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Dear Nick, with Your permission I'm adding this dungeon scene sequence into my Nick Harris file that I keep among artists and illustrators who are examples of style and visual tutorial to me.
I see that You worked on a finely tuned contrast between green/yellow and pink/ purple in here and that You eventually decided to have the standing prisoner too sleeping, although in a clearly less comfortable way.
The third and mostly disappear prisoner, who just left part of his arms bones and organic liquids leaking, that fed the mould on the pillar, prematurely passed away while in the Lamarckian adaption process that was apparently leading him too to have elongated arms to better cope with the environment.:D
Big claps!!
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WOW... fabulous stuff!!! :D
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Nick, I'm just getting caught up on this fabulous thread. It is certainly one of the finest contributions in the forum - an entire study course in creating great art as seen through the development of your work. Just great great stuff - magical - magic in every pixel. Inspired. :):):):):):)
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Wow!!!
Nickillus, I'll start by offering my sincerest apologies for not posting at least a word of encouragement previously.
I've been watching with rapt attention each of the pictures you've posted thus far. Thank-you so much for sharing your work and some of your work flow with us. I'm inspired by what you've done in Art Rage. Thanks for taking the time to share with us.
I'm looking forward to seeing more.
John
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Many thanks for the ongoing support, chaps. Apologies for my tardy reply - I'm up to my neck chasing deadlines - well more like damage limitation from overshot deadlines if truth be told.
Three almost simultaneous book projects with similar timeframes and amounts of work (16-20 imgaes each). Oh the joys of self employment - it's all or nothing - no work of any substance for six months last year, then three jobs turn up at once - like buses according to that rule of thumb.
Working on the third now, with two down. Ideally I'd do all the work in AR, but it just hasn't worked out like that. I'd set a precedent of working in Sketchbook Pro for the first publisher and they wanted that exact look again - so was tied into that software - which is no great pain to me as I love SKB almost as much as AR.
The second job, put to bed only two days ago is all AR , aimed at children's educational publishing and so the bread and butter fare of many such illustrators like myself. Notoriously badly paid, but nearly always work to be had there, if you can do fairly boring, conventional stuff like mine. If only I could get faster at it though. Some grabs below. Absolutely no prizes for guessing the tale.
http://nickillus.com/Nick-Harris-grab-2011-01.jpg
http://nickillus.com/Nick-Harris-grab-2011-02.jpg
http://nickillus.com/Nick-Harris-grab-2011-03.jpg
http://nickillus.com/Nick-Harris-grab-2011-04.jpg
The third and, most time pressured now, was roughed out competely in AR, but though I hate not only to say it, but to have to do it, is going to be worked on in Painter - spit, curse - simply for its advantages of speed. That's the one stumbling block that still occasionally rears its ugly head in AR as a pro tool. It's vastly improved over earlier incarnations but still suffers for speed particularly on anything like layer management, which when you are in a tearing rush on a job, can be an essential part of the flow, moving stuff round on the fly.
The really encouraging thing is that I can recall how Painter had awful layer capabilites a mere few years ago and how it's been mostly overcome. I used to have to resort to Photoshop for that stuff. It's only a matter of time before AR is so damned fast I'll be able to let Painter permanently gather a thicker layer of dust than it has been already on my system.
Oh well - grit my teeth and fire up Painter for a short and unhappy while - yuk. . . .
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Nick, marvellous work!! Great illustrations there using artrage, I like painter, although I find it far too confusing, less is more if you know what I mean. Your monitor screen size is BIG!
I always wanted to be a freelance illustrator, but I was scared that I would lose interest what with deadlines briefs and scary art directors :D must be hard to make a living too when there is no work and all the buses turn up at once.
How much do you get paid per hour? just wondering.
Keep up the good work! :cool:
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Many thanks Jules - How the devil are you? Haven't really spoken much since the sad slip of the Ning into the hands of marketeering.
Painter is a great software and did used to be my exclusive favourite - but has always been a bit overblown and fiddly to set up. Immensely powerful but could do with some of AR's friendly worflow thinking. Sketchbook Pro2 started the rot on my loyalty to it, being uncluttered and responsive like AR is. AR and SKB combined have weaned me right away from liking it much at all now.
Being a pro - yep, definitely a double edged sword. Not that I can do much of anything else except draw and paint a bit, so not a lot of choices really. Rates of pay, haha. If I was a super quick young one (or even a super quick old one would be nice), then quoting hourly rates might not be a discouraging way to talk about payment. All three jobs are a flat fee, agreed up front, but there's not a lot of flexibility. The job's worth is dictated by budgetary constraints like everything else. Educational books for schools etc are pretty low down the pecking order because schools won't/can't pay for expensive editions en masse, no matter how lovely they might be. Just common sense.
As an example - the finished illustrations (17 in total) as shown in progress in the grabs work out to about £60 each, and took several days per illo working 12-15 hours a day (told you I was slow). Safe to say I walk a thin line between treading water and going under. Luckily another of the three jobs paid about three times that because it was not for educational. I'm a terrible example of how to be an illustrator if you are thinking of making a good living. If you don't love it or have a burn that you can't turn off, I would suggest another line of work.
Oh yes - meant to say - my screen - it's a 22in BenQ (rotatable so I could work portrait if I wished, but always forget to use that - too much hassle in my disorganised space too). Only cost about £150 a few years ago.
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Rates
Hi Nick,
Did you EVER consider looking out for an agent abroad? (besides your friend Virgil I mean..)
I cannot believe the amount you're being paid!
Even I get paid more for illustrations that (compared to your work) don't come even close to the work you are making!
I often wondered,looking at your work, what would have happened if you were to illustrate the Discworld books.....How your star would have been bright by now!
Please check out some of the agents in Europe. The prices you get paid are ridicilous!
Your work should make money than the examples you show here!!
Oh....by the way....
How on earth do you create the fire a dragon breaths or spits??
Please Nick.....
Keep helping us humble admireres with your advice and kind words....But get paid more!
Yours
Arjen Vriezekolk
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Great post Arjen
I know income is required to put food on table and pay bills Nick, but jebus man, you are allowing these educational guys to take micky out of you mate. Do the sums Nick, they have got you working for peanuts.
You produce TOP QUALITY stuff and that being so, deserve a fair price for it and imho you are definitely not receiving that.
£6 per hour * 30 hours = £180. and that is imho the very minimum you should be receiving for TOP QUALITY work like yours.
If they want your TOP QUALITY work in thier books etc, they WILL pay.
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sample
Not to start a new topic, or to brag about payment over here in the Netherlands......
But the example here from the kangaroo was done in an hour and a bit...but got me €120.-......
I know....sometimes you have to redoo illustrations 2 or 3 times again before the client is satisfied........But €6.- an hour?
Eh...... that sounds like Mcdonalds wages to me?
And I don't in any way mean to be disrespectfull to anyone.....
Just trying to make a point.....and not even in good english..
Arjen