Many young artists ask me similar questions. I’ll share some experience and advice that has helped me and can help you, too.
Really, the biggest issue is that young artists tend to give up very easily. Probably the question I’m asked the most is, “How did you make it?” I always say that you have to keep trying. You don’t know if an art director woke up on the wrong side of the bed or he’s seen fifty portfolios or a hundred portfolios that day and yours happens to be 101. If you try ten times, it’s not enough. If you try twenty times, it’s not enough. You have to keep sending your work out. Just send it.
Most people in the professional world get paid to tell you No. That’s just how it is. They reject artists out of habit. If you can, go to them and get their advice. Ask them, “What can I do to make my portfolio better?” Most artists never ask that. They get the rejection letter. They get depressed and their productivity goes down—ending a career that could have been. My advice is to just stick it through. If you have to send your portfolio out a thousand times, then do it, because you never know if that thousandth submission is going to be the one where people say “That’s what we want to see.” Learn from your rejection letters. Just keep getting better.
Most artists will approach a project with their own agenda and ideas. When you’re painting covers and working in the real world, you must understand 5% of that is work for yourself and 95% is for and through other people. So, if you want to get published, get out of doing something your own way. You have to understand what your client wants and create that.
Other questions I’m consistently asked are, “How do you not stagnate? How do you get rid of artist’s block?” And my answer is this: I don’t have artist’s block. I don’t have writer’s block. I work on five or more projects at a time, well actually more, but I always suggest people work on three to five projects consistently. Because when you hit a wall on one and you just can’t go any further, you bounce to another. And you may come up with solutions on project #3 that won’t work for #3 but they might work for project #1 or they might work for project #5. Work on multiple projects—as many as you can handle—and don’t let laziness get in the way (artists tend to be very lazy).
I think artist’s block or writer’s block is an excuse to not go forward. And artists should never have an excuse to not continue on. You should push through anything and everything. If you’re an artist—it’s how you breathe, it’s how you live, it’s what you love—then create art.
Work on your craft consistently. Attempt everything you can to be good at every aspect. Every day, I tell the apprentices in my studio: study and learn. If you don’t know how to draw trees, go buy books with trees in them, go to a forest, or go somewhere there are trees. Draw them consistently over and over again. If you have trouble drawing hands, draw hands.
Prepare yourself for what is about to come. Remember that you can’t only be able to draw eyeballs and expect to get a job. You’ve got to be able to draw anything. This happened to me: I’m better at drawing people than I am almost anything, but my first job in Hollywood was storyboarding for a Jeep commercial. And I hate drawing cars. I hate it. But I said, “All right,” and I went out and brushed up on drawing cars until I could draw them perfectly. When I went in for the job, I was ready.
I always say, “Believe in yourself, but while you believe in yourself, feed your artistic self, the artist within you.”
People ask me about computer art. And I’m all for learning to master that medium. The computer can be a great tool. However, when people just take photos, apply twenty-five filters, and think it’s art, then I have something to say about it, because that’s just wrong. That’s being a button pusher, not an artist. Instead, learn to use the tools that are on hand. If you’re a good painter, but you’re not so good at chalk, pick up some chalk and study it. You never know when something is going to come in handy. The more well-rounded your skills, the more chances you have of being hired.
So the question all artists have whether they ask anyone else or not is, “How good does a piece of art need to be?” And L. Ron Hubbard gave some advice that I agree with: “Technical expertise itself adequate to produce an emotional impact.” And that’s how good a work of art needs to be.
You have to boost your technical expertise up to the level needed for the job. Most people just throw too much into a project, and sometimes minimalism is the best. Any illustration starts with a good layout. But don’t create just one layout, especially when you are starting out. For everything I paint, I make dozens of little tiny layouts. Study the old masters. Their layout sense was impeccable. The tricks after that are about what’s going to have the most visual impact.
Paint a picture to the best of your ability and then step back from it: Okay. Is it visually pleasing? Is it crowded? (It tends to be crowded most of the time.) Does it tell a story? Convey an emotion?
I rely mostly on my artwork to convey emotion. That’s why I use splatter. But I’m very particular about how I use it and what kind of splatter per piece. You want to pull an emotional response. Make sure that your artwork is technically excellent for the audience that you are aiming for.
Another piece of advice—somebody said this to me once and I’ve done it ever since—make friends as best you can. Be nice on the phone. Send coffee to the assistants of the people you want to work with. Send them flowers. They have direct contact to the person that you need to get to, so the friendlier that you are with them, the more chance you have. A guy was asking me about this the other day. He said he likes to drop off his portfolio in person, but apparently the receptionists are nasty. Well, he has to figure out how to win those receptionists over, or he’s never going to be seen. His work is going to the bottom of the pile. Whatever you have to do, make sure that you are friendly to the people who are the conduit to the person you need to get to.
A big problem most artists have when they put a portfolio together is they throw everything in there: the kitchen sink, things they drew when they were ten. The more choices you give an art director, the more chances they have to say, “No.” Compile your five best pieces into your submission and call it a day. If you need to show different styles, don’t include more than eight. The recipient will lose interest on more than that. Most likely, they are not even going to be paying attention by page eight. Try to capture them with the first three to five pieces. That’s what you need to create interest in your work.
As for getting your art out there, figure out what you want your discipline to be first. If you want to illustrate, then go after book publishers. If you love Photoshop and you’re really good at it, send a portfolio to movie poster companies—they’re everywhere now, not just in Hollywood. Video game companies need covers for games and other things. Board games, there are thousands of them out there. If you want to do graphic stuff, you can just start designing people’s business cards and things like that. And if there are contests, enter contests. Enter Illustrators of the Future. These contests are the greatest thing I’ve ever seen for artists because it’s a chance to be published—that’s so important. It’s rare—in fact, I don’t think there is any other group that does what this Contest is doing.
You can find the companies you’re looking for on the internet. When I was starting out, you had to go to the yellow pages and actually required some detective work. Now you can just look a company up, find the creative art director, and send them your portfolio.
Think of smart ways to send your art so that it will be seen. When I sent a portfolio to Random House, I included Christmas lights. I got a big battery pack. I put the battery pack on the Christmas lights. I turned them on. I plastic wrapped it and overnighted it. They received a blinking, glowing package—of course, they were going to open it. Get inventive. Be creative. Think about something that’s going to get you noticed.
I try and come up with just crazy stuff to attract attention. If there’s something that I really want, like if there’s a certain gallery I want to get in, I’ll target and I’ll figure out something to get in there.
I really wanted to work with a specific game company. I had been published by several of the top game companies, and I could never get this one company. So I found a picture of the art director and I did a photo-realistic cartoon of him and myself. I was asking “Hey, would you, please, get back to me on my portfolio,” and his picture was saying, “Of course I will, Rob.” So I sent that in. About five days later, I got a phone call and I ended up working for them.
I just did it with the movie company I’m going to work with. I had already been talking to them, but they hadn’t gotten back to me. So I made a little recording on an iPod, and I sent it with a big note that said, “Listen to this” and they did. It was me describing why I should be doing multiple pictures, why I needed to sign a three-picture deal. It was funny and they passed it all around the office. Shortly after, I signed my three-picture deal.
Another thing that got a lot of attention, sort of by accident, was my chicken head. I hide a chicken head in every single thing I create. And I began doing it because somebody said that they would fire me if I put a chicken head in anything. So I hid one in there. But now, I get hired or people seek me out because of this stupid chicken head.
Just be creative. Be yourself. Work hard and come up with some things that’ll attract attention to you. If you want a job bad enough, then dress up in a clown suit and go deliver your portfolio. They’ll never forget you. Come up with your own ideas. And persevere.