Category Archives: Other Artists

Illustrator Will Terry On The State Of The Illustration Biz

My friend and fellow illustrator Bob Ostrom pointed me to this video from illustrator Will Terry, who takes to YouTube with some candid thoughts on the current state of the illustration business. It’s long (49 minutes) but a must-see for anyone interested in trying to make it as self-employed illustrator. (Is there any other kind?)

Terry has been freelancing for twenty years, most of it in publishing and advertising, and has worked on thousands of projects over that time. Over the years he’s seen much of the market erode and he does a good job of explaining several reasons why things are much tougher now than they were when he started in the biz. He is also hopeful, ending the video with some inspiring thoughts on where to go from here. I really appreciate his honesty and candor, and I found many of his closing statements to be inspiring.

In my fifteen-plus years of illustrating I’ve only dabbled in publishing off-and-on so my vantage point is a little different, but by and large I think his observations are spot on. The times they are a-changin’ and many of the traditional methods of making money as an illustrator are paying diminishing returns. Some well-worn paths are getting craggy and overgrown, and new trails will have to be blazed. To stay successful we are going to have to be more saavy, more passionate, and more entrepreneurial.

Give it a listen, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Oh, and after you watch the video be sure to check out Will Terry’s blog. There’s some good stuff there.

This and That 6/11/12

A few tidbits from around the webisphere:

• VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer is coming to a pair of headphones near you with The Phil Vischer Podcast. He discusses pop culture, theology, and Christian living with equal parts insight and silliness. I listened to Episode 2 today at the gym. It took a couple of minutes to get going but there was some really great stuff. Highly recommended.

• If anyone has a handle on storytelling it’s the folks at Pixar. Here’s a list of 22 Rules of Storytelling from Pixar artist Emma Coats.

• Illustrator and all-around-nice-guy Bob Ostrom is looking for artists, writers, publisher, art directors, designers and anyone else involved in children’s publishing to feature on his blog. If that’s you, let him know. I don’t know what his selection criteria is but you never know unless you try. While you’re there, check out Bob’s recent blog post, “How To Illustrate Children’s Books – A Backstage Pass”.

• FreelanceSwitch.com has a list of 12 Breeds Of Clients And How To Work With Them. An oldie but a goodie, full of great advice for the creative professional.

• Recently I updated my list of Recommended Resources on Amazon.com. (Full disclosure: If you click and then buy, Amazon will drop a few coins into my piggy bank).

• Finally, a short montage of characters created by the great Orson Welles. Good inspiration for character design sketching:

“Character Mentor” by Tom Bancroft

"Character Mentor" by Tom Bancroft

Former Disney animator and character designer Tom Bancroft has released his second art book, “Character Mentor: Learn by Example to Use Expressions, Poses, and Staging to Bring Your Characters to Life”. His first book, “Creating Characters with Personality”, was an excellent primer on character design. This follow-up takes things a step further, focusing on how to add life to your characters once you’ve designed them. I just got my copy (I downloaded the Kindle version) and give it a big thumbs up. It covers some important ground that most “how to draw” books gloss over or skip altogether.

You can order a copy of “Character Mentor” here. If you want to see some other art books and resources I recommend, check out my Amazon.com store.

(Full disclosure: If you click from this blog over to Amazon and then make a purchase, a tiny percentage will be dropped into my piggy bank – no extra cost to you.)

Showing Some Interest In Pinterest

Pinterest logo

I decided to join the cool kids and give this Pinterest thing a try. I must say its a lot more fun than I expected. I don’t know if I’ll stay with it long-term but for now I’m having a blast scouring the web for artistic goodies to pin to my boards. Although it’s a bit of a time suck it’s really put some fresh wind in my creative sails. Hard to put a value on that.

Heck, I might even start making a habit of scouring Pinterest for a few minutes each morning to help get the gears turning before I start my daily warm-up sketches.

So far I’ve collected artwork from some insanely talented artists into categories such as “Character Design Inspiration”, “Toy Design Inspiration”, and “Illustration Inspiration”. Whenever possible I’m grabbing the images from the original source so as not to trample on anyone’s copyrights. I’ve also started a portfolio board of my own work, and I have a board collecting trailers from some of my favorite movies.

Check it out on my Pinterest page.

(EDIT: Sadly I’ve had to delete my Inspiration boards on Pinterest. More info here.)

I’ve Been Interviewed On DesignMontage.com

Design Montage logo

Australian designer Jenica Smith publishes designmontage.com, a website which brings together an eclectic mix of creative goodies from all corners of the internet – design, illustration, photography, animation, and the like. She’s just posted a short interview with me about my illustration work and career. I encourage all my blog readers to take a poke around the site. There’s some really neat stuff, and I’m very flattered to be included.

 

New Original Comic Strip Art For My Studio

The Brillian Mind of Edison LeeFor several years I’ve enjoyed being a member of the National Cartoonists Society. Two or three times a year I travel across the Midwest to spend a couple of days hanging out with other members of my chapter. You can take this to the bank: Getting a few cartoonists together over drinks is never dull.

One of our members is John Hambrock. His strip, “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee”, is relatively new (it debuted in 2006) and is syndicated by King Features. In 2009 the strip was nominated by the National Cartoonists Society for Best Comic Strip. John’s a terrific guy and I’ve enjoyed getting to know him.

Recently we swapped some cartoon-related items. For his part John sent me an original “Edison Lee” strip, and I definitely got the better part of the bargain. I’ve just framed it and very soon it will be hanging proudly in my studio. I couldn’t locate the final published strip online but if you click the photo you should be able to read the enlarged version. Hope it gives you a good chuckle.

If you still read a daily newspaper and if “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee” doesn’t appear in yours, contact your local editor to request it. If you’d rather read your comics online you can follow “Edison Lee” by subscribing to King Features’ Daily Ink service. Or, you can read a collection of strips in book form by ordering “The Edison Files: Notes From The Lab”.

See You At The Expo!

 

Tonight I’m flying to California for the CTN Animation Expo. Can’t wait! Before I leave I wanted to post a few items of interest:

1. Update on my freelancing presentation.

I’ll be giving a talk at the Expo on Saturday, November 19, 4:30pm, called “Be Your Own Boss: Freelancing Tips and Tricks”. In an earlier blog post I said the talk would be 30 minutes. It will actually be an hour and fifteen minutes. Tickets to my talk are sold out but I’m told that when my presentation is over I can move everyone over to another room in the building (not sure which one yet) for an ongoing Q&A. If you weren’t able to get a seat at my talk you can still catch the Q&A. Just wait around outside the Exec Boardoom at around 5:45pm so you can join us as we file out.

2. Check out Stephen Silver’s new “Posebook” app.

Speaking of the CTN Expo, the amazing character designer Stephen Silver will have a booth there again this year. He’s got a new project that I think is pretty neat: He’s creating a new series of iPhone/iPad app for artists called Posebook. It’s a collection of professional costumed models in over 2,000 full-body poses (no nudes), hands, and close-up facial expressions for sketching. There’s also 6 instructional videos included as well as 25 sketches from some top character designers in the biz. That’s a lot of goodies for $9.99.

The first volume, “Males”, has just been released on iTunes. The second volume, “Females”, is coming soon. I recently downloaded the app and can’t wait to give it a try. Once the dust settles around here I plan to post a review along with a sketch or two. But from what I can tell so far it’s a great product.

 

3. I’m being interviewed on “On The Box”.

Several years ago I illustrated a cartoon Gospel tract for the ministry of Living Waters which has consistently been one of their best sellers – over 5 million copies have been printed in English and it has been translated into 20 languages. Last year, with the help of some talented animators I produced an animated version of the tract which to date has had over 300,000 hits on YouTube.

While I’m in California Living Waters has graciously invited me  to do a short video interview on their webcast, “On The Box”. It will air live on Thursday, November 17 (11:30am Pacific) and then be uploaded to their YouTube channel for future viewing.

Gotta go pack my bags. I’ll be back in the studio on Monday, November 21.

Upcoming Events for Twin Cities Cartoonists

This weekend there will be a lot of neat goings-on for Minnesota comic book and cartoon fans.

 

 

For starters, the North Central Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society will be holding it’s annual get-together here in Minneapolis. As part of the event, NCS president and local illustrator Tom Richmond has put together a special event for the public on Friday, October 14. Things kick off at 6:30pm when cartoonist Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) will give a public lecture about his work. Then at 7:30pm there will be a panel discussion with Q&A featuring several professional cartoonists from around the Midwest. Both events will take place at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in Auditorium 150.

 

 

 

Then on Saturday October 15, comic book creators and fans from all over the Midwest and beyond will be gathering at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds for FallCon, Minnesota’s annual fall comic book convention. As usual I’ll have a table so stop by and say hi. The National Cartoonists Society will also have a table so you’ll have a rare opportunity to meet several professional cartoonists from around the region.

 

 

Finally, while you’re at FallCon MAD Magazine’s Tom Richmond will be selling copies of his brand new book The MAD Art of Caricature, hot off the presses. My copy hasn’t arrived in the mail yet but from everything I’ve seen it looks like it will be one very thorough, very helpful book. Tom’s been leaking snippets here and there on his blog, and you can tell from the above video that it’s no lightweight volume. There’s a zillion “how to draw” books out there, thankfully it looks like this one will rise well above the norm. Tom has a reputation for not cutting corners and this looks like a top-notch effort. If you can’t make it to FallCon you can order copies of the book here.

Local Art Exhibit & Book Signing by Hollywood Character Designer Chris Ayers

I should have posted this earlier this week but over the last few days I was slammed with deadlines. Better late than never.

Chris Ayers is a Minnesota native currently working as a character designer and concept artist in Hollywood. He’s done work on Men in Black II, Star Trek and The Fantastic Four and is currently designing characters for an upcoming Dreamworks animation project.

Chris is probably most well-known for his Daily Zoo books. In 2005 he was diagnosed with leukemia and as part of his recovery he challenged himself to draw an animal a day. He kept it up for over two years. The sketches were compiled into two books with a third in the works, plus a fun children’s drawing/activity book called My Daily Zoo. As for the leukemia there’s good news: Chris has been in remission now for over five years.

An art show of Chris’s work recently opened at the Owatonna Arts Center. Chris will be there in person later today (Saturday, Sept. 10) from 1:00-4:00pm. At 2:00 he’ll be giving a slideshow presentation to discuss his work followed by a book signing. The exhibit runs through Sept. 25. If you live in or near the Twin Cities I’d encourage you to check it out.

Book Sale

I’ve got a pretty large collection of art books in my studio library. Too many in fact. They’re nice to have and inspiring to look at but the reality is there’s a large chunk of them that I never, ever pull off the shelf and thumb through. So I’ve decided its time to start selling a few.

I’m starting with some of the more expensive ones but plan to add more modestly priced books the near future. You can view a live update of everything I have available on my Amazon.com storefront: http://www.amazon.com/shops/cedricstudio

I’ve tried to undercut other Amazon sellers whenever possible. If I’ve got a like-new copy I’m not going to sell it for cheaper than someone selling a raggedy book full of highlighting and coffee stains. But within reason I’m willing to be the lowest price. For the moment at least buying from me will get you the best deal (though you can check for sure by clicking on the item and looking at the various “Used and New” offers). Current titles include:

  • To Infinity and Beyond! The Story of Pixar Animation Studios
  • Paper Dreams: The Art and Artists of Disney Storyboards
  • Rockwell On Rockwell: How I Make A Picture by Norman Rockwell
  • Don Bluth’s Art Of Storyboard
  • MAD’s Greatest Artists: The Completely Mad Don Martin (2 Volume Set)
  • Puss N Boots (illustrated by Andreas Deja, signed limited edition)
  • Peter Pan Sketchbook (Walt Disney Sketchbook Series, limited edition)
  • Little Mermaid Sketchbook (Walt Disney Sketchbook Series, limited edition)
  • Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation
  • The Art of Monster’s Inc.
  • Rough Beasts 1 (sketchbook of Bill Halliar)
  • The Alchemy of Animation: Making an Animated Film in the Modern Age
  • Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm
  • Modern Masters Vol. 1: Alan Davis
  • Modern Masters Vol. 6: Arthur Adams
  • Leonard Maltin’s Animation Favorites from the National Film Board of Canada (DVD)
  • Out of the Picture: Art from the Outside Looking In by Chris Wedge
  • Amistad: A Celebration of the Film

I won’t be updating the above list on this blog but if you just visit my storefront you can see the most up-to-date list of what I have for sale. Most books are in very good condition but if not I’ve noted any tears, underlining, etc. in the product descriptions. If you decide to buy one, I hope you enjoy reading it. I can tell you from personal experience that just leaving it on the shelf to soak in through osmosis doesn’t work very well.

Happy shopping!

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(952) 412-7686
cedric@cedricstudio.com

About Me

My name is Cedric Hohnstadt. I own an illustration studio where I specialize in designing appealing characters and products. My clients tell me I'm reliable, professional, and bring fresh ideas to the table. More info...

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I illustrated this popular cartoon gospel tract. Over 5 million copies have been printed in twenty languages. Read it here:
freecartoontract.com

...or watch the animated version I produced:

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