Who Killed the Wicked Witch is on sale till the 12th so you still have till Sunday to get yours.

Thanks to the fine forls over at Shirt Vegas.

Same as before. 4 ways to enter:

1.Go to www.shirtvegas.com and leave a comment, like, share pass it on.

2. For tweeters you would need to copy and paste the following:

Day6 #DoctorWho tee from  @shirtvegas Just $15 by @razcity buy now www.shirtvegas.com RT for chances to #winprizes as seen on #AOTS

4. Tumbler's: just need to Like and reblog post.

Todays winner will get my "B-Movie Monster Madness" art print from Society6

todays sketch: this was the initial sketch for the Robo-Rama ilustration.

Day 4 Winner Nuclearoverreactor!!

Day 5 prize:  My "A Clockwork Stooges" tee from Stupidhurts.us

Same as before. 4 ways to enter:

1.Go to www.shirtvegas.com and leave a comment, like, share pass it on.

2. For tweeters you would need to copy and paste the following:

Day4 #DoctorWho tee from  @shirtvegas Just $15 by @razcity buy now www.shirtvegas.com RT for chances to #winprizes as seen on #AOTS

Day 3 Winner Laura Elizabeth Dunn!!

Day 4 prize:  My "Say Cheese" tee from Stupidhurts.us

Same as before. 4 ways to enter:

1.Go to www.shirtvegas.com and leave a comment, like, share pass it on.

2. For tweeters you would need to copy and paste the following:

Day5 #DoctorWho tee from  @shirtvegas Just $15 by @razcity buy now www.shirtvegas.com RT for chances to #winprizes as seen on #AOTS

Day 2 winner!! It is Frickinfabulous off twitter. please claim your prize.

Day 3 Prize...  "Spock, Paper, Scissor" tee. A tee any Trekkie wil enjoy.

Same as before. 4 ways to enter:

1.Go to www.shirtvegas.com and leave a comment, like, share pass it on.

2. For tweeters you would need to copy and paste the following:Day3 #DoctorWho tee from  @shirtvegas Just $15 by @razcity buy now www.shirtvegas.com retweet for chances to #winprizes as seen on #AOTS

Day 2 of "Who Killed The Wicked Witch" tee from www.shirtvegas.com

First of to announce the first winner.

Day one winner of "Who Killed The Wicked Witch" art print from Society6 chosen from all participants between Facebook, twitter and tumblr........ALEXANDRA WILLIAMS Please claim your prize. just go to contacts and shoot me an email with your address.

Day 2 Prize another art print from society6.  "Robo-rama: The Great Robot Reunion " which contains, a Daleck, Cyberman, K-9 and Clonky the robot from Pee Wee's

Playhouse.

Same as before. 4 ways to enter:

I finished reading "Breaking into Freelance:  the guide for artist, designers and illustrators" by Holly DeWolf.  My initial thoughts were that it does contain some useful information that I have implemented into my work day to help keep my self organized and on track with my projects. Now comes the "but", the book itself seems more directed to the work from home mom than to the freelance illustrator.  It seemed more like a "How to become a Freelance artist for the stay at home mom" book. With frequent talks on how great it is to be at home with the kids and how to manage kids, work and household duties.  Which is fine, I'll be doing that as well but not the information I was looking for.  The book is a good book to keep you motivated with your decision to be a freelancer.  Its a nice little pep talk of a book without ever getting into the meat of what a freelancer needs to do in terms of managing expenses, contracts and agreements, marketing, looking for vendors and what to look for in those vendors, time keeping for billable hours, business status (becoming a corporation vs an LLC) which the book either briefly mentioned or completely overlooked.  If you want the meat and potatoes of what being a freelance really means and takes this is not really that book.  If you are knee deep in freelancing but down in the slumps and need a good motivational pep talk then this book can be useful in that sense.

The book I am now currently reading (I'm a little over halfway through it) "Starting Your Career As A Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer" By Michael Fleishman.   This book is very heavy on the meat and potatoes.  Delving into a lot of the financial aspect regarding taxes, expenses and the like. Also touching on lawyers and why one is needed to protect our interests as a designer or illustrator. Very detailed and informative really gets you thinking about everything that you need to keep track of and do to sustain a career as a freelancer.  Forms, contracts, artist agreements, invoices, estimates and all the necessary forms and paperwork that will be needed. Building a proper quality portfolio.  I'm still only half way through the book.  The next chapters are going to be:

Bringing in Clients, How Do You Get Noticed, What Goes In A Portfolio, The Magazine Market, Selling to Newspapers, Working With Advertising Agencies, Selling To Book Publishers, The Greeting Card Market (a market I hadn't thought of marketing to before), Working With Art And Design Studios, Selling to Small Businesses and Marketing to the Web.

Which I'm looking forward to some of these chapters and if they are as informative as the chapters I've already read I will be well on my way to kicking some serious tail in this freelance gig.

Michael Fleishman's book is very well written and lays everything out plainly and clearly with no sugar coating. Something I'm glad to have picked up and has been an invaluable resource of information.  Something I'd certainly recommend for anyone thinking about or is currently working as a freelance artist.  Though at points in the book its information is veered more to the Graphic Designer than it is to an Illustrator, but if you plan on doing both jobs then everything in the book would be pertinent.

Figured I'd share this review especially since I'm documenting my foray into freelancing full-time and the information in these books have certainly helped and influenced some of the decisions I've made so far.

Now for another page from my sketchbook

It's been a bit slow going.  Entered into an agreement with Agency Access.  With an impressive data library of unsuspecting future clients I created my first email campaign to send out.  Fore the most part I'm researching and putting together a small email group per week that I send out.  Maybe about 5 or 6 each week.  These I try to personalize the best I can.  Then about every 2 months I plan on a large scale email blast to all the contacts I've accumulated through Agency Access and other sources.  A direct mail campaign I was thinking once every 6 months with postcards, but I might change that up and do postcards once every 3 months and every 6 months try to do something more personalized to a smaller group of possible and current clients.  Part of going freelance the main thing is sustainability.  To do that I have to nab the proverbial white whale.  Which I certainly hope is not as elusive ass Moby Dick was to Ahab.  Pretty much need that one whale of a client that can offer consistent work and pay well for that work.  Easier said than done.  To continue with the fishing metaphors, I just need to keep casting out that line till I am able to reel in that one big catch that can sustain me long term while I  still can enjoy and continue catching the little fishies.  Right now I find myself needing to adjust my portfolio a bit for certain markets.  Which means doing more portraits (celebrities is what seems to always be in demand), some more monster/fantasy art for the RPG industry, more product type illustration for consumer industries and concept driven editorial art.  Something that my tee shirt and skateboard design heavy portfolio is lacking.  Though I do have a few editorial art and some product driven art that I, for the meantime will try to capitalize on.

Now to expand on Access Agency.  I just did my first email blast to about 900 unsuspecting future clients.  Access Agency does make sending out those emails an easy process.  With very specific category listing it helps narrow down or widen (what ever your intent is) to specific client list.  Then various easy to set up email templates that allows inclusion of a few images into the email that can be linked to your portfolio.  The only issue I had was coming up with decent copy introducing myself and what I offer.  I think I came off a bit to serious and formal in the copy.  Next time I'll try to be more my idiot self and see what happens.  Once the emails are sent AA offers a nice set of stats tools. I can see who opened the email and from those who actually clicked to the website. How many emails bounced back and a few other relevant data.  With this I can see how the response to the emails went.  Next time try out different image styles or copy style.  I'm still fairly new to using AA so I'm still looking through to see what else I can do with AA.  So far results have been a few we'll keep you in mind for future projects.  Not the response I was looking for but still its something positive and with periodic emails, I'm sure a lot of these we'll keep you in mind will become we have a job for you.

Now for todays sketch