https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEP5zb_eXvX2q2BlH8XkXNA/videos

I discovered Pete Beard's "Unsung Heroes of Illustration" videos a few months back and will visit it from time to time.
I found myself watching this channel this morning and it was a lovely balm for an otherwise stressful day.

It occurred to me that if there was ever an audience who should know about this channel it was anyone who has subscribed to SVS! The creator has a very mellow british accent and the artwork is straight up inspirational.

You'll find artists that you didn't know you loved, and possibly discover a historical connection to the artists that you already love.

Please post other resources like this that you've discovered.

With so many out of school Oliver Jeffers, Mac Barnett and Mo Willems, Tony DiTerlizzi are doing a daily read, chat, draw of their books and characters.

How cool is that‽

Oliver Jeffers reads and discusses one book per day on Instagram Live:
https://www.instagram.com/oliverjeffers

Mac Barnett reads and offers a running commentary on one book per day on Instagram Live:
https://www.instagram.com/macbarnett

Mo Willems does a drawing and shows dummies, sketches and finished art for a character each day on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/RmzjCPQv3y8

Tony DiTerlizzi is doing a live drawing each day on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TonyDiterlizzi/

Watched the video. My verdict: I don't know.

There are two different issues being blended in the video. Content vs arrangement of information.

As for content -- I've never seen Dunn's book but nothing he highlighted was unique or original to me. I've been drawing, learning, and teaching a long time and these are simply concepts and techniques that I've learned over the years. They are fundamentally facts. Facts are not protected by copyright.

Arrangement of information: Given that this is a fact-based book that is designed to teach, the arrangement of information is important and is more readily protected by copyright. From the video there appears to be a basis for a claim on this point.

BUT Dunn has not seen the finished book. Amount and nature of infringement matters. The only way to properly evaluate is by putting each book side by side and carefully evaluating both. Ideally, done by an impartial third party.

Instead we are only seeing one side that is clearly highly biased.

Thought I'd share a recent master copy study. The top image is by Kenard Pak. There was a fairly spirited discussion in my agent group about mediums and techniques he used to create it, so I decided to have a go at how I would have made the image. (FYI -- a whole bunch of physical media pieces that are composed/layered digitally)

But the great bit is how master copies like this give you permission to do things that you might not otherwise think of. I will definitely be incorporating elements of this method into future work!

Every so often I try out new assignments for myself. I love the idea that by simply changing the lighting of a scene you can alter the experience for the viewer. I recently had a go with this european village photo I found. Starting with this bright, sunny daytime scene ...

I spent a few hours turning it into this moody, mysterious night scene.

Pretty fun! Just thought I'd share.

Call this a shameless plug for my SVS Dynamic Expressions class if you like (enrolling now) -- but I'm kinda' excited that the new Venom movie is coming out. I've been fairly mixed on this so far (still wounded by Spiderman 3) but gotta' say the trailers make it look pretty good!

I spend a lot of time dissecting picture books. Trying to understand why I love certain ones and why I'm non-plussed by others. Then I try to bring that insight to my own books.

This is a page turn from one of my favorites "Nothing" by Jon Agee.
Check out how he uses the slow build of sequential images on this spread . . .

. . . to really pay off the utter insanity of this one*.

*That said, I do think there is a missed opportunity here.
Dutching the camera to shift away from the perfect 90 degree angles of this spread would have added to the overall sense of frenetic energy, and the kind of social pressure craziness that ensues for the next few pages.

This is a super smart book. Totally worth a check out from your local library.

@mag For a submission ready dummy I would suggest a hybrid of the two options you posted.

Take your rough sketches and add a bit of shape based toning (I use the lasso tool in photoshop). In the image below I simply added a few minutes worth of toning to the rough sketch version you posted.

This is one of my favorite things to do when working on a dummy because you get so much value out of relatively little effort! And it encourages me to think about designing the images at a very early stage.

@Laurel-Aylesworth There are no rules to laying out a dummy. Every book is going to be different. I'm a fan of taking various books that are either similar in subject matter or that "feel" similar to the book I'm dummying up. Photographing each page and laying it out as thumbnails. Then looking to see what choices the illustrator made. I find it's easier to see patterns in pacing, compositional choices, color scripting etc.

For example in Dan Santat's BEEKLE it's clear the choice to deviate from full bleed spreads is a choice rarely and carefully made. Everything is full bleed spreads except two where he uses vignettes to both speed up (pg 21-21) and slow down (pg 36-37) the action.

The first time I read it, I found the tree spreads on pgs 26-27 and 28-29 to be oddly flat and out of place with the other illustrations in the book. It wasn't until I laid this out that I realized Dan was trying to mimic/foreshadow Alice's drawing of the same tree on pg 35.

Also the desaturated/monochromatic quality of the images starting on pg 18 and continuing through pg 23 becomes more obvious.

I'll also often go through and try to simplify the images into simple black, white and grey shapes so see how value and silhouette affect the experience of the book.

When I did that to BEEKLE I realized that the little white shape of Beekle always appears on the right page of the spread -- except for pg 18-19, 22-23, 26-27 and 28-29. These are the moments in the book where Beekle is feeling unsure or overwhelmed.

These are some of the highlights from this particular book breakdown. Do this to a few other books and you'll start to see how other illustrators approach laying out books.

I think it's fine to post about this. Will did a FB live video this morning talking about this very issue. He has a characteristically calm and reasonable response to the change in the project status.

As for your question about making/selling fan art: There is clearly a market for fan art out there. But it is important to understand what you are doing when you make fan art and even more importantly when you try to monetize it.

Whether you are making money or not -- the mere act of creating fan art is a copyright infringement. The important bit is whether the fundamental infringement rises to the level of an "actionable" infringement.

I was drawing comic characters from the age of 8 when I got my first X-men comic from a friend at school. While all those drawings were "technically" infringements they never rose to the level of "actionable infringements". Along the way I got more invested in the Marvel characters, I became a little "cooler" to my friends at school, and I learned how to draw.

So yes -- I think that fan art can be a useful and productive thing.

It's when you try to monetize fan art that you need to go in with eyes wide open. Understanding that the fan art you make is fundamentally an infringement. You are creating copies and derivatives of intellectual property created and owned by someone else. If you are going to use and generate income off fan art, without negotiating a license beforehand with the Intellectual Property (IP) owner, you need to have a full and complete understanding of the Fair Use Defense. And in the case of some characters, you need to understand Trademark Law.

Which goes to the second half of your question -- is it worth the risk trying to sell it?
I have made concerted effort to study copyright law and how it pertains to illustrators. In the absence of a license from the original IP holder I have landed on -- No -- it is not worth trying to sell it.

It is, in my opinion, always better to negotiate a license with the IP holder if I want to sell fan art.

And I want to clarify -- the term "negotiate" can vary in it's meaning. Most people think it means "pay" (and often it does) but it can also just mean "ask and get permission".

This is a good question. And it's great that you are working to get it clarified.

For actionable advice please consult an IP attorney. I strongly recommend Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. They are a national organization with chapters in many of the the cities around the US.

My opinion: I don't think you are licensing the use of the images in book form. "Own" means something specific. I learned a long time ago from an IP attorney not to use the world "sell" or "buy" in regards to intellectual property. Rather if what is meant is a "temporary permission to use" then "license" is the appropriate term.

The client could reasonably think they own the sole right to reproduce the images in book form. More importantly they could reasonably think the client (a consulting firm?) could sublicense the images to a third party to use the images in book form.

From this wording it would seem reasonable that all other uses (other than book form) are controlled solely by the illustrator (you).

It's worth noting that this phrase doesn't need to be included int he contract since by default any aspects of your copyright that you don't specifically sign over (either temporarily "license" or permanently "transfer") remain with the intellectual property creator (you)

@deboraht Pricing a Kickstarter project is actually really nice because your advance would be based on the number of backers. And that number is public!

Pro Insight: The advance a publisher offers for a book is (largely) based on the royalty the illustrator would make over the course of the first printing.

To turn that into numbers:
If a publisher expects to sell 5,000 copies in the first print run of a $17 book -->
and the royalty the illustrator would get is 8% of the list price ($1.36) -->
Then the advance against royalties the publisher would offer is $6800 ($1.36 x 5000)

So in this case you would take the sale price of the book -->
Multiply by the percentage you feel is fair per book (I would suggest 10-15% -->)
Multiply that by the number of eventual backers -->
And you have the licensing fee for that first print run!

If the book gains additional traction in the marketplace you can always license a second print run for an additional fee.

For example, if the author decides to print another 2000 copies in a second print run.
Use the price per book (established in the first print run) multiply it by 2000 and then charge the result as a single licensing fee for the 2000 copies in the second print run. Limited to the 2000 copies. If the author decides to do a 3rd print run you would simply license the images again for a 3rd fee, and on and on until the book is no longer selling.

@Jeremy-Ross No worries! Thought it might just be phrasing issue.

Hi @Gabby-Correia, I agree with the team here that royalties don’t really make sense for sel-published authors. I would stick to lump sum fee to avoid tying yourself to the authors for future payments you might never see.
Maybe you can ask for a bonus term in the contract if the book becomes a best seller? Just a thought.

@Jeremy-Ross I really do not agree with this.
At least not the way you've worded it since at the end you mention " ask for a bonus" which seems to contradict "tying yourself to the authors for future payments you might never see."

The bonus IS tying yourself to future payments. It makes your post a little confusing.

Rather I will always recommend that illustrators avoid cutting of potential revenue streams from their work. This is simply because it is nearly impossible to know which project is going to take off. The best practice is to assume that any one of them could!

@NessIllustration I like this as a solution for publishers (of any size) that don't like the idea of, or don't want to handle royalties on a per book basis. The result of licensing rights based on a print run has the same effect as licensing based on royalties.

So going back to @Gabby-Correia initial question:
It is typical for the illustrator to receive between 5 - 8% royalty on the list price (the cover price) of a book. Since the illustrator is taking a much bigger risk on a self publisher I would be comfortable asking for a 10% royalty on the list price.

If you have a book selling for $10 that would mean $1 for each book.

Using @NessIllustration example of licensing based on print run of 200 copies then it would be a $200 flat fee (but really a royalty).

Essentially negotiate a "royalty" but in the form of a "flat fee".

@Emilia-Varga This is excellent!

@Lee-White A serial killer version of Charlie Brown drawn on a missive from the Internal Revenue Service that you chucked into the garbage . . .

Feels like there's a metaphor for something, somewhere in there . . .

@Lee-White Ha! It was crazy when I actually looked at CB. I would have SWORN that his eyes were set far apart! (Turns out they are not!)

Post your serial killer version!

Took Jake up on his challenge. Here's Bart Simpson, Charlie Brown, Mickey Mouse and Sponge Bob drawn from memory.

I would say I nailed it!

Edit: 5 min later, after actually looking at drawings of these characters . . . Yeah, I definitely did not "nail" it. (These all look like the bad Times Square street performer knock-offs)

@BradAYoo This is a good looking master copy! I still feel like I struggle with Procreate. Giving yourself these kinds of assignments are going to pay off big in the future!