Week 3 of the 12 Week Challenge (in retrospect)

I'm still catching up with my posting, so here's what week 3 entailed.

The task was to define your business type and start your marketing strategy. As I've freelanced in the past, I already have my business type so I focused on the next task which ultimately begins with two lists.

The first list consists of 10 art directors/companies that you will submit your art to at the end of the challenge. List two is the 6 portfolio pieces you plan to make.

With the shear number of ideas and interests I have, I've found every step of this challenge to be truly a challenge. My initial list of companies consisted mostly of children's book publishers -- as I tend to think most of my work could be a good fit for that genre. My plan was overturned though after listening to Tara Reed's interview on the zero2illo.com blog. I can't say that it's unusual for me to change my mind - but listening made me realize that my mindset about my work is much closer to a fit for licensing than standard book illos.

So with my paradigm shift hovering in the foreground I decided that list #1 needed to be completely redone. There are a ton of new options and venues to explore and in all honesty I think that list #1 may take me the full 12 weeks to accumulate.

As for list 2 here's what I posted:

Oddballs (character design & image set)
Chubs & Grubs (character design & image set)
'What I Want To Be' Trees (scene/possibly sequential illustration)
Holiday Dragons (character designs & image set)
set of Art Nouveau floral motifs (embroidery design)
series of editorial illustrations featuring high heeled shoes


I mentioned previously that I tend to change my mind 'just a bit' so I'm pretty curious myself to see if I hold true to this list in the coming weeks.

Week 2 of the 12 Week Challenge (in retrospect)

When it comes to the 12 week challenge, the word challenge definitely isn't for show. In week 2, participants are requested to make an OGSM for their business.

An OGSM is a one page summary that lists the Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Measures of your business.

Here's my understanding of the categories:

Objective: What exactly are you trying to achieve? Think long term here.

Goals: List 3 or 4 ways you can achieve your objective.

Strategies: Take each goal and break it down - these are your strategies.

Measures: What can you do to make sure your are progressing? Are you closer to your objective?

I'm being rather simplistic with the explanations here, but for anyone wishing to create their own I encourage you to visit the zero2illo blog and read the in depth description.

Without further ado, here's what I came up with. *disclaimer* I reserve the right to modify this at any time...ha! You didn't think I would actually make up my mind, did you? *disclaimer*

Week 1 of the 12 Week Challenge

A recent bout of determination has inspired my to take part in the 12 week challenge over at the Zero 2 Illo blog.

The challenge for Week 1 is to answer the following question:

What do you want to illustrate?

So after numerous drafts and a whole week of consideration, this is my response:

That certainly seems like it should be an easy question but here I am almost a week later and I'm still trying to figure it out.

I work as a designer so I tend to use whatever illustration skills I have to offset that. I create my own stock art, t-shirt designs and mascots/characters. Sometimes I do manage to draw/paint an image 'just because' but not nearly as often as I should. As it stands currently, I tend to use illustration as a design tool more than anything else.

Since I already illustrate in a variety of ways, it's rather hard to narrow it down to just one. I'm also not entirely certain that I should. As a designer I've found that versatility often comes in handy and I think I'd like to keep my illustration on the same track as my design work. To that end, I'd like to see myself following through with several different types of illustration with the ultimate goal of marketing myself as a designer and illustrator.

That said, I think I'm going to group my interests into two categories: design illustration and fantasy illustration.

The design illustration I want to pursue will consist of the types of things I've already been doing:
- Mascots and Characters
- Stock Art/Embroidery Design
- Illustration for Apparel

Fantasy illustration is something that I would like to pursue primarily for myself. I haven't done very much of my own fantasy work, so I'm not expecting to make a living with it anytime soon. Still, of all the types of illustration work out there, the fantasy genre captures my attention the most.

Social Media & Me

Like all good internet junkies I have a Facebook account. It started out as a way to stay in contact with people I went to school with or friends I used to see every day. Then I was introduced to applications.

Applications I've found are rather insidious. They start out small. A friend forwards a quiz, invites you to play a game or you catch a good looking graphic in an activity feed. Pretty soon at least one of those games is going to get you hooked. For me it's a toss up between Vampire Wars and Mafia Wars. Just when I'm satisfied with my character's skill or maybe even a little bored, a new level or rare item is added. Of course, bonuses are often offered to my fellow gaming friends but only if I post them on my wall. This is great except now my non-gaming friends have all my game related posting cluttering up their feed.

I find myself quite often passing up these bonuses just so I don't irritate my non-gaming friends too much. Considerate? I think so. :P

More recently I signed up for my own twitter account. Now I'm bombarded by a stream of 140 letters blurbs all day and night! Don't get me wrong, some of those blurbs are incredibly helpful and I love to share my own. Still, I find myself drifting over my tweet list more and more frequently. It doesn't hurt that the dang bird is soo cute either and it's EVERYWHERE!

By the way, don't forget to follow me on twitter here.

Vanity Aflame Step 6

I decided to change the bird's coloring and head slightly so that it looked more realistic. I love peacocks and have quite a few photos that I've used as reference. Still, I took some artistic license with the crown of feathers on the head as I liked the longer more flowing version I had already drawn.

Vanity Aflame Step 5

If you are an avid follower I'm sure you've caught on by now that I've changed the name of this piece yet again. I'd apologize, but that's pretty much the way I'm hard-wired. I have a very tough time deciding on names!! Just consider the evolving name another part of the process and enjoy the next step in the evolution of ‘Vanity Aflame’.

In step five I've started to add some detail into the head of the soon to be less-naked birdie.

Vanity Aflame Step 4

I've finally started to work a bit more toward the finished coloring on the clouds and I've now added in the rough shape of the bird itself.