Work Related : Some Tips for New Illustrators

As a local illustrator, I hate to accept that most local clients/publishers are putting such a low-fees/budget/price on illustration works. And because I wanted to help the industry, I usually agree on the pricing even though I know that I'm also jeopardizing the small illustrator's industry as well. I wish they know that I actually put much higher service fees to other international clients - as my time and effort worth. And the reason I agree to work with the local industry is just because I wanted to help and be a part of the growing industry itself. 

But sometimes it is just not worth my time and effort.

Sometimes I am just so frustrated T^T

Here are some notes for budding illustrators :

Don't let them give the price of your work - it will demotivate you.

• Ask them their budget on each illustration or spend the time for the illustration with the same amount of budget they have stated before agreeing to the project.
• Or, give your service charge in advance : per illustration/per project/per day/per hour so they will know upfront.
• Please don't let them give the price for your work, you are no longer a student waiting for the teacher to grade you. You are adding values to their project, appreciate your time and effort. You decide your price or they decide their budget.

Before agreeing to a project - make everything clear.

• What they want? Which style - vector? hand-drawn? 
• Rough price for each illustration - simple items, complicated item, full poster, icon
• Make sure both sides agree on it
• Send them an invoice 
• Start working

Set timeline - try to follow the timeline 

• If you need more time, tell them
• If you can't submit in time, tell them
• If you can't no longer listen to their never-ending amendments, tell them
• If you think you are not up for it, tell them
• This is a field that need your most contribution and creative ideas, if you are not fully up for it - I can't imagine how your artwork will turn up. So don't be afraid to reject a project, or a client.

Your client is not always right - even how professional you are trying to be.

• I know they are paying you, but if your instinct is saying that they are evil - don't work with them. Ha.
• People who are paying you to work with you is not your boss. Imagine them as a working partner. You want to feel full-filled and proud after you finish a project, because those works are your babies - and you are passing your babies to your clients and they will grow up together. So your clients are not your bosses - make sure you work with the right people.
• I met super-manipulative evil clients before. So I'm picky nowadays.

Know the price, know your price.

• Basic way if you don't know how to name your service price. Your basic monthly salary, divide by your working days, you'll get your daily salary. So there you'll get the basic salary for your 8-hour working time - don't let it go lower than that.
• Research, experiment on several projects with various clients, you'll get the rough idea on how the local pricing goes here. 
• It really not worth it - trust me, I'm doing this just for passion and charity - to help the industry and to learn. Don't be an illustrator working for local clients - work your way up, and soon you'll work with clients worth your time and effort. 
• My cheapest fees I got was RM 12 per illustration, my highest fees I got for a full illustration was RM 12,000. So, yes, work yourself up and choose your clients.

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Note : Most local clients will have a REALLY low budget, don't expect an easy life out of it. They will negotiate to get a lower and lower price than you should get paid. And you will feel devalued and under-appreciated. If they are really on a tight budget, you can suggest them to download images from Freepik or subsribe to Shutterstock, by doing that they can't demotivated your burning passion and waste your time.

Or if it is not for money, just do it for your passion and you know that it will make you feel fulfilled afterwards. You know they are using you anyway, make sure you'll have a fun time while doing the project and you will feel proud and want to post it in your Behance and Dribbble later - if not then it is actually not worth your time :D

Singapore Trip 2 : Things I Bought from the Trip 01

I woke up at 6.15 am, much later than I planned the previous night. I was having vertigo for the pass 5 days so I decided to meet a doctor last night just to get some advise on the matter because I was planning to start my running training soon. It's almost around 1 month before my 21km run. But the doctor advised me to just stay at home and rest for a few more days before I start my training. Just to avoid any accident :o

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Anyway, I wanted to post some items that I bought from Public Garden's event at Singapore that I joined last 2 weekends. This sticker set were made by Naela Ali, an Indonesian illustrator that I've been stalking from her IG. She uses water colour as her main medium - and I like her soft subtle way of colouring things. The ones that I never wanted to try because it isn't really my style, but still things that are awfully nice to see and collect! :D I personally like the japanese foods sets from her illustration. Not quite liking the style of her other illustrations like cats and people and random shots, so I just purchased this set only. 

This sticker pack costed $10 - converted into RM is around RM 30.
That means this is the most expensive item I bought in Singapore during my trip :D

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I tried several times to repost these images, but blogger seems to auto-compress all images and I can't get sharp images. So I'm a bit annoyed. I managed to post it into my pinterest and copy the image's link to repost half of the images. While another half are still a bit blurry :

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She hand-cut these stickers, but unlike my OCD-ed cut with exact spacing between all items and their borders, these are more messy. Some I can't even ignore - like the ChocoBaby box and Milk Bottle with a cat cartoon on it? *see image below. Af might roll his eyes over my OCD-ness, but well you have no idea how people like us feel about this yo :D

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Anyway, these sticker pack is my favorite so far :

Note : I did bought this pack from his boyfriend *I assumed it was his boyfriend, because she was entertaining other customers when I went to her booth on the last day. Didn't found any courage to ask for her autograph tho :D

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Work Related : All the nerdy stuffs as designer & illustrator

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Stickers :

Here are my latest sticker packs that I manages to illustrate, print, cut, pack and put up for sale up in my Etsy. I personally like the geeky light bulbs and also the mini ESKP by Af *because it is square and mini and so cute.

I managed to cut and pack these stickers during Af's game play of 'Until Dawn'.

Look at these geeky light bulbs ! :D

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Spotted :

I'm a Backpacker Korea by Halian Azurin at our local Popular bookstore :

I can't wait to find the Europe version in the bookstore.
Note : And I'm in the process of doing the illustrations for another new upcoming book ! Wihuu. 

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Branding :

Two big branding project I did for a startup called Bfab.my & a teaching place in Bangi called Didikan Sakura. Ditto Hello Kitty Gourmet Cafe and Begadang Backpackers last year. I am really happy these full-package projects turned out fine. I created almost everything from the scratch T^T I can finally tell myself that what I've been teaching myself in becoming both designer and illustrator is going quite well. Who would have thought T^T

For all self-learners, don't give up, don't compare yourself with others, and don't feel demotivated. If you really like to learn new stuffs, just do it. One day, your efforts in learning those skills will pay off. You might take several years or even lifetime, tapi takpaaa, as long as you can still grow :D I still got a long way to go, but I'm really happy with where I am now. Imagine from that geeky IT girl, to this. Now I can create all those beautiful colourful things using graphics compared to using boring codes.

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Review : Apple Machines - for a designer

I'm an avid Apple user, from my first iPod shuffle, to iPod Touch, to iPhone 4S, and also my first Macbook Pro to iMac *previous office and Macbook Air *current office. It's fair to say that I can roughly summarize the machines that I've been using in this post. Because I am still considering which machine to buy to replace my dying Macbook Pro.

I'm going to spend some money on this so I need to do a huge amount of research before making a decision. So the research begins ! :

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Macbook Pro :

Based on 2010 version, 2.4Ghz Intel Core i5, 15 inch, Snow Leopard OS

Pro - 

• Powerful - I have no problems on any designing softwares I used before.
• The 15-inch screen size is big enough for designing. 
• I just love it. 

Cons - 

• Ridiculously heavy - including the wires and adaptor might take around 4kg on your back. So it is not suitable for frequent travel. Not quite sure the latest one, that one time I tried to pick it up at the Apple store, the alarm went off =.=' 
• Super expensive - The one I used was is around RM6k in 2010, the latest one is much pricier. 
• After the 3rd year, I had a massive problem - the blue-screen death, so I changed my hard-drive, downgraded it and it was okay. This is the 5th year, it starts to go black almost all the time nowadays - for any reason. 
• Only 2 USB ports

The rationale in buying this :

Maybe I can afford to buy the 13-inch one because it is powerful enough for my freelance works, portable and easy to bring to places - *hello Japan! But it is around RM5k, quite small for any designing works. Maybe?

Current price range - RM 4, 999 to RM 11,299

Buy here.

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Macbook Air :

Based on 2014 version, 1.4Ghz Intel Core i5, 13 inch, Yosemite OS

Pro - 

• Really light, it's portable and easy to bring to places and meetings.
• The battery can be up to 9 hours :D - I don't have to bring back the wires and adaptor back home everyday to use at night after work

Cons - 

• Slow, especially when I do digital illustration on Photoshop, most of vector works on Illustrator works fine. Perhaps you might want to find a lighter substitute application for digital illustration on App Store. 
• Quite small, not quite suitable for designing except if you have extra extended monitor. 
• Only 2 USB ports

The rationale in buying this :
No, it's not for designing. It is too slow, too sluggish for my likings. Maybe one day I will decide to be a full-time writer and not do any designing anymore, I might buy one because it is so slim and light. It's great for everyday life, but definitely not for designing purpose.

Current price range -  RM 4,099 to RM 5,449

Buy here.

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iMac

Based on 2014 version, 1.4Ghz Intel Core i5, 21 inch, Yosemite OS

Pro - 

• The size, it's huge. I love designing on iMac, I can see everything and use many artboards for designing at once.
• Got 4 USB ports. 

Cons -

• Not portable.
• A bit slow on Maverick OS, haven't tried El Capitan yet. Ditto on Photoshop, and huge AI files. 

The rationale in buying this :
If I want to work as a full-time freelance designer and manage to find several long-term contacts with clients, I'll make a nice studio at home and having this machine would be great. But for now, I'm searching for something portable.

Current price range - RM 4,999 to RM 10,399 

Buy here.

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You might want to upgrade these :

• Apple Care for another 3 years : Around RM 850
• Time Capsule 2 TB : RM 1,329
• Wacom Tablet : RM 699 +
• Monthly Adobe CC : Annual plan , RM 155 per month for all app.

So yes, I know we need to spend some money on the machine and softwares before even starting to make our investment pay-off. But, that's the life of a designer lah, if you choose to be one. And perhaps you choose to use PC and windows, the powerful machine will usually cost some money as well. Did you checked the price for Alienware? - everything is RM5k ++

This, will make sense if you are an active freelance designer/illustrator and in need of a powerful  machine in making extra money rather than waiting for our monthly salary from the formal working job. But if you don't want to work outside of the working hours, you don't have to spend so much of personal machines lah, untuk apa kan, membazir.

What do you think?

Work Related : Vectober

Hey, hey, October ended fast!

Did you promised yourself to create something everyday in October for Inktober? Well, here is my version instead of using inks, I used vector because that's what I'm creating everyday. I hardly use pen these days. I posted it up in my Behance here.

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The Sailor Soldiers :

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My everyday items :

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Fitness, health, and random stuffs :

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How was your Inktober?