Travelling Man Exhibition print progress

Ok so I've finished my print (for now, I think..) for the Travelling Man exhibition during Thought Bubble. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out but I may still tweak it between now and printing on Friday - I'm going to ask some people for a bit of feedback just in case there's something glaringly obvious. 

I was really unsure about what to even draw for this print, since it's going in a comic shop and I don't draw comics. I kind of imagined I was drawing my own comic book character though - maybe it's something I can think about doing in the future?

Part of me is a little unsure about the background.. I'm not sure whether it needs the darker edges, but on the other hand it really makes the figure pop.

& here's a little gif to show the different stages!

Getting organised!

I'm a bit of an organisation freak already, but to make everything seem much more simple, I've put together a little time-table form now until the Christmas break. I haven't done any further than than because my schedule is likely to change a lot throughout the holidays and I don't know exactly what I'll have left to do. 

Dedicating specific days to each module really helped me stay on top of everything last year. I've left the weekends blank because I'll use those days for whatever else needs doing for the following week if I don't have time on the day I already set. Writing down the progress points/deadlines has made me realise how short this term really is! CoP is my priority but I need to stay on track for the other days to get everything done. 

Contacting Practitioners

Instead of emailing this huge list of people [here] I've decided that it would probably be better to send them something via snail mail (where possible!). I'll probably have to email them in advance if they don't have some form of address listed somewhere, but I'm pretty sure more people would rather receive a physical letter than an email (which they'll probably ignore anyway..).

To make the letter/package more interesting I've thought about using a coloured envelope! Since some of the practitioners I want to contact have very 'girly'/feminine 'styles' I'm hoping this would make it look much more intriguing to them. I'm aware that not everybody likes pink, so for those practitioners who's work isn't so girly, I'll just use a different coloured envelope. 

Inside the letter/pack I want to put in a hand-written letter (depending on how legible my hand-writing is), a little business-post-card that shows a bit of my work and perhaps a couple of stickers with my work on. I want to send them small samples of my work so that they have something visual to remember me by. This would be different to a promo pack I'd send to someone I want to hire me (that would include a CV etc). 

Wish List/Goals

The Start Up Wednesday session earlier today has really got me thinking about where I want to end up in a few years. The conclusion I've reached is that ultimately I want to have a studio with someone so that I can establish a freelance career, a shop that sells illustrated products and a little art cafe where people can enjoy cute cakes and cute artwork. The inspiration for this came from my desire to make illustrated products and my love for food (I guess it helps that my parents had their own restaurant and still work in the food industry!).

The most similar thing to what I am aiming for would be Colours May Vary in Leeds. They sell a wide range of products, like art prints, cards and books. They aim to create an environment that encourages people to come in and have a look at what they sell and have a flick through the various publications they stock. 

I've always been interested in creating an environment for people to visit that reflects my inspirations, interests and matches the visual identity of my practice. I find the idea of curating a space and showing others the inspirations behind my artwork really exciting. 

I'm not sure how long it'll take me to achieve all this and I may end up doing something completely different, but right now, this is the dream! In the meantime, I'm going to keep developing and exploring various parts of my practice - right now I think I need to find out more about comics, illustrated type & product and packaging and how they all fit into my work.

Mission, Vision & Values

As part of the Start Up Wednesdays session, we were asked to think about what our mission, vision & values were in regards to setting up our own business.

- What do you do?
- What are your aspirations?
- What matters to you?
- How are you going to achieve this?

Examples of successful businesses' missions:

"To make people happy." - Disney

"To organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" - Google

It's important to figure out what your mission is so that when you're pitching your idea having a general conversation about it, you can communicate the purpose of your plans effectively. I've given this some thought in the past before, but since my practice has probably moved on quite a bit since then, I found it really useful to consider it again and try to summarise what I want to do with my work.

Mission Statement:

• To create cute, edgy illustration suitable for a range of products and encourages people to engage with social issues such as gender identity and equality. 

The Vision:

• To have my own shop/range of illustrated products.
• Be able to work freelance and fully support myself financially.
• Create a studio/collective with a shop, cafe & gallery space. 

Values:

• Quality
• Creativity
• Passion
• Challenge
• Fun

I'm really happy that I came away from this session with a vague idea of what I want to do with my practice. This has been on my mind a lot lately as I don't feel I fit within one area of illustration. I'd really love to have my own business based around my practice and still be able to freelance or work on other projects. I was already keen on the idea of setting up a studio with someone and the idea of having a little shop on the side makes it so much more appealing & exciting. What I need to do next is work out the practicalities of setting something like this up, and start to think about how I'd go about branding myself/my practice appropriately.

Start Up Wednesday's - First Session

Business: Do you have what it takes?

• As a sector, the creative industry only has a few 'large' companies - roughly 6%. The other 94% are small and micro businesses. This means that there aren't huge companies completely dominating the market - generally jobs have higher value.

• Business structures tend to be more relaxed and informal.

• Not driven by the market - creatives tend to make the market.

• Personality and values can make your product/business more desirable - this is why it's so important to find your voice. 

• Reputation is everything. People need to know that you are trustworthy and produce high quality work. 

• It's really important to show that not everybody can do what you've trained to do - never let anyone devalue your practice. 

• Conceptual thinking is important! Even if your idea isn't practical or feasible yet! Keep dreaming.

Commercial Aptitude:
- To identify and seize opportunities that might not be obvious to others.
- Thinking on your feet
- Business savvy

Project Management:
- Being able to oversee multiple tasks
- Managing links between people, ideas, resources etc.
- Understanding how to negotiate (especially important if you're working with people you're close to)

Risk Taking
- It is important to manage the possibility of something going wrong
- If you don't put safety measures in place, you could end up being really demotivated by any small failures.

Customer Sensitivity:
- Important to build long term relationships of trust
- Generate expectation of high level of customer service which you aim to exceed

Networking:
- Key to business. It won't survive if you don't get out there, make connections, tell people about your brand etc.
- Plan/prepare conversations to have with people. Using websites like Linked In is a good way of finding out what people are working on
- People like to talk about themselves, so ask them lots of questions

Leadership:
- Confidence is key - even if you're blagging it.
- Need to achieve a balance between risk taking and being practical.

Technical Skills:
- Know what you know
- What do you know you'll need help with?
- What can you learn and who do you need to help?

Marketing:
- Who is the audience?
- Find out as much as possible about the audience so that you could imagine what it's like to be them.
- Brand and reputation - strive for consistency.
- If you're ever feeling nervous, remember that you know more about your practice than who you're talking to (probably)

Good ways to find networks:
- Ask close friends or family if they could help with a project/idea
- If not, do they know anyone who could?
- Do they have a friend of a friend who you should talk to?

Business/Postcard designs

In preparation for Thought Bubble (walking round and trying to talk to people) and contacting other professionals (probably through the post rather than email), I've made a couple of business postcard designs. Initially I was just going to re-design my business cards, but as they're so small, people generally just throw them away. With something bigger, people are more inclined to keep it and stick it up on their wall or something.

Travelling Man Exhibition

I'm so excited to be a part of the Travelling Man exhibition during Thought Bubble!! I didn't want to get a table at the actual convention this year (definitely don't feel ready yet! I feel as though my practice is only just taking shape??) so I'm happy I can put my work out there some other way.

To make our work look more consistent as a collective, we decided to all use the same colour palette, rather than choose a theme as some people thought it might be too restricting (although there's a lot of sci-fi going on!) 

I didn't want to do fan art of some description and I haven't made any of my own comics like some of the others, so at first I was a little stumped for what to do. A lot of people will pass through Travelling Man during the festival, so I guess I've put a lot of pressure on myself to make my work stand out. 

For Inktober (an art challenge throughout October), I've been drawing a lot of monster/alien girls, and I was thinking of making those into a zine to sell at the convention. I guess it's only fitting that I do something similar for the exhibition. 

So far I've only done the flat colours and I might re-work the background, but I am quite happy with this so far. I actually enjoyed having a limited colour palette (of which I did not decide the colours - I would have chosen pink) and it definitely goes with the subject. I'm pretty blown away by what other people have produced so far, so hopefully once this is done it won't stick out in a bad way..

Mel Stringer [Thought Bubble Zine Research]

Mel Stringer is another practitioner I really resonate with because she also draws a lot of cute but tough girls. 

Although her work also talks about a lot of social issues, the overall theme of her zines seem to be relatively simple. I'm feeling a little bit more confident about tackling my own zine now!

Gemma Flack [Thought Bubble Zine Research]

 Even though we were briefed about the Thought Bubble zine ages ago, I still haven't really made a start on it. I have plenty of drawings that I could potentially use, but I didn't want it to look like I'd actually just thrown a bunch of stuff together and called it a zine.

Gemma Flack is one of my favorite practitioners at the moment because her work is super girly (like mine tends to be..) but still has that tough/edgy tone. 

I've been really stuck for ideas for the content of my zine, which is probably because I've been drastically over thinking it. I really like the idea of just making a bunch of characters up, like in her Imaginary Girl Bands.

If our brief didn't state otherwise, I would definitely use a pink colour palette like hers! Since ours needs to be black & white/photocopied, I think I'll just use pink paper.

Action Plan/Summary

In preparation for the group tutorial next Monday, I've put together a couple of slides with my intentions for this year (because most of this blog has been boring lists recently)! It's pretty brief but hopefully it gets the point across - I don't even know if we need this for the session?

People to talk to at ThoughtBubble

Expanding on my previous post about who I'd like to contact, I decided to take a look at who will be at Thought Bubble this year. Since I don't have a table, I'll be free to walk around and talk to people.
Some of the people I'd like to talk to:

1. Bengal
2. Noelle Stevenson
3. Boo Cook
4. Wes Craig
5. Tana Ford
6. Kieron Gillen
7. Matt Hollingsworth
8. Frazer Irving
9. Antony Johnston 
10. Kate Leth
11. Jason Latour
12. Jamie Mckelvie
13. Ollie Masters
14. Monty Nero
15. Matt Taylor
16. Emma Vieceli
17. Alison Sampson

Since this is a pretty hefty list, I probably ought to write them all down when I go & maybe contact some of them in advance? I've come across some of these practitioners before, but most are totally new to me. There's a mixture of artists, writers and colourists (I didn't know that was a thing!), so I'm interested in how they all ended up where they are. 

I never really thought that I was interested in comics but I actually think that my practice is shifting over towards it. I just love the covers and the colours and I really think I should find out more about all this!! I hope I get a chance to speak to most of them, if it's busy I'll ask them if I can email some questions over (that way they'll also get my email address hehe). I guess I'd better get some business cards sorted out just in case opportunity arises!

Potential Contacts ~Wish List~

As part of our Creative Strategy brief (studio brief 1), we've been asked to identify and contact at least 10 practitioners who's work is relevant to the development of our practice. Initially this sounds pretty intimidating (to me anyway - probably because I'm out of the swing of things after a long summer break).
I wasn't really sure where to start, so I've just gone through my blog and selected some of the artists I've posted about in the past:

1. Tori Anne
2. Kim Searle
3. Annie Wu
4. Sophie Campbell
5. Jen Bartel
6. Paulina Ganucheau
7. The Printed Peanut
8. Elea Lutz
9. Genevieve FT
10. Babs Tarr
11. Kindred Studio
12. Lollilu

This is a good start. I should expect that I won't get a reply from everyone because they're probably pretty busy. Now I've got to figure out what I'm going to ask them..

• what inspires your work?
• can you describe your process when creating work, whether it's personal or a set brief?
• what advice would you give a young illustrator about to embark on their third and final year of university?
• what do you think is important to do to keep your practice progressing?
• how did you get to where you are now? formal education? did you attend events, talk to loads of people?
• what's your favorite part of your job? - and what's the worst?
• what's your favorite way of working? digitally, painting by hand? tools?
• what do you think makes a good portfolio?
• who's work would you recommend taking a look at?
• can you suggest anyone else I should contact?

I probably haven't worded some of the questions very well, but I'll adapt them depending on who I'm emailing. I think most of these practitioners go to a lot of conventions and do a lot of networking there. I think this year I ought to set myself a target to get my portfolio up to scratch so that I can do this too. I'd love to have a table at a convention and I didn't feel ready for ThoughtBubble in November, so I'll have to make plans for another one sometime.