Additional Reading / Chapter six
Building an illustration portfolio
who are you?
seeing is believing
“What is illustration?”
Is no longer a straightforward answer. Not unlike asking what is art? It depends. And depending on an individual’s perspective and context the answers can vary greatly. Changes brought about through cultural and technological adaptation have evolved illustration into a something different, and something more. A better question might be, “What is to you?”
A portfolio can be a temporary destination and goal to take measure of your place in the world. But it’s not a plateau. Better to think of it as a map of the road you are traveling. Or something to document your journey. Postcards of where you have been, and brochures suggesting where you are headed next.
one step at a time
Talking about the business side of illustration can be overwhelming for artists, but it’s easier if you take it one step at a time, as opportunity presents itself, or in bite sized chunks. Whatever metaphor floats your boat, it’ll be less complicated to focus on a single goal as a starting point. For example, ever since I was a kid I wanted to do artwork for Dungeons & Dragons. However, at the time I graduated D&D was not doing well. But there was another game that had become popular which was Magic the Gathering.
So after I graduated I focused on building a portfolio of about a half dozen portfolio images with fantasy themes relative to what was on Magic Cards. Then I sent printed promos of a few of the images and a link to my website to the submissions department. I also found some individual editors names through awards annuals and sent them promos too. And they called me back and I got to do some cards. I’ve done this throughout my career, when I wanted to get into editorial illustration I did a half dozen editorial illustrations and added that as a section of my portfolio. Then I wanted to do corporate, so I did some corporate images. And so on.
This targeted approach can be effective because of the specificity and the relatively limited costs in creating and promoting work this way. The targets and the way to promote today may be different, but the strategy is just as sound. If I was to approach Wizards of the Coast nowadays I would probably redo some of my cards like “Rockslide” in my current style.
show and tell
Start Strong, End Stronger - Begin and end your portfolio with your strongest work, first to engage the audience and later to leave a lasting impression.
Pace Your Book - Like any book you want your portfolio to have an interesting story arc and keep the audience reading.
Tell Your Side Of The Story - It’s show and tell. Include snippets of conversation and exposition so the audience can get to know you, but not too much!
Show Enthusiasm - If you are not excited for your work, who will be. Be your best cheerleader. Fake it until you make it.
A Living Document - A portfolio is a journey not a plateau, it is a snapshot of a moment in time. But time keeps moving forward, and so should your work.
Keep Up To Date - A portfolio is a make work project. If you don’t have new work to show, make up work for yourself. Idle hands are the devil’s playground – so get playing.
Easy To Maintain - Use a platform that is easy to use. Don’t give procrastination any openings.
No Filler - Put only work that you want to do, otherwise guaranteed you’ll draw a bad card. And only put in work that you are happy with. Your work is judged by the weakest link.
A Portfolio Should Draw You In - The goal of a portfolio is to engage an audience. Each showing should be curated for the intended audience.
A Few Case Studies
Eager Beaver
Eager Beaver was excited to get their work out into the real world; they better be, because the world they wanted to work in, entertainment, was fast paced and competitive. A teacher asked Eager Beaver why they wanted to be an artist that worked in commercial art. Eager Beaver answered rather flippantly that they wanted to do art that paid. They regretted that answer later. The real answer was that it was the type of art that had inspired Eager Beaver since they were a child. Art in books, animation, and games excited Eager Beaver and had a huge impact on their desire to appreciate and make art. And they wanted to have the same impact on others.
So Eager Beaver had done their best to acquire the fundamentals of illustration, and a professional process to make it. At the same time they studied the industry, studying the artists they admired, and how those professionals made art. Also, how the industry worked, and how artists got into the industry in the first place. With school ending Eager Beaver was making their first steps forward, they felt excited, but also ill prepared. Eager Beaver knew the first step at least was to build a portfolio. They started there, and would worry about the next steps when they presented themselves.
Eager Beaver’s first love was drawing characters, so that was the heart of their portfolio. An important objective was to diversify their portfolio with a range of characters. If left to their own devices, the Eager Beaver’s portfolio might have been filled only with dragons, but they didn’t want to put all their dragon eggs in one basket. So they included a wide range of characters. In how they looked, and presented: but also genres and backgrounds. Speaking of backgrounds the second half of Eager Beaver’s portfolio focused on backgrounds because they knew this was where most artists got a start, and there was so much more demand for background artists. In time, Eager Beaver learned to love drawing environments as much as they loved drawing characters.
Wanna Bee
Wanna Bee had been certain they knew what they wanted to be in life, an animator. Animation was what inspired them – as a kid Wanna Bee had lived and breathed cartoons. But after their first class in animation they realized it might not be for them. Wanna Bee loved the idea of moving characters, but they didn’t love making them move – it was a grind. In contrast their best friend in the course had taken to animating like a horse takes to water, the friend lived and breathed animating cartoons. But Wanna Bee didn’t. At first they felt a little lost, directionless. But as school progressed and projects and homework piled up they noticed that there were other things that Wanna Bee was good at, some of the things not at all what they expected.
At first they thought maybe storyboarding or comics would be their jam. But both had a level of repetition that felt like a grind to Wanna Bee as well. Did they really want an art career that felt that way? Wanna Bee suspected they would burn out; if they could get started at all, it would be easiest to avoid the pain. But Wanna Bee noticed they really enjoyed designing characters for other things. To be put on stuff, or to sell things. And it didn’t have to be all commercialized. There was important ideas in the world that needed to be said, and made up characters were often more convincing at saying them. Wanna Bee also learned that many artists in animation just made art. And then others, like their friend in class made them move.
So Wanna Bee built their portfolio around the idea of characters with a purpose. Purposeful characters that represented products and ideas. Characters that told (short) stories and represented more than just how cool they looked – but looked cool too!
Know It Owl
Know It Owl loved information. Loved looking for it and finding it. Loved organizing, arranging it, and sharing information. Sometimes, at a party for instance, this might come off as boring, a bit egg headed if you will. But in the right situations their love of information wasn’t just a skill it was a talent. In art school Know It Owl excelled because of their ability and interest in researching. It made the foundations of their work deeper, and the fundamentals stronger.
Know It Owl came to learn that they loved projects that gave them the time and support to dig deeper, to search for and discover truths. And they had learned how to tell them. It reminded them of the party metaphor, Know It Owl learned that their art can make what they say interesting. If they draw the ideas with passion and exaggerate and dramatizes the presentation through fundamentals such as color, character, and visual storytelling they can be the popular kid at the party. And other people will hang on their every word – or picture to be specific.
Know It Owl is not alone in this realization, other classmates have moved away from making art and became interested in designing it. Their interest had evolved into being a designer. They heard an alumni mention that he called himself a designer because it offered more opportunity. Even though most of his work would be categorized as illustration, as a designer he had freedom to move outside of that narrow classification and be in the position to do the classifying himself. Know It Owl loved the idea, and put together a portfolio that showed their work in context. Always in a design layout, or mocked up on a product or an application, designing a place for their art.
Bear Minimum
To be honest, Bear had went to art school because they were not sure where else they should go. They liked to make art, more than doing math that was for sure. Bear hoped that at art school they would find a direction, or at least wander a little less. Their parents certainly hoped that would happen! But after four years they had mostly discovered what they did not want to do, not specifically what they should be doing. Their teacher said this was a good thing, they were young and had time to find themselves. School had given them some maps to follow. And that was the joy of a creative life, the journey and discovery.
Bear would have preferred a bit more certainty. But they did have some bread crumbs to follow, projects that had went somewhere, directions in their work that they could follow. Most of all they had started to awaken to what they didn’t want to do. They didn’t want to work in a company; and did well when they had the opportunity to work independently. They knew other professional artists had made a go of doing a similar thing with their illustration career, Bear just needed time to figure out what worked for them.
At the end of the school year they built a portfolio out of the bits that was good enough. It fit the bare minimum of what was suggested for a portfolio, about twelve pages – 6 spreads. Bear also included their sketchbook and development, they had heard that artists often found their way by showing their sketchbook so others might see what the artist was missing. After school was all done, Bear planned to travel a bit, if they could swing it. Learn about themselves, and where their path might lead – by living it. Afterwards, Bear planned to get a job that payed the bills, but didn’t suck the creative life out of them. So Bear could still do their art in their spare time. Which, in time, would hopefully be most of their time.
A Living Document
A portfolio should be forever evolving. Changing as our inner self grows through experience, experimentation, and practice. Or adapting to the world on the outside as technology and popular culture inexorably transforms it.
It doesn’t have to be big changes. It can be a natural and organic process and done at whatever pace we can keep up with. We can fear change but it’s only a big problem if it is sudden or unexpected. Having a portfolio that is a living, growing document will give our art purpose and forward momentum, and put us in a better position to absorb any future shocks.
Update regularly and set a schedule of when you will add new work to your portfolio. Better yet, make it a part of your social media lifestyle, and as your own story grows, your work can take on a life of its own as well.
Ease of Use
Even when we embrace change it can be difficult to maintain if it is even the slightest bit inconvenient. Find a medium that is as easy as possible to use, update, and maintain.
Keep your file size as small as possible, I like the largest side of any image to be about 1920 pixels. I think a MacBook is about 2560 pixels wide maximum.
Adobe Portfolio and Behance are part of your Adobe software package and are professional looking and relatively easy to use. A dedicate professional Instagram account is effective in presenting work and super easy to use regularly – addictive even.
Focus on the Work
A portfolio is a curated selection of work, a gallery exhibition in virtual space.
Choose a platform and design your portfolio so that the work is center stage. Choose a design that is unobtrusive and lightly frames and organizes your content, don’t let it upstage it!
Try to showcase a bare minimum of a 12-16 images. A bit more is better to give a healthy sampling of your work. But no filler! Try not to fill your portfolio with work that is not up to your standards. Or shows work you’re not particularly interested in doing. Also try to show the range of your work and be wary of too much repetition.
Pace the work, one system that is recommended is a post and rail method. Put the strongest works at regular intervals like the posts in a fence. To strengthen and support the rest of the work. Start your portfolio with your strongest image. And end strong too.
Tell a Story
A portfolio can have a unique personality, an attitude even. It should be interesting in some way, perhaps exciting, thought provoking, beautiful, informative, or fun. It shouldn’t be taken for granted or just thrown together if we can help it.
Consider what story your work is telling about you, and what experience you are presenting with your portfolio. Organize your work like chapters in a story – your story. You can arrange them in categories based on themes. That way you will clearly introduce what you are interested in doing, and others can more easily find what they might be interested in from your work.
Your first portfolio can start as a short, improvised story. Telling the story of where you are now, and suggest where you might be headed. And as that story is written over time , pages and chapters can be added to fill out the narrative.
Sooner, is better, than Later
It seems like the human condition, especially an artist’s condition, is that we are forever in pursuit of perfection – or running from imperfection. We perpetually feel like we are not ready, or our work is not where we want it to be.
Here is a little industry secret … you will never be ready, and your work will never be where you want it to be! We humans are purpose built to never be satisfied, as though it is hard wired to keep us on our toes, and forever striving for more. So start showing your portfolio right now, there is never going to be a better time – certainly not a perfect time.
It’s also good practice. Portfolio building is like any other skill, it needs iterative practice to get good at.
Humble Pie
Numerous poems, films, songs have been written about artists and their craft. How many have been written about plumbers or accountants? However, the reality and life of a designer may be more closely recognizable to that of the plumber or an accountant. As we likewise offer a service and a product just like those more mundane pursuits.
Art has been so heavily romanticized and idealized that it can be detrimental to the creative health, and pocketbook of an artist.
Every business professional follows similar processes, including artists. Study business. Read books on it, check out some tutorials, watch videos, take courses, or observe and consider how your favorite businesses work and succeed.
Just Business
An illustrator or designer in Canada is viewed as a sole proprietorship. This is an automatic designation once you start receiving payment for work performed or products sold. My dad ran a business when I was a kid. He sold, installed, and repaired overhead doors. I run my business exactly the same as he did. I sell, create, and license artwork.
Like my dad, this is the way I do business:
- I network and market my work.
- I quote jobs that come my way.
- I contract to do work.
- I perform a service and/or provide a product.
- I charge based on usage, not only by the hour.
- I invoice the client and do the bookkeeping.
- I make sure I get paid.
- I deduct the expenses from what I pay in taxes.
- Repeat.
Getting to Know You
A portfolio is not only about the images, illustration is a service industry so it is about the person making the art too. Your art tells quite a bit about you. What you are interested in, your creative range, your attention to detail, what you value, and such. This helps others decide if they want to work with you, but there is still a question of trust, I want your work, but do I want to work with you? Trust can be built by showing your process for some projects. Choose some case studies to show your creative process and how you think and iterate creatively.
Finally, don’t forget to include the basics, an about page with contact information. Also consider adding a personal statement, share something about yourself that tells something about your person (not something personal).