Sean is a freelance illustrator, concept artist, author and teacher living in Florida, United States. He has worked in the entertainment industry for nearly fifteen years.
The bulk of his career has been spent as a video game concept artist, working on such titles as “Dungeons & Dragons Online,” and “The Lord of the Rings Online”. His freelance client list includes, among many others: Legendary Pictures (Guillermo Del Toro), Wizards of the Coast, LEGO, EA Games and ImagineFX magazine.
His work has been chosen for the past seven Spectrum annuals and has also been featured in ImagineFX magazine, Kotaku.com, EXPOSÉ, and Prime.
He is now teaching at Ringling College of Art in Florida and he also occasionally runs his own 6-week long intensive online seminars on the subject of “world-building for concept artists and illustrators.”
The production of his illustrated fantasy book, “Gateway: The Book of Wizards,” was funded by a successful 2012 Kickstarter campaign. The book was a primer for a fantasy world centered on a vast city called “Gateway”, which he has been working on in his sketchbooks for over 15 years. Recently with his friends, he has also produced a board game: Gateway: Uprising.
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Get in touch with Sean
- Website: http://seanandrewmurray.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanandrewmurray/
- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SeanAndrewMurray
- Sean’s newest Kickstarter Campaign – support it now – Sketchbook Volume 2
Key Takeaways
“Trust your own vision, trust your own ideas. You don’t need to worry about someone else’s property … even if they are similar, nobody can create Gateway as good as I can as long as it’s coming from an honest place”
- Sean advises to first decide – do you want to create your own world or work for somebody else?
- If somebody else, then adjust your portfolio to that so if they are about to hire you, they will see it’s good for them
- If you want to create your own world, start small, start somewhere, draw in sketchbook … it took him 10 years to create concepts for Gateway
- In world-building, don’t force it to existence, let it evolve – few characters and a spaceship – start small, somewhere, draw a map with villages, mountains, etc. it gets you thinking, but you have to give it time to evolve
- No. 1 advice for worlds building. In order to create compelling worlds, you gotta have passion for your own world = our world – passionate about learning, going to places, cities, reading books about other subjects, going to museums. You have to be multiple things – architect, merchant, city planner, biologist, etc. – you need to keep your mental library vast to keep your inspiration running
- Sean wishes he knew what his real value as an artist/concept artist is. How much of a disservice you do to yourself if you work on a job for less money than you are worth. Artists tend to be apologetic and nervous when somebody pushes price down. It’s dangerous and destructive attitude to have, especially as a freelancer. In a studio you got all the ‘hidden costs’ covered, but as a freelancer you got to cover it and also bill for the time when you don’t have work.
- Billing a client on hourly basis is tricky. You should bill per project – it’s motivation for you but also satisfaction for the client
Resources mentioned
- University where Sean teaches now: Ringling College
- Art tools:
- Mentioned artists and companies
- Sean’s studio: Fish Wizard Games
- Gateway Uprising Board Game
- Sean’s fav character from Gateway – Cardinal Birmbauer – half man/ half fish
- Books
- Sean’s books
- Wayne Barlowe – Expedition
- Barlowe’s Inferno
- James Gurney – Dinotopia
- Simon Stalenhag – Things from the Flood – great world building project
Special thanks to Sean for joining me today. See you next time!
All artworks by Sean Murray, used with permission
Episode Transcript
Announcer
Creative, artistic, happy! That’s you. There are endless possibilities for living a creative life. So let’s inspire each other. Art Side of Life interviews with Iva.
Iva Mikles
Hello, everyone and welcome to the next episode, the Art Side of Life where it’s all about how you can turn your creative passion into a profession. My name is Iva, and my guest today is a freelance illustrator, concept artist, author, and teacher living now in Florida, United States. He has worked in entertainment industry for nearly 15 years, and the bulk of his career has been spent as a video game concept artists working on such titles as Dungeons and Dragons Online, and the Lord of the Rings Online. His freelance client lists include among many others, Legendary Pictures guild model thorough Wizards of the Coast Lego EA games and imaging Fe exam magazine. His work has been chosen for past seven spectrum annuals and he has been featured in imaging ethics magazine to kotaku.com expos a and prime. He’s now teaching in Ringling College of Art in Florida, and he also occasionally Iran’s his own six weeks long, intensive online seminars on the subject of world building for concept artists and illustrators, the production of his illustrated fantasy book getaway. The book of Vizard was funded by a successful 2012 Kickstarter campaign, and the book was primary for a fantasy world centered on a vast city called getaway, which he has been working on in his sketchbooks for over 15 years. Recently with his friends, he has also produced the board game getaway uprising. So check it out. So please welcome Sean Murray, and let’s get through the interview. Welcome, everyone to the next episode of Art Side of Life. And I’m super happy to have my guest here, Sean. Hi.
Sean Murray
Hi, how are you? Great. And
Iva Mikles
I’m really happy that you’re here because you have so much experience in the artistic area. And I’m really happy that the show will share some insights and maybe some tips. And let’s start with your background, then if you can share what was your creative outlet as a child?
Sean Murray
Oh, well, so I came from a family of athletes, and we’re everyone, I have lots of brothers and sisters, and almost all of them were very athletic. I was not I you know, my father would take me out into the backyard and throw the baseball around with me and I would sort of duck you know. So, you know, so, you know, it was pretty clear early on, you know, that I had some different ideas. So I would kind of basically sequester myself in my room and draw a lot. Not because, you know, I didn’t want to hang out with my family. I love my family. But, you know, I was the only one really had that inclination, the artistic inclination at the time. And, you know, my father tells me that my first drawing was on the underside of the dining room table with a box of crayons. And we had a table for a long time. And I think I was said, I was like, barely three, three years old. So yeah, I mean, I read a lot of comic strips and, and, and watched a lot of cartoons and you know, Star Wars and transformers and things like that, as a child were hugely influential on me. I used to carry around a clipboard in, in elementary school with stacks of paper and I withdraw my own comics, comic characters, robots, things like that. And you know, you know, so that that kind of idea where I always had a place to go for myself, you know, mentally in my imagination you know, basically just meant that I always had a either a stack of paper or a sketchbook with me wherever I went, and that remains true to this day. You know, in high school I you know, met up and hung out with some other like minded individuals, we were all kind of into art and role playing games so played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, you know, and Warhammer and stuff through junior high in high school. We used to make up our own video games and draw them out on on craft paper. So it actually a few of my friends from that time period Well, first of all, I’m still friends with a lot of those guys from from my hometown. But many of them went into video games as as a career, including myself. So, you know, you know, I think I was thinking about this the other day, you know, I think my, my family always sort of regarded me as kind of the odd one, you know, and family. You know, it didn’t, you know, making me feel unwelcome. But I certainly was the I was sort of like a fascination to them, you know, like, where did this this one come from? You know,
Iva Mikles
what do the games enjoy? Yeah,
Sean Murray
exactly. So, you know, but, but I always had their support, which I think was, is really the key, right? Maybe they didn’t understand everything that I was into, but but, but they were always supportive of me, and, and, you know, interested in hearing what, what was going on in my life, you know, and that carried through to college as well, you know, you know, my both of my parents supported me in majoring in art. The one thing though, that I sort of did as sort of a hedging a bit on on on that was that I went to Syracuse University, which was, which had a great illustration program has a great illustration to our program, but it’s also full university. So, you know, you know, if the whole art thing didn’t work out, you know, I could, you know, there were some, perhaps some other options that I could explore if I needed to, but thankfully, I found my calling, while I was there. And I studied illustration. But realize that what I wanted to do and what my passion was, eventually going to be with concept art. And, you know, I have to thank one of my illustration professors for, for preventing me from going down, perhaps the wrong path. Initially, I had gone to Syracuse to study computer graphics. And at the time, and then early 90s, computer graphics program was very programming heavy. And, you know, it was still in its infancy in terms of, of user friendliness, I guess you could say. So, you know, in, you know, at Syracuse, you had to go through foundation course of courses in your first year drawing, painting, you know, 2d and 3d and all that stuff, art history, and one of the illustration professors. Notice how much I liked to draw. And he asked me what I was going to major in, and I told him computer graphics. And he said, Do you like programming too? And I said, No, not particularly. So. So he encouraged me to major in illustration instead. And then I’m glad I did that. Because then I could just teach myself the digital stuff. On my own. And, again, it was still growing at the time. So. So yeah, so that’s my I studied illustration. You know, and then, after, after college, I tried lots of my hand and a lot of different things. I tried comic books, I try web design, animation. web game design, was one of my first real jobs was in New York City designing web games for Cartoon Network. And I actually I did, we were talking earlier that you used to work for Lego, I actually didn’t work on a couple of Lego web games. And I did some Lego magazine illustrations. Back in the day, so and then, that was all in New York City. Eventually, after that, got out in New York, and went to Boston and got my first job as a concept artist, for video game working on Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons Dragons Online. So it’s sort of the where all came from. I mean, I don’t want to, you know, if you got other questions about, about, you know, where I went through with my career, but, you know, that was sort of my my inroad into world building, which is, which, which is my passion. So, yeah,
Iva Mikles
but as you mentioned that right after college, you went to Cartoon Network, and how did you get there? I mean, it’s like, oh, yeah, I went there. But did you send emails, or did they discover you through college or so
Sean Murray
actually, actually, so I didn’t work for Cartoon Network, I worked for a company called funny garbage. And they were contracted to do all of the web games for Cartoon Network cartoon, I was always their major client, and we worked directly with people at Cartoon Network. But funny, garbage was a separate company. They were actually a company that was started by some fairly well known New York graffiti artists. And they partnered with a music label small music label and created a web design company. And so Cartoon Network was their their main client and Um, so we had the contract to basically do all of their web games. So it was kind of like a back road into that. And the way I got that job was I had a friend that was working for them as a sound designer. And I had been, I was working at an ad agency at the time designing movie ads for newspapers, it was a pretty dull job. And but, you know, I was always drawing at night, I was doing my own sort of freelance stuff for role playing games, and you know, like dungeon dragons and White Wolf games, and Steve Jackson Games. And so I was doing stuff on the side, but it wasn’t where I, you know, wasn’t the point where I could make a career out of it. At that point, you don’t get paid a lot to do those, you know, black and white illustrations on the inside of the books. But so that, but actually that that job doing the games for Cartoon Network gave me my first taste of designing of doing concept design, because there was this larger project that we had to design, this very interactive game that was a four or five part game that coincided with content that was being shown on Cartoon Network, it was called Toonami lockdown. And it was of a top, we did it, we designed our own top down, robot based RPG. So it was sort of like old school Final Fantasy, you know, like Nintendo Final Fantasy style game. And I got to design all of the robots, all the enemy robots for that they hadn’t designed for the good guy that you control. But I was responsible for designing all of the enemy robots. And that was where I really got got hooked on the idea of designing something from scratch instead of creating artwork based on other people’s characters or other content that had already been created.
Iva Mikles
And because when you mentioned that you like robots as well before, and now this was like, also really your patient? So if someone would want to do like, what do you do now? And they’re like, fans of Dungeons and Dragons or Lord of the Rings? What would you advise them to do, like, start creating their stories, or just started to sketch something simple? Or just,
Sean Murray
you know, it’s, you know, so I talk a lot about this at workshops that I do, and when I teach as well, you know, it, first you have to decide, you know, do you want to work for, do you want to actually create content for something like Dungeons and Dragons, or Lord of the Rings? Well, in that case, that’s a different pathway than if you want to create your own worlds, you know, if your passion is to, to illustrate Dungeons and Dragons, or work from magic, then you know, you know, the advices will look at what they’re doing and create a portfolio that that, that you that sort of hits a lot of those keys, and hence a lot of those notes that you see. So then art director can look at their portfolio and go, Yeah, I can see how your work would apply to what we’re doing. If you want to create your own content, if you’re a fan of that kind of stuff, but you want to create your own content, it’s, it’s a trickier road. But my advice is always just to start small start somewhere, you know, for me, it was in my sketchbook it was drawing, you know, characters and scenes in this world that I knew, that I that I knew was in my head. But I didn’t have a name for it and didn’t know where I was going with it yet. But after, you know, 10 years of just drawing these things in my sketchbook. Eventually, I started to sort of hone in on what exactly it was, and, but you have to kind of live with it for a little while. And what one of my pieces of advice about world building is always don’t, don’t force your world into existence, you know, let it evolve. And so starting with a small project, you know, just designing, you know, a few characters, and then a spaceship that they ride around in or, or, you know, a small village or the castle at the top, and, you know, what’s the story of the characters that live there? You know, those are the kinds of things that can build and grow up or just draw Matt, you know, and put a bunch of dots on it. And, and then you’d be amazed at how just drawing a map, you know, kind of gets you thinking about, Okay, well, what’s this villages story? You know, why, you know, they’re close to this mountain pass, and, you know, okay, so maybe there’s a big market place, there are big trading posts, you know. So, I mean, it’s those kinds of things that sort of get you thinking. I think it’s wrong to think that you have to, you have to sort of sit down and think really hard and hope that it’s all just going to pass operate out of your head, you know? Right, exactly. But it doesn’t happen that way. You have to, you know, I mean, I could go on and on and on about this, but, you know, you have to start somewhere, you have to start small, and just allow things to progress naturally, you know,
Iva Mikles
and when you started to create your characters, did you already like think about, okay, they will be part of this world? Or it kind of just happened?
Sean Murray
No, not at all. I mean, you know, there was just what I realized was, there was a certain aesthetic and a certain idea that I was, I seem to be revisiting a lot, or that I was trying to find something that I hadn’t that I wasn’t seen anywhere else right there. And part of it was that I, you know, as I said, I grew up on Star Wars. I love science fiction as a kid. But I also really love Lord of the Rings and fantasy, and Dungeons and Dragons. And one of the things I I never thought was fair was that fantasy worlds always seem to have the same kind of monsters and creatures and beings in the movie, they all had elves, and dwarves and, and, and dragons, and, and, you know, a lot of similar kinds of things. And, whereas, science fiction worlds, it felt like, the sky was the limit, like, you can have all kinds of weird and interesting creatures and beings, you know, the cantina scene in, in the original Star Wars film was was like, you know, how, and I mean, you know, yeah, in a universe where you can fly from to hundreds of different planets, of course, there would just be this multitude of variety of creatures and characters, and it would be a diverse melting pot. And I wanted to, I wanted to see a fantasy world that did the same thing. So, so that was always kind of in the back of my mind. And one of the one of the goals I wanted to achieve with whenever I was creating, so in my sketchbooks, I was always drawing these characters that existed in a fantasy world where magic was, was the sort of key element, right. And, but that was the only thing that made it a fantasy world. And otherwise, it was, you know, I was just inventing completely new and unique characters and creatures. I love the idea of wizards, you know, and so, but you know, it’s like, but a wizard can be anything, if magic can be anything, then then so kind of wizard they can, no, there’s no, all kinds of things that ways that that can manifest manifest itself. And so I just use the world around me, like the city, I lived in New York City for a long time. And that became a huge inspiration for, for my own property for gateway. And so it just kind of snowballed from there.
Iva Mikles
And how did you keep the balance of realism and kind of related relatable characters, you know, and it still needs to be part of recognized recognizable thing, right? In the in the creature because you cannot go to ballistic? Right?
Sean Murray
Well, you know, I think for that you have to think about when you go into any of our own cities, there is a you know, cities are places of diversity, right, and they’re melting pots their days. And but what else is true is that there are just so many interesting stories around every corner. You know, when I lived in New York, I, you know, turn a corner, and suddenly, there was like, a, you know, a cultural festival there, you know, that didn’t know was there or one day, I walked out of a coffee shop, and, you know, a 500 motorcycles went by on the street, you know, and each person riding motorcycles is a completely different character. And, you know, and it’s like, well, what, you know, where did these guys come from? And where are they going? You know? And so I think you have to think about real stories in our own world. And, and that in a made up world, in a fantasy world, that if you can get that sense that that people are dealing with similar issues, or have similar goals or ideas in mind, then that’s what makes the stories relatable, the characters that become relatable because their stories are resonate with, with our own stories, right. You know, a really good example of this was, I thought it was the Battlestar Galactica series than the newer one that came out, you know, I think ended about five years ago or so. But I remember thinking how brilliantly they weaved in stories that are relatable to our own lives. You know, a character you know, comes down on cancer and, you know, or another character, you know, is dealing with alcoholism, you know, and and so it’s those kinds of but yet it’s all in the context of these people are on these spaceships flying through outer space, you know, and dealing with these robots that can disguise themselves as humans, you know, and it’s like, well, that part, you know, I can’t relate to. Although, you know, in some ways you could say psychologically, maybe we deal with people, you know, you deal with people all the time, and you’re not sure. You know, you think you think they’re one thing and they turn out to be another so, you know, so that in that way that can relate. So I think that’s what you have to do is you have to make the stories that you’re telling you about your characters resonate with, with the human experience.
Iva Mikles
Yeah, definitely. So do you have also some, I don’t know favorite tools? What do you work with now on maybe what you started with? Like, oh, I have this favorite pencil or digitally?
Sean Murray
Yes, I do. And right here, this is my favorite pencil. It’s a draft medic, Alvin draft, Medic point three millimeter, mechanical pencil. It’s the only thing I use to draw. I mean, occasionally, I’ll pull on a micron pen, if I’m going to do inking, or I’ll do a nib pen with ink. But for pencil sketching, this is pretty much all I use. I don’t necessarily recommend it for somebody that’s starting out. You know, using a variety of pencils is always a good way to start drawing. And then you can find out what works best for you. And then I also use a mechanical eraser. This is not actually not the smallest one I have I have another one that’s even smaller with made by. I’m going to blank on it.
Iva Mikles
Yes, well, no eraser,
Sean Murray
mono. So mono zero. So that’s those are my two main tools I draw on Bristol board or on like, it’s like it’s called layout bond. But it’s sort of similar, like marker paper. Occasionally work on watercolor paper or watercolor board. But and then you know, I use the Cintiq as well when I’m doing digital color. Sometimes I’ll start a sketch digitally, like a rough sketch, then I’ll print it out very lightly onto bristol board. And then so it’s almost like a ghosted image. And then I can do a tighter pencil drawing overtop of it like that. Yeah. That’s one of my favorite methods. It’s a, it’s a good time saving method. It’s not great if what you’re looking to have is like, you know, a sellable piece of, you know, original artwork, because you will end up still seeing a bit of that ghosted, and you can’t erase it, you know. But usually, it’s light enough, you can’t tell, but I use that method for, you know, when I’m doing concept work or client work. I don’t always use that method. If I’m doing a personal piece, something that I’m thinking might go in a frame, you know?
Iva Mikles
Yeah, because it can also look more artsy when you have these lines there, you know, so more creative. So people who are not in art, they can consider it even more interesting. Yeah. And then do you work in your studio, which is in your house? Or do you have to travel to the studio? Or how do you organize your day, like how many hours a day do work on art and teaching and everything?
Sean Murray
While yes, there is no formula for me, unfortunately, it’s very chaotic. And right now I’m in a, sort of a temporary apartment that I have in Florida, which is where I am teaching at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. This is temporary, because eventually, my family is going to move down here. They’ve stayed in New York for the this coming year, which is where I was living until I moved down here to teach there my my wife wanted to continue working with her organization for at least another year and my son was already enrolled in his school. So we decided they were going to continue to year there and that way, I can sort of do some reconnaissance down here and figure out exactly where we want to live and all that stuff. I tend to like a studio that is in my house or right next to my house because you know I have on working hours and it’s it’s not very consistent about about it. Sometimes I work late at night, and other times I’m dead tired at 11pm I maybe that’s a project of getting older, you know, I don’t know I used to be a night owl and stay up till 3am every every night but it’s not as possible these days. You know, as I’m getting a little bit Older hair, but so you know, and now with the teaching schedule, you know, I have, there’s four days out of the week where I have either one or two classes. I teach three classes total, but they’re divided up into two sections. But, you know, I usually get some time, you know, either in the beginning or the end of the day, to work on either freelance or personal work Wednesdays, generally free these days for him, but it’s gonna change every semester. And, you know, I work on the weekends, too, especially the not, I’m trying to utilize the time I have here by myself, you know, if I was at home, I would want to spend the weekends with my family, obviously, unfortunately, sometimes what happens when you’re freelancing? And And this plays into why, one of the reasons why I decided I wanted to teach is that, you know, I found that I was, there were times in which I was juggling four, or five or six client jobs at a time, which often meant that I would have to work on weekends and wouldn’t have as much time with my family. And I think I reached the point where that was just unacceptable to me. And it was also taking away time from working on my personal projects on gateway. So my new goal for the year, the coming year is to ramp down a lot of my freelance client work, you know, at the most only have one client going at a time, which is actually what’s what what I’ve successfully done right now I’m wrapping it one client a job now, and I’m going to move on to another one for October. And I, that way, I’m not, I’m not, you know, juggling my time between so many different clients, and then that also gives me the mental freedom to be able to block out time for the client work, and then block out time for my personal projects, which I think is really important. And that that was what I was losing time with, with my family, but also losing time, from my personal projects, that that it just became, you know, not workable, not a workable solution. And that’s one of the tricky things about being a freelancer is how do you balance your time, and also, being honest with yourself about the types of projects and the types of clients that you want to work for, it’s really hard to say no to a job, especially if the money’s good, or, you know, or, and especially if you’re not sure what’s coming down the pike. But as a freelancer, you also have to balance that, that concern with a concern about getting yourself wrapped up into a project that that may really bog you down. You know, so it’s a real balancing act. And it’s something that I think every Freelancer struggled with, and some get really good at it. And, you know, I’m, you know, I’m getting better at it, I spent most of my career as a as a, as a, you know, full time concept artist, working in an office, you know, in a studio. So I didn’t really have to contend with it’s only been in the last three years or so since I’ve gone independent, that, that I’ve had to learn that skill. And so, so yeah, that’s vitally important.
Iva Mikles
And the transition as well, from the studios to like your own time management and the project management and everything learning about business, it’s a big change. Exactly, exactly. What would they say was something you wish you knew before you started the whole art career?
Sean Murray
I wish I knew what my real value was as, as an artist, as a concept artist. It’s taken a long time before I finally realized that you know, or I took a long time rather to realize how much of a disservice you do to yourself by doing work for less money than it’s worth. And the thing is, I think, as artists, we we tend to be apologetic about, about what we charge in what we’re asking for. And we tend to be nervous about somebody saying no, or that that’s too much. Or, you know, and you know, I think that is really a dangerous and destructive attitude to have because what ends up happening is that you end up spending so much of your time from from especially as a freelancer because here’s the thing when you’re working for a studio, there’s so many expenses that are covered by the studio and that you don’t even realize I mean, health insurance and you know, Uh, taxes and, you know, health, employment taxes and all these things, you know, and every place is different, obviously. But but but you have to, you also are billing in for time, where you may not have work coming in, you have to realize that it’s not going to be constant, you’re gonna have moments where there isn’t there isn’t work coming in. So, you know, if you haven’t planned for that, if you haven’t built up, you know, you know, funds to sort of get you through those periods, then you’re going to find yourself in a, in a bad situation may find yourself saying yes to work that you shouldn’t be saying yes to, you know, and so I wish I’d known that I also wish they’d known about the idea that, that, that billing a client, or on an hourly basis, is a really tricky game, and that it’s better to think of your work, think of billing things by project and by, you know, like, per per image or per, you know, per project versus on an hourly basis. Because when you when you say, oh, you know, I’ll work, I’ll just, you know, keep my hours and Bill you on how many hours I work, it basically means it’s sort of incentivizing you taking longer to do something. And but the client doesn’t want it to take longer, right. So they want to take less time. So I think it’s really more about I mean, if they could get the same results, or better results in less time, you know, for the same amount of money, they’ll take it, right. I mean, there’s this whole great TED talk about this. And that, you know, you’re basically when you build by the hour, you’re basically saying, you know, well, I’m going to, I’m going to drag this out, you know, I’m going to try to drag this out, so that I actually get paid, you know, the right amount of what, but what if you hit upon the solution right away, you know, and then it’s like, and then you know, you’re not getting paid what really the value is to the client, right? So these are things, you know, and I think the part of the problem is, as artists are naturally introverts, and you know, we don’t want confrontation, generally, we, you know, we fear it. And we want people to be happy with us with us, we want people to be happy with the work. And, you know, we want people to come back to us and asked us to do more work. And so there’s this inherent fear of negotiating of, you know, being tough and looking in and looking out for yourself and your own self worth, like that somehow is antithesis to a lot of what we desire as artists, which is acceptance, right? We want to feel like we are valued and accepted. And so
Iva Mikles
and also, as you mentioned, like, how many hours actually does it take you to create artwork? Also, when you are more skilled, then it takes you shorter, right? And so why would you like ask for money? And but how would you approach it? If you are not sure? How much do you how much you should ask, Would you ask the company like, Okay, what is your budget? And then you know, like, Okay, this would be my proposal, because usually they ask you like, Okay, how much do you ask for?
Sean Murray
Right? Right, they oftentimes, the client will ask you first, and, you know, the best, you know, responses, that is to sort of put the ball back in their court and ask them what their budget is. And, you know, a lot of times that will tell you, that will tell you a lot. Because if they say, Well, you know, we only have a few $100. For this, you say Well, look, you know, maybe this isn’t worth us going any further than this, you know, I mean, for a few $100, you could get, you know, one one sketch, you know, you mean or whatever, or a couple sketches. And then they may say, oh, but that’s all we need. Or they may say, No, nevermind. So yeah, it’s always it’s always helpful to put the ball back in their court. But I would also say that if if they push back again, then you just say, Well, look, you know, you have to think about for yourself, what is your time worth? Like? In other words, if this client, if this client, if this is a client, it’s going to take up a lot of your time and it’s going to take time away from you working on your own personal projects, what is that worth to you? You know, like, what amount of money would make you feel okay, about taking yourself away from from something that you’re working on personally, right. You know, and And the chances are that that number is a lot higher than what you think the client wants to hear. Right? And, and you’ll be surprised how often maybe a client will most that will say, Oh, that’s fine. And then the whole time we were thinking, like, oh my gosh, you know, they’re gonna think I’m crazy, right? You know? And here’s the other thing. Everything’s negotiable, right? If you say, you know, something that seems really ridiculous to you, and they come back and go, Well, you know, it’s a little bit more than we were thinking of paying. And then you say, Well, okay, you know, where can we meet, you know, somewhere in between them we can meet. And these are just common See, this is the thing, these are just common negotiating tactics that everyone else in a business focused career understands and knows intuitively. Yeah, but yet is like pulling teeth. Sometimes as artists, I was lucky to have a mother who was a business person, you know, she, she helped me to negotiate things in the past. And, and, you know, because for her, it was just business, you know, and for artists, it’s personal. Right? So, you know, it’s all personal. And that makes it that much more difficult.
Iva Mikles
Because then you have this internal discussion, like, am I worth this? Or no, then yeah, but
Sean Murray
chances are, you’re worth a lot more than you think you are, you know, I mean, think, think about this, artists have a very specialized skill, especially, you know, I mean, given, like, think about how much lawyers and, and doctors, you know, while doctors, you know, that is pretty specialized skill. But, but there are lots of lawyers and doctors out there. And there are lots of, you know, accountants, you know, and they, they, you know, they demand a lot of them demand, top dollar, artists skills are even more specialized, in some cases, and then some of those careers, and yet, you know, somehow we feel like, that’s worth less, you know, think of it this way, when, when a business or a company is using your artwork to promote a product, they’re making a lot more money off of it than you are. And, and they can reuse it, oftentimes, depending on how the contracts are written. You know, that’s another thing, just understanding contracts, like, like getting used to, you know, looking at a contract and reading through it, and pushing back on things I’ve done that, you know, and it’s hard. Sometimes, I push back on things that, you know, I don’t really, I’m not really comfortable with this whole section that you have in this contract that says, you know, essentially, that I won’t ever say anything bad about the company, you know, that that, you know, it’s like, there, there are things like that in contracts that, like, I will agree never to say anything negative about the company, or anybody that works for the company, that’s like, well, what if somebody that works at a company runs over my dog, you know, like, like, I’m, I’m sorry, but I feel like I retain the right to say something negative about somebody that, you know, drive, you know, maybe broken, my dog, you know, like, you know, so So I’m saying, like, these are things, you know, we just to quickly sign these contracts and think, Well, oh, well, especially when the client says to you, oh, all this is non negotiable. Our contracts are non negotiable. That is the single most untrue statement that anyone ever utters because everything is negotiable. And in in, if it’s not negotiable for them, then then, you know, then that obviously, they don’t want to work with you. Right? If they really want to work with you, it’s negotiable. Trust
Iva Mikles
me. Yeah. And also as you said, like how much it will be used because if it is used on the on one product, if they reuse it on other products, they have more, you know, income later on. So the whole contract where it will be used, how much and yeah, what can you get percentage maybe or whatever.
Sean Murray
I have a good friend, his name, his name’s Pete more Bakker. And he does his websites, Angel areum.com. And he’s one of the guys that do this art entrepreneurship on our entrepreneurship workshop with called One fantastic week. And he would talks about how you know, when he was doing art for magic, you know, he gets paid once to do a painting for magic, he might get paid. Additionally, if he can sell some prints at any convention, they do allow you to do that. But now when he does his own personal artwork, which he sells online, he gets paid multiple times for that one piece for the same amount of time that he’s putting into a piece of artwork. He sells prints. He then does a Kickstarter where he sells a book that has the artwork in it. He then has a Patreon where people are paying, you know, to see the artwork early and see the process, you know, and so it’s so like you get multiple, you know, he gets multiple revenue streams from one image and gets paid way more money, you know than he did when he was doing one illustration for magic card and you know, you get paid once you know. So you have to think about it that way, you know, as well,
Iva Mikles
yeah, how to work on your art purchase or how to how we how you can create actually passive income for yourself as well. So yeah, it was, what about your project right now? Can you tell us a bit more about gateway and what are maybe some other upcoming projects you want to share, which are not confidential, maybe.
Sean Murray
Alright, so in terms of projects that that I have going on right now. In it on September 29, or 30th, there abouts, my board game board slash card game is going to release and it’s called Gateway uprising. I have a copy of it right here. This is being published by a company called C Mon, formerly known as cool Mini or not games. But we partnered with them. I have a little game company with my two business partners, John Hawkins and Michel Menard, who were the designers on the game. We call ourselves fish wizard games. So that’s our little logo there. But this is this is coming out. It’ll be available online, and it stores around the US. Eventually it will be available in Europe as well other several countries that are being targeted for for this game. And it’s basically based on the world that I created gateway, which I self published a book called gateway, the book of wizards, which came out in 2014. And that was a result of a Kickstarter that I did, we did start a Kickstarter for this project, but then eventually realized that the gaming side of things on Kickstarter is highly competitive. And we weren’t prepared for how much promotion we were supposed to we needed to do at the time. So I actually cancelled the Kickstarter with the intent of restarting it once we really had our ducks in a row. But in the meantime, I had a pre pre printed copy of the game, demo copy of the game that I had with me at San Diego Comic Con and the creative director from cool many came to my table and saw it and expressed some interest. And so it sort of snowballed from there. It took a while but, but it’s gotten over, it’s got almost 400 cards in it. And I did all the artwork, I did most of the design work, you know, in concert with cool mini designers and with a designer named Lorraine Fleagle. And, and the that graphic design part of it but and John and Michelle did all the game design. And we did a lot of play testing and, and refining. And it’s a really fun game, you get to essentially play as a band of rebellious wizards who are trying to take back the city of Gateway one section at a time from the the evil city guard. And then but at the same time, there are these monsters that are attacking the city. And so you’re having to kind of constantly, you know, hold your territory from from multiple factions. So that’s the most recent project, the there are several projects that I have in mind as the next one. And each one is at various stages in terms of, you know, the sort of pre production, there’s a book, another book that I want to do for gateway, which is essentially going to be like a travel blog, like a, like a photo rich travel guide, essentially for gateway. And it’s going to focus a lot more on the environments and on the you know, the everyday life and gateway and, and not as much on the book wizards was about certain characters who were part of a revolution. In the city of Gateway, this is going to focus more on the daily life, but at the same time, told from the viewpoint of a person who’s traveling through the city of Gateway and observing some insert interesting changes and events that are going on in the city that are that are, you know, foreshadowing things to come. Okay. So that’s one project that designers I worked on the card game with. We’re also we’ve been brainstorming an idea for a pen and paper RPG.
Sean Murray
So that’s another potential project. And there are a couple other things that we’ve been talking about. And there’s, you know, I eventually would like to do a graphic novel. I have, you know, I’ve been working with a writer friend of mine, who’s just an amazing writer, Andrew Ozean. He and I have been working on the film script, which could manifest itself in a lot of different ways. As you know, it could become a graphic novel, it could become a pitch for movie, who knows. But you know, I mean, you know, for me, this gateway is my passion. And, you know, because I’ve been doing so much freelance client work this past year, I’ve, I’ve haven’t had as much time to put into these projects, but I’m making some changes now. So that I can read devote myself to, you know, getting that further down the path with some of these projects. Because it’s just it, you know, it kills me that when when I don’t get to spend, you know, time on on gateway as much. And so, you know, and I’m getting older, so, you know, the amount of time I have to do that is running out,
Iva Mikles
you have to be faster, you know, it’s producing. Do you have a favorite character from the universe?
Sean Murray
Yes, it’s, you know, there’s this guy, he’s shows up, he’s in the book, he’s in the game, as well. And I think you will end up being sort of an iconic character. His name is Cardinal burn Bauer, and he is a, he’s a half man, half fish in there called the saluran, in gateway, but he was a he was a former priest of this church. And when things went badly, and his church got destroyed, he picked up a gun and decided to, to be become a freedom fighter on the side of the revolution, and left his religion behind, you know, he is, you know, he’s one of the first characters that really, I designed for this world and was actually part of a contest that, at the time, called dominance war, and I in it was a piece I did for that contest. And I realized that he was sort of one of the, like, first characters that sort of set the stage for me creating the book of wizards. Because I wanted to know more. When I created him, I wanted to know more about him and the universe that he was in. And I realized that he lived in the same universe I’ve been drawing in my sketchbook for years and years. So So yeah, that was really the he was the germination, I think, for everything that the Gateway has become
Iva Mikles
this portal makes sense? Definitely. And with so many projects you worked on so far, did you have like, the worst career moment? Or kind of the difficult time? And if you can share that, and what was maybe the key takeaway or learning from that?
Sean Murray
Yeah, yeah, that’s an interesting question. You know, there were I was doing a Kickstarter for for the book for the book of wizards. It was actually at the same time that the company I was working for at the time as a concept artist was completely failing, was, was crumbling. And so it was a real mixed emotions time in my life, right? Because, you know, this career that I had built as a concept artist, as a full time concept artists, I was finding, I was realizing how unstable it really was, despite that, the illusion of stability, working for a company getting a regular paycheck, and all that stuff, you know, that seemed that seemed like this, like, you know, well, how can this, you know, go wrong, getting paid well, and get great benefits and all that stuff. But when I realized how unstable, you know, a market like the videogame industry can be. It made me realize that it’s no more it’s no more or less risky than if I was just doing my own thing, you know, and I think it’s no coincidence. I mean, it is a coincidence. But But it’s, it was interesting that that was happening at the same time that my Kickstarter for this book was doing so well. And I was getting really great feedback on a personal project of mine that I didn’t know if people wanted, you know, at all, no, or had any interest in the really tough part came when I realized how long it was taking me to get the book done and how I had promised, you know, that it would be done within a year but it was taking two almost three years to actually get it done. And, and I had a lot of sleepless nights because I was worried that everybody out there who had pledged to my Kickstarter, you know, that they were going to come to my house with torches and you know, and burn my house down and you know, and demand their money. And what I realized was that if I just communicate with people and let them know that I’m working on it, and that you know, I haven’t you know, given up the ghost, that’s really all that people want to hear. Are you know that they just want to know that you’re still working on it, and it’s still something that that, that you’re thinking about and that you are thinking about. Right. So, and you know, there’s still a few things that are left to do with that. There are still some people who, you know, I owe some original artwork to and you know, I try to communicate with him as much as possible, I’m getting ready to start another Kickstarter. And I’m realizing it’s going to be tough because and this is just going to be Kickstarter just to promote, to publish self publishing my next collection of sketches for my sketchbooks. But I’m, but it’s, but Kickstarters are hard to run him, they require a lot of attention, no matter how simple the Kickstarter is, and I’m going to be balancing that with a lot of things. So I mean, the hardest time, I don’t know, I guess it’s when it’s, it’s, you know, it’s that time before you finally get the thing out, you know, because you feel like it’s going way too long. Same with the board game, you know, we had this idea that it would be out in the first quarter of 2017. But, you know, things you know, you know, when you’re especially when you’re working with a publisher, they’ve got a lot of products that they’re putting out, as well. And, you know, they’ve got lots of things on their schedule. And so things get pushed back. And, you know, people are asking, when’s it coming out? When’s it coming out? You know, and so, so, yeah, I mean, I think that’s, you know, there’s always times where it’s difficult, I guess, you know, and you have to balance that with, with, with, you know, a day where you get an email from somebody that happened to tells you how much they love your work and how inspiring it’s been. And you know, that makes it all better, I guess.
Iva Mikles
Yeah. And when you mentioned as well like the books and going back to what you’re also teaching, do you have some books you would recommend for people to check out like, for either inspiration or learning purposes, of course, your book first of all.
Sean Murray
You know, I love any of the books that Wayne Barlow has put out expedition, his Inferno books, James gurneys, Dinotopia books are really inspiring. He’s an amazing world builder. There is a book that just came out, I have it over there, but it’s Simon stolen hogs book. All of the things I’m grabbing shows you things from the flood. Just picked this up a few days ago, it’s actually also really great world building project. You know, I don’t think there are books that are like, you know, here’s how you build a world, I think it’s that you have to find stuff where people are doing amazing things and building their own worlds. And, and use that as inspiration. But, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have to build your world in the same way that they do. You know, when I when I talk with people about about this, the, you know, a lot of times there’s this impression that, that they have to be like JRR Tolkien and that they have to, that’s what I thought I thought I had to write this like vast, you know, back history and invent a language like all these languages and, and, you know, what I eventually came to realize was that Tolkien built his world in the way he knew best, because he was an expert in languages, he was a linguist, he taught linguist language. And, and so that was in and he took him life experiences, you know, in the trenches of World War One and, and his passion for mythology, and is his disappointment in in English, you know, history and that they didn’t have a strong mythology, like the Norse did, and, and then the Greeks did. So he wanted to create his own mythology that, you know, that was that would, you know, compete with those, those mythologies that he admired so much. And so, you know, it’s, that’s, that’s why he built the world and he built and so you have to look at your own life and your own passions and your own interests and, and frankly, in look at the things that you think are missing and out there, or that somebody hasn’t done or that you feel that you can do better. And that needs to be your inspiration for how you approach it. Not feeling like you have to do it like everyone else. And that’s why when people invent their own fantasy worlds, oftentimes they they end up looking just like, you know, a knock off of of Middle Earth. And it’s because you people are approaching it the wrong way. You know, You know, you it’s just another way of communicating your, your life experience, you know, and your worldview, right? I mean, that’s what, that’s what world building is all about. And it’s no different than any other form of storytelling.
Iva Mikles
Yeah. So like finding also your patients. So if I would like animals, and so I can create a world where all the animals can talk to humans or whatever it is, and just go.
Sean Murray
Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, I used to think that when that was a problem that I didn’t like to draw, like, you know, superhero type characters with, you know, giant muscles. And, you know, at all it’s, I thought to myself, well, then, I guess I’ll never work in comics or anything like that, you know, because they don’t do that. But, but, but I realized that that wasn’t, I mean, that wasn’t me, that wasn’t the kind of thing that I wanted to draw on I was passionate about. And so So what because there’s plenty of people out there that that do great stuff like that, who’s, you know, there’s plenty of people that do better stuff along those lines, and I would ever do, because I’m not passionate about it, you know, you know, there’s this sort of balance, you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself, you don’t want to, you know, take yourself out of, you know, an area where potentially you could have, you know, an influence visually, right, by avoiding certain things. But I guess what I’m saying is, like, I don’t draw spaceships the way you know, a lot of other people draw spaceships, you know, I don’t, I don’t do like, really slick sort of surface design, reflective surface design stuff. That’s not really, you know, what comes naturally to me, doesn’t mean I can’t design my own spaceships, right? Just that my spaceships are gonna look different, they’re gonna, you’re gonna be, you know, I’m gonna imagine spaceships that are built with different kinds of materials are going to have a different aesthetic. And you know, what, they may not be right for every project. But, but when it’s, but it’d be right for the right project, right. And I think that’s what you have to realize is that, that, yes, if you’re doing stuff that’s very personal, it’s not going to get you every single job out there. But if it’s something you’re passionate about doing, that’s going to reflect in the work, and people will either realize that what they want is something different and new, and they’d never seen before, or somebody out there is looking for something very specific, and they’re not finding it, and then they happen upon your portfolio. And they go, Aha, this is it. A good example of that is I’ve done a lot of work for this company called Sideshow for their property, which is called quarter the dead. And it’s, it’s a lot of these sort of sculpted and collectible. Various scales, and it’s, it’s about the underworld, it’s about death in his cohorts. And, and, and what the underworld is, like, where the, you know, the souls are ferried through from, from one world to the next. And it’s, you know, pretty dark stuff. And, you know, my work can be dark, but it’s sort of it’s always got this balance of, you know, sort of whimsy whimsy to it. And so it never really dawned on me to even show my stuff to Sideshow for what they’re doing, because I didn’t think my stuff was dark enough, right. The art director for Sideshow came by my booth, and he saw my work, and he bought a bunch of my prints in my book, and he said, Hey, you know, I’d really like to work with you. And I’d like to have you on team, you know, working on stuff for core to the dead, because I want to bring this flavor, this sort of whimsical approach to the world, I want to have a lot of different types of artists building this world. And not I don’t want it to just be one thing, you know, and to be so myopic. Right. And, and, consequently, it’s been one of the most fun clients I’ve had to work with. And one of the pieces I did for them just recently won an award for spectrum. I got a gold award in spectrum for concept art for a piece that I didn’t for sideshows. So, you know, that’s the thing. You want to work for that kind of client that looks at your work and says, I want you to do your thing with our, you know, with our material, you know,
Iva Mikles
because they also know what to expect then they just really hire you for your work so they do something else.
Sean Murray
Right? Yeah. And if somebody if they’re trying to tell you to do to, oh, we want you to work on this, but we want you to do it in this style that’s like this other artist or whatever, you know, I would, I would, I would be careful about, you know, working on a project like that.
Iva Mikles
And what would be maybe your best advice about world building, if you can pick something like, Okay, this is what I learned over the years.
Sean Murray
Easy question. And the number one thing is, and this is sort of like a mantra that I have come from, that I developed, you know, when I teach world building, it’s one of my five or six mantras, and that is, in order to create compelling worlds, you have to have a passion for your own world, right? For our world, for the world around you. So, being passionate about learning, being desiring that to, to expand your knowledge base, going out to museums, going to cities, in places you’ve never been before, reading books about subjects, you have no clue about, right? In science, archaeology, biology, you know, but you know, getting building a huge library of books on various things, you know, you know, as concept artist, as a world builder, you have to be multiple things, you have to be an archaeologist, you have to be an architect, you have to be a scientist, you have to be a biologist, you had to be a city planner, you know, you have to be a merchant, you know, I mean, just, there’s just, so it’s like, all of those things, you really become passionate about learning more about the world around you, the more inspiration you have, the more in that visual, that mental library that you have at your disposal. So it’s important to not, you know, sequester yourself in, in your own little world. So much that you don’t, you don’t get out and really experience life. And because it’s all of those things outside of your own little worlds are gonna be part of the inspiration that adds to your, your mental visual library. You know, you want to take your personal experiences, and marry that with things that you’re learning about the world around us. And that’s what’s going to make material you create relatable. And interesting, right? I mean, you know, I learned about all kinds of interesting, I mean, like, weird creatures that I never knew existed and, you know, cultures that I knew nothing about and have really fascinating, you know, rituals or, or, or, you know, I go on Google Earth all the time, and I look at pictures from places I’ve, you know, I’ve never been and probably never will go or, you know, or, you know, it’s very unlikely that I might go there, you know, anytime soon. But, you know, there, there may be things that, you know, you know, that you didn’t know, were there, I mean, decent. Recently, a little while ago, I found in Spain, there are these little interesting villages that all sort of have this similar architectural style, where they’re, they’re building these little round huts that have these very specific conical roofs on them. And it’s just like, where did that come from? And why is it only in this, like, one section of Spain, and, you know, so I’m saying, like, you know, you never know where you’re going to find inspiration. And so it, but if you stay inside your house all day, and you never bothered to learn anything new, or expand your knowledge base, you know, you’re not gonna learn, you’re gonna see these things, and I tell my students all the time, like, I forced them to go to the library, you know, and instead of using Google image search to find reference, you know, because, you know, if everybody just used in, you know, what they find on the top of Google image search, everything is going to look the same, right? You know, I mean, books are an amazing resource, and they have referenced in things in them that you will not find anywhere else you won’t find on the internet. Or at least, you know, you won’t happen upon them in the same way that you do when you when you get a book on anthropology or a book on Japanese mythology or whatever, right?
Iva Mikles
Yeah, so definitely and one of my last questions is about the future and if you imagine yourself in five to 10 years in your like, dream scenario, you know, like everything is how you want What are you doing and what’s around you and how everything looks.
Sean Murray
lounging on a on the deck of a giant golden yacht in the Pacific Ocean. I’m just kidding you know, I don’t know. That’s, I, you know, my fantasy My my, my dream has always been ever since I first started thinking about gateway. I’ve always seen it in my head as a film As a movie, um, so, I mean, five years, I hope I’m just that I’ve created more products, you know, and to inspire people and to build my audience and to potentially get to the point where, no, the idea is less crazy of pitching this as, as a movie or TV series or as a video game, right? You know, you know, I have a family. And so I want I want, you know, I have, you know, had that, that part of me as well, where I want to have, you know, a rich and full family life, and I want them to be comfortable and happy. Because that makes me happy. And, and, but I also hope that I’m continuing to teach and to inspire people, you know, and that, in five years, I hope that if I could see what the kind of work I’m doing in five years, then it’d be amazed at myself, you know, and think, I never thought I’d be able to do that, you know, and I think everybody should be shooting for that kind of goal. Like, I told my students in my illustration class I’m teaching, they’re doing a mythology course, or mythology project, rather. And I told them, I want them to their goal for this piece, for it to be the best version of that mythological character that’s ever been created. You know, I mean, that should be everyone’s goal, when they’re setting out to do something, if it’s something they’re passionate about, they should want to be able to make it something that no one’s ever seen before in that way, you know, so, so yeah, I mean, you know, what, the reason I’m kind of interested in the area that, you know, I was kind of happy about moving to Florida was that, what I don’t want to see myself doing in five years is shoveling three feet of snow. You know, in January, February, and March, which sometimes is the case, when you’re up in New York. So, but, yeah, you know, I but it doesn’t, but at the same time, like, there’s, you know, I would like to be able to travel more to I mean, I want to be in a place where I’m traveling and being inspired by the world around you. My family, we’re planning on going to Spain, this summer, and spend a month there, I’d like to do that every summer, you know, it’d be spent at least a month in a new place that I’m that, you know, I’ve never been, you know, maybe the year after, it’s, it’s Poland, you know, some amazing cities there. And but what I want to do is I want to go and I want to draw, and I want to be inspired by these places, and not just, you know, have to rely on looking at them in Google Earth. No, but I do travel, you know, and I’ve traveled and probably, you know, a lot more places, and then then most people, you know, and then sometimes I’ve gotten to do it for for a job, you know, and, and so I want to continue to do that just be inspired by the world.
Iva Mikles
And if you think about like really far, far future, whether I would like 100 years from now, what would you like to be remembered for?
Sean Murray
I you know, I mean, to be honest, a gateway, I mean, I want I want it to be something that people are continuing to enjoy and are starting to garner making their own stories, and creating their own corners of Gateway. You know, I’ve always seen gateway as a as a collaborative project, I’ve always seen it as something that is a canvas for other people to play around. And I think when you’re building a world that really should be everyone’s goal. You know, it doesn’t make sense to, to control it so tightly, because then it will never have the ability to breathe and feel like a real place. So yeah, I mean, I think that’s, you know, that’s that’s my main goal. I think, you know, for for what my I my legacy is I don’t know, I don’t know about you, I plan on still being around in 100
Iva Mikles
year good. No good good. robotic legs arm. Yes. Yeah,
Sean Murray
that’s 114 41 you know, not that impossible, I think, you know,
Iva Mikles
but then gateway will be already established, you know, and it might be the world we live in. You never know. Notice. And before we say goodbye, maybe you can share like last piece of advice or key takeaway, and then we will slowly finish.
Sean Murray
Yeah. I don’t know. I think the takeaway is, trust your own Vision trust your own ideas, right? I mean, no one. And this is what I’ll say, a lot of people, they’ll, they’ll come to me and they’ll say, oh, have you seen this other world? Or this this story? It’s just like gateway or reminds me very much of Gateway, Aren’t you upset? You know, like, are you? Are you worried that this thing is, is is too much like gateway in? My answer is always, almost always no. In fact, it always is no, because what I realized was, I don’t need to worry about someone else’s property or world or ideas or stories, even if they’re similar. No one can create gateway the way I can, as long as I’m being honest about it, right, as long as it’s coming from an honest place. And so I think that’s the key takeaway is be honest with yourself and in create work that is that comes from an honest place, you know, if you’re trying to make a portfolio or trying to make a piece because you want it to look just like this other artist, because you think that’s what will get you work or that that’s going to, that’s what’s going to make you a famous artist is if you can be just like you know, someone, so I don’t think that’s being honest with yourself. You know, I think the goal should be to be yourself. You know, and it’s very cliche. But I you know, the more I do this work, the more true I realized that is,
Iva Mikles
yeah, amazing. I really agree. And thank you so much for sharing your experience and insights. It was so much fun. You know, this was fun. So thanks again. And thank you everyone for joining and see you in the next episode. I hope you guys enjoyed this interview. You can find all the resources mentioned in this episode at artsideoflife.com. Just type a kid’s name in the search bar. There is also a little freebie waiting for you. So go check it out. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on iTunes, hopefully five stars so I can read and inspire more people like you. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to oArt Side of Life podcast, because I post new interview every single workday. If you want to watch the interviews, head over to artsideoflife.com/youtube. Thank you so much for listening. Don’t forget to inspire each other. And I will talk to you guys in the next episode. Bye.
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Hi, I am Iva (rhymes with “viva”). I am a full-time self-taught artist behind Art Side of Life® and a Top Teacher on Skillshare. I have 15 years of experience in the creative field as a concept designer, illustrator, art director, and now freelance artist, content creator, and art instructor. My goal is to help you get your creative groove on with Procreate and make awesome art through practical classes, tutorials, Procreate brushes, and guides on art tools, supplies and resources. About me »
