Goodnight Moon.

Hello my friends. If you noticed lately I have been titling my blogs after songs. Sorry. I'm on a big music kick right now. Above you see the finishing touches to the end of "Target Earth" A book my very dear friend, Gary Babb wrote. Like George, he is one of my few friends that never stabbed me in the back. Below that is a new video from my young friend from Africa, Jad also known as Utiqano Bloods. With ever new one this young man does for me, they just keep getting better. He also runs my international fan club, which is up to 3500 fans. This kid came out of nowhere to help me, and man, what a blessing he is.

My birthday is coming up in couple of weeks, and my sweetie got me an early birthday present that I really needed. When I moved to Michigan, I had no idea how cold it got here, and the people I came with didn't think it would matter, and didn't warn me. But yes it did. I put my car in storage, and in it was my computer and all the electronics I owned. Needless to say, I lost all of it. MY computer, my scanner, my printer an on and on.

Since Cheryl and I have got together, my angel has been doing her best to bring me back with each idem I need to do my work. For my birthday, she got me the top of the line printer and scanner. It's 3 times better than what I had before. She can't understand why I praise her so highly. I know you all know. My art career was almost on the back burner again for a few more years until I could re-build my life and replace all the things that Evil stole from me. He even tried to steal my soul and heart. But when I was sinking into the mucky black tar which is hell, she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out and look at me now. She gave me another chance, and I swore I would kick arshe and not look book, and I am.

I can show the cover to the Mental Scars cover in the next blog. I've already showed it on facebook, and people are really into it. OH Yeah!!! An I have much more art to show you. This week i am working on a couple more pages for the Mental Scars graphic Novel. So I will be showing you a couple of panels from that.

Ok, down to business. I am going to give you a few links that I have used to get work over the years. Now these are intended for writers, but they work the same for artist. Just look for the artist submission info. In some cases, you want find it, so just submit the same way a writer does, except in the subject line put Artist Submission. Save these links, because they are valuable.

http://www.ralan.com/

http://www.internet-resources.com/writers/markets/online-guidelinesAB.htm

http://www.marketlist.com/smallpress.asp

I will give you more later, but these 3 will keep you very busy for a long time. Now be realistic, if your just starting out, you will be lucky to get any money. You will be looking for work period just to get your name out there and whatever promotion you can get. If your a pro, you can also find plenty of paying work here as well.

Remember the last blog and how I told you to write a letter. If you send out 10 letters a week, chances are you will hear back from at least 3 of them, and 1 of them will offer you work. When I first started this business that was the results I got 6 years ago.

Okay my friends, it's time to blast. Cheryl want's to watch a horror movie and I am soooooooo ready to chill. Peace and Blessings.

"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!!!!

Painting in Progress and Illustrator tips

Hello my friends. Above you can see the painting is moving along. In the next blog, it will be finished. I've got to admit that I have been having fun with this one, but its time to get busy and move on to other projects. For one, I need to get the logo and type put on the cover of the Mental Scars cover so we can show that off.

I'm excited because my baby starts her vacation after work today. She'll have a whole week just to relax, write and have fun. I do work better when she is here to. For some reason she makes me feel more comfortable and I am able to focus more. Yesterday I got to talk to some old friends that I haven't been able to talk to in a while, mostly because of our schedule conflicts. Mark, George and Daniel. Daniel is really moving ahead with his mask making business. He just got the rights to do all the Lon Chaney masks, Sr. and Jr. I mean how cool is that. You can go here and see tons of his work, finished and in progress. A true Eye feast! And you should be able to go here and order one. If not, just drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with him.

Both Mark and George are doing great. Both have been turning out some awesome art of their own. George just did a movie poster that really rocks. Probably his best piece to date. Mark is working on a couple of new pieces for Dragon-con that look like they will rock. One of them is a Lovecraft piece that really is just frigging awesome.

I got to talk with Suzi last Sunday, and she is doing great these days. She has turned into a movie producer as well as actress/model. We also talked about our plans to work on some projects together which I think I've mentioned before. But in the fall of 2010 you will see Suzi and me doing Horror conventions and shows together promoting a line of Suzi/Nick stuff. Should be a blast and probably you will see Daniel at some of the shows as well.

You know, and I know you all are tired of hearing this, but I just can't tell you all how happy I am these days. One of the biggest and main reasons is Cheryl. I've never had anyone in my life treat me as good as she does. She really loves me, and i can see it in her eyes whenever I look into them. She got me a new pair of headphones for me the other day. My old ones got ate in the printer, or the plug in part did, and I just can't focus without my tunes. What I am saying is that I don't have to ask her to do things for me, she knows me well enough to know what I need, and always does special things for me. I've never had anyone in my life that cared about what i needed or wanted, it's always been about them. I feel like the luckiest man on the planet to have her and believe me, I walk the line, because i know I got a great thing and I would never do anything to loose her. I will be at her side until the day I die, and after that if I can figure out how to do the ghost thing! lol

Ok, lets get down to business here. This will probably take several blogs to do, well actually, it could take a whole lot more than that to share with you the things that may or may not help you on your road. So, lets get to it.

First off lets assume that you are in the same boat as me, and can not or could not afford to go to a well known art school. To be an professional Illustrator, there are things you need to know, and I am going to do my best to help you. If I don't explain something good enough, or you still don't understand, just leave me a comment and I will do my best to get to it. After we finish all the things it takes to be a pro, then I am going to start sharing things I have learned training under Todd Lockwood, and Master Daniel Horne. I am going to do my very best to give you all that you need to make your dream comes true. But remember, a lot of it is up to you. You have to study and practice, practice and practice.

Go here and study this book. It is by the Master of Illustration, Andrew Loomis. This book, Creative Illustration is considered the "Bible" of Illustration by every major player in the field and is considered the standard. I have read it twice so far, and plan on reading and studying it again very shortly now. Each time you read it, you will learn something new. Even though the book was written about 50 years ago, every part of it except the last few chapters, which are about advertising are still the standard. I can not express this enough. A lot of what you learn in a art college is free to you in this book. As a matter of fact, most of the things they teach you in art school, come from this book.

The next thing you need to consider is your portfolio. You need a hard copy one and an Online one as well. Now remember, the things I am going to tell you come from my 3 years as a Art Director, things that have been shared with me by other art directors, such as Irene Gallo of TOR books. Artist like Daniel, Todd, and so many others. I am in no way trying to tell you that I know all there is to know about this, but what I am telling you, I am sharing all the information that I have learned from working in the field and the knowledge I have gain by the friends I have that work in the field.

Art Directors are very busy people. If you are lucky enough to have one take the time to go to your online website, then you need to make it very easy for them to see the art. You want it to load quickly on the page, and make it easy for the AD to move through the images. So, with this in mind, lets change the way you think. If you have a website, then make it for the fans only. The fans want to know about you, your bio, pictures of you, buy your stuff, ect. Art Directors just want to see art, quickly.

This works well. Start an account like Photobucket, where you can put your art, and just your art. If you can afford the premium account with no advertisements, then that would be to your advantage, but even with the adds, it does serve the purpose. An with the economy being what it is, free is good.

When I start the next blog, I will explain how to get them to see your work in the first place. Well, I have to get back to work. Look for the next Blog Sunday morning. Peace and Blessings everyone.

Among the living again.

Hello my friends. My apologizes for not posting sooner, but I have been down and out with the Flu. But I am back now, feeling good and stronger than ever. Now, I just have to get caught up on all the work I've fallen behind on, which includes the blog I promised on what it takes these days to be a professional illustrator. There was a time when just your drawing and painting skills could get you through, but not anymore. So, in the next blog, we will get started on that.

Above is an old painting that I am re-vamping for its re-issue. It is for a book called "Target Earth" Written by Gary Babb. This is the second book in a series of 3 books called "Earth is Ours" I did the original painting 4 years ago while I was training under Daniel. It was the last painting I did in Acrylic Paint, ( I moved to oils after this one.) and was painted on a canvas board.

Now, 4 years later, I am re-doing it in Corel Painter. So now comes the test to see what I truly have learned in those 4 years. It should be fun, and I will show it to you step by step. In the pictures above, I saved it about every 20 minutes to show you. One of the things I wanted to do was to make the "Simian" creature more ape-like in the leg area. So you can see as it goes, I keep trying different things to get what I am after. It is getting closer, but still not there just yet. The bad thing is that I know longer have the original reference pictures I used for the paintings, so I am winging it. But there are going to be more changes. Each time I post this, i will start with the original, so you can easily see the changes as we go.

I pulled out of the "Comic" cover I was telling you about. I really don't want to get into the reasons on here, but lets say I had questions about using copyrighted characters that I was being told was owned by this gentleman. He couldn't produce any proof that he owned them, and I don't want to get sued or ruin my name or reputation to make a few bucks, or for any reason for that matter. So, I bowed out. I do wish the gentleman the best of luck though.

I should be able to show you the cover to Mental Scars pretty soon. I just need to set the type and logo for it, and make sure Richard and Mischa release it on the Mental Scars site first.

Since we are going to be working on Gary Babb's book for a few blogs or so, check my old friend out at www.garywbabb.com I hear he's a good writer. His first book, "Earth is Ours" won best Sci-fi book of the year at a San Diego convention. That's pretty impressive if you ask me. Maybe one day I will read one of his books. lmao!!! (In his 4th book, he made me one of the main characters, just so I would read the book! Of course I am just a brain floating around in a jar of liquid. But somehow, I am the hero. I think I might have to read this one.)

So now my friends I have to get down to it and work some serious days to catch up. Thank you all for stopping by! Peace and Blessings!

Something serious.

Hello my friends and thank you for stopping by. Some great news is that in under 10 days, we have over 3000 fans on face book. This is a new face book record and Cheryl and I are just thrilled. A lot of this is due to the hard work of our PR man, Utiqano Bloods. Utiqano, we thank you so very much. Still to think that so many people would take my art in like this just bring tears to our eyes and a joy to our heart.

But there is a downside. I have always said that I never wanted to get to a point that I couldn't take the time to say thank you for being a fan or just saying hi. But, it has gotten to the point that when I pop up on Face book to see how my friends and family are doing, that I am bombarded with IM's from people I do not know, In languages I don't understand, and a lot of times cussing me because I didn't respond to them quick enough or understand what they are trying to say to me.

I use to wonder why a lot of the big time guys never responded to fans outside of conventions, but I am getting a first hand look at the reasons for this, and I am starting to feel like for my safety and the safety of the people I love I am going to have to be the same way. If you think it's an over reacting, ask John Lennon how he feels about it.

So, if you want to talk to me, send me an e-mail. My e-mail addy is posted everywhere, but I will no longer respond to any IM's unless it is from a close personal friend or business partner. I spent several hours trying to find out how to appear invisible on Face book and hopefully my settings will appear like that to fans now.

It really hurts to be like this, but I am a very busy man, and I do not just have time to respond to jerks who have nothing better to do than harass a hard working person who is just trying to make a living. An when some people cross the line and threaten the people I love and call them names, it makes me want to just get my hands on them and show them that I was a carpet layer for 40 years of my life and I could break their sorry butts in half if I wanted to. But as we have been talking about in the last blogs, I am trying to be less angry and be at peace with myself. But when people go after the people I love, the kid gloves come off.

On normal news, I am almost done with the Mental Scars cover and should finish it very easy in the morning, and then I am doing the cover for Jonathan's comic I have been talking about. I'm really gonna help him get this out there because this man is starting something big with a lot going on. An for some reason, here lately, I have been lucky enough to meet up with the right people at the right time and all of it has turned into big business for Wicked Kitty Studio. We are very blessed right now and we feel so lucky to have the accounts we do, and all the work on the horizon is just awesome as well. Cheryl and I are both very thankful for this.

So, thank you all so much for everything you have done to help support us, and I hope to see you around for many years to come. If you want to ask me something, please do, but as a comment or e-mail. I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can. Peace and Blessings everyone.