It Was A Very Good Year

Yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep. For some reason, my mind wandered back to the job I had before I entered art school, and I remembered how utterly miserable I was there.

I worked in a cubicle under fluorescent lights, doing incredibly repetitive, mind-numbing work. Most of the job consisted of pushing one of two buttons: "approve" and "reject." I had a good boss and kind co-workers, but the work itself taught me the true meaning of the phrase "bored to tears." When I took my legally required 15-minute breaks, I would often walk outside the building and cry because I was so bored. It sounds silly, like a first-world problem, but that's how it was. I had headaches every day. Using a post-it note, I covered up the clock on my computer screen, because otherwise I would look at it too often and the minutes would creak by.

That's why, once I decided to go to art school, I threw myself into it 100%. I was so incredibly grateful to get away from that job, and to have purpose in life, that I was determined NOT TO SCREW THIS UP. I was going to learn everything. I was going to excel in all my classes. I was going to ask all the questions and enter every contest. Anything to make sure I never again had to work a cubicle job.

That was about two and a half years ago. Even with all my hard work at school, I didn't expect to be doing as well at illustration as I am today. I am so grateful to be doing work that is creative and challenging, that makes me feel like I have something unique to offer. I even hope that I am doing some good in the world by creating art that encourages children to read.

I am also grateful to all you blog readers. Thank you for reading and for commenting, for sharing my posts and offering words of encouragement. Hearing from you guys brightens my day.

I hope you all have a good New Year!

Book Cover: Unraveled Tidings

Oh look at this! It's a seasonally appropriate blog post!

This is a cover for the "Mysteries Unraveled" series from Annie's Publishing. If you haven't seen my previous cozy mystery blog posts, cozy mystery covers tend to have a quaint, small-town setting, a hobby theme (crochet in this case), and a "sinister element" that suggests danger. Here is what the AD asked for:

"We are thinking about a Texas wedding license on a small serving table, with a crocheted shawl draped across it. The tea cup is turned over, spilling its contents across the shawl and bottom of the license (which is obviously hidden by the shawl). Behind the table is a Christmas tree (just enough of it showing to let the reader know it is a tree."

At the time I received this assignment, I was traveling through New Zealand with my husband and staying in various AirBnb houses. I rummaged through my Airbnb host's kitchen to find some props so I could set up a photo shoot. Luckily she had a teapot, a teacup and some candles. I used my own scarf in place of the crocheted shawl.

I used these arrangements to help me come up with three rough sketches, which I sent to the client:

The AD liked rough #3 the best. He asked me to zoom out a bit, add some crochet hooks to the table,  and some crocheted Christmas ornaments to the tree. Did I mention this book has a crochet theme? He sent me this image:

Here is the revised color rough I sent:

The AD said to go ahead with the final, although to make sure that the Christmas ornaments looked like snowflakes and not the Star of David!

Here is the finished book cover!

Helpful Links for Illustrators

Every few weeks I post a bunch of links related to drawing, freelancing, self-employment and personal motivation. I collect these from all over the web and hope that you find them as helpful and inspirational as I did.

• Learning to Deal With the Impostor Syndrome by Carl Richards - feel like you're not a "real" artist? This is actually a very common phenomenon. Read about that here.
• Anyone Can Improve at Drawing - A new Tumblr, started by me, where artists post their old and new drawings to show the progress they've made. Submit your own, or just look at the entries and be inspired.
• How I Became an Artist by Noah Bradley - top-tier fantasy artist shares his 12-year journey, including bad drawings from his past, and shows how hard work and determination can really pay off.
• The Truth Behind Honest Feedback by Giuseppe Castellano - frustrated because you're not getting hired by publishers? Art Director Giuseppe offers some tough love.
• Why We Are Burning Out in the Arts by Madeline Dore - an interesting article about emotional burnout, financial insecurity, and self-care
• The Brush of Black Wings Cover Process by Louisa Gallie - if you like my blog, you'll like this post where Louisa shares the step-by-step process of creating a cover illustration.
• The Unfair Truth About How Creative People Really Succeed by Jeff Goins - an article about the importance of having a community and a network, even an online one.

The Peppermint Monster Principle

I received one of those emails illustrators so often get, asking me to work for free on someone's pet project. As soon as you establish a web presence as an illustrator, you will start getting these emails. Here's a simple explanation of why these emails are basically lies. I call it The Peppermint Monster Principle, because I discovered it on a Tumblr of the same name, and I want to give credit where credit is due.

The Peppermint Monster Principle is this: when someone says they have no budget, there are only two possibilities. Either:

• They DO have money, they just don't want to pay you.

OR

• They DON'T have money, in which case they also don't have the resources to produce and market a quality product.

Emails like this almost always contain glowing descriptions of the project and how it's going to be The Next Big Thing. Favorite phrases include, "an instant classic," "a guaranteed bestseller," "a great opportunity" and "potential." This particular email I received said their project was "complete with a marketing plan to hit a grand slam with crazy potential for tv and big screen." This person also told me they are "virtually budgetless."

So let's apply The Peppermint Monster Principle - if they have money for an insanely successful marketing plan, they have money to pay me. If they don't have the money to pay me, they don't have the money for an insanely successful marketing plan.

Picture this: imagine that someone had a winning lottery ticket worth a million dollars, and they offered to sell it to you for a thousand dollars. Assuming for the sake of argument that it's not a scam, would you buy the ticket? Of course you would! You'd drop everything to find a way to scrape together a thousand dollars.

The people who send these emails claim that they've got a million-dollar idea. If they really believed that, they'd be willing to pay you a thousand dollars to make it happen. Or five hundred dollars. Or a hundred dollars. But no, they're offering you zero dollars. What does that say about how much they actually believe in their own idea? How much they value your time and skills?

Do not worry that you might miss out on any real opportunities by turning these people down. You can be certain that their project, whatever it is, is not going to happen. Because people who are unable or unwilling to invest in their own product, going around the internet asking complete strangers to work for free, is not how bestselling books, big hit tv shows and MMORPG's are made.

Your skills are worth money. Your time is worth being treated with respect.

(Feel free to share the flow chart around the interwebs. Let's get the word out there.)

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Special note for my Dad: please don't take this personally. This is not about you. I am happy to do drawings for you anytime, free of charge. Love, Bean.

Ranger in Time: Long Road to Freedom Interiors

Today I'm going to share some of the interiors from Ranger in Time: the Long Road to Freedom. There are 15 black-and-white interiors in the book. The main characters are Sarah and Jesse, two runaway slave children who end up taking Ranger along with them on the Underground Railroad. 

In every scene I try to identify the main emotions in the scene, as well as any contrasts I can play up. This first one is one my favorites. In this scene, Sarah and Jesse are trying to blend into the crowd in the free state of Philadelphia, but they're not sure where to go or what to do. The main emotion here is the feeling of being lost and overwhelmed. I tried to emphasize the juxtaposition between the bustling crowd versus the stationary children, and the well-dressed townspeople versus the children's ragged clothes.

Here's another one of my favorite scenes. In this scene, Sarah and Jesse are forced to hide on the roof of a house. The main emotion here is one of trepidation, so I tried to emphasize the height of the house by showing some branches low in the frame.

In every Ranger book, there's a chapter of Ranger enjoying modern-day life with his boy Luke. In the last two books, I noticed that the author chose activities for Luke and Ranger that reflected the themes in the book. So in book #2, which is about ancient Roman gladiators, the story opens with Luke playing soccer - a competitive spectator sport. In this book, which is about hiding on the Underground Railroad, Luke is playing hide-and-seek with Ranger.

I saw an opportunity to visually echo this narrative parallel. In the illustration above, I drew Luke hiding in a particular position: kneeling with both hands on the ground, one knee up.

In this illustration, which is also about hiding, I drew Jesse in the same position as Luke, although his head is turned the other way. It's just a little detail that probably no one will notice, but gives me satisfaction. And now you, dear blog readers, are in on the secret!

Ranger in Time: the Long Road to Freedom will be available December 29th. If you haven't read the first two books, check them out! They're so good! I have blog posts about the interiors for those books here and here.

Book cover: Ranger in Time: The Long Road to Freedom

This is the third cover I've designed for the Ranger in Time series. In the previous books Ranger has traveled back in time to the Oregon Trail and to Ancient Rome. This time he was going to travel the Underground Railroad, helping two runaway slave children.

Here was the brief Scholastic sent to me for this cover:

Ranger will be running through the woods at nighttime along the river shore. In the distance (perhaps across the river) we can see the main plantation house Ranger is running away from. Other elements that should be included are a rowboat at the shore and the north star in the sky.

By the point Scholastic and I have a pretty established "look" for Ranger in Time covers. Ranger is always shown in the center running towards the reader with a look of intense determination.

The background should establish the historical setting, and look exciting with vivid colors. The first cover also had an oversized sun in the background, so I took the opportunity to throw a gigantic moon in some of the roughs. I designed these three roughs and sent them to Scholastic.

The team decided that they liked #3 the best, but wanted to include the two main characters, Jesse and Sarah, in a boat at the shore.

Amazingly, Scholastic approved this rough with no more revisions, and they even waived the color rough stage and told me to go straight to final!

I struggled a little bit with the colors, as the scene is supposed to be lit by moonlight, but I've learned that Scholastic likes super-duper saturated cover illustrations. So I gave the moon a bright green color, and exaggerated the light coming from the windows.

And with that, the cover was finished! Here it is with the rest of the cover designed by Ellen Duda. As you can see, Scholastic pumped up the saturation quite a bit more. They're saturation fiends, I tell you.

I haven't seen the book in person yet, but Kate Messner posted this photo on Twitter:

Ranger in Time: The Long Road to Freedom will be available December 29th! The book also features 15 interior illustrations by yours truly, which I will talk about in my next blog post.