Do I Need To Go Digital?
Art by Melissa Bailey
How do you pay taxes as a freelancer? Should you switch from a lucrative career to your dream art job? What do you do when you feel your art just sucks? And what do Editors require: traditional art, or digital files? This week, Jake Parker, Lee White, and Will Terry do a deep dive on these questions as well as give an update on Lee’s NFT scheme.
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SHOW LINKS
Will’s YouTube channel
Jake begins the podcast by asking Lee if his NFT ever sold. Lee tells him that it didn’t and that WIll was correct- you can make an NFT and market it to a small audience but you do have to pay (gas was what they called it) in order to get your product to a larger audience.
Before they went into answering questions that were submitted to the podcast, Lee wanted to answer a question that was posed to him by his friend Dougy Fresh. Dougy has been a freelancer for less than a year and he asked Lee about taxes. Specifically, how one deals with the ever-changing tax situation that comes with doing free-lance work?
First, Jake gives some joke advice about how to make it as a freelance--you’ll need (1) a Swiss bank account (2) a Puerto Rican LLC and (3) to only ever use bitcoin.
Will adds that you should get a lobbyist (also a joke).
Then Lee actually answers the question by giving three levels of advice. The poor man's way of doing it, he says, is to take every check you get and separate out 30-35% of it and put it in a separate savings account for taxes.
Will interjects a warning about credit cards here, mentioning how in his experience credit card interest can be more expensive than tax fines in the long run. You have to weigh your options about which way you're going to pay.
The next level of advice that Lee gives is to order a software online called Quicken Self-Employed. It’s an easy to use software where you just plug in your bank account information and it will calculate how much you owe in your quarterly taxes based on your earnings.
Lee uses this software to do his taxes and it makes it so easy for him because the program does his tax calculations in real time so it's pretty accurate.
Lee’s 3rd recommendation- just get a CPA.
QUESTIONS
GeoDraws asks- Switching from Software engineering to art.
This person is 24 and they have recently quit their job to pursue their dream in animation/game design with the goal of becoming a concept artist and eventually a freelancer. The question they're asking is about the money (or lack thereof) in an art career. A lot of their friends are software engineers that make a lot of money and GD is falling into the trap of comparing how much money they make to how much their friends make. They’re pretty passionate about art and design but that matter of money is causing some doubts.
Will advises them to ask themselves what they really want--the money or the freedom to create? Is the dream to make a living at this or would making art on the weekends be enough?
Lee adds that you don’t have to pick one or the other. You could work part time and do them both. If being a concept artist takes off then bail on the software thing or vice versa. Do both for a while and see how you feel about it after that.
Jake wonders if you’ll be happy as a creative if the status and lifestyle that come with having a lot of money are such a priority for you.
His opinion is much in the same vein as Lee’s. He doesn’t think you should quit your main gig until your side one takes off. Do both until you can’t anymore.
A lot of people have this problem.The guys say that if you have the opportunity and skill to go for it, but be mindful about it. You can’t know everything that is going to happen or every opportunity that you should take. That’s what makes this kind of life exciting.
Jake does take a moment to mention the FZD School of Design. It’s located in downtown Singapore and he says this might be an option if you’re looking specifically at video games.
They have a 90% placement rate for graduates. That kind of concentrated training could be a really good option to consider.
Angela asks- Frustration at creating bad art and now knowing why.
She has been using the SVS classes to make better comics. 50% of the time she can tell why something is not working but 50% of the time she can’t and she feels that her art is not at the point where she can submit it to the forums and ask for feedback.
Lee thinks this is a symptom of not knowing where you’re going with a piece of art. He recommends outlining keywords and goals for the piece before you start drawing.
Does your art serve the purpose you assigned it? Does it move your story forward?
Will says that it really comes down to putting in the hours to hone your skills and work through the frustrating parts of your art.
If you care enough to be frustrated by it, you care enough to learn to fix what’s frustrating it. He says that you kind of just have to care enough to persevere.
Jake adds that there is a danger in being your own worst critic. He advises you to share your work--no matter how bad or unfinished you think it is--and get an outside perspective on it. Get some helpful opinions. Let that be the key to knowing what’s wrong with your work and you’ll start to find that you can pick out things to fix 90% of the time instead of 50%.
Feedback will help you be able to point to your body of work and be proud that you’re consistently getting better as an artist.
He talks about a documentary about Walt Disney that he watched and points out that even Disney had to make loads of rinky-dink Silly Symphony shorts and Mickey Mouse cartoons and put them up for review in order to make animation that was longer and of better quality-- animation that would become movies like Snow White.
Make something. Put it up for review. And then… KEEP MOVING FORWARD.
Lee reminds you to not put too much pressure on yourself. If you always think, “Ok. 50% of my work sucks,” you’re setting yourself up for failure.
He says that one way to get around that is to consider everything you do as a practice or a test. Do multiple versions of these practices so you can compare them and see what works and what doesn’t.
Will brings up the time when he was working on Armadilly Chilli and he was stuck--the drawings just weren't turning out how he wanted them. He drew and redrew, but he still wasn’t happy and finally he asked his friend to draw over the sketches for him. He asked how you would draw these lines differently.
Will points out that if you think your work is not good enough for feedback, you’re wrong. You can’t become creative by yourself, you need other people.
Lee brings up that he’s run into similar situations and that sometimes you just need a fresh pair of eyes.
Lee mentioned how illustrators are expected to work alone but, seeing as most of them don’t have a lot of formal training, it can be helpful, necessary even, to rely on the skills and perspectives of others.
But, remember the creatives who make the most money are the ones that actually create and not just cover other people’s work. Do your master studies until you have the skills to fly on your own.
You grow your imagination when you move forward to solve new problems.
Seth asks- Traditional vs Digital?
Hi guys. Love the pod. Here’s my question. I drew a lot as a kid and picked it back up as an alternative to all the screen time in my full time job. If I prefer pen, ink and watercolor to spending more time on a screen learning to digitally paint, am I out of luck as a potential professional children’s book illustrator? Aside from outliers like Harry Bliss, do you need to go digital if you want to be taken seriously? Thanks!
Will answers first saying, bottom line, you can do traditional but certain clients will not work with you.
Traditional work has more risk associated (photographer fees, shipping and handling fees, etc.) and most clients will avoid those extra costs. The higher up you go on the client totem poll the more lenient companies will be because they like the look of traditional art.
He asked this question on his YouTube channel and got all sorts of stories from editors about how people will come from all over the building to fawn over a piece of traditional artwork that was sent in.
In summation, Will thinks that you should do digital first and wait on the traditional stuff. Save it for when you’re working with clients who will appreciate it.
Jake brings up that sending digital files is a must anyway and he doesn’t know if anyone is still set up to receive traditional portfolios.
He also mentions that, at least for him, he wants to see things on a computer screen because that’s how the editor will look at it.
Also, it’s easier to take notes and fix mistakes on a screen.
Lee brings up that you can work traditionally but you have to get used to digital editing at the very least.
Jake says that the two softwares you need to know (at least the basics of) are Photoshop and InDesign.
Lee likes to work traditionally but he uses Photoshop to suss out risky moves before he paints them into permanence.
And, Jake likes InDesign because you can layout an entire book, link it to photoshop (so you can edit it in one place and it will be changed in the other), and export the PDF of your work. He likes it for publishing.
LINKS
Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44
Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt
Lee White: leewhiteillustration.com. Instagram: @leewhiteillo
Daniel Tu: danieltu.co.
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