Nine Things I’ve Done to be a Better Illustrator

I’ve always been encouraged by my peers to care about getting better. If you don’t go forward then you go backwards. You never stay in the same place.

So in other words, we’re all moving on to something, it’s just up to us to decide upon which direction that we go in.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is I’ve done over the past few years that have helped to move me forward. Here are my findings below.

1. Focused on my Weaknesses

I’ve always seemed to do better when drawing architectural structures as opposed to anything else. It is my comfort zone.

However, like anything you want to get good at, in order to develop your skill set you have to be prepared to address the areas of your work that you’re not so good at, regardless of how uncomfortable that may initially be.

After all, it would have been no use at all if I was to spend all my time perfecting my portfolio of architectural studies only for a client to get in touch requesting a series of editorial portraits.

I found working on the aspect of my work that I was weaker at to be extremely challenging as the egotistical side of me that wanted constant reassurance that I was good at this drawing lark was constantly crying out in protest. Needless to say though, that side had to be ignored as I pushed on with trying to get better.

2. Was Happy but Never Satisfied

This was where I had to strike a balance.

It was no use putting myself down all the time by constantly saying to myself “This work is not good enough I have to be better.” An inner monologue like that would have had me pretty unenthused about about this whole illustration thing quite quickly.

Equally, it would also have been pretty foolish for me to think “wow, this work is amazing, it will never get any better”. Because guess what, it won’t get any better. In actual fact, it would have most likely stagnated and ended up going backwards.

The paradigm that I came up with was somewhere in between.

“I’m improving all the time but I can get better.”

That way, the journey could continue.

3. Created a Fixed Routine

This was all about getting into the right habit.

I became pretty strict with myself.

During a working day, regardless of what was going on, I would ensure that my phone was unplugged, the T.V. was off and that I was sat at my drawing desk doing my thing.

There is a myth out there in the creative world that needs to be ripped apart.

That myth is that you can only truly be productive when you’re in the right mood. This has never worked for me. The reality is simple. If you’re going to aspire to be a working professional then you’re not likely to be given the luxury to sit around and wait for the correct mood or moment of inspiration to fall from the sky.

Like I was saying before, it’s all about creating the right habits and if you train your mind to sit and do nothing under the pretense of waiting for the correct mood or moment then that’s what you’ll spend 99% or your time doing.

Train yourself to do the opposite. “Attack the day”.

4. Made the Sort of Work that I Wanted to See

It took me a while to realize this.

I used to constantly second guess myself and try to work out the “proper” kind of work to be doing.

This approach was a disaster. Everything suddenly became very contrived and one dimensional. Everything that I done began to look like a pale imitation of something else already out there.

What’s more, I was suddenly very bored of it all. It’s really hard to express yourself fully and without restraint when you’ve got one eye on what you’re creating and the other on whether people think it’s any good or not.

I abruptly scrapped this strategy and started doing the kind of work that I enjoyed and liked seeing.

The lesson was simple. If you can’t inspire yourself then you’ll have an extremely difficult job getting anybody else excited by what you do.

5. Took the Time to Consciously Practice

I learned a while back that there is a sharp difference between just sitting down to draw to enjoy whatever comes out and actually consciously spending the time to practice the aspects that you need to improve on.

Don’t get me wrong, over time you’ll get better by doing both but I found that by taking the time to actually sit down on a daily basis and try to improve I would quickly see the progress.

6. Experimented with Different Mediums

First and foremost, everything for me comes back to a pen or pencil and a piece of paper.

That’s the foundation upon which I build upon. That didn’t mean that I didn’t want to experiment what else was possible though.

It’s about expanding your world and finding new ways to express yourself and your ideas. It also keeps things interesting for yourself and others.

Some experiments worked and some didn’t.

Waterbased screen printing and digital coloring in Photoshop definitely worked. Spray paint on a wall? Not so much.

Still, how are you going to know unless you try?

7. Set Myself Definite Targets

I’ll sit down and draw all day. No problem.

However, after while I began to see a pattern.

In terms of building an impressive portfolio, the amount of time that I was spending working and the amount of useful work that I was producing wasn’t adding up.

In some cases, I was repeating my self and not creating anything that offered a fresh insight into my work.

I was able to get around this by setting myself definite targets. I done this by asking myself a series of questions.

The first one was “What do I want to achieve here?”.

Another was “Will this piece of work move things forward?”

By asking myself these questions I would immediately have a better idea about what I wanted to achieve.

Don’t just work hard, focus on working well.

8. Made Sure I Was Having Fun!

It couldn’t always be fun of course. That wouldn’t be realistic.

However, if I found myself spending one too many mornings forcing myself to “get through” an illustration or if concentrating on a particular project was proving difficult then something would most likely be wrong.

It would be time to take a slight step back and identify the problem.

Sure, freelance illustration was a job like any other but it was also a passion and I needed to keep sight of that.

It’s important to remember the reason that you want to do this in the first place.

I wasn’t prepared to forget the little kid that once gazed in awe at the opening fifteen minutes of Akira and suddenly knew what he wanted to do with his life.*

9. Found Other Creatives that were better than Me

Not a challenge by any means.

No matter how well I thought I had been doing, there were more than a few out there who were clearly doing it better.

There were better illustrators, better painters, people who had a better business plan, had more experience.

I would look closely at as many as I could. What were they doing that was better? What were they able to do that I currently could not? Also, what were they prepared to do that I currently wasn’t?

This also proved to be a very good way of getting inspired whenever things got a little flat.

There’s a saying that I often hear that goes something like “If you find yourself the most intelligent person in the room then you are in the wrong room”.

Well if that’s true then the same certainly goes for artistic ability.

Make it a habit to step outside of your current surroundings and stretch your boundaries.

So that’s it! My “nine things”.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Also, what have you done to improve your work over the years? I’d love to find out!

* To be an artist, not to join a motorcycle gang.