Yesterday, I found out really discouraging news about the website Upwork. I found a children's book deal for $1.5K and I was really excited to hear that the authors saw my proposal and were interested in hiring me for the job.

It all seemed to work out until we approached the "exclusive rights" myth in the conversation. From what I've learned from @NessIllustration's freelance cafe, copyrights are not customary in children's book deals, and actually require compensation to the illustrator up to 6-figures. I tried to be smart and speak from a place of authority and experience that this is not commonplace and that as first-time authors I do not recommend them.

All of a sudden, they linked me to the website's rules and conditions which stated that "Upon Freelancer’s receipt of full payment from Client.... Freelancer hereby automatically irrevocably assigns to Client all right, title and interest worldwide... Freelancer retains no rights to use, and will not challenge the validity of Client’s ownership"

https://www.upwork.com/legal?fbclid=IwAR163GFVA9k-6ntvMNyj4OyMNcb735r5xVrvVW0LtAHGTf-E0IpLxbHeaHk#optional-service-contract-terms

After that I freaked out and did not respond to the client, as they bombarded me with materials to make the book, assuming that I was okay with this current set up. I waited a couple of hours until I could call someone with experience over the phone and tell them about the situation. What they recommended was that if I could not enforce royalties for obligatory selling of rights that I either adjust the price or I adjust the number of pages. (Shame on me for trying to negotiate a deal under completely unethical terms?)

I offered both options to my clients, and they calmly told me that they were no longer interested, impulsively withdrew the contract, but that they valued my work as an artist. So what does that mean? Are you going to seek another vulnerable, naive, and inexperienced artist and devalue them so you can get your book made? They told me if I adjusted the price it would be too expensive, and they told me if I adjusted the pages the "educational content" would be lost. This was for a 22-page book with cover and back.

While I am disappointed that I am not going to earn $1.5K, I am glad that I did not produce work that I could not legally even put into my portfolio. I completely blame websites like Fiverr and cultures on Facebook for perpetuating this type of mindset in small authors that illustrators can be asked to give away their work, but not be properly compensated for it. I don't think I'll ever use Upwork again. I should be able to retain my rights to the images, and not give the author power to disagree. There are a lot of authors who want exclusive rights to their books, but so little willing to pay a realistic price.

Hello, I have been freelancing as an illustrator for about a year now and want some critiques on my Halloween piece.

I know there are definitely areas where I can improve. I will start by admitting that I sort of rushed myself on this piece. It took me about a week to finish. I wanted to make sure I could publish this on Halloween.

The description of this piece is what would 'Halloween look like in the Philippines?'. It depicts Filipino children of all colors and sizes walking among monsters of Philippine mythology on Halloween night during the Covid-19 2020 pandemic.

I tried my best to make every character's gestures be expressive. This is meant to be a busy piece intentionally, so I'd like to know if I executed that aspect well enough to be justified. This piece is also formatted to fit on Instagram, so it's split in half. I was hoping that formatting it like this would not have disrupted the flow of the drawing.

If you need full descriptions of what is going on:

1. A tiyanak is hung over a window grossly gobbling down candy while wearing a mask.
2. A sirena is wearing a scuba mask, as people dive into a minipool to grab some apples. She's standing next to a 'siyokoy' with more 'cthulu' features and there is a female berberoka hiding in the pool.
3. An aeta person dressed as an American soldier receives candy from a wak-wak, while berbalang grabs a piece with their tail while she's not looking.
4. The 'white lady ghost' drops ghost candy to three 'kumakatok' children.
5. A Filipino girl dressed as a Filipina suffragette 'Josefa Llanes Oscoda' walks by with a duwende.
6. A pugot hides in the background in the middle of the picture, lit only by a candle.
7. A bungisngis hands out candy to very young Filipino children dressed as nurses.
8. A mestizo pinoy boy helps a sigbin how to sanitize their paws.
9. A kapre blows away one of the corona viruses that he sees while sitting on the roof of a house.
10. A religious Filipino boy dressed as a pari prays to a cross with a rosary necklace on it, next to candles and a haunted framed photograph of the virgin Mary.
11. A brunette Chinay Anggitay helps pull the tartanilla of a tikbalang dressed in a barong-tagalog.
12. Black butterflies represent death in the Philippines.
13. Various manananggals fly in the sky, some are holding pumpkins, one young one is peering over by a palm tree.
14. An amomongo passes by carrying too much candy than he can carry.
15. The covid-19 is inspired by Filipino symbols such as the sun of the Philippine flag.

Hey everyone, I have been quiet for quite some time. I've been currently dealing with some personal issues in my mind and contemplating whether I really do want to work as a children's book illustrator. If I am being completely transparent, I never saw myself growing up to become a children's book illustrator necessarily, I always loved animation and have lots of favorite shows and books from my childhood, but I realize I'm just too heavy-handed and that I don't really have the forte to tell stories in subtle ways.

It's kind of been something I've been trying to repress since I've worked pretty much almost half a year or more trying to build a website dedicated to children's book illustration so that I can impress an agency and get some work done. But maybe the reason I've been slowing down recently is that I'm not really a fan of what I'm doing. I'm treating illustration more like a job rather than drawing what I'm specifically passionate about, which is telling stories that are emotionally heart-wrenching, because that's the sort of stuff I like to consume. Tearjerkers.

There are other projects that I have pushed aside so that I could work on this children's book illustration career and focus on making money and getting back on my feet, ever since the pandemic has made it completely difficult for me to get a job in architecture or draftsmanship. Those projects that I am passionate about, I would say is probably more targeted towards a young adult audience, not even middle school appropriate maybe. I would really like to get started on that project, since I feel more emotionally invested in those types of stories.

Sorry for the long venting. I think maybe I need to rebrand my website. I've been going through a personal journey and I think part of that means I need to be more authentic about the work that I want to create. I don't want to create kiddie stuff, only for the money. I want to create deeply emotional gutbusters. Drama and action.

@Melissa-Bailey-0 Thank you for clarifying that up.

I really hope this deal was really worth letting go. I think I was just obsessing about the previous client that I sold my rights to. We were working on a children's book with 18 pages (with lots of revisions) for $500 that was later uped to 40 pages for only $900 (with a lot of revisions still). They were very clear to me that they did not want me to share anything about the book until everything was absolutely published.

They have yet to publish the book (we finished everything last year in August) and they still haven't uploaded it on Amazon KDP or Ingram Sparks. It was a lot of work and while at first I thought the paycheck was lovely, I did feel a little underpaid by the end. I just didn't want to get into another situation where I would be working for a long time on a project for so little, and by the end, not have any material that might help me jump to the next project.

Then again... this client did come across as impulsive, so maybe I dodged a potential bad review if I worked hard and still dissapointed the client? In my experience so many self-publishing authors that I have met or worked with have a really bad attitude or are just plain disrespectful. But I know not all of them are or else I would have never proposed or continue using the site.

These are all from the same artist, and they had to modify their style so that it could fit the tone of the book they were illustrating, but despite that I would say the artist is still recognizable.

Hello Nyrryl, I love the tertiary pastel color palette you've chosen for this concept art. I know that I'm still working on my own skills art skills such as gesturing and emoting, but I think the feedback I can offer will focus more on the color options you've provided, since I personally feel like color theory is my biggest strength, if you can agree...

If I were to narrow your options down, I would pick somewhere around the 3 to 5, with 3 being my strongest pick. I say #3 because I think it helps pronounce the main image with the castles and children riding on mythical creatures. I think the orange on #4 is a bit too strong and kind of distracts me just a bit. I think #5 is a good option too, but I feel like the sky is too simplified, and kind of makes it not as exciting as the two other options. Also, I think the palest yellow at the bottom right corner of #5 kind of makes the white castles blend into the background. I think is also an issue with #3 as well, but perhaps you could remedy this with shading.

Are you going to add a lot of shading to the final piece?

My only suggestions here is to find ways to make sure that certain pieces of the image don't blend into each other. I think the dragon's tail might get lost because the purple at the end is too similar to the color of the roof it's overlapping with. I'm sure shading will fix this. I think for the valkyrie-esque girl on the dragon, you could also add a yellow hue to her fluffy skirt so it doesn't blend in with the dragon's skin? The unicorn's body also kind of blends in with that one castle's roof. I understand that you probably diluted the color on that roof to convey distance, but maybe make the horn bigger and more white, with the purple streaks being more subtle on the horn?

My only issue with anatomy for this piece is the girl on the unicorn. I hope you can understand my advice on this.

Where is she looking at? It feels like in this thumbnail she's supposedly waving at the bear, as the bear is also waving and looking at her. But she's below him and her eyes don't look like they're directed at him. Is she waving at something off screen? The unicorn looks like it's looking at the bear prince. Maybe if you shifted the pupils up just a bit, this could work. I hope this was useful to you in some way and I wish you the best of luck on your catalog

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Could you... perhaps... offer a suggestion and explain to them why this other version you suggested is a much better cover idea than their horrible cover, without necessarily telling them their original suggestion is awful? You words wouldn't necessarily come across as you shitting on the original cover or whoever was responsible for it. Try to come across as if your coming from a place of experience in design and that you're essentially trying to "enhance" the awful cover by offering tips and techniques from your years of education and working in the industry.

Try to say "I think this is better because..."

And not say "this cover has issues/flaws/just completely awful".

@Nyrryl-Cadiz My favorite part of this piece is how one of the kids are rushing to get their chicken to be part of the sleigh ride haha.

Hello @carrieannebrown, I think the issue with this specific piece is probably the style. The man's torso and head read to me as "derivative of human anatomy" which is good, but his legs do not. His legs read as more "cartoon, exaggerated, stylized" which makes the style of this piece inconsistent.

So I am not sure which route you want to work with. Do you want to commit to a style that incorporates some rules of anatomy, or do you go full-on out with a stylized look? You cannot really have both.

This is what I recommend if you prefer the former...

Or the latter...

Also a couple of other questions. Is this supposed to be a piece sign? Why does he have three fingers out? Does it mean anything? I think he should be making a clear and recognizable gesture with this hand.

My last comment would be color scheme. While I think the color scheme is okay, could you perhaps experiment by adding a contrasting color? I think his blue shirt and indigo shorts are too monochromatic to the muted teal background, and I think experimenting with the color scheme just a little bit more will help the picture pop.

Here's some experimental colors.

Blue goes great with orange, but since this is not a pure blue, I thought it would go great with a shade that leans towards more yellow.

Aqua green might also be a good option. Overall, I do think it's good piece, but only needs a couple of tweaks and some clear direction with your style.

@juliekitzes

I also struggle with this problem as well. For many years actually.

What I find is that I might become completely infatuated and obsessed with an idea, and commit some to a lot of energy to that story, only to realize that after some time has past, I am no longer invested in what I was creating.

What I am coming to realize, maybe, it's okay to go with the flow, you know? Maybe you were invested with this one particular story idea at the time, but now you aren't because of many things, like:

1. Time and Financial Management makes it difficult for you to fully commit to an idea.
2. Maybe you were compelled to this idea because of a certain element, which has lost its charm like a fad.
3. Maybe you realize the idea you made is not really great, and you need to update it in a way to make it a more compelling story.

Among many other things... What I am doing with my stories that I have never finished, I am currently "shelving" or "valuting" until I think I have found the appropriate time to reapproach them, reevaluate what I made, and decide whether this personal piece is worth continuing as is or needs to be restructured slightly to even significantly to make it work in a way that I can feel completely committed to it.

I have 2 stories I have written in the past, 1 unfinished, the other a finished draft, both have problems but I think with care and time I can improve in the future. I have put aside these stories for another story I am currently invested in, and I am making sure that I put in the effort to make it the best story it can be, through research and care.

@Alzamon Yeah I've always been into comics and animation. I thought because of that, drawing children's book would be a piece of cake, but the truth is it's not. I'm not 100% enjoying what I draw. Maybe 75% at most, but deep down I want to illustrate stories with heavy themes, but that's just not appropriate for children's books it seems. I try my best to be subtle, or try to tell it in a way that I personally believe is appropriate for children, but I guess I really do not know how to that.

What I'm trying to contemplate now is what to do with the portfolio work I have already produced in the coming months that I've dedicated to children's books. Do I just ditch them? Place someplace else. I'm thinking that my website needs a total overhaul and makeover in order to fit a more authentic interest of myself.

Right now I am writing a story for a teen action drama about teenage superheroes and mental health. I cannot wait to share my YA stories here in the coming months.

Hey everyone, I have been quiet for quite some time. I've been currently dealing with some personal issues in my mind and contemplating whether I really do want to work as a children's book illustrator. If I am being completely transparent, I never saw myself growing up to become a children's book illustrator necessarily, I always loved animation and have lots of favorite shows and books from my childhood, but I realize I'm just too heavy-handed and that I don't really have the forte to tell stories in subtle ways.

It's kind of been something I've been trying to repress since I've worked pretty much almost half a year or more trying to build a website dedicated to children's book illustration so that I can impress an agency and get some work done. But maybe the reason I've been slowing down recently is that I'm not really a fan of what I'm doing. I'm treating illustration more like a job rather than drawing what I'm specifically passionate about, which is telling stories that are emotionally heart-wrenching, because that's the sort of stuff I like to consume. Tearjerkers.

There are other projects that I have pushed aside so that I could work on this children's book illustration career and focus on making money and getting back on my feet, ever since the pandemic has made it completely difficult for me to get a job in architecture or draftsmanship. Those projects that I am passionate about, I would say is probably more targeted towards a young adult audience, not even middle school appropriate maybe. I would really like to get started on that project, since I feel more emotionally invested in those types of stories.

Sorry for the long venting. I think maybe I need to rebrand my website. I've been going through a personal journey and I think part of that means I need to be more authentic about the work that I want to create. I don't want to create kiddie stuff, only for the money. I want to create deeply emotional gutbusters. Drama and action.

My favorite is between 2 and 3, but I leaned more towards 3 because her face feels more softer here.

Hi @mag, no I'm not discouraged. I have had people in the past comment that some of my visual development work would be great for a webcomic and that it might be popular with more middle-grade children. I was thinking about adding a middle-grade section to my portfolio website, but only after I had 30+ illustrations of children-oriented illustrations. I like dramatic scenery and drawing scenes that carry a lot of emotional weight to them so that the image has lasting more memorable impact. But I guess instead of being memorable, they end up becoming too distressing instead.

And just to clarify, I didn't want to portray the pet owner as 'abusive', neglectful maybe, but I was going for more a "thoughtless" pet owner. This story is actually a word-for-word recreation of my own childhood traumas (with the exception of the puppy, who is a placeholder for moi).

Basically to make a sad story short, when I was 2 years old my parents hosted a party and invited a lot of people, but I was not allowed to come inside. My only guess is the adults just wanted to be by themselves. Nobody brought any other kids, so it was just me in the backyard, and the only thing that kept me from feeling bored/lonely/isolated was to play with this swing from Fisher Price. What happened was for some reason one of the straps snapped on my swing and when I asked my dad to help me fix the swing, he shooed me away. I waited until the party was over and then my dad finally came out to check out me and saw the swing. I was hoping that he would reattach the swing, but instead he threw it away. The chair wasn't damaged, the strap was the only thing that broke, but then he threw the entire thing away. And I was very devastated. I would constantly come back outside in the backyard hoping that magically there would be a new swingset, but it never came.

Here's the deal. What if we had the pet owner turn around and see the distress he caused the puppy, and we see remorse on his face. He then grabs a phone and makes a phone call to invite his friends to bring their pets. He later brings the other pets to the puppy, and they have their own little party. It seems like the pets having a party is the most popular vote, so what if the owner tried to do the right thing?

What would be the most ideal way of resolving this situation as to put the pet owner in a more human light?

Hi @mag, is it really that dark for children? I mean I guess with the muted color scheme, dramatic lighting, unclean textures, and hyperrealistic sad puppy eyes, there's sort of a creepy vibe and implications to the story.

The story is basically trying to resonate with the audience's own personal experiences of disappointment, loss, or isolation for the first time in their lives. I have met a lot of people who as kids told me that their parents threw away their favorite toy or just personal belongings in general without their consent. Which can be very heart-breaking especially for very small children.

I mean I guess the audience for these types of pieces would be someone who's into Courage the Cowardly Dog or cartoons that cover little heavy subject matters. Like trying to talk to a kindergartener who lost a favorite toy or thing. I try my best not to be so heavy-handed in these types of topics, but I have a habit of having characters express intense emotions so that the audience can better read what a character is feeling through physical expressions.

Happy Monday everybody! I'm back from my "vacation" from illustrations and back with a brand new piece! This is called The Puppy Who Lost His Swing and it's inspired by my own personal trauma before I even knew how to talk. I am trying to add new illustrations to my portfolio. Double-spreads mixed with spot illustrations. And yes my best work.

Believe it or not, this illustration took me 15 days to finish. Probably the longest I have ever spent on one illustration. You can check out the progress by visiting my Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG40Zvea1z9YYKJOXQy-ujg

The video is divided into 6 parts though.

There once was a cute puppy and a puppy owner. The puppy owner liked to host exquisite parties at his house, but would never invite his puppy because animals are not allowed. The puppy would feel sad and lonely, but he occupied himself by playing with his only toy: the swing!

But on one party, the dog's swing snapped and broke his swing, and went to his master to have it fixed.

He tugged at his pants to bring him to the swing, but the master put him back outside, because no dogs allowed.

When the party was over, the master finally went outside to check out his puppy and saw the broken swing. The puppy had thought that finally, his master would finally come to fix his swing. But alas, the master coldly threw away the puppy's only favorite toy. It was at this moment that the puppy discovered the feelings of devastation for the first time in his life.

This isn't the end of the story, however. I want to get feedback on how you all think this story should end. There are four potential endings, and I hope you all vote your opinion

@Nyrryl-Cadiz I used to make a comic series online at Tumblr, but it didn't go anywhere because the website lost a lot of traffic after the adult content ban.

Hi, just want to voice my opinion. Drawing clean lineart has never been a problem for me in the ten years I have been learning how to draw digitally. What I do is I draw in layers.

Usually it goes like from top to bottom:

Final Lineart

Fill Color + Shading/Lighting effects

Rough Lineart (Sometimes there might be two layers) (off)

Stereographic Figure (off)

Simple Shapes + Line of Action (off)

I draw identifiable shapes of the character, like the line of action which could either be their leg, arms, or spine, and a circle to identify where I am going to draw the head. On top of that I draw another layer that is going to give me an idea of 3D space for my character so I know how to draw my character that makes them feel alive and not flat. That is when I start drawing construction lines where I attempt to trace what I think the final lineart will look like.

What I do then is turn off all the previous layers except the construction lines layer. This layer I make at somewhere between 20% - 50% and I make another layer and trace over that. I make clean strokes and make sure that my line weights look consistent. Sometimes I have to erase or go back and add more thickness so everything looks cohesive.

Hi @aska I think this is an easy fix. You need to fix the composition first.

When I looked at your piece, I immediately thought of the golden ratio. Your piece is slightly offset and doesn't help guide our eyes towards the piece. What you can do is orient the piece by having the mountain with the face align with the curve of the ratio and move the house and shed a little to the right and down.

Also use the rule of thirds. Think of your canvas as a series of thumbnails. In this case a set of 9. In each thumbnail you want the photo shown in each tile to be something interesting, something that can stand on it's own. Right now the house is getting cut off in the thumbnails because of it's placement. When you think like this, you can start creating more interesting pieces that really draws your audiences eyes.

Now expand those thumbnails from 9 to 36.

When you bring everything together you will end up with a stronger composition