“Yeti cooked with flare...” First, that unintentional typo had me giggling, then it inspired this spot illo. Funny how one word can change the meaning!

So here’s my yeti, chilling out “alone” on his Nepalese hillside, cooking with flare(s)...

Right now I'm up to my eyeballs in 3 different children's books, all in different stages of done-ness and all for small publishers or self-publishers. (This is a sneak peek at one of them.)

Big plan for this year is to get ready to submit (and hopefully submit) to bigger publishers.

Been encountering technical difficulties and haven’t been able to post until now. I know this is late, but hopefully it can be included ... if not, that’s okay too ... just wanted to share with you all.

What if I was hired to illustrate a nonfiction / informational fiction picture book about yetis? That supposition fired my imagination, got me diving into internet research, and it snowballed from there!

Looking forward to feedback. Thanks so much!

LOVE seeing what everyone is working on this month! This is SUCH a talented group, as we all like to keep saying.

This month, I've been holed up working on a new book that is pretty much a rush job but such a rewarding project and an honor to illustrate. For it, I'm trying out something new: a mix of traditional and digital. The book is set at sunset, so I wanted to utilize watercolor for that (and for me, it's just easier to render sunsets in watercolor), but to work quickly and efficiently by starting and finishing the illustration digitally using Photoshop and Procreate.

This is the test illustration to see if that would even work, and I'm liking this approach so much I'll probably start using it more.

(@Tiffany-Thomas & @xin-li -- this is my first experiment using that mix of traditional and digital we talked about.)

Hi, @davidhohn, @Michael-Angelo-Go & @NessIllustration -- just thought I'd add a little clarification since I did (unfortunately) start out my freelancing art career on Elance (now Upwork -- NOT something I'd recommend, but that's a different story and at the time I needed a paycheck).

YES, Upwork is a nonnegotiable work-for-hire situation -- lousy terms. However, all the clients that I worked with on Upwork were more than happy to give me permission to show the artwork in my portfolio. (And honestly, that's all I would've used that artwork for anyway.)

Yes, the client probably did say 22-page book, and yes, they probably didn't know what they were doing. This is VERY common to see with newbie self-publishing authors.

And yes, self-publishing clients are the "boss", the editor, and the art director. Most of my clients had very little knowledge about the illustration process or the process of publishing a book, and most had no art experience. It does make the process a little challenging, to say the least.

A note about 24-page books. Most self-published authors choose to publish their books using print-on-demand services like KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) and Ingram Spark, which have a minimum page count of 24. PODs have different printing specs since they print books using inkjet printers rather than offset printers. They print in multiples of 4: 24, 28, 32 pages, etc. Both KDP & Ingram Spark require the last page of a book to be left blank for their use. So if you're hired to illustrate a 24-page PB that will be POD, you actually deliver 23 pages of content, as page 24 needs to be kept blank.

Hope this helps clear things up -- or muddy the waters???

@davidhohn you're very welcome, and thanks for being the voice of reason and pointing out that freelancing comes in all forms.

Reading over my previous reply, it came across more negative than I intended (but, yeah, I'm not really a fan of Upwork, so that bias came through loud and clear!).

In the interests of sharing information so anyone reading this can come to their own informed decision, the following are some pros and cons of working on Upwork. (Disclaimer: this is based on my own personal experiences. Other freelancers have had other experiences and may have different opinions.)

PROS

• Jobs are posted in a way so you can easily find and bid on them.
• Upwork's escrow and payment protection services ensure that you'll get paid.
• You get to choose what jobs you apply for and work with clients from all over the world.
• You get to work from home and do what you love.

CONS

• The freelancer does not retain copyright. Upwork is a work-for-hire site and their general contract overrides an individual client/freelancer agreement. If a freelancer works on Upwork, they're agreeing to give away all rights to their work. If they want to show the work in a portfolio or on social, they need their client's written permission to do so.
• Upwork fees. For the first $500 (USD) you make with a client, Upwork takes 20% (i.e. you make $400); from $501 to $10,000 earnings, Upwork takes out 10%; from $10K up, there is a 5% Upwork fee.
• It takes a LONG time to get paid. Most of my jobs were fixed-price jobs where the milestone was funded in advance and the funds held in escrow. Once the client released those funds, it takes 5 business days for Upwork to release them to the freelancer, then it has to be transferred to your external bank account, so I wouldn't get the money until at least a week later. For me personally, this was a major downside of using Upwork.
• It's a "budget" type of site, so the prices for most jobs are well below market prices. (The last time I looked, most job postings for children's book illustration are $1,000 or less.)
• It's a worldwide marketplace. That could be a pro, but for most US-based freelancers, it's a con because of the higher cost of living in this country. It's difficult to earn a livable wage while competing for jobs with freelancers who live in a place with a lower cost of living.

For me, the cons column outweighs the pros and I'm no longer looking for work on Upwork but have been getting jobs from other sources, the majority of which have found me on SCBWI's illustrator gallery. But everyone has different circumstances, and what doesn't work for me may work for you.

*** FULL DISCLOSURE. ***
I haven't deleted my Upwork profile -- call it not wanting to get rid of a safety net -- so from time to time I still receive job invites. Usually, I decline and remember to go back onto my profile settings and mark myself as "unavailable for work". But recently, a job invite came across my inbox that touched my heart and I accepted -- it's a beautiful story, the client is wonderful, and it's an honor to work on this project. The client actually doubled their budget and I lowered my price to one we were both happy with -- they have been a sheer joy to work with even though the project is a heartbreaking one (it's a children's book commemorating the life of a child with a terminal illness). When we communicated about the project, the client expressed shock at Upwork's TOS and the fees they charge and wished we could work off of the platform -- however, once a client finds a freelancer on Upwork, they agree to work exclusively through Upwork for 2 years unless they pay a $1,000 (minimum) opt-out fee. So I guess even though I'm not Upwork's biggest fan, I'm still grateful because I never would have gotten a chance to work on this project otherwise.

@miranda-hoover looking good! Love your color harmony.

For me, what feels off with the baby yeti is that its head and shoulders are a different silhouette than the mom yeti’s. The mom yeti was drawn very stylized with smooth lines, no separation between head and shoulders, which works beautifully for the character. But the baby has defined head and shoulder.

It seems that a juvenile yeti would mimic the same overall shape as its parent, only smaller and rounder and fuzzier/plumper. At least that’s how I see it.

Really looking forward to seeing this spot all finished! Two thumbs way up!

@Michael-Angelo-Go it sounds like it was a good decision to make. When I've had a similar experience in the past, it helped to chalk it up as a chance to learn something and perhaps adjust things that need adjusting.

Some things that you might find helpful if you continue to look for clients on Upwork:

• Figure out how much you want to make per hour, how many hours the job will take to complete, and bid accordingly (this formula works for both fixed-price and hourly jobs). It may mean asking clarifying questions. Don't forget to build Upwork fees into that price.

• Clearly state your terms. Yes, you've agreed to work for hire, meaning that you give away all your rights to the work. But even within Upwork's terms, you still can write your own terms into your bid. For example, specify that you would like permission to show the work in your portfolio. Specify what work the price you're bidding includes, and what it doesn't.

• (Related to terms) Don't offer unlimited revisions. (Unless you're okay potentially working with a client who abuses that provision.) When I bid for work on Elance/Upwork, I made sure to specify what was included in the price, including 3 rounds of revision -- along with the wording that if more than 3 rounds of revision were needed, I would be happy to continue revising at $25 per round of revision. After I started doing that, I don't think a client ever went over 3 rounds of revision!

• Communicate! (This really applies to working with all clients...) Communication, especially at the outset, is actually difficult to do on Upwork because they don't allow you to contact the client with questions before you place your bid -- depending on your Upwork membership, they might not even let you see who the client is. What I would do is place a bid, sometimes even specifying that this is a generalized bid because of a vague job description, and ask to chat (there is a built-in chat feature) or communicate further with the client before accepting the job.

Implementing these 4 things really helped make the Upwork experience better for me and my clients. While there were some frustrating clients, I never really had a BAD client experience on Upwork. My last few years on Elance/Upwork, I didn't really search for work; mainly it came through job invites. And if the client didn't give enough information in the job description (very common) and balked at providing more information, or if they told me I didn't need to read the story before accepting the job (one of my nonnegotiables is reading the MS beforehand), or if they told me how long it would take me to do the work and so they wouldn't need to pay me more than $X ... I politely declined. So maybe that steered me clear of "disrespectful, bad-attitude" clients?

Hope you find my experience helpful in some way. All the best!

@Jeremiahbrown so many options here!

If you have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, it includes access to Adobe Fonts that you can use for commercial use. Other places to get free commercial use fonts are Google Fonts and fontsquirrel.com — but one thing to mention: you need to check on what license is offered with that font and make sure it covers everything you want to use it for. Sometimes paying for the exact font you want to use is the way to go — usually fonts are pretty affordable but they can get expensive. Fontspring is another font website that I recommend.

Some illustrators and book designers use hand lettered titles or even hand letter the entire text. Philip and Erin E. Stead create woodblock or monoprint titles for their books. Some illustrators (Dan Santat being one) have created their own handwritten font and use it in multiple books. “Millions of Cats” by Wanda Ga’g (generally considered to be the first children’s picture book) was entirely hand lettered. I’ve personally been hand lettering my own titles for the last few books I’ve worked on (using Procreate and/or traditionally with some Photoshop help), since it’s easier to achieve a cohesive composition that works with the byline and other fonts that may be used on the cover.

There is no one rule. It really seems to be what works best for each individual book.

Love your storytelling! Great expressions and really well rendered.

For me, the text in the speech bubbles was all I needed to get a gist of what's happening in the scene. Your art is strong enough to stand on its own without surrounding text.

Putting myself in the shoes of an art director or someone looking to hire an illustrator, having to scroll past lines of story might be more annoying than helpful. If it were me in that situation, I probably wouldn't read it (though I did read through all of it just now).

Just my two cents: let your art stand on its own. Your storytelling skills carry the art.

@Binski congratulations! Great style!

@alicepelot thanks! ️

That would be so much fun, wouldn’t it? And soooo cozy!

@Valerie-Light you've got so much flair in this piece! Your yeti is really enthusiastic about her spaghetti!

As you're refining this spot, consider what you really need to tell the story. If you don't need an element for the story, edit it out. Do you need things hanging from the ceiling to tell the story? Do you need shelves? Do you need a window? Do you even need a circle background?

For me (and this is just one opinion), your piece would be stronger without these elements. They draw attention away from your happy yeti. The wafting aroma gets lost because it's competing for attention with the detail behind it. It even took me a minute to see the top-secret yeti spaghetti recipe, which is a fun little detail that should stay in.

If your yeti needs a background color to stand out because she's so light, consider a lighter background in an interesting, organic shape. Perhaps mimicking the movement of the aroma? That might add more dynamism to the composition.

So many ways you can go with this! Looking forward to seeing your finished entry!

@Nyrryl-Cadiz my reasons are the same as yours, and I'm also running into the same problems.

After 11 years of illustrating for clients, I found that I didn't have time to work on my own projects. So this year I'm trying to set aside time to do personal work. And I have found, like you, that it resonates more with people and I tend to like it more.

But, being a glass-half-full girl, I figure that this is a good problem to have. I can work from home and do what I love for a living!

@mollylgm you're welcome! Looking forward to seeing how you solve the composition puzzle in this piece!

@HeatherBouteneff you're so welcome!

You've got a good idea, redoing illustrations where you like the concept but don't work in that style anymore. Revisiting old work can be such a rewarding experience, to see how you've grown as an artist.

As far as style goes, you'll be a much happier illustrator if you stick to the style(s) you prefer to work in. When I first started freelancing, I thought I had to be a chameleon and work in the style my client demanded. But just because I could mimic styles didn't mean I should. My clients were happy, but my work lacked personality and emotion, and I could've delivered MUCH better work if I would've stuck to my strengths & my style(s). Now, I do work in two different styles, but I'm no longer a chameleon, and it's made my work stronger and my clients even happier.

Same goes with subjects you show in your portfolio. It's best not to show work in your portfolio that you don't want to illustrate, even if it happens to be your strongest piece. Someone will see it and hire you to illustrate that subject. For example, I used to have a cute little cat spot in my portfolio, but I don't necessarily like drawing cats -- after illustrating at least 6 picture books with cat characters, that was enough! You won't see cats in my portfolio now.

Hope this was helpful -- feel free to learn from my mistakes!

@Kevin-Longueil yep! As you'll probably guess, I really like what @chrisaakins suggests. In fact, I think if you get rid of the background altogether, the piece will read better as a spot. The focus will be directly on the characters and action, where it needs to be.

However, I understand where you're coming from, wanting a portfolio piece too. But are you asking this one little spot illo to do too much? What if you modified the composition for a spot illustration, then even further expand your original idea into a full page or even spread illustration? There's no reason why you couldn't do two versions. That could be really interesting!

@Kim-Rosenlof awww, thanks so much! ️

@hayleyannececil beautiful! Of the two, I prefer the one with lines, for the readability reason like everyone else.

But both are great -- you do you and go with the one you like best!

@miranda-hoover looking good! Love your color harmony.

For me, what feels off with the baby yeti is that its head and shoulders are a different silhouette than the mom yeti’s. The mom yeti was drawn very stylized with smooth lines, no separation between head and shoulders, which works beautifully for the character. But the baby has defined head and shoulder.

It seems that a juvenile yeti would mimic the same overall shape as its parent, only smaller and rounder and fuzzier/plumper. At least that’s how I see it.

Really looking forward to seeing this spot all finished! Two thumbs way up!