Thought it would be fun to share a few of the finished pencil illustrations for Spotty & Eddie’s latest adventure. I’ve really enjoyed taking my time with these illustrations… the remaining illustrations will be completed by December 2009. Once I’m finished drawing all the illustrations I will go in and tint them with colour digitally in Photoshop. I’ll show a step-by-step example of Spotty & Eddie when I’m at that stage… but if you’re curious as to how to colour pencil illustrations in Photoshop, you can check out my tutorial.

Question : What medium should I use to illustrate greeting cards? Is it ok to use different mediums and surfaces, such as acrylic on canvas?

Answer : There aren’t any restrictions on what media you use to illustrate your greeting card designs. Whether you illustrate with watercolour on paper or oils on canvas, what will be the deciding factor is how awesome your illustration looks. Just consider how easy it will be to digitize your illustration (whether it be by scanning or photographing) before you delve in. Other than that, the sky’s the limit!
You can find more tips on illustrating for greeting cards here.

Developing your own brand is the first step in marketing yourself as an illustrator. The purpose of a business card is to quickly provide the recipients with your contact details, to remind them of who you are and what you do. The best part about being an illustrator is that your business card doesn’t need to be stuffy… it needs to reflect your style, while being simple enough to complement any printed promotional materials that it may accompany.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating your business card :

• • Contact details to include are : Your logo, name, phone number, email & website.
• • Keep the type treatment clean and legible. Choose type treatments that you can carry across your other stationary (such as invoices, letterheads, quotes, etc.) Above all keep your promotional materials consistent with each other, you don’t want a higgldy-piggledy bunch of promotional materials.
• • Size : Go with a standard business card size. While choosing a unique size is, well… unique… it can be a wasted expense when the thing people are most interested in with an illustrator’s business card is illustration!
• • Full-colour printing : Prices for printing have dropped significantly, so that now it is almost as cheap to print full-colour (front & back) business cards as it is to print them in black & white. Yeah, full-colour illustration opportunities!
• • Embellishments : It’s a personal preference whether you want to splurge for embosses, varnishes, or matte-laminates… just keep in mind that you want your illustration to be the star of your business card.
• • Consider including an illustration : You’re an illustrator, so take this opportunity to show off your style! Chose an illustration that best reflects your talents. Crop in close for interest, or show the whole illustration on the back of the card. You could even illustrate something especially for your business card. If you have more than one style, you may want to consider having more than one business card (just be sure to keep your logo and contact details consistent between business cards.)

Above all, have fun with your business card… give it a bit of your personal flare, and don’t be afraid of making it look like your own style as people like to see an illustrator’s styles come through in their branding materials.

Was delighted to browse through Minikin, the new website of Elly MacKay, talented illustrator, mum, and who just so happens to be my cousin-in-law :) I couldn’t help snatching up this adorable chickadee original painting over at her Etsy shop… with the holidays coming up they’re a steal, take a peek and buy one for the minikin in your life!

I finished colouring a few more ink illustrations for my diary of Hera’s outfits. Enough distractions, back to drawing turtles for Spotty & Eddie!

It was a weird feeling walking through Kim Wang’s grocery shop at the Adelaide Central Markets this morning, and having my eye caught by something familiar but had never seen before… a tv tray with my illustration on it! I did this cows grazing illustration for a Seasons collection over at ImageZoo where it is available royalty free. One of the funny things about selling your images royalty free is that you don’t know what applications your illustrations may be used for. Anyhoo, suppressing the urge to tell strangers that I painted the illustration on this tv tray, I walked out having purchased four of them. Not exactly sure what I’ll do with cow coffee trays, but I had to buy them on principle :)