'd like to still take on books once in a while, but only when a project I'm really excited about comes along. I really like having more control over myself and keep craving more - looking back, I can't believe I ever was able to tolerate working in a studio for years!
vanessastoilova.com
instagram.com/vanessa.stoilova/Check out my Youtube channel for tips on how to start your career in illustration! www.youtube.com/c/ArtBusinesswithNess
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When I was in college, my dream was to get good enough to become a VisDev artist at a major animation studio. But my time in college was extremely hard; I quickly learned that my skills were not developed to the level that they needed to be to stay on track to graduate within the program's timeline. So my dream of working in a major studio...basically went out the window because of my skill set, which was hard to deal with for a long time. So I studied, became an art teacher and tried to get better, until a family friend saw some designs I had done for Inktober and asked if I would illustrate a children's book.
So now...I think my perfect art world would have me be able to get to a point where I can teach part time and freelance, and that my skills would be in such a place where creating art didn't give me a lot of anxiety most of the time I work.
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@Will-Terry In my perfect perfect world, I would be producing a rich and lustrous animated series of all of the Dresden Files novels. But I'd have to win billions in the lottery to make that happen. LOL!
An only slightly less impossible perfect world would involve me creating my own illustrated novel with an interactive augmented reality component. I would love to create in-depth motion book novels with art that isn't traditional "comic art" and figure out how to get rid of the text bubbles and frames that characterize it so strongly. I would love to enhance the experience of reading a good book with visual and aural components.
Ryan Woodward's Bottom of the Ninth animated graphic novel lit a fire within me. When Madefire Comics came out I was enthralled. Then I found the works of Brian Selznick. More recently Timeless by Armand Baltazar really made me sit up and take notice.
Telling a long-form story with text in some sections and then shifting to non-textual visual imagery to continue the story is really intriguing to me. I'd love to be doing something like that but for digital platforms that would marry rich literature and high quality art with motion components and compelling AR that are integral to the storytelling and not just superfluous or decorative or tertiary to the story.
I'd like to get paid to do that someday. If I could earn $50-60 thou a year, I'd be ecstatic.
But in the end, the reality is that I just dream of being able to get paid someday for my art. Baby steps. I feel like there's just simply too much for me to learn and master to ever become a self-supporting artist. Having a few jobs here and there is literally my dream right now.
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@Will-Terry oh the dreams.
In my perfect, unlimited time, and money kind of world I would be producing stop motion animation and still dimensional illustrations (think Red Nose Studio) for my own children's books. I love sculpting, sewing, needle felting, knitting, and building things. I'd spend as much time learning new skills as possible. Sell the puppets as collectables, write books, create more artwork!
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I've been thinking about this for the better part of a year and I feel as though my answer is kind of cheesy, but it's to make a positive impact. I've worked a LOT of different types of jobs; I've done food service, construction, higher-end sales, IT management, QA testing, operations manager with quite a few employees under me and currently a business owner. Most of the time, you're just a spoke in a wheel, and yeah you can make an impact locally within your circle of influence, but more often than not that circle is relative limited.
I think I'd like my kids to look at what I do and feel like they can do anything they want in life. I don't want them to feel like the path is narrow. I want them to feel they have creative rights to their own lives. But more than that, I want to be GOOD at it. I want to deliver great products that make people happy and be paid well for it. I don't like the idea that people have this impression that artists don't make money or that you might as well wait tables but you die on the sword for your craft. I want be part of the reason that people elevate what an artist, designer or illustrator is worth and help other artists value their work to that same level.
I don't completely know what that looks like. I think I'd like, based on my work experience, to have my hand in a lot of jars: do my own projects, make my own books and comics, sell my own products, freelance and teach. The details are forthcoming I guess
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I have a few dreams that were always floating about in my head:
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to write and draw my own syndicated comic strip and/or graphic novels. Currently, the latter is happening. Maybe eventually get a tv special or movie. I guess I want to be the next Charles M. Schulz! I’m not looking for fame though, just want to share my stories and humour and be able to make a living out of it. Ok, maybe I want to be a little famous
But not to the point where I can’t live a normal, regular life. -
publish a monthly comic strip magazine much like Archie comics and The Phoenix (in the UK) with different stories every month. I’ve thought of featuring other artists as well. I’ve had this dream for a while now and just realized that I never thought of what to name the magazine!
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Hi @Will-Terry . I just want to paint stationary designs. Just paint trendy things like ginger jars, perfume, and maybe an animal or two. Not to mention in the hot color pallets. And really just magically send them to a company and they do all the graphic design work and of course produce and sell the products. And some fabric designs for baby clothes or kids linens.
At some point in my life maybe my brain will settle down for stories. That sounds dreamy too. But for now, I just want to paint pancake recipes. Maybe a cool book?
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@Will-Terry My situation might be a little bit different. I won't need to make any money necessarily, but I have my business license, domain name and an instagram account, so when I feel I'm ready I will start marketing myself. I might like to have an agent at some point too. I have written a picture book to self publish and have just started working on the thumbnails. As far as the type of work I would like to do, I would say that to begin with anything that comes my way and later on when I can be more picky I'll decide. I might also like to take on photoshop side jobs, maybe as a colorist or something?
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@Jane-Smith I don't think you have to have children' - just a love of telling stories!
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@NessIllustration congratulations on your achievements! I would love to be where you are with this - You're living my dream!
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@demotlj I love your dream! I got lost in the thought of talking a walk in the English Countryside.
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Thank you for this question, @will-terry-art . I'm a new member and have been thinking about my intentions before officially joining the forums.
I'd definitely like to see my memoir of working in Japanese gardens in a visual format. Graphic novel, shorter stories or 'essay manga'-type technical introductions to the topic of Japanese gardening.
I want to learn to draw better to **communicate my story. That's what pulls me. **If I get better at drawing, the rest will follow. I hope to create without anxiety, without fear of not meeting someone else's expectations.
Yes to Japanese Garden themed postcards, stationary, prints, etc once I have my story out of the system! Tangible products make me proud. Illustrating magazine articles, creating still lives with textile art, that'd be wonderful, too.
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@Will-Terry I want to write and illustrate my own YA or middle grade fiction. I have an idea for a graphic novel too. My husband’s business makes the bulk of our income, so I don’t need to make money. I just want to be able to better tell my own stories. I think I’d like illustrating book covers for other people too.
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Writer - Illustrator - Game Designer
Having the time and funds to enjoy working on the covers, characters, and chapter art for the young adult book(s) I’m writing would be amazing. I would then love to turn my world, characters, an art style into a tabletop roleplaying game with game books and miniatures. That would give me the fun of geeking out with readers and players online and at conventions. I would love to see my characters represented in cosplay form!
Thanks for this fun question, and I love the podcast.
Cheers,
Jodi aka kittytreets
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Love reading others dreams here!
Honestly i think about this 24/7. There isnt single day where i question what it is what i want to do, sometimes I will change my opinion in a matter of hours. Feels like i am stuck in this loop forever.
With that being said I am atleast certain what kind of type of art i would like to create..and that is, something that will inspire people, make them feel something beautiful. I would like to create the type of stuff i was inspired by as a young boy. I would like to pull them into worlds and stories where they can breathe or the opposite - gasp.
This isnt dependent on medium. I love comics, I love illustration, I love animation. In my dream world I would love to do all that, but also have a life besides that. Although certainly animation is a medium where the wildest dreams happen, just the real world life often isnt exactly there .
Oh well
I am bound to explore till the end of my life. But it is exciting as well. Thanks for asking -
Am all over the map. My dream has always been to make a living from doing something creative. But that's a bit vague. Now I am semi-retired, having 'done my time' in really boring 9 to 5 jobs, I dream of being able to write stories and draw illustrations. I never had kids but now I have two little granddaughters (via my stepdaughter) and there is nothing sweeter than hearing 'Grandma!' across the room. That idea of writing children's books has become more front and centre these days.
