Saturday, August 8, 2009

"Only God knows why"








Hello my friends. Above are the next steps in the painting i am re-doing for reissue. It is for a book called "Target Earth" written by one of my very best friends in the world, ever, Gary Babb. His website is here. I believe he has started a blog too, and I will have the link to that in the next blog. In this edition, you can see we are getting close to being done with the painting. Just a few finishing touches left to go. Those are done, and I will show you the final piece in the next blog.
Now to continue my part to help my fellow artist. There is so much to cover, and I am trying to do it in a system so to speak. This time lets cover a letter that you send out to a publisher, film maker or whoever it is your trying to get work from. Next time we'll cover how to find people to work for.
What I am sharing with you now basically was taught to me by Mr. Todd Lockwood, so pay attention. I am going to do this in the blog just the way you should send out a letter to a Art Director or Buyer. Now, the info is made up mostly. Sorry, but I do not want to make my personal info available to the world.

Nick Rose
Your mailing address
Your phone number
Your E-mail address
Your website info
Date

Dear Art Director, (actually insert name if you know it, and remember, MANNERS go a long way. Things like sir, ma'am. Thank You, ect)

My Name is Nick Rose and I am a professionally Illustrator. I specialize in doing Illustrations for Books, Magazines, CD's, and working with Movie companies. For movie companies I do everything from Movie posters to Graphic Novels based on their Movies.
I am a freelancer and saw your company (Insert company name) and felt that I could be an asset to you. Some of the more notable companies I have worked for are
*Insert here
*(now if you have not worked for any notable companies at this point, just leave this part out and go to the next step.)
*
*
*
You can go here (now this is where you give a link to just art, nothing else liked we talked about in the last blog) and see samples of my work. (only show work you have done this last 2 year, nothing else. A Art Director only wants to see what you are doing now, and you are judged by your worst piece. So make darn sure that your worst piece rocks if you want to eat.)
I do hope to hear back from you and sincerely hope that we can work together.

Best Regards,
Nick Rose
Your website addy again.
Your blog addy if you have one. Just in case they want to know more about you.
E-mail addy
Phone number.


Now under different circumstances you will need to adjust to who you are writing too. BUT REMEMBER these simple rules....*
*Never send this letter out to more than one person at a time. If you do, I promise whoever receives the letter will be considered an insult, your letter deleted, and if they have a good memory will remember you name for the wrong reasons.
*Make sure you know as much as you can find out about the person you are dealing with, and personalize it to them. Your not dealing with a computer, you are dealing with a person. This letter is just a template. Make it personal. Be friendly, courteous and well mannered. That goes a long way with someone who is considering you for a job.
*Point out your strong points and be CONFIDENT!
*An the biggest point is that there are 100's of artist out there looking for the same job, so get rid of any ego you may have. It will destroy you. You are applying for work just like anyone else, and just because in your mind you just did a masterpiece and the world should bow down and worship you, you best get past that and save that for your fantasies. The reality is there is always tons of other artist out there better than you, and you will serve yourself well by being humble and very thankful for any work that comes to you. An when that works come, you work you arse off and show them that they did good by putting faith in you, and that working with you was a nice and happy thing for them. As an Illustrator you have to build a list of clients, and clients only come from doing work that make you customers happy. Without happy clients, you will work in a Wal-mart to make end meets.
I think one of the things I read and hear from so called professional artist is that how what an idiot a certain Art Director is. Okay, lets get real here. This AD gave you a job because they liked your style or your manners, or whatever. But they gave YOU the job, and then when you don't do the job they expect, so you start saying their idiots? The point is, their job is to get you to create a piece of art that fits into the style of their publication is printing. If you don't, they have to tell you about it, and try to guide you to what you they felt you could do when they hired you. That's their job, just as it is yours to create a piece that fits the vision of the assignment they gave you.
I have been there before. By no means am I close to being perfect. I had a shot at doing a cover for a very notable pulp style magazine a couple of years ago. The story I was doing was awesome, and the Art Director was awesome as well. A wonderful lady by the name of Deb Taber, and to be honest, i was out of my league at the time. It was a sci-fi story and I had just started learning to do digital art. The woman worked with me as hard as she could, but in the end, the publisher and good friend, pulled the art. It was nobody's fault but my own. Ms. Taber worked as hard as anyone has ever to try to help me produce a good piece. But, I was to nervous. Just learning to paint digitally, and to get a dream assignment like this one, was just to much at the time. I tried way to hard and the art just sucked in a big way.
It seems these days that everyone loves me and I couldn't do a bad piece in people's minds if I tried. But trust me I do, and I sure as heck don't blame it on the people who gave me the job. They try to help me and make majik between us. If I fail, it's my fault and no one's else, and these are these the lessons that we learn on our road to be the things of dreams. So I say to ANY Illustrator that puts down Art Directors, your just a Damn fool, and you should be thankful that you even got the chance to work with such talented people. Do you think honestly think they got the job as a Art Director because their Idiots? I think you should look in the mirror personally.
Deep breath,, breaths out slowly. Okay my friends, that is one of those personal issues with me, but on to other things. Cheryl and I decided where gonna attend our first convention together, and my first in 2 years? It will be in November and I will give more details soon my friend. It is in Indy, home of Gen-con, and it is a horror convention. So for the season of 09 we will be at one convention only and this will be your chance to hang out with us, and just have a good time. I really am hoping to see a lot of our face book friends there.
On a personal level... I'm a happy little camper, I finally got my wholeeeeeeeeee music collection downloaded to my comp. Thats over 4000 songs, 1500 of them being sci-fi/horror movie themes and soundtracks, including Godzilla!!!!!! I am such a happy fellow. It is so cool to hear all the music I love so much, (That most people look at me funny for listening too) while I work with these awesome headphones my baby got me. Oh yeah, listening to southern metal now, Primus!!!!!!
Tomorrow it's back to working on the graphic novel again. So my friends, I'm gonna watch a Gamera movie and head to bed with my sweetheart. Thank you all for stopping by. Peace and Blessings!!!!



3 comments:

Geo said...

good write up nick.lots fo good info.Primus rocks,wicked bass riffs by Les Claypool.nice funk feel.

Nick Rose said...

Hey George,
Thank you buddy. Man I hated when Primus spilt. Claypool can play the bass like no body else.

Geo said...

MY NAME IS MUD !