How to become a paid illustrator (The step-by-step guide! lol)

This is something we hear quite a lot, and it's a BIG broad question: How do you actually become an illustrator who makes money. Dear Good Ship Illustration please break it down for me, step by step.

No pressure (aaagh 😅)

Alas, there is no tidy step-by-step guide… but in this episode we're doin' our very best to give you a solid direction to head in.

• Step 1 = loadsa drawing
• Finding your creative voice and confidence
• Sharing your brownies
• How to balance a job while building your illustration career
• A big ol' mistake new illustrators tend to make - not you though. You're cleverer than them. 

Timestamps:
00:00 – Where to start
01:30 – THE STEP-BY-STEP PLAN (lol, sorry, there is no plan)
03:20 – Share! Or else!!
05:45 – Job juggling
08:15 – Feeling behind? 
(Does anyone ever feel ahead though?? No. Nothing to worry about then.)

Taraa for now.

x The Good Ship Illustration

Come and say hello!

✏️ @thegoodshipillustration
🌏 www.thegoodshipillustration.com

p.s. We love answering your illustration questions. Click here to submit your question for The Good Ship Illustration Podcast 🎙

Transcript

Feeling behind / step by step how to become an illustrator (lol)
===

[00:00:00] We've had a few questions on a similar topic and that is people wanting to be an illustrator, but they've got a job, maybe a good job, um, and they're like, where do I begin?

How do I step by step become a paid illustrator? But, and also in feeling behind. Mmm. I wish there was a step by step. Oh, I know. It'd be so satisfying. Shall we try and work a step by step out now? Yeah. What would a step by step be? Step one, draw. Draw. Lots and lots and lots. Step two, draw. Draw. Yeah. Step three, draw.

Okay. Uh. Existential crisis. [00:01:00] Yeah. Hate everything you make for a while. Yeah. Then you think it's geniusly brilliant. And then you realize, no, it's probably average. Then you get a really big piece of work and you think it's a big breakthrough and then it's not. And then you accept a piece of work you didn't really want to do.

And then that's a big breakthrough. Yeah. It's a winding old path. I don't think we can do a step by step. No, we had a brief chat before hitting record. And basically there's so many things you can't control. I think the elements you can control for becoming an illustrator are literally just like draw, share your work, draw some more, tell people you're an illustrator, you know?

That's exactly it, isn't it? Yeah. Get to the point where you're, you can expose yourself and show your work. That's part two, isn't it? It's like getting over the hump, but There is just loads of drawing to do. First of all, making images until you're in a position to love. Well, no, you don't always love what you do, but you feel comfortable.

You think, okay, that, I think that's me. I think I'm here. And the variables between the different types of work of work that I make get [00:02:00] smaller and smaller until I can trust myself not to do. extremely different work that might surprise an art director and give them a heart attack. Yeah, because you want people to trust you and know what to expect.

Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe if you've, if you're doing another job and in the background, you're working towards being an illustrator, then a good step is to share the work you're making as an illustrator so that people can see you as an illustrator. You know, put, do a website with folio on it, call yourself an illustrator.

Open, potentially open an Instagram. It's not too late to jump on that boat, but I think, I'm just thinking when we started from college, the first time we showed our work to people was when you got a job. And so it was a kind of extreme double whammy that you'd only showed it privately to art directors in an office, in a portfolio, not all over the internet.

And then when that job would be printed in a magazine, you'd be like. Oh my God, I feel like everyone's seen me with my clothes [00:03:00] off. Um, and you'd hide and usually, you know, if you were lucky, you'd be really excited and it was brilliant and you wanted to show everyone else. Quite often in the early days, it was scary.

Those are the only times you got used to exposing yourself. So social media and your website now, even if it is scary, offers a great opportunity to overcome the exposure, ick feeling. Just get on with it. I like how much control you've got over what you share on a website and the internet, because you don't have to say you get commissioned to do a piece of work and it ends up being a stressful, difficult job and you don't like the art director or whatever.

And so in the end, the work isn't what you wanted. You've got the. You can make all of your own decisions about how you present yourself. You can show the amazing rough drawing you did and then you can write a list of clients underneath and not actually show the results. So you can curate who you are much more than you could back then.

Yeah. I did a job a couple of years ago that almost lasted a year and when it came out It was such a [00:04:00] long winded job, and it had been quite, not over art directed, but the stakeholders had a lot of say in what went in. It became over detailed and over realistic, and I was like, God, that's a whole year, and I don't want to show it anymore.

But I found I could clip into, crop in bits, and just show that. Like you say, the curation, the self curation, it's such a gift. So for people who are thinking, I don't want to go on social media, I don't want to show my work. Do it because it's way better than waiting for a magazine to come out every three months and then hiding under the covers for a long while.

That nice thing of seeing your job as an investor in your side thing as well. I like that idea. What you're having a job that brings, pays the rent and allows you to play with the freelance illustration side of things. Yeah, because it means you've got, especially if you're part time, like part time is the dream.

But because then you've got time to do illustration, I think working full time and trying to build an illustration career on the side is hard. I don't know. Like, I remember when I got, I was a graphic [00:05:00] designer straight out of uni, working full time and I'd come home in the evening and be like, time to be an illustrator and it was impossible.

I was exhausted. I just couldn't do it. And it was, I felt like, Oh, I'm never going to be an illustrator because I've got no energy left. And, but then when I was working part time in retail, I had some energy left. Yeah. On my days off to actually do illustration, but I was earning less. So it was sort of a trade off, but then the consistent income from my retail job meant that I could consistently put effort and energy into my illustration stuff.

When it wasn't earning me any money. Because the worst situation I think is to ditch the job full time or part time and go right hello. I'm an illustrator I'm here and then there's tumbleweed and then someone offers you an awful job and you just have to say yes you're forced into taking on things that don't help you build a voice or a portfolio and you're kind of dragged in lots of different directions because you have to say yes to everything.

Yeah, you want that job as a backup don't you? So you can be like, that budget's terrible. No, thank you. I gotta carry on [00:06:00] doing my own work in the meantime. I think doing the, because when we left college, most people taught anyway, so the, at the time the hourly rates for being a lecturer in, in illustration were quite good in terms of cost of living.

I don't know whether they are now, but it was perfectly normal for everyone to lecture for at least a day or two days a week and then work on their illustration. So, and it kind of doesn't matter what job you're doing, it's almost better to be away from creative stuff. To keep your brain fresh. If the two kind of rolled into each other, they can be supportive, but it's nice to have the contrast sometime.

Definitely. What was the other part of the question? Was there something about being behind? Feeling like you're behind? Yes. We were just joking before we came on. Katie said that she feels 100 percent ahead and probably could take three years off drawing now because she's so ahead. Who feels ahead in their illustration career?

Nobody. Nobody feels ahead of anything. [00:07:00] I wish, I wish she did feel ahead. That'd be amazing. Maybe feeling behind is totally normal and I don't even think about feeling behind, like behind what? Yeah. There's no markers, is there? There's no pointers to show where you're at. Maybe that person has kind of imposed some structure that doesn't exist to make them feel behind.

I wonder what signifies that for them. Maybe they think that everybody is an illustrator by the time they're 24. You know what I mean? Maybe they've got an idea in their head, hang on a minute, everybody else started this before I even knew I wanted to be an illustrator. Yeah. But there are plenty of people who find their career later in lives.

And also perhaps they've been, you know, adjacent to illustration. Maybe they've been a textile designer or a graphic designer. In fact, in the world of illustration, some of the best illustrators have been graphic designers. This is my personal opinion because I like graphic design. And so I ended up liking that kind of illustration that looks that way.

But lots of people have left graphic design to become illustrators much later in life, [00:08:00] maybe in their thirties and forties. Um, you could be a textile designer. A lot of print and pattern people become illustrators when they didn't perceive themselves as that earlier. But a lot of people just. drop the corporate job and start doing a course like Freak Flag and realize, Sam, um, Bedroom Floor Productions was a prop designer, wasn't she?

For a long while she made three, maybe not prop design, but she made 3D stuff, which is, she said her, that's how she got her name. And she's our illustrator of the month. And she did our courses. And was there from the first sailing and now she's, has she got a piece in the Bologna book fair exhibition? She was, she was long listed.

She didn't actually make it through to the very end, but she got really, you know, she was through to the finalist, which is amazing. And then there's Tara, who was an architect. A lot of architects, people, if it almost feels like people, when they go to choose what to study, their family or external influences, make them pick something sensible.

Um, but the [00:09:00] concrete path and a job and then they get there and think, Oh, I really did want to be an illustrator though, and then sort of drift into it later. But I think it's better doing it later because you're wiser, aren't you? Yeah. And I think you're braver about your career. Um, I was just thinking of someone else.

Data scientists were a popular career. On Freak Front Bridge and that just blew our mind. That was so strange during lockdown when we first launched all of the data analysts who we had. Yeah, like, hello there, how have we brought you here? I think if anyone's listening to this and they have done the courses and have ended up doing some illustration work or, you know, being part of the illustration community and you came from a completely different background, will you write in and tell us?

Because it'd be really good to tell these stories to other people. Because there are facts from people who, you know, there are stories that have turned out, um, happily, you know, that people have become who they wanted to be in terms of illustration. And it'd be great to have those as part [00:10:00] of either our podcast or on our website.

I think if you've got another job and you want to be an illustrator, number one is to start calling yourself an illustrator and put your work out there. Yep. That's, that is the best way to get started. Don't call yourself a baby wee illustrator or a I want to be an illustrator. Just call yourself an illustrator, put some work on a website and you're off.

One of our illustrators wrote in to say, I have just removed the word doodles from my Instagram. Hooray! Because doodles, people are going to offer you a tenner for your drawings. Oh, it must be really quick and easy for you to do those doodles. Yeah, a little subconscious eye twitch. Okay. Quite often people email me and they're like, Oh, could you come and do some live doodles on it?

Yes, I can, but like, don't call them that. I know, it's like doodles and cartoons or sort of wave, like, I just do this for a hobby. It's semi professional. Just messing about. Yeah, I don't really need much money. Yeah. I overheard a good conversation once when I was teaching where , the [00:11:00] professor on the course was saying, Oh, you need to get this ready for the show that's coming up, um, you know, in the next couple of weeks.

And she said, Oh, that's okay. I'll pootle away and get it ready. And he said, do not use the word pootle away and get, you are going to pull your hair out with this word. Don't pretend it's otherwise. Don't use the word. I'll just pootle away, doodle away and pull it together. Let's have a play. No, don't use it.

And I thought, that's brilliant. Of course you shouldn't use that language. When you're a, when you're a student, your tutors understand you're not poodle in a way, but if you go and use that language when you're with an art director, they're going to think, oh, it must be really easy. You can pay them a tiny amount.

It's so difficult, isn't it? It's hard not to. use that minimizing language because it's a creative activity. Um, and we kind of undermine ourselves. I think the word play is the one I find hardest not to use because I genuinely do go and play, I genuinely do. And when I say play, I mean something quite serious.

Like I am doing something that I do really [00:12:00] value. I forget other people might not interpret it like that. There's a weird thing, like if you enjoy it. In society, generally, people are like, oh, if you enjoy it, you shouldn't be charging for it, but you could totally, you don't have to pay a fun tax. You could just have a good time and get well paid for it.

But in the wider world, yeah, communicating that you are doing a serious thing using your brain. Maybe that's the hard bit. So the step by step to illustration, yeah, just work a lot. I think some people think it will come quickly. We have to be really honest, it isn't. For some unicorns, it might, I feel like I saw, I remember in 2012 when I graduated, it was on Twitter a lot, X, whatever it's called, in those days it was Twitter.

And, you know, following other illustrators and Emma Block at the time seemed from the outside to just leave uni and phew, stratospheric success, like book deals and illustrations everywhere. Um, it was amazing to see. And I think there are always people like that sprinkled. But what you don't see is people that leave uni, or don't even go [00:13:00] to uni, quietly becoming illustrators, training themselves, getting better and better in the background while they've got a boring job to keep them alive.

Um, and it takes years. Annoyingly. Yeah. Is a bit of a vocation thing, isn't it? You need to really want it. It's not a career choice that you can sort of sideways slip into thinking, I don't like this job. I think I'll become an illustrator. It's something. It will only work if you want it so badly that you're prepared to sacrifice quite a bit of time and, you know, and your life to it.

Unless you're a unicorn, as you say. I find situations, I don't know if you find this, but situations where you meet new people. Say you go to somebody's party, you don't know them, you don't know all the people that are there, and you end up at a party. And a stranger, or a few strangers say, So what do you do?

And then I have to, I, I hate it. I absolutely hate it because I'll say, I write and illustrate children's books and their [00:14:00] faces light up like, Oh, like what whimsy, what beautifulness, what, how, how childish and beautiful that must be. And I feel like saying. It's hard work and I feel in this turmoil of, shall I even tell them what I do?

Because they're instantly going to have an image that doesn't feel a hundred percent true to me. I think I need some therapy about this actually. You need to bring that up. Yeah. But you're right because people have an idea, they're like, Oh. Yeah. Cute. Yeah. Yeah. I find it really hard to tell strangers, unless they're, unless they're already an illustrator or they work in the business, but complete, you know, people completely in another world to mine.

I find it really hard to tell them what I do because their face just does something weird that's not, not related to me at all. Slog, sacrifice, missed out on every holiday going, don't go out at [00:15:00] night, I just work away. I just get obsessed with my work because I love it but then I don't love it anymore because I'm too obsessed with it.

Ah, my favorite party question question. It's not really related, but I went to a posh party once and somebody said, do you work? I was like, what? Yes. Amazing. Who, what? That's a different class. I was going to say, that's very thoughtful of them because they don't want to steam in that with the, what do you do?

Just because I'm a wife, I don't know what's the options there. I have horse. I thought that was a fun question. It's brilliant, yeah, posh people party. I always remember mum telling me about going to a party like that, and somebody said, there'd been a big storm, and they said, Oh, did you lose many trees in the state?

Because they'd lost forests. Brilliant. No, a tile blew off because this house is old. We tried to get insurance [00:16:00] once and they said there wasn't, well, we do have insurance, but this was a proper heritage insurance. I thought maybe I have to get that. And they said to me, so in the garden, do you have anything ornamental, like little bridges or ponds?

Uh, I'm clearly in the wrong place. It is an old house, but we don't have an estate. Sadly not. I think my microphone's going to fall down. It slipped slowly. It's a signed call at the end to this episode. If you couldn't hear me much in this podcast, I think it's because the microphone was getting lower by the minute, but I didn't realise.

You're holding it. Well, we'll see you in the next one. See you next week. Bye [00:17:00]