Here’s part 2 of my illustration Q&A on DeviantArt! Click on to read more.

Asked by onionring
Q: What percentage of your time do you do illustration, compared to self-promtion marketing and office stuff (billing, taxes, etc.)
Asked by zorrino
Q: Can you describe an average day or week in your life as an illustrator, paying special attention to those duties that aren’t directly related to it (shopping, dog walking, laundry), and the people that eventually collaborates in it?

My day is typically divided between dealing with work-related chores and creating artwork. Work related chores include everything from replying emails, making quotes, doing invoices, calling people, going to the bank to cash checks etc. I try to do those during the day since some of those things require shops to be open (like the bank). Also, while I work till 2 or 3am, my clients tend to only work till 5 or 6pm at most, so I need to catch them before they go home!

The making art time is split between coming up with ideas for projects, doing sketches, making the final artwork and making changes.

With regards to collaborators, depending on what I’m doing, it usually involves clients or my husband. My clients talk to me through email and phonecalls to sort out changes, go through new briefs, discuss money matters etc. My husband helps me out with the more boring daily chores, like washing the dishes and feeding the cats. It would be nice if he also cleaned the house more regularly, but oh well.

When I’m not working, my time is usually spent on day-to-day matters like shopping for groceries, cooking meals, doing the laundry. It’s quite boring, to be honest. I relax by watching my husband play video games, or else I pop in a documentary to watch. I don’t usually watch movies and we don’t get TV. Sometimes I feel inclined to draw or paint, but that is quite rare. When you’ve spent your entire week drawing, the last thing you want to do when you have some time is draw even more.

Asked by maiku-jaguar
Q: (edited from original) Is it possible to be a freelance illustrator while not living in a major city like SF, LA or NYC?

Yes, it is possible to be a freelance illustrator and live in a place that is not a major city. Location does make certain things easier – if, say, you wanted to do freelance work for advertising companies, then it helps to be near to their offices as sometimes timelines are very tight and they will want you to go to the office for a meeting so they can explain the work to you.

You have to find other ways to promote yourself and your work if you can’t be available for an in-person meeting. Postcards or emails help, as does having an online portfolio.

Interestingly though, when I was in Singapore it was pretty hard for me to get clients in North America. Since moving to Toronto, I’ve been fortunate to work with people from all around the continent, from other parts of Canada to folks in California. I suspect simply being in a major North American city does have something to do with it.

Asked by adolfozee
Q: How do you start to promote yourself ?

When I started, I simply got hold of some local magazines and emailed the editors. I was lucky to get a reply after relatively few emails. I remember making some postcards (not sure if I made some for the very first meeting) but afterwards I made sure to leave some kind of promotional material with people if I had a meeting with them.

I also did, and continue to do, promotions online, by showing my work at different places and trying to do interviews and features. My website was one of the first pieces of promotion I made,and it continues to serve me well though the design has changed several times now.

To read the answers for part 1 of the Q&A, click here.

I decided to open up a question and answer session with people on DeviantArt, to see if I could help answer their questions about illustration. I found that illustration to a lot of people there was this beguiling, near mystical thing that everyone wanted to call themselves but few people were willing to share real answers about the industry.

So, here are my answers for the first batch of questions. These are my personal answers; they are written in a casual question-answer format and are not meant to substitute any formal teaching on any one point. In other words, it probably wouldn’t qualify if you wanted to quote it for a thesis! But hopefully they are insightful and useful.

Read more below for the questions and the answers.

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Q&A Batch 1

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Asked by: cl0aked
Q: What tablet do you use if any? Do you ever do digital paintings?

I currently use a Wacom Intuous 3 6×8 tablet and a Cintiq 21UX. I use my tablets for Illustrator and Photoshop, for drawing and for applying special effects and touchups. I personally don’t do much painting, digitally or otherwise. When I do, I am more interested in achieving an interesting effect than painting in a highly finished, detailed manner.

Asked by: krissthebliss
Q: How do you launch yourself as an illustrator. you know the first flap of your artistic wings…
When I started, I emailed the art directors at several magazines back in Singapore. I had a small portfolio with some personal pieces, which in retrospect looked so awful I am amazed anyone gave me a job. I got a call from the creative director of a publisher, who introduced me to the art director of the in-flight magazine of Singapore Airlines. He gave me my first true illustration job shortly afterwards.

I think what helped was that I already had a few year’s worth of working experience and I didn’t sound like a complete idiot. I had had experience dealing with clients and so while I was still pretty unsure of myself, when I presented my work and myself, I guess I must have appeared decently trustworthy. They did, after all, give me a gig.

Q: The benefits of freelance or an employee in a company.

There are benefits and downsides to both. The most obvious benefit of working for a company is a steady paycheck, sometimes benefits and the opportunity to meet, mingle and work with other people in a similar field on a daily basis. You pick up a lot of useful skills working in a company – people skills, time management skills are but a few of the things you just get used to.

The benefits of freelancing, on the other hand, are a sense of freedom in both being your own boss and controlling your artistic endeavors. You can get up at any time you want, you can work from anywhere if you’re an illustrator or designer, and you get to write off stuff as a business expense.

Q:What are the necessary tools and knowledge on being an illustrator.

That’s probably up for debate, but I think that an illustrator ought to have fundamental drawing skills and painting skills (yes, even though I myself lack the fundamental painting skills). A wide appreciation for art and an empathy society. Being curious about a wide variety of subjects is helpful.

I personally believe that good illustrators enjoy solving problems first, and making art second. Illustration provides an aesthetic visual answer to any number of problems, from showing the viewer how to do something, to helping make a very complex and abstract concept clear.

In terms of tools, I think you can use just about anything to create an illustration. It’s probably important to have a computer if only to email clients. Most illustrators also scan their traditional media artwork these days and send the final art as a hires file to the client, either by FTP or some other means.

Q: Is it advisable to be an illustrator without any educational on art like having a degree in fine arts blah blah blah.

Well, I don’t have a degree of any sort, so it’s totally possible to be an illustrator without training.

There are quite a few schools offering illustration as a degree, and whether or not these are worth it is, I think, dependent on the student. For a select few, the training is very good – I have seen students graduate with amazing portfolios and they ease into professional work shortly thereafter. They seem to keep in touch with their teachers who lend them their support and advice and that connection is extremely valuable. Good teachers can also help steer a student in a direction to give them the best shot of success when they graduate.

On the other hand I have also see some illustration graduates with dismal art. Even looking online I have seen people with Masters’ degrees in illustration and their work is terrible. Perhaps they got the degree to teach or something, however it would appear to me that their work is too poor for commercial application and I wonder what they did in all those years at school.

I would say if you have the money, then pursue an illustration degree if you are inclined. Or consider a graphic design or animation degree – these usually have an illustration component and tend to impart skills that can actually get you hired upon graduation (you can still get a design job with an illustration degree, but I think a design degree would give you better chances).