One of my favorite movies as a kid mashed up with the iconic Action Comics No. 1.  You can almost hear Sloth yelping out "Heeey Yooouuu Guuuys!!"

A homage to Goonies all over the world.  This design has bee revised a bit form the original to look and fit better on a tee.  

Will be availble from www.riptapparel.com for ONLY $10!! Wow with a deal like that you should 3 or 4 DOZENS!!  Share this, tweet this, pass it along, tumblr it, email it.  Let Thursday January 19th of 2012 be the day the world says "Never Say Die"

I've got quite a few sketch cards selling right now over at eBay. Now is a good time to get some original art from me. A few are official Upperdeck and Marvel Comics "Marvel Masterpieces II" others are my own personal sketch cards. Bid and get them here:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/mrmisfit/m.html?item=230732201414&sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&_trksid=p4340.l2562

mrmisfit | eBay

www.ebay.com

eBay: mrmisfit

I have been sending out emails to potential clients but its been slow going.  Taking so much time researching these leads and sending out the emails.  I'm leaning strongly with taking up Agency Access on their offer especially with their 30 day free trial.  Needing to reorganize my work space to make it more conducive to getting all the needed paperworks, invoices etc in order and stay in order.  

The business and self promotional aspect of a career artist is seldom if at all touched upon in school.  Something so fundamental to succeed in this field yet so ignored.  Artist need to be better prepared for real world work environment, I know I've been out of school for a long time and have been steadily doing tees, skateboards and other client work but like I've said before never activiely looking for it and never keeping track of paperwork.  I've got to keep a full on business mentality but also stay creative.  

Among the other things that need to be re-evaluated is my Bio statement.  The one I have now is rather long and doesn't say much.  Well nothing important or anything any potential clients would care about. Thinking it through and based on some of the material I've been reading I need a long statement for the website.  One that gets right to the point, is clear on what I can do with a dash of personal information.  I need a medium statement for emails and newsletters, one that is basically this is me and this is what I do.  A short statement that I can use on direct mailings like post cards and finally a mini statement that I can put on my business cards.  This will take some thought and probably various drafts to get right.  Another question I need to ask myself is, should I do it in first person or third person. Third person seems a bit more proffessional and carries more weight.  Like somebody is recomending me as the talented artist which makes it feel like an established reputation.  First person though very personalbe, friendly and intimate but its an artist trying to sell himself.  Seems you have to go the extra mile to sell yourself but its easier when you are being recomended.  

While thinking about the Bio statement other questions began to arise:

Should I keep Raz as my artist name or go with my full name Ramsey Sibaja.  I not a graffitti artist so why should I have a tagger name.  I have been using it for years and many know me as such but will potential clients be turned off by it?  I don't know but it is something I definitely need to think about.  

In the meantime while I follow leads and try to drum up business and find new clients I need to generate some immediate income.  Creating some clip art packets that I can sell from my own website as well as tees and other products.  Ebay will probably be an option for getting some commissioned work and some quick money.  Get a fan based started at least till more client work is established. 

If I'm throwing myself into the illustrations field do I really need a designs portfolio on my website?  Probably not.  I wll be changing that, though I believe typography especially hand drawn typography is an important part of illuatration and design.  A good logo or slogan done will with some good original hand drawn typography is illustration in itself or combined with a drawing.  Might just change the designs gallery to a typography gallery.  I enjoy creating hand drawn text as much as illustrating a cool Robocop image.  I'll also be setting up a newsletter that I will try to get out monthly or bimonthly and start building a mailing list for it.

A lot of things that I need to think about right now and decided on what my next move is going to be.  Right now Agency Access seems like it will be one of those next moves.  I won't be tackling any website redesign anytime soon.  What I have currently works well for now. Creating a good eye catching mailer (postcard) is something that I will need to be working on as well.  

Thanks for reading and now another page out of my sketchbook:

I've been donig the whole freelance gig for quite a few years but more as a partime thing to suplement my income.  Decided that I would become completely independent and jump in head first into the fulltime freelance market.  I already have alot of things inplace to help support a freelance career.  Invoices, contracts and whatnot.  Mostly I've had a few word of mouth clients, some came via my website or through one of my other online portfolios.  Maybe 1 or 2 a month with an occasional dry month.  I've never really sat down and actively search out clients.  I've been lacking in the whole self promotional aspect of being a freelance artist.  This is where I'll we be having some difficulty.  I need to rearrange my block of time to fit the necessary client searches, networking, social media and promotion aspect, emails etc as well as setting time to work on client and personal projects not to mention managing persoanla and family life since I'll be working from home.  I need to average at least 4 to 5 new clients a month to sustain a freelance career that will cover my personal bills and home studio expenses as well as provide something to set aside for a rainy day on those possible dry months if they were to come.  Good, solid well paying clients.  Creating that list is what will be a challenge.  Where do I start, who do I target, how often should i send emails or direct maliers.  Thisngs I've gotten so far to help set me straight:

Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market I purchased the 2011 book back in February with the intention to start sending out postcards but never did.  Having a Fulltime job made it not as urgent thing to do.  Now if I want to sustain a living it is more of a neccesity now than before. the 2012 is out but will use the 2011 one that I have in the meantime.

Breaking Into Freelance Illustration: a Guide for Artists, Designers and Illustrators by Holly DeWolf

The Streetwise Guide to Freelance Design and Illustration by Theo Stephan Willams

Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer by Michael Fleishman

It may seem redundant to get som many books on the same topic.  Inevitably lots of the same information will be the same but experiences from each of the writers will be a bit different and new ideas, advice and tips will be derived from that.  Different approaches to freelance, this way I can use what will work for me from each writer.

The Artist's and Graphic Designer's Market is a good resource for finding new clients but reading through each listing and finding the client that matches your style needs etc, is abit time consuming and at the end end up with maybe 100 possible leads, then researching online for clients which in the end is very time consuming, costly and tiring and never really 100% accurate.  

I will need more than that to sustain a freelance career.  So I need to find other resources for finding possible clients and something that is efficient wher I don't need to spend 4 hours sorting through listing to find the right clients.  Enter Agency Access.  i spoke with a representative from there to see what they services the offer and regarding client lists, and leads that can lead to new clients and paying jobs.  She walked me through a brief Demo answered all my questions.  Also researching into Agency Access on my own I've heard positive reviews from Thomas James from "Escape from Illustration Island" (Which another good resource I've found for someone getting into freelance.  Thomas offers a lot of good information. So researching I've found that Agency Access would be a good resources for establish a good solid client list pertaining to the industry I want to market myself to.  Be it children's books, editorials, book covers etc.  They seem to have a good email editing program to create nice professional looking emails with images and sending them to the right people.  I plan on implementing them into my client search process.  So as I go I'll be updating experiences, ups and downs of doing freelance fulltime.  Also my experiences with Agency Access.

Hopefully sharing the expereinces will help work through the pitfalls of working Freelance and at the same time helping those who are going through the same process or thinking about getting into freelance.

Here's some art.  I mean that's why your here other than learning something.

Still can use more votes on this one and comments.  If this gets printed with your help I'll do a nice prize giveaway that includes tees and prints.  So Get to voting, share it, tweet it whatever it takes.  I'd love to see this get over 100 votes.  Vote over at Design By Humans

The good folks over at www.Popculturetees.com did a nice littel feature on me.  Very cool of them.  They have a great blog for those who like to be kept up with the latest pop culture inspired tees.  Stop by and peruse their site and archives.