Hi @KathrynAdebayo . Thank you for sharing your art. For me personally, I love your graphite rendering..the first image..considering you aim for children's books illustrations. You could also scan them & print them out for glazing with transparent mediums if color is required.

I understand where you are coming from..I work in a few styles as well. I attempt rendering realism digitally, I have a line-art style with vibrant colors & traditionally I work with inks, watercolours & acrylics as well. I think the key is to do more works in a certain style for consistency & confidence :). Also, do you have a preference of a medium that you tend to enjoy more than the other mediums? I find that it's quite important to enjoy what you do as it shows up in the work.

I suggest to keep working in a style that you feel the most confident in and produce more art in that style & work on the other styles/ mediums through experimentation with a rough timeline or schedule in mind. Another thing to consider would be how long a certain medium or style takes you to complete an illustration considering the business of children's book illustrations. The faster you work the more projects you can take up..if that's what you would like to do.

@sigross Yes..that's a good idea too. It's an international client.

Another thing I am wondering is whether there are any clauses that are only applicable to a specific country or area which are void elsewhere when it comes to art & art sales in terms of permissions & licenses.

@sigross Haha..a minefield is a fun & creative way of putting it. Thank you for the insights!

Yes..things do look a little sketchy with the client with..& maybe they don't know that they don't need the copyrights but a license, or they are aware of it & just trying to get the most out of this deal.

I am currently looking at contract templates from the Practical & Ethical Guidelines handbook of the Artist's Guild.
It might help me out.

Congratulations @NessIllustration ! I hope you'll let us know when it comes out Sounds super fun. Happy for ya!

I like how your thumbnail for it's eye movement. I see the racoon first, followed by the falling leaves, on to the bunny & the heap of leaves, leading to the ladder and then to the tree itself.

Is the focus of the design the decorated tree, or the animals helping with the decoration? If it's the animals, I suggest having one animal in greater contrast & focus & let the other animals be secondary & tertiary.

I think it's a good call to include more of the tree as seen in the bigger sketch. It will look great with all the tiny Christmas lights
Maybe you could keep the ladder in the same angle and direction as in the thumbnail & compose animals on it helping with the decor.

It is a very enjoyable piece visually. I look forward to it!

Hey @sigross ! Thank you for pointing that out. Yes, it is vague as they have only mentioned about a request and it does not mention that the copyright will be handed over necessarily. Good insight..that helps..thanks! If I go ahead with the project, I will ask them to re-word as you have suggested

What is the approximate term for handing over your copyright to the lawyers ? Do court cases have am exact term period?

Greetings @nadyart !

Thank you for sharing your in-depth response, experience and guidance!

You are right about the copyrights clause being contradictory with full ownership & partial ownership. I will ask them about it.
Would licensing a couple of artworks for a specific fee, be a better workaround?

I am not looking to sell the copyright as I am looking to open a store on sites like society6 and set up art prints there. I would love to set up a shop without third parties especially sites like society6 requires 50% of the earnings. Can you kindly recommend a way to go about it or some sources I could learn from? That would be great!

• I will write to them asking about the process of returning the legal ownership. I have never heard about a return of legal ownership so I can surely learn something from this situation. Shall research about it too. Good point on the payback of funds too! Thank you

• Yes, 15%-50% is a wide range. So it gets vague in terms of earnings so I will have to negotiate a tighter percentage range. Maybe 30%-50% ? Yes, they want to own the design & pay a percentage of the earnings (royalties) without a purchase fee.

• Good point again. If there will be image alteration involved and I will be credited for the design, if it doesn't fit with my artistic aesthetics..that's like sinking my ship I guess. Maybe I can ask them to share the alterations & they can only be approved by me (It's probably a long shot but I could try it out).

I will ask them about the projected sales as they haven't mentioned anything about it. The thing about background research is that I looked up the name of the company and only a link showed up of a site with a home page that says 'coming soon'. They are probably starting up. What I can do is ask them more about their company, artists they have worked with & an example of their sales in case I'm off with my research.

Yes, Paypal takes 2-3% for payment transactions & other sites do something similar..I'm not in the US & with 50% going to third party online stores, it becomes expensive. It sounds better to have your own store..will have to figure how that works..congratulations to you on achieving that success!

This has simply been great. Thank you so much Nadya for your nuggets of wisdom!
Thank you for your precious time!

I also like how welcoming and pleasing your art is.

More power to You,
Darian

Thank you for your support @sas ! and I know that if you could help with the clauses, you surely would

@nyrrylcadiz I appreciate your happiness for me ! And thank you for helping in the best way you could.

I enjoy the lighting you have in your compositions

Hi Everyone!

Exciting news: Inktober got me a paying project. Not only was particpating in Inktober fun, it also got me work opportunities. So thank you Inktober & @Jake-Parker

So recently I have been contacted by a company that wishes to use my Inktober illustrations for t-shirts & maybe other things.

Illustration examples:

Here is an overview of the terms:

Things I need your help with:

1. Are the clauses fair in terms of usage, rights & pricing ? (Except for the ownership clause which I am not cool with as I may use those illustrations in the future for prints.What alternate solution can I provide instead?)
   T-shirts may be sold for 20-30 dollars.

2. If not, what are the possible alternatives I could provide for the clause in question?

3. Is there an online store out there that doesn't use paypal for transactions? Paypal's cut is expensive for me when deciding for total price of a product.

4. I have watched Lee's business videos & I am currently reading the Practical & Ethical Guidelines handbook of the Artist's Guild to improve my understanding. Any sections that are a recommended read for my situation?

Thank you all! I look to send in my response by this week.
I hope the Christmas preparations are in full swing !