Hi, we're the good ship illustration. And we run online courses to help illustrators and image makers navigate a creative career. We are Tanya, Katie and Helen, we have about 70 years experience between us, each of us working in a different area of illustration. Welcome to message in a bottle of our new podcast answering your questions, you can send your messages to Goodship ello@gmail.com. And title it message in a bottle. So we know what it's about. So this is the podcast where we talk about weird or wonderful jobs that we've done as illustrators. Yes, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but not for the interesting. We got a bit hung up on horrible jobs. But then we realized any of those jobs that you do that are really embarrassing, have been vanquished to the back of your memory. So we found it really hard to ruin your minor repressed, I can't really find them. I don't know if I want to find them. Or they're certainly not in any portfolio. They're the ones who throw the better be topless. Yeah. So we thought about the ones where you've been put out of your comfort zone and just said yes to something. Because there wasn't anything else on antedated the money but interesting things came with. What have you got Katie? The first one that comes to mind for me is I got hired by Stella Artois, the beer company. So they'd seen my sketchbook work of drawing buildings. And they were like, could you draw buildings on beer glasses, and I didn't have anything on so I might as well. And then from that work, which was weird in itself. I got invited to a beauty influencer event. And actually, when you went to that, yeah, I ended up drawing, they put me in this really fancy hotel. And then I had to draw on these massive windows elddis Instagram beauty people were taking photos and thing that was very bizarre. That was good. And because of that, I ended up working for this guy. So Nick, but and then you become a live illustrator off the back of that chain of event. Exactly. Basically, my whole career now is because I did it'll be a job for an amazing, and it's because I put my sketchbook envelopes. It really is like, wow, the domino effect of just being like, Oh, I've dropped the townhall and simple. Pop that on your website. Somebody in Google on a Google mission for an illustrator has found me and then yeah, that's crazy. Did you crash target up the wazoo. I just I didn't know much about search engines at that time. And that's what I used to just optimize for locations. I was like, Newcastle, Illustrator, and illustrator. So somebody found me that way. So you were literally as small as they were thinking, they want someone who's nearby, they don't have to deal with someone in Newcastle, because they've always Newcastle. Put your work out there. And magic things happen. That's really interesting in the sense that rather than opening out the hashtags to the world, that was reduced, it was the other end of the funnel. That's specifically what someone wanted. So localization can be can be really useful, especially for in person kind of illustration. Yeah. And people need illustrators in certain places, if not, if they think in small but it worked well that at that time, it now it would never do that. But at the time, it was perfect. What about the first time drawing live, though? If you're self confessed introvert, how was it dealing with people and then looking at your drawing, looking really closely, you're talking to somebody yesterday who wanted some help on procreate, and we did a coaching session, and they were like, so you know, you joined quite a people and stuff. It has ever been hard. And I remembered my first job for Google. I was in the hotel room that morning, crying my eyes out. This was a terrible mistake. What am I this? Like, you know, the feeling of being I'm about to be found out. I was like, I am about to be found out like this has gone really too far. Yeah, it was horrible. But you know, I just like, had about four coffees. Give us a shake. Yeah, that's the thing. And then it was it was actually looking back at the work. The work was terrible. But they were happy. They were like, Oh, yes, it's showing up you'd rather book. That's amazing. That's it? How many? How many months between the stone trophy and the Google peaks, maybe like 18 months between? That's amazing. Isn't this incredible? Which is why I was crying my eyes out in a hotel room because I'm just I'm just a normal person. And I shouldn't be doing this board meeting about all these numbers. And it's like being shot out of a cannon. Your career path was extreme and fast. You probably have G force, probably. Well, there's a weird job that I didn't get, but I should tell you really, really, really good. So this is years ago, like maybe seven or eight years ago. I got an email from my agent and my agent had spoken to a design company who are asking me if I would like to be the face of a very famous Random cheap sausage. And I am so sad. And it said something like, you have to agree to talk about the sausages on Twitter. And I had like 300 followers and nobody was talking about the sausages. What did you have to write like, oh, just enjoy. They wanted me to paint a picture of me with a happy family life and I had to do something on Facebook about it. Well have hardly any photos on Facebook because I left Facebook in a bit of a heart for a while ago. I don't think they've researched me properly. In fact, for a while, I thought it was a joke. So I ran the agent and said, I sure you've checked this out and she said we've definitely is we've gone back to them. It's it was 60,000 pounds to be the face of cheap sausages. On Twitter, Facebook, I just made like three posts on Twitter three but posts on Facebook three on Instagram and agree to go on radio four and talk about my family which is well famous now. Imagine tight. Well, the beginning. Well, Jerry immediately said know where you are not doing that. And I said 60,000 pounds. I said all that will happen is a few people go Why is Helen talking about sausages. We pay off the mortgage happy love your company if you didn't do it? I said yes. And they never got back to me. The best jobs have a sausage life is done. Every single time I was in Astor I'm looking at the sausages for whichever illustrators said yes. I never saw that campaign ever. I think they change the mind. Maybe they were like 60,000 does a lot for something. That's like peak imposter syndrome. said about your following and the fee they're offering. I mean, I'd have impostor syndrome. Are you sure you've got crazy honestly crazy? Could we not phone up and find out what happened? We could ask them if they went ahead. We need this. This story is missing and it is missing or there's something missing from this story. When does he What if you'd said yes, I knew but I did say yeah, so but like if they'd gone ahead and been the face of sausages, what would you do with this? Elena? Sausages in my car scary illustrates. Brilliant. Yeah. So ya know, what's your sausage tail? My sausage tab is a happier one. Sausage opportunity? Yeah, when I was in Hong Kong, I used to do lots of weird and wonderful jobs that I sometimes agreed to packaging that I couldn't actually do. I didn't know how to do the graphic design. Why agreed to those. And then when I did the famous aeroplane livery with all the characters on it, they had a launch event. And they the staging company came to ask if I designed a costume for the children to do the little dance. And that was so much fun, turning all your drawings into costumes and people. And knowing that, you know, they'd actually be worn and people would be dancing around in them. And then I got to know that the event company that I worked with for that particular project, then used to ask me to do other things because they hadn't got a designer. So every time they had a ball, and they were working with all these luxury brands, when I say a ball, I mean actually a big old, fancy dress ball, they would ask me to do all the backdrops and design, all the interiors and the themes for them. And I didn't even know what this job was. I didn't know whether it really had a title other people did this. So So I designed all the table settings and create sculptures to go on the tables and wow, all sorts of decorations on the stage. And then the apex of all of this was when the Mandarin Oriental reopened in Hong Kong. They said we're going to have a party with Barry Humphries. And Brian fairings know why and I said we need a stage backdrop that relates to the Mandarin brand. Have you ever not showing you this? What a funny combination Bryan Ferry was because their actual Mandarin Oriental endorser, they were the early influences, you know, people they would put on the advert say he's a fan. She's a fan. I think Grace Jones was a fan. And so we had to design this backdrop with the right values for the Mandarin Oriental, so they decided it was koi carps. So we've got these images of koi carp. So I went to all these Chinese parks photograph the postcard and made this weird collage just in the Yellow gold and red have these these fish and then they ran these magical lights over them. I can't remember what they're called. But this static image then all fish moved. Honestly it's much cooler if I show you it the way the lights move the fish or seem to swim if I animated the image, and it was your image, it was my image. And then the woman that I've worked for this lovely woman, she said, Bryan Ferry is coming to do the show tonight and he's got to do the soundcheck and I can sneak you into a come in at lunchtime while the soundcheck and so Bubsy Brian fair. I used to love Bryan Ferry when I was a teenager. I found out it's a teenager, it's not his fault. He was born. So then that night, I got to go into the sound box which was much higher up or the mixing stations I could look down a little and there were all these very well. heeled women who would just go mad over bryophyte doesn't actually flinging the knickers and trying to keep pants also saw pants flying. It's like the posh Tom Jones effect. So I was up for the mix imports I've been snuck in. I wasn't supposed to be there, as usual. Because it was a day on the Island. I've gone shopping and I've got all my plastic bags with me. So I'd come in like Baglady a bit like when he came to the farmers head rustling and crinkling my way through a very sleek event. I could see people were looking at Al Qahtani stand up in the mixing desk watching Listen, I've got a film of it. I'll show you Instagram one day, but that was yeah, I ended up doing all these kind of party things for glamorous luxury brands, which I didn't like wasn't my world, but I liked doing the jobs. They ended up doing kind of fun things and met we need to see more of that on Instagram. Definitely. I've not seen any of this. We need to see Yeah, I'll dig it out for you. I promise you it's a consume moving snake, like in front of my car. So that's probably a jobs. Jobs if you've got to tell us about them. We need to know what weird things have led not weird things where little things have led on to other things. And if you have any stories like that, out of comfort zone stories that led you to what I think everyone was to have them I mean, even me do maps. The first time someone asked me to do a map that was in the late 90s. And I thought I don't know how hard can it be? I'll give it a bash and then later mapping away. So you must have stories like that. Please send them in