EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Several of my family members work in contract based small businesses (architecture design, personal training, website building) and they stressed the 1 week payment timetable for sent products if payment is on delivery as the person technically has the full month beforehand to have the funds prepared. They also told me to get money in advance, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that yet.
I'll keep an eye on the payment of this and future commissions and if it looks like getting the funds together after delivery is a consistent problem I'll do the month timetable.
Several of my family members work in contract based small businesses (architecture design, personal training, website building) and they stressed the 1 week payment timetable for sent products if payment is on delivery as the person technically has the full month beforehand to have the funds prepared. They also told me to get money in advance, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that yet.
I'll keep an eye on the payment of this and future commissions and if it looks like getting the funds together after delivery is a consistent problem I'll do the month timetable.
Is this a digital deliverable or a physical? I just assumed digital...if so, I'd require 1/2 up-front before starting any work, then then you can send them a lower-rez (possibly watermarked) version of the final for approval. They can then send you the remaining payment and once that has cleared, you can send them the full-rez final file.
My tutor finally got back to me. I'm a little late but this might be helpful anyway.
Note: This is me paraphrasing his words, I don't have enough industry experience to give this kind of advice.
His estimate for an entry level artist would be around $35 AUD an hour, or $350 AUD per day, although I'm not sure how that translates to USD (because of different costs of living, taxes, etc...). He also mentioned that you should only give them your day rate, not your hourly. I've actually been charging significantly less than that for my design work, so maybe I should reconsider too.
His other advice was that your first question should be 'What is the deadline?' If the deadline is really short, then there shouldn't be any room for pay negotiation. If they want a rush job then they need to pay for it.
After that you should then inform them that based on the brief supplied. Estimate that the job will take approximately XX days to complete and thus will cost them $XXX for the artwork.
If they baulk at your rate, you can then ask them what their budget for the work is. If the budget is close to your estimate you should take it. If it's grossly below his estimate, you should either walk away OR take the job but tell them you will complete the job within a time-frame that suits you. If they can't pay, you should at least have him more time to do the job. They can't have both!
Also he said that there are four reasons why you should take a job:
Fun - Obviously if you think you'll enjoy the job
Forward - If it moves your career forward, or helps you build your skills
Fame - If the job brings you some sort of recognition
Fortune - If the job pays well, or at least adequately
You should aim for every job to fulfil three or four of these criteria. Any less, then he said you should walk away.
Several of my family members work in contract based small businesses (architecture design, personal training, website building) and they stressed the 1 week payment timetable for sent products if payment is on delivery as the person technically has the full month beforehand to have the funds prepared. They also told me to get money in advance, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that yet.
I'll keep an eye on the payment of this and future commissions and if it looks like getting the funds together after delivery is a consistent problem I'll do the month timetable.
Yeah, if it's for private individuals, and you didn't take any payment up front, one week seems normal.
If it's any kind of bigger/corporate project where multiple people need to sign off or request changes, 30 days would definitely be more common (or at least more than a week), but in that case it would also be more common to get some payment up front.
My tutor finally got back to me. I'm a little late but this might be helpful anyway.
Note: This is me paraphrasing his words, I don't have enough industry experience to give this kind of advice.
His estimate for an entry level artist would be around $35 AUD an hour, or $350 AUD per day, although I'm not sure how that translates to USD (because of different costs of living, taxes, etc...). He also mentioned that you should only give them your day rate, not your hourly. I've actually been charging significantly less than that for my design work, so maybe I should reconsider too.
His other advice was that your first question should be 'What is the deadline?' If the deadline is really short, then there shouldn't be any room for pay negotiation. If they want a rush job then they need to pay for it.
After that you should then inform them that based on the brief supplied. Estimate that the job will take approximately XX days to complete and thus will cost them $XXX for the artwork.
If they baulk at your rate, you can then ask them what their budget for the work is. If the budget is close to your estimate you should take it. If it's grossly below his estimate, you should either walk away OR take the job but tell them you will complete the job within a time-frame that suits you. If they can't pay, you should at least have him more time to do the job. They can't have both!
Also he said that there are four reasons why you should take a job:
Fun - Obviously if you think you'll enjoy the job
Forward - If it moves your career forward, or helps you build your skills
Fame - If the job brings you some sort of recognition
Fortune - If the job pays well, or at least adequately
You should aim for every job to fulfil three or four of these criteria. Any less, then he said you should walk away.
Hope that helps!
This should totally be put in the Questions/Tutorials thread for others, really good info to have, especially if you're just starting to take contract work.
So, I just watched "The Keep" which is a horror movie from 1983. It's pretty cheesy and has some major overacting going on, but holy shit talk about some inspiring cinema. I felt like I could pause that movie at just about any scene and do some sketches. The director of photography/concept artist or whoever came up with the composition for most of the scenes did an incredible job. Almost every scene felt like it could be a panel out of a graphic novel.
So, I just watched "The Keep" which is a horror movie from 1983. It's pretty cheesy and has some major overacting going on, but holy shit talk about some inspiring cinema. I felt like I could pause that movie at just about any scene and do some sketches. The director of photography/concept artist or whoever came up with the composition for most of the scenes did an incredible job. Almost every scene felt like it could be a panel out of a graphic novel.
Watched the trailer- I'll add this to my list of "movies that I feel like I should see, but probably will never get around to." Along with Phantasm (which The Keep trailer reminded me of, along with the short film Black Angel ), which I keep hearing about and the trailer looks like it's got some legit crazy stuff going on with it, but I've never gotten around to sitting my ass down to watch it.
I need to find some film buff people to force me to watch more/more interesting movies again at some point- back in high school and college I was all about seeking out classics/obscure gems etc., nowadays I see a couple of the Big Name Movies in theaters every year and a handful of whatever washes up on the shores of Netflix streaming. Somebody come over and force me to watch this DVD of The Thin Man I've had lying around for months please.
In other news, I got some Amazon cards from Christmas. My options:
-Nibble away at them gradually, as needs/wants arise naturally over time. Probably would go mostly to art books and novels to read during my commute.
-Blow a bunch of it on toys to populate my work desk, since at my particular workplace (bunch of videogame art/nerdo types around) having no decoration makes me look kinda boring. Was thinking of getting some Pacific Rim robots or Gundam model kits (haven't really watched Gundam since high school, but I still think the robots are cool looking. Would having those around make me a Gundam poser, I dunno.)
-Blow it on something that could theoretically contribute to some skill I have a vague interest in acquiring (sewing machine, nice cookware, exercise equipment, etc.) and thus make me a better, more well-rounded person...provided I actually got off my ass and used any of it, which due to time/laziness I almost certainly won't.
-Blow it all and an additional couple hundred bucks besides on a Serious Purchase that I've been thinking about, such as a bigger Cintiq or a nicer monitor.
-Spend it on some other shit I haven't thought of yet, but maybe you guys can suggest just the perfect thing for me to spend these on.
So this year has been off to an amazing start regarding my design work. Last year I didn't make much money, admittedly I may have been undercharging by a lot but at the time I didn't feel as though my own skills were up to snuff for much beyond what i charged.
Not only did I get a new client this year whom will need further design work done, I've also been hired on as a contractor for work with a company for four months, varied types of design needs and it will be part-time hours. But what I'm being paid per hour is far and well beyond anything I've ever made, and even if I only manage five hours a week I'll make more money in these next four months than I did through all of last year.
But responsibile decison making is so boooooriiiing
Hey, nobody's saying #4 has to be responsible. Think of the extra money as a way of turning a boring and necessary upgrade into something more of an indulgence.
Well, I ended up going with picking up The Force Awakens art book (would have bought it anyway), some slippers (been meaning to buy some anyway) and a Gundam model because it looked cool.
I know it's not logical, but the amount of money the cards would contribute to the larger purchases would be so little as to not really relieve me of any financial misgivings I might have about those purchases anyway, if that makes any sense.
EDIT: But don't worry, 2 of these items have to be shipped from overseas and the other one's currently out of stock, so I'm going to have pleeeenty of time to regret my stupid wasteful spending.
For awhile I've been trying to post some mildly-kinda-sorta-humorous thing (calling them 'jokes' would be overselling them) to Facebook, in the hopes of increasing my humorous goofs potential and lead to goofy, havin'-a-laugh FB conversations.
Result: I think almost all of my Facebook friends have unfollowed me at this point.
Probably should have tried this experiment on Twitter instead, where I could be ignored by far more people with even greater efficiency.
If it makes you feel better, you are one of the few people I do follow on facebook.
To be honest, I have such a weird mixed crowd on FB I never post anything to there anymore. If I post drawings dripping, snarling dogs my family all comes in and says how weird I am. If I post more domestic shit, I feel like the most boring hunk of lameness on the face of the fucking planet. So whatever. I've moved over to instagram for personal crap.
I get weirdly stage shy with twitter but I need to tweet some drawings, because my little twitter bank of photos is just me saying goodby to my like 6 year old chucks.
And I think your dilemma is not uncommon- which is why so much of what people post on FB is so banal, even when the people posting are people I know are capable of being far more interesting and entertaining if they wanted to be.
I know I deliberately have excluded my family from my FB friends list because I know if I did, I'd never post anything even remotely interesting as a result (or at least, trying to be interesting). Even with that precaution taken, I still try to make sure I don't post about any serious issue I might actually have a strong opinion about ('don't discuss politics or religion in polite company', etc) so as not to get in conversations where I'd get really wound up.
I know FB has a way to filter posts to go only to specific, separate cohorts- but given how much junk I see that I have no idea why I'm seeing it ("Oh, the friend (who I don't know) of a friend (who I don't know) of one of my Facebook friends got married (to someone I also don't know), judging by this random picture. I have no idea why I am being informed of this."), I don't trust those streams to remain separated and not cross-pollinate in a concerning way. The risk of my mother finding out that I, on occasion, will use salty language such as, "butts", is too great.
I don't care too much what my family sees, but I have enough colleagues/business connections on FB that I tend to use it sparingly. That said, I did make an art page, which I'm thinking I should use/promote more.
It's basically the worst. I mean on the upside, mentally realizing that facebook was a huge cause of stress and anxiety for me was actually great. The process of putting it out of my life enlightened me to cut out a lot of bullshit in general. The downside is I feel compelled to still have a facebook because of how many contacts I have buried in it. There's still a huge part of me that would like to nuke it.
Uncle Two-Guns sounds like the less accepting type, actually
Uncle Two-Guns is clearly the kinda big imposing dude who everyone's always afraid is gonna fly off the handle and hit someone with a chair at the slightest transgression...but when you say something with conviction and stand your ground, he stares you straight in the eye for a full minute, expression-unreadable, before slowly extending his fist into the bro-knuckle position and growling out, "Don't know if ya're right, don't know if ya're wrong. But either way- ya family." And then everyone breathes a sigh of relief and the soundtrack kicks in.
I have the cool family. They somehow 100% accepted my sexuality over a decade before I did. I was one of those ten year olds who called everything "gay" because everyone else did. My mom caught me doing it one day and said "how would you feel if you were gay and someone said that?" :rotate:
Uncle Two-Guns seems like the kind of guy who would be missing an eye and not even wear an eye patch, but mostly just because he had the inside of his eye socket tattooed. However that tattoo is "mom" - only to once again reinforce the incredible balance between toughness and that soft, warm, heart hidden underneath.
Uncle Two-Guns seems like the kind of guy that will help you cook Soupe à L’oignon in your kitchen to help impress your date, but he'll hide so that it seems like you did it yourself.
I want to get into painting with watercolor. Am I going to run into problems if I just get the cheapest paints, brushes, and pad at the art store? I don't want to spend more than I have to in case I decide I don't like it. I love the look of watercolor, but I don't know how much I'll enjoy using it.
eh, I've seen people achieve pretty great results with cheap watercolors paints, but you probably want at the very least a nice brush and fairly good paper. I wouldn't go crazy on it for your first experiments, though, because they get obnoxiously expensive quick. as long as you get something that's generally designed to take wet media, though, you can probably jump in and experiment.
I can't think of who on the boards has been doing watercolors, though, other than @lyrium on occasion
I think you want a little more absorbency and texture than marker paper usually has, my experience is those pads are pretty smooth. But, you could always ruin a few sheets to find out, part of the fun in my opinion.
Yeah marker paper absorbency is not great for watercolor.
I do mostly watercolor penciling but I got back into watercolor when my local art shop had Cotman travel boxes on sale for like, under twenty bucks and I think it's a good place to start.
Paper: imo you really do want watercolor specific paper, but you don't need to go straight for the big stack of Arches or something. I use the Fluid watercolor pads as they're sort of the middle of the road option and I like the glued seams as it keeps the rest of the pad from getting trashed when I throw it in a bag and go. Basically anything in watercolor paper will be better than non-watercolor paper.
My watercolor stuff has mostly been little sketches and experiments also. I just use a small wet media sketchbook, which works perfectly fine. The paper might buckle a little but it has a hardcover and tight elastic loop keeping it closed, and I use binder clips while working, so the pages stay reasonably flat. I met an artist who did very nice watercolor drawings who was also just using a hardcover wet media sketchbook. You only need a couple of colors to get started, and for watercolor I'm only carrying a medium flat brush, medium pointy brush and small pointy brush.
It's pretty challenging (at least for me!) and not always what I feel like getting up to, but the sketchbook also works really well for wet ink drawings, so if you aren't into the watercolor the thick paper is still nice and useful.
January 29 is the birthday of one of my best friends, and January 30 is my birthday, but since I'm in futureland 13 hours ahead of homeland, this year we get to be twins for half a day!
I got paid in pizza for a project. I would normally say no to food as payment, but... I was more than happy with that one.
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Blameless Cleric An angel made of sapphires each more flawlessly cut than the last Registered Userregular
I do a little bit of watercolor penciling and I've found that you can get these teeny little watercolor paper pads for not that much money (Compared to the big things), like $5 or so. They come in blocks ( you have to separate each page with the flat of a knife or a letter opener or one side of a pair of scissors or something) so they already stay flat while you're working, which is nice.
I just use one teeny little brush, but all the work I do with that stuff is on a really small scale.
So, I just watched "The Keep" which is a horror movie from 1983. It's pretty cheesy and has some major overacting going on, but holy shit talk about some inspiring cinema. I felt like I could pause that movie at just about any scene and do some sketches. The director of photography/concept artist or whoever came up with the composition for most of the scenes did an incredible job. Almost every scene felt like it could be a panel out of a graphic novel.
Watched the trailer- I'll add this to my list of "movies that I feel like I should see, but probably will never get around to." Along with Phantasm (which The Keep trailer reminded me of, along with the short film Black Angel ), which I keep hearing about and the trailer looks like it's got some legit crazy stuff going on with it, but I've never gotten around to sitting my ass down to watch it.
I need to find some film buff people to force me to watch more/more interesting movies again at some point- back in high school and college I was all about seeking out classics/obscure gems etc., nowadays I see a couple of the Big Name Movies in theaters every year and a handful of whatever washes up on the shores of Netflix streaming. Somebody come over and force me to watch this DVD of The Thin Man I've had lying around for months please.
Following up with this:
Here's an example from The Keep
I like how he's framed by the lit foreground and darker background characters. I though I was too young to speak grandpa phrases, but movies nowadays with the bouncy cameras.... really make you appreciate a well framed, still shot.
Posts
I'll keep an eye on the payment of this and future commissions and if it looks like getting the funds together after delivery is a consistent problem I'll do the month timetable.
Is this a digital deliverable or a physical? I just assumed digital...if so, I'd require 1/2 up-front before starting any work, then then you can send them a lower-rez (possibly watermarked) version of the final for approval. They can then send you the remaining payment and once that has cleared, you can send them the full-rez final file.
Note: This is me paraphrasing his words, I don't have enough industry experience to give this kind of advice.
His estimate for an entry level artist would be around $35 AUD an hour, or $350 AUD per day, although I'm not sure how that translates to USD (because of different costs of living, taxes, etc...). He also mentioned that you should only give them your day rate, not your hourly. I've actually been charging significantly less than that for my design work, so maybe I should reconsider too.
His other advice was that your first question should be 'What is the deadline?' If the deadline is really short, then there shouldn't be any room for pay negotiation. If they want a rush job then they need to pay for it.
After that you should then inform them that based on the brief supplied. Estimate that the job will take approximately XX days to complete and thus will cost them $XXX for the artwork.
If they baulk at your rate, you can then ask them what their budget for the work is. If the budget is close to your estimate you should take it. If it's grossly below his estimate, you should either walk away OR take the job but tell them you will complete the job within a time-frame that suits you. If they can't pay, you should at least have him more time to do the job. They can't have both!
Also he said that there are four reasons why you should take a job:
Fun - Obviously if you think you'll enjoy the job
Forward - If it moves your career forward, or helps you build your skills
Fame - If the job brings you some sort of recognition
Fortune - If the job pays well, or at least adequately
You should aim for every job to fulfil three or four of these criteria. Any less, then he said you should walk away.
Hope that helps!
Yeah, if it's for private individuals, and you didn't take any payment up front, one week seems normal.
If it's any kind of bigger/corporate project where multiple people need to sign off or request changes, 30 days would definitely be more common (or at least more than a week), but in that case it would also be more common to get some payment up front.
This should totally be put in the Questions/Tutorials thread for others, really good info to have, especially if you're just starting to take contract work.
So, I just watched "The Keep" which is a horror movie from 1983. It's pretty cheesy and has some major overacting going on, but holy shit talk about some inspiring cinema. I felt like I could pause that movie at just about any scene and do some sketches. The director of photography/concept artist or whoever came up with the composition for most of the scenes did an incredible job. Almost every scene felt like it could be a panel out of a graphic novel.
My Portfolio Site
Watched the trailer- I'll add this to my list of "movies that I feel like I should see, but probably will never get around to." Along with Phantasm (which The Keep trailer reminded me of, along with the short film Black Angel ), which I keep hearing about and the trailer looks like it's got some legit crazy stuff going on with it, but I've never gotten around to sitting my ass down to watch it.
I need to find some film buff people to force me to watch more/more interesting movies again at some point- back in high school and college I was all about seeking out classics/obscure gems etc., nowadays I see a couple of the Big Name Movies in theaters every year and a handful of whatever washes up on the shores of Netflix streaming. Somebody come over and force me to watch this DVD of The Thin Man I've had lying around for months please.
In other news, I got some Amazon cards from Christmas. My options:
-Nibble away at them gradually, as needs/wants arise naturally over time. Probably would go mostly to art books and novels to read during my commute.
-Blow a bunch of it on toys to populate my work desk, since at my particular workplace (bunch of videogame art/nerdo types around) having no decoration makes me look kinda boring. Was thinking of getting some Pacific Rim robots or Gundam model kits (haven't really watched Gundam since high school, but I still think the robots are cool looking. Would having those around make me a Gundam poser, I dunno.)
-Blow it on something that could theoretically contribute to some skill I have a vague interest in acquiring (sewing machine, nice cookware, exercise equipment, etc.) and thus make me a better, more well-rounded person...provided I actually got off my ass and used any of it, which due to time/laziness I almost certainly won't.
-Blow it all and an additional couple hundred bucks besides on a Serious Purchase that I've been thinking about, such as a bigger Cintiq or a nicer monitor.
-Spend it on some other shit I haven't thought of yet, but maybe you guys can suggest just the perfect thing for me to spend these on.
Twitter
Not only did I get a new client this year whom will need further design work done, I've also been hired on as a contractor for work with a company for four months, varied types of design needs and it will be part-time hours. But what I'm being paid per hour is far and well beyond anything I've ever made, and even if I only manage five hours a week I'll make more money in these next four months than I did through all of last year.
But responsibile decison making is so boooooriiiing
Twitter
I know it's not logical, but the amount of money the cards would contribute to the larger purchases would be so little as to not really relieve me of any financial misgivings I might have about those purchases anyway, if that makes any sense.
EDIT: But don't worry, 2 of these items have to be shipped from overseas and the other one's currently out of stock, so I'm going to have pleeeenty of time to regret my stupid wasteful spending.
For awhile I've been trying to post some mildly-kinda-sorta-humorous thing (calling them 'jokes' would be overselling them) to Facebook, in the hopes of increasing my humorous goofs potential and lead to goofy, havin'-a-laugh FB conversations.
Result: I think almost all of my Facebook friends have unfollowed me at this point.
Probably should have tried this experiment on Twitter instead, where I could be ignored by far more people with even greater efficiency.
Twitter
To be honest, I have such a weird mixed crowd on FB I never post anything to there anymore. If I post drawings dripping, snarling dogs my family all comes in and says how weird I am. If I post more domestic shit, I feel like the most boring hunk of lameness on the face of the fucking planet. So whatever. I've moved over to instagram for personal crap.
I get weirdly stage shy with twitter but I need to tweet some drawings, because my little twitter bank of photos is just me saying goodby to my like 6 year old chucks.
And I think your dilemma is not uncommon- which is why so much of what people post on FB is so banal, even when the people posting are people I know are capable of being far more interesting and entertaining if they wanted to be.
I know I deliberately have excluded my family from my FB friends list because I know if I did, I'd never post anything even remotely interesting as a result (or at least, trying to be interesting). Even with that precaution taken, I still try to make sure I don't post about any serious issue I might actually have a strong opinion about ('don't discuss politics or religion in polite company', etc) so as not to get in conversations where I'd get really wound up.
I know FB has a way to filter posts to go only to specific, separate cohorts- but given how much junk I see that I have no idea why I'm seeing it ("Oh, the friend (who I don't know) of a friend (who I don't know) of one of my Facebook friends got married (to someone I also don't know), judging by this random picture. I have no idea why I am being informed of this."), I don't trust those streams to remain separated and not cross-pollinate in a concerning way. The risk of my mother finding out that I, on occasion, will use salty language such as, "butts", is too great.
Twitter
Yeah well I bet you have one of those cool families I hear so much about. Where everyone has a cool nickname like Granny Bobcat, or Uncle Two-Guns.
Twitter
Uncle Two-Guns is clearly the kinda big imposing dude who everyone's always afraid is gonna fly off the handle and hit someone with a chair at the slightest transgression...but when you say something with conviction and stand your ground, he stares you straight in the eye for a full minute, expression-unreadable, before slowly extending his fist into the bro-knuckle position and growling out, "Don't know if ya're right, don't know if ya're wrong. But either way- ya family." And then everyone breathes a sigh of relief and the soundtrack kicks in.
Twitter
Further proof cats are evil.
My Portfolio Site
Well, on one hand I am of course disappointed that my guess was wrong.
On the other hand I'm glad I won't have to negotiate likeness usage rights with a man barechested save for his shoulder holster and unmistakable snakeskin vest, as I go register trademarks and copyrights on popular crowdsource developed character, Uncle Two-Guns©™.
Twitter
I can't think of who on the boards has been doing watercolors, though, other than @lyrium on occasion
I do mostly watercolor penciling but I got back into watercolor when my local art shop had Cotman travel boxes on sale for like, under twenty bucks and I think it's a good place to start.
Paper: imo you really do want watercolor specific paper, but you don't need to go straight for the big stack of Arches or something. I use the Fluid watercolor pads as they're sort of the middle of the road option and I like the glued seams as it keeps the rest of the pad from getting trashed when I throw it in a bag and go. Basically anything in watercolor paper will be better than non-watercolor paper.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
It's pretty challenging (at least for me!) and not always what I feel like getting up to, but the sketchbook also works really well for wet ink drawings, so if you aren't into the watercolor the thick paper is still nice and useful.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
I just use one teeny little brush, but all the work I do with that stuff is on a really small scale.
I'd love it if you took a look at my art and my PATREON!
Following up with this:
Here's an example from The Keep
I like how he's framed by the lit foreground and darker background characters. I though I was too young to speak grandpa phrases, but movies nowadays with the bouncy cameras.... really make you appreciate a well framed, still shot.
My Portfolio Site