Thousands of Dollars Worth of Lessons From Spectrum Fantastic Arts Live!

This past weekend Monkey + Seal took the long trip over to Kansas City for Spectrum Fantastic Art Live!  It was three days of being surrounded by some of the most amazing contemporary fantasy artists out there. 

The week prior was sort of a whirlwind of madness.  Seal had concept art, storyboard, and commission work to do.  Monkey had an event he was coordinating on Wednesday, then hung the latest Big Umbrella Studios show on Thursday for the opening on Friday, and he painted all weekend.  Then, it was a mad dash Monday through Wednesday to finalize transportation plans, get prints made, figure out new displays, and pack. 

Monkey ordered plastic sleeves that didn't come in on time, we didn't sleep from 1:30pm on Wednesday until we got on our plane at 2:30pm on Thursday.  There were no restaurants open by the time we rolled into our hotel at 1am Friday morning, and so we had a large amount of pretzels, snack crackers, and dried fruit for dinner.

When we arrived at the convention center the next day, Monkey started freaking out due to the sheer overwhelming amount of "big name" artists with huge original paintings and giant, framed canvas prints.  However, Seal's courage was strong enough for the both of us and as Monkey calmed down, we started to set our booth up.

 

Over the next three days, we got to meet some amazing artists, listen to great presentations, and we even managed to sell some merchandise.  Even though the crowd was much smaller than we had hoped, we learned a lot and came out smiling.

To be honest, it was an expensive bunch of lessons and tips (even trying to take all the budget options) we ended up investing thousands of dollars that weren't made back.  This was a bit hard to take in, but the lessons were invaluable and viewing this as an investment in our careers rather than losing money has helped ease the sticker shock considerably.

 

Rows and rows of awesome artists and art

 Some good take-aways we learned:

-It's painful and scary to be beginners.  However, what option did we have?  Pack up and quit and go home?  Nay, you just gotta do the best with what you have.  Everyone has to start somewhere.

-From Mike Mignola: If you never put out that dream project, you'll never have the chance for movie rights and other "big time" offers.  Expect to make no money and do it for the love of it, and who knows where it will go.  At least you've put it out on paper and sent it out into the world.

-When you're just starting out in fantasy illustration, 5-6 amazing pieces is all you need in your portfolio.  Take out all the filler, emphasize the "amazing" part.  Also, tailor it specifically to the company you are submitting it to.  Your portfolio for Magic:the Gathering is much different than your portfolio for book cover illustrations, which is much different that the portfolio you submit for editorial work.  

-from basically every presenter: DO WHAT YOU LOVE

-From Donato Giancola: Expect to make absolutely no sales from any craft fair/exhibition/expo, and just go for the love of it.  Think of it as investing in your career.  You'll always leave happy.

-We figured out that we have to step up our own game - we're working on designs for new display units as we type!

-Established artists are sometimes insecure and freaked out as well!  We've overheard numerous other exhibitors freaking out over who they're vending with as well.  One artist on a panel (who freelances full-time for Wizards of the Coast + others) said "I still feel like someone is going to reveal me as a fraud."  Sound familiar?

Overall we had a great time, got to (re)meet some other Bay Area illustrators and meet some of our heroes.  We have no regrets and are super thankful we were able to take the plunge and make it out to a whole new venue and a whole new level!

Award Ceremony honoring artists who won the Spectrum Silver and Gold Award

James Gurney receiving the Grand Master: an artist who has had at least 20 years in the art industry, who inspires others, and has made an impact in the community. He is Seal's hero.

Onwards! Towards more adventures!

Shutting Down the Heckler

Inside your head there is a voice. Where it came from isn't all that important, but it'll probably take on the voice of one of your greatest critics. Maybe your parents, maybe a teacher, someone perhaps who you thought was your friend but really isn't.

"You suck."

"You're doing it wrong."

"That totally didn't work."

Sound familiar? This butthole voice is what Seth Godin calls "The Heckler." While I think you should all go read Seth Godin's description here about The Heckler, we'll sum it for you in a sentence: "The Heckler is part of your primal, lizard brain that you can't ever really get rid of. If you fight, it will fight harder, and the only way to get rid of it is to disable it."

So, Monkey and Seal, how do you disable the Heckler? The Heckler is a big bully that takes pleasure in your resistance - it enjoys the fight, and is just waiting for you to tell it to shut up so you can yell louder. Using one simple phrase will take the wind out of the bastard's sails, making it weaker and quieter. That phrase is:

"So what?"

If you've ever been taunted, or teased, or a victim of bullying, the immediate, primal urge is to react against the insults. You refute the disparaging claim or you try and throw it back at the bully. However, as it is the nature of a bully, it will take pleasure in your obvious reaction and will continue on its bully ways of attacking you. However, it stops being fun for the bully when you don't react, or care.

Instead of "No, my painting doesn't suck, yours sucks!" it's "My painting sucks? So what?" Its the exact opposite reaction the Heckler needs to continue on the fight.

"That brushstroke doesn't work. So what?"

"I messed up in that last routine. So what?"

"I didn't win that competition. So what?"

Now we don't want you to turn into some self-effacing downer that's just all negative. By saying "So what?" the goal is not to get down about whatever deficiency (imaginary or real) that your inner Heckler is bringing up. The goal is to realize that whether the Heckler is right or wrong, it's not the end of the world.

The skies won't rain blood just because you missed a note in that last solo. The earth won't implode because you didn't render those hands enough. The sun won't die just because your proportions are off.

If we have the fortitude and imagination to dream, we also have the imagination to whip up illusions of grandeur where we become painfully inadequate compared to Everyone Else. However, even when we are at the height of our careers and a huge mistake could cost us everything, we still tend to overreact to mistakes and to exaggerate what Everyone Else thinks about us.

If you're an aircraft controller, the stakes are high. Planes could crash, people could die. If you're a painter, most likely you are not going to be put in a situation where your performance is a life or death situation. The Heckler is telling you that it's the end of the world, that your imperfection (perfection is overrated anyway, remember?) is a huge deal. It's not. You screwed up. So what? Learn from it and grow. There are no mistakes, just opportunities for growth.

The point of disabling the Heckler is not to stop criticism. The point of disabling the Heckler is taking the work-stopping, genius-interrupting, creativity-killing emotional sucker punch that comes with the taunts of the Heckler and taking the poison out of them. Criticism is good, it helps you grow, but if you take it personally and shut down, then all it's doing is getting in your way of living up to your true potential of making something magical and wonderful.

A Blueprint for Quitting Your Day Job

So Seth Godin and the team of awesome-makers over at the Domino Project came up with something called Trust30, a daily writing challenge that would take place over 30 days that will focus you onto doing something that we tend to forget about - trusting ourselves.

Monkey decided to take this challenge and has been posting over at his own blog Politics:Art:Culture on a daily basis. We thought that one post in particular, titled "A Blueprint for Quitting My Day Job" was especially relevant to all the artists out there following our blog. The topic was being bold - participants were asked what one thing that they have been afraid of pursuing would they pursue, what obstacles were in their way, and how were they going to overcome it.

While I can say that I'm pretty lucky in terms of owning some businesses, getting to paint, etc. etc., the one thing I've always been afraid to pursue is doing art full time. I've had numerous business ideas and different product lines and whatnot, but I've yet to really formulate a strong business plan and formulate a plan for a wholesale line or work.

Having a fall-back job that comes really, really easy (see last post), in a way has almost become a crutch. It's not the worst job ever, and it doesn't really challenge me most of the time, and I get to talk about (not actually do, a lot of the time) art with people. I do get to teach, which is cool, but basically, I'm pretty comfortable.

So why don't I just quit? Well, the surface reason is that I have huge student loan bills, rent, etc. to pay every month, and if I were to completely set out myself, I would not have any of that safety net to cover myself. Additionally, I would need to get some capital for marketing, photography, raw materials, etc. Since my monthly bills are so high, I can't afford to save. Lame.

Additionally, part of it is basic fear. Fear of failure. While the idea of failing isn't such a huge deal, I think that a failed business venture early on when I quit my dayjobs marked with the high price of failure (not being able to pay rent, getting me and Eve evicted) is frightening.

So how to go about defeating all these obstacles and doing it up right? The plan is to a)reduce risk, b)create capital, and c)make it happen.

First, reducing risk. First off, to defeat the fear of failure, I have to make it so that if I fail, nothing too bad will happen. I won't have to live on the streets, etc. etc.

In order to reduce risk, I need to basically do B, which is to create some capital. I can do this by working to create multiple alternative streams of income. This will be done via $20 illustrations, craft fairs, and getting a handcrafted license to sell on the streets of san francisco. Saving and eating out less will also help. Additionally, making a kickstarter video can also be awesome.

So I guess the last part is just doing it all. While this is an overly simplified plan of action, I already have the entrepreneurial know-how to make most of these things happen, so why not start today on my day off? Oh wait, I guess I will.

So that's Monkey's plan. What have you been afraid to achieve? How are you going to do it? What are you waiting for?

PS - Monkey is starting to do 5x7" paintings on watercolor paper for $20. He'll paint anything for you, but it will most definitely end up involving a monster in some way, shape, or form, but that's probably why you'd be buying an original painting from him anyway.

If you'd like to commission one of these little paintings, you can buy one (or more!) right here:

$20 Custom 5x7" Painting

Ex: If you told me to paint your lawn, it would probably end up like this: