Monkey + Seal Closing Down Shop?

While the last thing Monkey + Seal want to do is close down shop, if the upcoming Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) pass in the upcoming congressional votes, we may have to.

So if you haven't heard about SOPA or PIPA, they're basically congressional bills that in theory, are made to stop online piracy. While this idea in itself is great (especially for small business owners and artists like Monkey + Seal), the bills themselves are inherently flawed. A much better article on why they're bad pieces of legislature is HERE.

However, most articles focus more on why SOPA and PIPA will take down free speech (very important), destroy stuff we love like YouTube and wreck our economy (all stuff that is very likely to happen if these bills pass). Since all those points are better discussed elsewhere by people who are also very smart and know what they're talking about, today we wanted to talk to you about the reason why content providers (also known as us artists) need to take a stand against SOPA and PIPA.

Good work will be stifled. Under the combined might of SOPA and PIPA, websites can be taken down simply by being accused of infringing on copyright. While you think this would be cool (hey, if someone steals you new illustration, shut 'em down!), this can easily get out of hand. Say, for example, you decide to post a process photo of your new character design. One of the many staff illustrators/artists/designers for big firms that like to steal from smaller designers comes across it and shows it to their boss. Instead of paying you for your design, they decide to just steal your design, post it on their blog, and then tell your Internet Service Provider (ISP) that you're stealing their design. They don't have to prove anything, they just have to claim that you're doing it, even if they're stealing from you.

Sorta ridiculous and paranoid, but since you, as a small business, don't have the time/money/resources to take them to court and battle this out, who wins? Not you. Artists will be scared to produce good work (or at least scared to post things online), and the big pirates of industry win.

Collateral damage will be high even to artists who create original work. So say your favorite small business like Monkey + Seal does their standard original illustration for their blog post. However, another artist comes across it and says "Hmm, that sorta looks like this one illustration I did years ago. Those bastards are stealing from me!" They contact our ISP and get us shut down. Huh? What? We had no idea that our illustration looked like someone else's. We didn't copy, but because it resembled something else someone else had created, we suddenly got the boot before we even knew what would happen. Assuming we clear things up and our hosting gets turned back on, are we really going to keep on posting illustrations and blogging? Imagine if your business got shut down suddenly and you're being accused of copyright infringement. You have hundreds of images, and you're not even sure what you're being accused of doing.

Budding artists will be discouraged from making art. While it's not cool to copy other artists, think about all the budding artists who make fan art. Sure, they're technically infringing someone else's copyright, but if some 8-year old makes a Naruto drawing and posts it on their blog, do they really need to be shut down? Fan art, we'd argue, if anything makes the original property even more valuable and sought-after. It's one thing to be selling portraits of Pokemon and the like, but think about all the sites like Deviant Art and such who will easily be shut down because some kid with a box of color pencils and a scanner loves Batman too much? Think about all the venues that kids and students use to share art with each other. To be honest, most of those kids are using infringing material, but as long as they aren't selling it, who cares? Hell, if we ever got people doing Monkey + Seal fan art we'd be super happy (hint hint, everyone). The point is, many venues that are utilized especially by younger artists will be shut down, and that stinks.

In our mind, SOPA and PIPA is sort of a stick of dynamite response when a scalpel is what is needed. While they have terrible repercussions in terms of life in general, as artists, they are exceptionally scary. Frankly, we don't want to have to live in fear of creating, and having our youth grow up in a hyper-paranoid world where our art becomes even more censored and feared than it already is. Join us by going HERE and signing the petition to stop these bills from passing.

PS - for possibly the best take on this from a creator that Monkey has seen, go HERE

Learn to Achieve Your Dreams in One Easy Step

If you would actually buy this book, please paypal $10 to: info@monkeyandseal.com

Many people are interested in finding the one magic bullet that will suddenly catapult them into fame overnight. Some people decide to try to make the next viral video and somehow monetize that. Others might be working on the next big e-book, or the next Batman, or the next facebook.

We all want the good life. We want to be able to not worry about our finances, our love life, our careers, our families. Often times it's easy to misinterpret things like The Secret to mean that all we have to do is think about something that'll solve all our problems (lotto tickets anyone?) and magically it shall happen.

Work is hard. Doing the hard work that'll take you from being an amateur to a professional is not easy, nor can you complete it quickly. Hopefully the path to become an artist who can live off their craft is fun and exciting, but often times business things (taxes, inventory, remembering to submit to annuals in time or to apply for that big craft fair, etc) can bog you down. Between marketing, networking, updating your blog and website, when do you even have time to make your art? It's true: the path to getting paid to make art is not necessarily a quick and easy thing.

But who wants to be patient? We want stuff NOW. Why do you think we pay for overnight delivery? Why do we still go to the store as opposed to just ordering everything online? Because we want it right now, in our hot little hands. And thus we want the "get-rich-and-famous" overnight formula.

So, after years and years of hard work, Monkey has come across the perfect solution to making all your dreams come true, in one, simple, easy step. Ready for it? Here it comes.

The secret to achieving your dream, in one simple step is: Change your dream to something you've already accomplished.

Easy peasy lemon breezy.

It's no get-rich-quick scheme (I guess for that, you can always mug people walking around a richy-rich area and hope they have cash), but it will make achieving your dreams easier.

So if you want to reach your dreams as they are now, unfortunately, the easiest way to get there is to bust your little behind and work as hard as you can. Sure, there's lot of other tactics and other tricks and stuff (lots of what we've talked about before), but the easiest one is to just do the work. It's not exactly the most glamorous idea, or something you've never heard before, but it's the truth.

I was reading an issue of Juxtapoz (not sure what month it was), but the artist was being asked "how does it fell to be an overnight success?" The artist responded with something like "Well, if you consider 15 years of work 'overnight...'). Basically, you may have to be patient.

So we know its not easy to constantly work and work and work and keep on practicing and practicing and practicing, but it's what is needed. You want the real magic bullet that will make all the work go away? Learn to make the work fun. If you enjoy yourself, then it's not really work. Find the challenge or the value in doing the mundane. Need to learn animal anatomy for a project? Delve into the material and find something about it that interests you. Anything can be fun if you just let it be fun. The biggest obstacle keeping you from your success is you, so learn how to enjoy the work you've got and it'll be done before you know it.

Also, please don't mug people. It's not cool.

Do You Know How to Get a Book Published? Want to Learn?

So as of, uh, just about right now, Chris Guillebeau has just launched his newest guide, The Unconventional Guide to Publishing.

So to be upfront about all this, yes, we are affiliates (meaning that we get paid a % of the money if you click on the links in this post and end up buying something), but there is a non-affiliate link at the bottom of the page.

Frankly, we know a lot of authors out there, as well as people who are working to being paid authors, so we figured we'd talk a bit about what this guide is all about.

So it's authored by a guy named David Fugate who is a badass of a literary agent.  He's sold over 1000 books to publishers of all sizes over the past 20 years (meaning he averages about 50 books per year...not too shabby). So what is the guide?

The Unconventional Guide to Publishing is the beacon of light in the dense, hard-to-find-answers world of book publishing.  It was conceived of at a conference when people kept asking him the same questions over and over, and he realized that these questions were asked again and again of him for the past 20 years that he's been a literary agent.

What will you learn in this badass, 45,000 word mammoth of a guide?  Stuff like how to:
-Develop a compelling concept
-Land an agent/find information about agents
-Learn what editors are looking for
-Determine how much $$ should you expect for an advance
-Write a book proposal
-Hustle and get your book out there, and why you still have to do it even with a traditional publishing deal
-Actually write the book
-Negotiate a publishing deal

You'll also learn how foreign translations work, what "reserves for returns" are, and other cryptic stuff that budding authors should know.  There are also tons of bonus features, like sample contracts and proposals, audio recordings and transcripts of interviews with authors, There are three different packages (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Austin - clever!) which have different amounts of stuff and different price points.

A note about this.  Monkey bought Chris' Empire Building Kit in 2010 at the lowest price point (then it was $97, now it's $147), and it was pretty damn awesome.  Totally worth the $97, and it would be easily worth $147 as well.  So basically, if you can only afford the most basic package, it's still worth it.

So there's also going to be a product launch special(!!) that'll go on until midnight, PST, on Friday, January 13th.  Nutso!  Not only is there a 25% discount on the $129 tier (dropping the TOP tier down to $97), and extended Q&A conference all with David Fugate, but there's also a review of your community-buidling plan with Chris Guillebeau.  Both David and Chris don't offer consulting services, so if you can afford 'em, it's time to get 'em.

So if you're still asking "is this guide right for me," we recommend you going over HERE to check it out for yourself.  Is it right for everyone?  No.  If you're the type who isn't going to take notes while reading this, and isn't the type to take some inspired action steps, you probably shouldn't pick this up.  If you're not really interested in getting your book in the hands of a major publisher, then this probably isn't for you.  If the price of the book is going to cause you to miss rent, this is also probably not for you.

HOWEVER, if you are someone who wants to get serious with their writing (or hell, if you're a visual artist and you want to pitch a book of images), and is willing to make an investment in themselves, then by all means, this book is for you.

If you want to check it all out and deprive us of our share (that's okay, we understand), you can click this non-affiliate link here.

Adventures in the Creative Life

Now that it's January, I am seeing a lot of new yoga members at my gym. I have been doing yoga for about 7 years now and I notice the same pattern every year. There is an enormous influx of new members between end of November to mid March and very little attendance around July-October. Both old yogis and new members are as equally guilty. In January, a new intensity fills the air, there is a lot of talk of resolutions and goals. Everyone is very devoted, disciplined, and rigorous to their practice, so much so that they forget that it is supposed to be fun.

Here at the Monkey and Seal cave, we talk a lot about goals and resolutions. Being an artist, it is already difficult to find our "path." Our very mutable industry makes decisions and directions already very tough to begin with. So we think it is very important to have some rough outline or "road map" in where we want to go in our creative endeavors.

Because if you don't know where you want to go, you will either not move from your starting place, end up in a place you were not expecting, or who knows, maybe you make it to your destination, but it was without intention. Goals are road maps: they give us clear indication of where we have been, what our potential directions are, possible featured places we would definitely like to experience, if there is an endgoal, and how long would that distance be. Maps are also useful for when we get off track, we can always adjust, backtrack, or veer off in a new direction. We, at least, always know where we are at.

But the trick is, though we should take our goals and maps "seriously," we should never forget
that art is fun. We must never become too linear with our creativity or too much of a goal/career-orientated artist. Though we may have our trusty map, we should embed it into our psyche that there are multiple roads to get us to where we want to go, and we can always start and stop at anytime. Creativity and adventure is non-linear. The key to being a successful and creatively-fulfilling artist is to find the right balance between goals and adventure. Between direction and diversion. Between Career and Personal. Between Practice and Play. Between Seriousness and Whims. Because often times, it is Whims that create our highly original, unique, and personal pieces that will get the attention of the world.

When we were little, we drew things. They were fun and very different. Perhaps our well-meaning people noticed them, "these have potential - if we're serious enough to pursue it." How many times have artists been told to "get serious." So we become serious. Instead of drawing and painting, we begin to PRACTICE everyday. We have GOALS. We may end up in workshops and intensives and on the fast track towards a hot-shot art studio or design firm. Art becomes something we MASTER : we become constantly glued to looking at the map and we forget to enjoy the sights. We can do yoga poses out of habit and on command, but we have forgotten how it felt to first breathe, to just draw and paint on a whim.

I recently became acquainted with a high-profile, brilliant artist. He is very serious about his art. He has won many awards. He gets up at the crack of dawn, marches to his computer to paint, and sleeps at odd hours of breaking daylight. He attends all the independent master classes for artists and all the various workshops and conferences throughout the world. He is constantly sought after for book deals and collaborations. He has projects outlined and target goals posted in his studio and a miniature version of it in a .pdf file follows him around in his laptop. When I met him at a cafe, he has taken out all the "breaks" out of coffee break. He is talking a-mile-a minute, full of energy, but his face looked haggard. He talked about all the different various projects with other high profile artists that he is juggling and has lined up . The sternness in his voice when talking about art and creativity along with the foreign words coming out of his mouth regarding"mergers, maximizing profits, and climbing the ladder," all sounded strange to me. I notice a beautiful loose painted sketch in the first page of his book, and asked him about it. This piece of spontaneous art seemed very different than the person before me. He casually mentioned that it was done during lunchtime on his first day at one of his first jobs at the high-end film studio, many years ago. I couldn't help but asked, "When was the last time he painted with real paints as in the picture?" And he answered in surprise, "Oh," like the sketch suddenly crept up to him without knowing, "I don't remember." At this point, I unconsciously blurted out, "Are you having fun at all?" He stared at me as if I had just put worms in his coffee.

Although goals are necessary to give us a sense of purpose and direction, creativity is not meant to be "calculated." We are not meant to chug up the mountain, but to take a stroll through life. Though we'd like to backpack through the mountain and see what the view up there looks like, too, we'll take our time and take detours and pictures along the way. We'll start projects on whims, but we'll need the goals and road maps to help us finish them.

So when we talk about goals and resolutions at the Monkey and Seal cave, we present them more as personal challenges and changes that we would like to see in ourselves, better habits that would make creating art and sustaining our creativity more fun, guidelines that are meant to point us towards a direction, but we also know, that at any time, we can take a different road. And at anytime, we can stop at a rest area and open our picnic basket. At any point in our creative adventures, though it can still be tough and "serious," we can always choose to laugh through any storm.

How to Make a Resolution That Sticks

With 2011 left with only 3 days left, we thought it would be timely for today's post to be about resolutions.

Often we hear of New Year's resolutions in the context of something that will be broken.  We hear about avoiding the gym in January as they'll be overcrowded, but in a month or so they'll be back to normal.  Part of this failure to commit to the New Year's resolutions is that we either tend to set goals either not thinking about what it'll take to get there, or we make a resolution that is too broad.  As we've said time and time again, it's all about specificity and prioritization.

In order to make a resolution sticky, you want to make sure that A) it's something that you honestly believe you can achieve, and B)you have a plan for.  

We always believe that people can do amazing things, but in order for people to achieve greatness, they also have to believe in themselves.  If you'd love to be an artist that works for a movie studio but don't really believe you could get a job at a movie studio, chances are, you're not going to work for a movie studio since you won't make working for a studio your priority. 

Sticking with our example, if you want to land that job at Dreamworks in the new year but fear that you aren't good enough to make it to Dreamworks, your resolutions shouldn't be to land a job there.  Your resolution should be to paint every day, or to do a sketch every morning or every day after you come home from work.  Maybe it's to take a few art classes or to download conceptart.org workshops.  It could also be to go to a counselor, or to read a book on self-confidence every month.  Either way, your focus should be on making a resolution that you can stick with.  Anyone can go to the library and get a book, or spend some time in a bookstore doing intense browsing through art books and magazines.  If you are reading this, chances are you have a pen or pencil to do a drawing daily, even if it's on grocery bags or the inside of envelopes.  Got junk mail or bills in the mail?  Then you've got something to draw on.  

If you have a large art goal as your resolution, think about breaking that large goal down into steps.  Instead of saying "I resolve to make $5,200 this year off selling my new comic," maybe think about saying "I'm going to make $100 per week off my comic sales," or "I'm going to submit my comics to a new comic store every week" or "I'm going to do one event every month that will bring in $434 in comic book sales."  

Figuring out what the actual goals needed to complete a resolution can also be very sobering, so don't be afraid to adjust your resolution.  If you hit your goal early, you can always ramp it up later in the year.  The key is to make sure that it's something that you honestly believe in your heart of hearts that you can do.  

The other part of sticking to a resolution is about making a plan.  Even if your resolution is something that you believe you can do like a resolution to sketch every day, you still need to  make a plan.  By providing yourself with a detailed plan of how you're going to achieve your goal, you'll make it easier to finish it all the way through.  

Even if you don't make a detailed plan, you should still think about your resolution to see if it really fits.  If not, revise your resolution to make sure it does.  Make a resolution to paint every day?  What about when you're flying to that wedding for a weekend?  Are you going to bring your oils on the flight?  Are you going to have time to do them on holidays?  Figure out the rules to your resolution - if you do two drawings a day, can you skip one?  What about seven, do you get to skip a week?  

Our point is not to drag you down with the nitty-gritty, but you do have to think about your resolution to make sure that not only is it feasible, but also easy.  If you only draw once a month and you want to go up to once a day, every day, for a full year (or beyond), is that something that you even have time for?  What are you going to change to make that happen?  

Maybe you could make sure that you go to sleep 15 minutes later to get that last sketch in before you go to bed.  If so, then what about also keeping a sketchbook and a pencil on your bedstand?  If you're only painting once a month, then instead of going for a daily painting, what about making a resolution to paint once a week?  Or if you want that daily thing, what about just making at least one brush stroke per day?  In that case, you want your painting to get set-up where you can easily access it, and you want to make sure that you have your paints and brushes and everything right where you'd need them to be in order to do your daily work.  

Part of making a plan can also involve getting someone to hold you accountable to your resolution.  Have a friend check up with you weekly - every time you miss your mark, you owe them $20.  Sign a contract to make it legally binding.  While this punishment principle might not work for everyone, it is a potential plan you can make if having the hordes nipping at your heels inspires you to get things done.  Alternatively, you could also give your resolution buddy a sum of money, or some rewards in advance, to give you every time they check in and you're on track.  If you need that Pavlonian training, we say go for it.  

So if you're looking to make a resolution (or ten) for 2012, make sure it's something you believe you can do and make sure you have a plan.  Knowledge is power, kids, and now that you know how to make some killer resolutions for next year, what are they going to be?

Monkey + Seal Recap 2011

Happy holidays everyone!

Today we just wanted to do a recap of our year, since now is as good a time as ever to start evaluating 2011 and to start planning for 2012.

Major Accomplishments for 2011

•Monkey took over partial ownership of Big Umbrella Studios (BUS) around this time last year!  He managed to help keep BUS alive and kicking.

•Monkey + friend Grant Gililand (aka The Gross Uncle) had a feature show, Beastiarum vocabulum, at BUS and made some nifty t-shirts.

•Seal made some new prints of her more recent paintings.

•We both updated our personal websites.

•We celebrated our 6 year anniversary together(!)

•Seal finished up work on her first animated feature (we can't tell you more than that yet!)

•Seal got a position at a video game company in Sausalito.

•Monkey built a site for The Lords of Print and started off finding new clients to print shirts for.

• We had a split show at OZ called "The Undiscovered." Seal's portion of the show was titled "New World," while Monkey's part was the interactive "Secret of Deadbrook."

•Monkey got his first wholesale client for his Ties of Awesomeness.

•Seal got a job working for Marza Animation Planet doing concept art.

•We tabled at the SF Zine Fest, where Monkey won a class at the SF Center for the Book.

•We took a trip to Indonesia with Seal's family.

•Seal started work as Production Designer for a short film directed by a senior animator at Pixar.

•Monkey quit his day job and runs his businesses full time.

•We tabled at the Alternative Press Expo.

•We signed up for our first out -of-town craft show, Spectrum Live! in Kansas City, MO (such a huge jump!)

•We broke our record for the highest gross total from a 2-day craft fair at this year's Bazaar Bizarre.

•We reorganized our apartment.

•Monkey continued to run the bi-monthly Artgasm Drink n' Draw.

•We held a successful presale for our new shirt - Cthulhu Fhtagn.

•Monkey took classes at City College and has learned about container gardening, Flash game programming, archery, and more!

Whew!  Well, those were all our big accomplishments for the year.  There were many smaller accomplishments, like finishing paintings, and getting over emotional hurdles and personal challenges.  There were meeting deadlines we didn't think we could meet and coming to terms with some of our own hang-ups regarding art and work.

We discovered and struggled and fought our Impostor Syndromes, and had to deal with the constant invasions of realtors as the building we rent in was being sold.  We had to solve difficult logistic and financial problems as well, and having to figure out time management as 2011 was our first year of both being self-employed.  

Another big challenge for us that we continue to work on is the decision to specialize in our creative fields.  Now that we both are doing art full-time, where do we go from here?  Does our future lie in video games, films, silkscreen printing?  As we trudge along these questions constantly plague us, but we also have to fight to keep in mind that as long as we're happy and manage to keep doing things we enjoy, perhaps the answers will be made clear to us.  Hopefully in 2012.  

Next year, we have a lot of plans for growth and new endeavors.  Monkey is working on a side project with a friend related to the wedding invitation industry.  We're planning to both release new books of our work in collected forms next year.  We're also working on developing a book/curriculum in the way of a instructional, inspirational "How To Become an Artist" class/book.  We have Spectrum Live to look forward to, and showing with such an amazing caliber of artists is a bit daunting and exciting.  We hope to vend at more craft fairs, and Monkey wants to hold a solo show complete with sculptures and more interactive storytelling.  Seal hopes to focus on sustainability while at the same time finding a more consistent nature of work.  We're both still trying to find our path in terms of what type of art/what style we really enjoy.  Seal hopes to complete a graphic novel based on her "Skyace Wasteland" painting series.  Monkey also hopes to release a book of illustrated stories in full color (including a re-release of The Drowning of Jun Wakayama).  

We are definitely looking to stepping up our game next year and pushing ourselves to more fully realize our artistic visions and growing even more.  If anything, we hope next year's theme to be "Sustainable Growth."  

We hope you'll share with us your accomplishments and your thoughts on what you're looking forward to achieving in 2012.  Let's take the world by storm!!

A List that Will Save Your Sanity

Sorry this post is so late, we're a bit hectic still dealing with the sale of the building we currently rent in, so many apologies.

Anyway, today we wanted to talk a bit about making lists - a certain list . Many of us probably have "to-do" lists, or lists of things we'd like to achieve in life, grocery lists, etc. etc. Some people probably live their life off lists, so the idea of making two more may seem daunting, but we got this tip from Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz, who is basically a super awesome person that helps people with their small businesses.  I highly suggest you go over there and pillage check out all her free resources, and buy some of her cool stuff.  No affiliate-backscratching either, we're just fans of what she has to say.

Sooo, enough about her, back to YOU.  So you have lots of lists already, why make more lists?  Well, the list we're asking you to make is a list that will boost your self-esteem and make you feel awesome.

Things You Did Today
The first list we want you to make is a list of things that you did today that furthered your progression towards making art.  For the professionals, it might be "emailed a client today" or "finished a commissioned piece."  For the beginners, it might be "watched a drawing video on YouTube" or "went to a gallery opening," or "doodled in my sketchbook." For everyone, it could be "worked on a painting," or "pulled reference for illustration," or "studied package design from cupcake box."

Whatever it is, if you took a step forward, no matter how small, record it.  While this may seem a bit pointless in the beginning (you could be making stuff with that time!), it really doesn't take a whole lot of time, and after a week or so, you'll notice that you really are making progress.

Try not to get too wordy with this one - go for line items, not full journal entires.  Keep it short and sweet, so it doesn't become this big time suck that distracts you from getting on with following your dreams.

If you didn't do a single thing towards art today (which is hard to do, see below), then write "recharging for tomorrow."  We can't all go full-bore 100% of the time, and by being accountable to doing something, not only will it remind you to do something towards your art, but it'll also show you how many little steps you've actually done.  If you're looking on pinterest for inspiration, or read a graphic novel, or browsed some t-shirt designs, or read this blog, or thumbed through a fashion magazine, realize that you're just broadening your visual vocabulary, and that counts as something too!

Even if you're tired from work and just want to lay in bed eating vegan ice cream, I'd say that counts towards recharging your batteries (and bonus points if you're also looking at the design of the little carton).  So keep a list of the stuff you've done today, and as long as the "recharging" entries don't beat out the action items, you're in a good spot.

So what did you do today?