Fine & Commercial Arts & Cartooning

Q. Describe the most common types of jobs you do for your clients.

A. Comic book sales, fine art sales and book illustrations.

Q. What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A. Research prices, art samples and freelance contract conditions before approaching a freelance commercial artist.

Q. If you were a customer, what do you wish you knew about your trade? Any inside secrets to share?

A. How do you draw a straight line? For straight lines, we use t-squares and triangles. For circles, squares, etc. we draw with templates. For reference we copy models or photos. For fantasy/sci-fi illustrations, we copy models or photos but change or combine details. For instance, to draw or paint an elf, we draw a portrait but make the ears pointed. For aliens, we draw a short person, paint their skin green and add antennae from bug photos.

Q. Why does your work stand out from others who do what you do?

A. I won my first art contest by drawing in a realistic comic book style while everyone else painted abstract pictures. The subject was our disability. Unlike other comic book companies, Radicomics does not kill off gay/lesbian/bi/trans or women characters, was politically correct since its founding and has multicultural casts.

Q. What do you like most about your job?

A. Drawing superheroes, humor and underground cartoons and painting fantasy/science fiction.

Q. What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A. Where do you get your ideas? I read comics and science fiction and look them up on the internet, such as Wikipedia and TV Tropes Wiki.

Q. Do you have a favorite story from your work?

A. Yes, I won First and Second Prizes in the Disability Art Contest in 2007 for the picture "My Aspergers" (2007), a realistic comic book-style or Pop Art self-portrait montage depicting my disability symptoms, such as anxiety, low self-esteem, special interests, chronic anger and hysterical pains. It was the only realistic drawing among abstract paintings. I used to lose art contests since 1996 this way. It was the first time I won!

Q. What do you wish customers knew about you or your profession?

A. I wish more customers knew I am in business! We artists are as sane as you are! Everybody has an imagination-we just draw and paint ours. However, nobody imagines everything-we use models and photos of real stuff for landscapes, portraits and nudes and follow previous artists, novelists, gag and scriptwriters' cliches and scripts for comic strips.
In cartooning, commercial and fine art, one draws and paints something. Cartoonists and commercial artists use t-squares, triangles and French curves, like architects and engineers, but do not draw blueprints. Fine art is hung in museums and galleries, commercial art is printed on labels, billboards, album and book covers and cartoons are printed in newspapers, magazines and comic books.

Q. How did you decide to get in your line of work?

A. I grew up reading comic books and science fiction paperbacks and liked to draw, so when I went to college, I majored in art to learn how to do it professionally. After college, I bought books on comics and sf illustration and art business and went into business.

Q. Tell us about a recent job you did that you are particularly proud of.

A. Selling fine art in art sales and online from 2008 to present.

Q. Do you do any sort of continuing education to stay up on the latest developments in your field?

A. I took some community college classes as recently as 2007 but now mostly buy art instruction books. In community college, I learned Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, basic web design, acrylic and gouache painting. I taught myself cartooning from books.

Q. What are the latest developments in your field? Are there any exciting things coming in the next few years or decade that will change your line of business?

A. Latest developments in my field are 3D graphics and animation, which I would like to learn next, noir comics and manga/anime, which I am teaching myself from books.

Q. Describe your most recent project, what it involved, how much it cost, and how long it took.

A. I did a freelance children's book illustration project in 1999-2000, which required the customer to upgrade my computer with a bigger hard drive, Adobe Photoshop and color scanner. Customer paid me $400 afterward for my services.

Q. If you have a complicated pricing system for your service, please give all the details here.

A. I just charge the going rate(what other artists charge for similar pictures) or whatever the client can afford.

Q. If you were advising someone who wanted to get into your profession, what would you suggest?

A. Community college-it's cheaper, quicker and easier than a four-year college and commercial art classes there have a reading list of art instruction books.

Q. Write your own question and answer it.

A. Why do people become artists? People pick jobs they are good at and like doing. If you like drawing and painting, you become an artist. If you like singing, playing an instrument, rapping or death-growling, you become a musician.