Introduction & Chapter 1

It’s okay to be a beginner

I love being a beginner so much, I hope I never think of myself as an expert in anything. The more I understand about any subject or skill, the more I realise how much there is left to uncover. If I thought I had nothing left to learn about a subject, I’d be bored by it. Writing this book has been an excellent opportunity for me to reflect on what I’ve discovered so far, and to think about all the things I’m yet to discover. I’m more interested and motivated to learn than ever.

Beginners are open-minded, curious, and listen to other people without pre- judgement. They’re not stuck in their ways, and they want to understand and improve. These traits are crucial for picking up new skills and will, ideally, be at the core of how you approach your work throughout your career, not least because it will keep things interesting and fun for you.

Keeping a beginner’s mindset means you still have a desire to improve, even when you reach an advanced level. If you stay this way, you’ll always be open to growing and building on your skills. But the more experienced we become, the more difficult it is to keep hold of these beginner’s traits. Someone who considers themselves to be an expert could become less open to new ideas and ways of doing things, but they’re going to be a lot less engaged if they stop learning.

Everybody starts somewhere

As a new illustrator, you shouldn’t feel inferior just because you haven’t been in the industry for long. Before your favourite illustrators were successful, they were struggling to make money, they were nervous about talking to clients, trying to get noticed and making plenty of mistakes and they were almost definitely doing underpaid work. They may have even considered giving up at various points, but they stuck with it. They showed up, put in the time and effort, worked hard, and overcame setbacks. We’ll look at some common challenges a new illustrator might face and how to overcome them in Chapter 2.

These experienced professionals are no different from you, and they’re certainly not perfect, they’re just a few steps ahead. They succeeded because they kept improving, and the best ones still do. You can learn a lot from the people more experienced than you and improve faster as a result, and there’s as much to gain from their setbacks as their successes. If you stay curious enough to keep improving, you have a hell of an advantage.

If you’re studying illustration in college, your teachers show interest in your work. They look at it carefully, give you feedback, and they guide you. It’s their job to do that. But once you get out into the freelance world, you’ll find that fewer people are willing to help you with your work – for a while, nobody cares about your work except you. That’s tough to deal with, but it’s a gift. In the early days of your career, when nobody cares about your work, you can experiment and make mistakes without anyone paying attention. In Chapter 7, we’ll dive into the importance of getting feedback on your portfolio and how you can go about getting it.

Once you start getting paid to be an illustrator and gain followers and fans, people will be watching you. Try to enjoy the freedom being a beginner allows and make the most of your anonymity. Experiment and take creative risks, then put what you discover to good use. There is nothing wrong with being a beginner; in fact, the industry needs new talent to show up and take chances.

You’ll face frustration and setbacks – just as any new business owner will – you may feel out of your depth when you’re learning new skills, and progress might not be as fast as you’d like. Being perfect isn’t the goal; what’s more important is that you keep improving and enjoy the journey.

Commit to the craft

Establishing yourself as a freelance illustrator is a long game; it takes commitment, just as anything worth doing will. Only a few aspiring illustrators become successful professionals; even fewer become the most sought-after and famous illustrators.

Most people who set out to be the best at something will give up somewhere along the way – not everyone has the dedication, perseverance, and possibly a bit of obsession required to get there – and others might move on to something else, either out of financial necessity or because they discover something that’s more important to them. The ones who stick it out and actually become the best are rare outliers, and that makes their work and their skills highly valuable.

Top performers in any field work hard consistently for a long time. At the extreme, you have Olympic gold medallists who show up and train every day and say no to activities that don’t help them achieve their goals. Concert pianists, fighter pilots, prima ballerinas and ultimate fighting champions have a single-minded focus. They put their goal above everything else.

Illustration isn’t as intense as all that, but it is competitive. We’ll look at this competitive environment in more detail in the next chapter. Even if you don’t aspire to be the best in the world at what you do for a job, why not aim high and see how far you can go? Aiming high and not quite hitting the target is far better than aiming low and getting a bullseye.

Being exceptional at anything requires consistent effort – even the naturally gifted have to put in the time, stay motivated and pick themselves up after setbacks. As a freelancer, you have (at least) two roles – you’re the worker and the boss. If the worker doesn’t show up to work or misses a deadline, you can be sure the boss will have something to say about it. And if the boss doesn’t encourage, motivate, and hold the worker accountable, nothing will get done.

Long-term success as an illustrator requires you to be a self-starter. If you’re not enthusiastic about becoming the best option for a client, you can bet someone else will be, and you’ll lose out. It’s not about working longer hours than the competition; spending more time chained to your desk doesn’t mean you’re a better illustrator. If you can only commit to a couple of hours a day, what’s important is following through with that commitment. Doing the work when you feel inspired is easy; showing up on the days when you don’t feel like it, and giving it your best effort anyway, is what will lead to an exceptional career. We’ll be looking at how to form and maintain the creative habit in Chapter 5.

You get out what you put in

How you approach your career and your craft will be different for every individual, but being a great illustrator is a choice; one that has to be made repeatedly until it becomes second nature. As we’ve already seen, committing to the work and striving for continual improvement is what sets a great illustrator apart from the competition, but it’s easier said than done.

At every stage of an illustrator’s career, they have the option to stop improving and settle into something comfortable (which many will choose) or to continue developing. Most people don’t carry on developing and improving – when they start getting good reactions to their work, they’ll continue making work at the same level; after all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But great illustrators continue to improve beyond that comfortable level, and when they carry on developing their skills, they can rise above the competition and their value as an illustrator continues to increase in line with their skill and experience.

The illustrators with the most successful careers get there by having the right attitude and dedication to their craft. And, as I’ve mentioned, they keep going, even when they don’t feel like it. They show up, do the work every day, accept the losses and celebrate the wins. They’re motivated to achieve great things, and they accept that it takes time to get there.

There are plenty of people who would like to be illustrators, but won’t ever get past it being a hobby – if they’re not putting in the practice, not showing their work to potential clients and not treating it like a job, that’s all it will ever be – this is the hard stuff, which we’ll return to throughout the book. An illustrator who chooses to master their craft and all the skills that go along with it, earns the title.

Everything an illustrator achieves will be a direct result of their own skill and hard work. You can decide when to work, what to work on and who to work for. You also decide how hard you work and how you present yourself and your illustrations to the world. There’s a lot about the freelance world you can’t control, but the way you show up and the decisions you make are up to you. Every project you win, every fee you negotiate and every satisfied client is down to your efforts. The more you put in, the more you’ll get out of it.

Expand your skillset

It should go without saying that becoming a professional doesn’t happen by accident: if you’ve studied illustration at university, you’ve had time to experiment and explore the creative part of the job, which is great – but practice, training and development doesn’t end with your degree.

To have a long and successful career, continuous professional development will be an essential part of your daily practice. It’s important to stay current with trends, technology, and techniques to stay relevant in the creative part of the job. There are also many skills worth developing that will play an equally important role in turning your creative skills into a business (We’ll look at communication, negotiation, professionalism, and more later in the book).

Thankfully, we live in a time where we can choose our mentors. We can learn from some of the world’s best creatives and thinkers, and the abundance of resources online means you can give yourself a great education for very little money.

You can pick up lots of useful information from other illustrators by following their careers: Many of them share their knowledge through podcasts, videos, online courses, and blogs. You can find valuable lessons in their mistakes and avoid making the same ones. There are also several online learning platforms that offer incredible classes in everything from basic drawing techniques to 3D animation (We’ll look a little closer at online education and professional development in Chapter 5).

A freelance career is a business, and developing good financial habits and negotiating skills, along with gaining an understanding of legal matters relevant to your career, are all important for success as a freelancer. We’ll look at these in depth from Chapter 10: Money, through to Chapter 14: Licensing, rights, and contracts.

Don’t forget to keep reading. Read a small business book, then another one. Read about sales, marketing, productivity and creativity. Investing in your professional development is never a waste of time, but you can’t become an expert by reading books alone – you also need to put yourself out there, face your fears and learn from experience. I’ve read a lot of books, but I’ve discovered plenty more from trying things out, making mistakes, and trying again.

In Chapter 2, we’ll look at some of the common challenges you may encounter as you take your first steps into freelance illustration.

Key takeaways

• Keep a beginner’s mindset throughout your career.
• Make the most of being a beginner.
• Becoming exceptional requires consistent effort.
• Illustrators who continue to learn and improve can rise above the competition.
• Invest in your creative professional development and other complementary

  skills.