I completed 33 illustrations for project participants working towards Sustainable Development Goals in Southeast Asia. You can see an online gallery of the illustrations and learn more about the project here.
They also had an online certificate ceremony where they presented the illustrations, and I got to say a few words about my experience and process. You can view just the presentation ceremony here.
I‘m seriously grateful that they gave me this project, as it encompasses absolutely everything I stand for in my work! And in the last couple of days, I have been really touched by the responses I have gotten from some of the project participants. I never thought that my art could make such an impact – but I've always dreamt that, maybe, it could 🥺
Not only that – because it was such an intense process, I feel like I was thrown into a pressure cooker and came out a more knowledgeable and experienced artist – so much so that I would like to share everything I’ve learnt!
I‘m by no means a “veteran” in this, but I still hope I can help! Make yourself comfy, with your beverage of choice – because this is a long one:
1. Free up memory on your computer and back up your data while you’re at it! You don’t want to waste time clearing up your disc space right in the middle of the project.
2. Cut out any extra obligations for the time period you’ll be working on the project, if you can. For me, this meant taking a break from my other part time jobs for two weeks — I definitely needed it! Schedule meal or grocery delivery services if that‘s affordable/reasonable for you; finish the bulk of household/cleaning/grocery tasks beforehand; maybe even have a family or loved one prepare meals for you :) you can always return the favour afterwards!
3. Consider taking a break from or even deleting social media for the time being. For me, it was a time- and focus-sucking distraction I could definitely afford to cut out.
4. Make a plan outlining all the important milestones of the project: due dates for drafts, refined sketches, final deadlines, etc. What’s crucial in this plan is that you create a time buffer in between the client‘s deadline and your own; this is to create a safety net for unexpected hurdles in the process (which you can most surely count on). In my case, the client added 3 more illustrations to the original 30. so trust me on this: make a time buffer! For reference, here‘s my plan:
You’ll notice it doesn’t include any “micro-steps” in between the bigger milestones. I’ll get to those later.
5. You’ll also notice that there are about 3 weeks of preparation time before the project actually started. This was because the client was not able to provide the project briefs until close (2 weeks) before their deadline. Still, I acknowledge that this isn’t a “head start” that everyone necessarily gets. But if you find yourself in a similar situation, I highly suggest you make use of that “head start” by preparing yourself mentally and physically for the project, for example you could:
Practice drawing and brush up on basics, like anatomy, perspective, life drawing, colour studies, etc
“Revise” your illustration process, step by step, especially if you’re not confident in it yet
If you already know the general topic of the project, practice doing thumbnail compositions for concepts in that area. For example, I already knew the project was about Sustainable Development Goals, and the format (square A6) of the output. So I did thumbnails based on SDGs, as well as previous SDG projects done for the Ban Ki-Moon centre (my client). This ended up being very helpful at the end, because a) ideation is like a muscle that needs training and gets better when put to practice and b) I ended up repurposing some of those thumbnails in the actual project. A real time-saver, woo!
The cut out thumbnails on the right were the thumbnails for the actual project.
On the left, thumbnails I did before receiving project briefs.
6. Find out ways to make your workflow more efficient – like knowing all the shortcut keys and using Actions to automate filling and colouring in Photoshop. This is for if you work digitally, of course. Sadly, I don’t know any time-saving techniques for traditional work! If you‘re reading this, and you have any tips, feel free to share in a comment below!
7. Prioritise your mental + physical health and sleep more than you think you‘ll need to. Please. I know we like to glamorise the restless freelancer, but if you can, make sure you get good rest throughout the project and prepare a list healthy stress-managing activities, eg: calling a friend/family, walking outside, doing a brief exercise routine, giving yourself time to decompress and have fun without getting too carried away or distracted.
I have to admit that this is the part I was least prepared for, mainly because I put so much pressure on myself to do the job perfectly. I ended up stress/emotionally eating, which I am ashamed to admit to and is a whole other topic for another day. Point is: stress eating, not sleeping, scrolling through social media and other temporary fixes to stress are not sustainable solutions and will only make your situation worse!
And once again: please sleep. I don’t care if you‘re an early bird or a night owl, need 5 or 8 hours of sleep – all humans needs to be well rested in order to think clearly and make good decisions. You may think that hustling through the night will get you through the project, but it’s much better just to get a good rest and then pick up again early the next day when you are fuelled and energised!
8. Get serious about your breaks. That means when you nap, nap — no scrolling through your phone! If you’re going to be aimless, be aimless. Do not panic and stress further about the project at hand. I know this sounds contradictory to the thing I said about not getting carried away during your break time, but your brain needs distance from the challenge in order to solve it. So plan for time to be aimless and thoughtless just as much as you plan to focus on work!
9. Listen to soothing instrumentals, lo-fi hip hop, binaural beats or ambient music while you work. If you can do pure silence, that’s ideal — personally, I can’t, and I have to admit that I often listen to podcasts or have some kind of background chatter on while I’m working because it soothes the loneliness (but not during critical thinking phases, like coming up with compositions). If I’m totally honest, it’s atmospheric instrumentals that calm and get me in the zone the most!
10. Make your thumbnails (rather) detailed — The first thing is that it’s easier and faster to add details at a small scale. Secondly, your client will feel more confident in where you plan on taking the illustrations. Then, once they are approved, you can simply blow up the thumbnails to the final size and trace over most of what you already drew. You‘ll need to refine the drawings, of course, but you‘ll still have saved a lot of time.
As you can see, from sketch to final – there aren’t a ton of differences.
11. Another thing that helped during the thumbnail process is cutting out my thumbnails in separate sheets of paper, rather than drawing lots of boxes on big (A4) sheets of paper. I’ve seen other illustrators do this, and I don’t know why, but I feel like maybe my brain can compose layouts easier with clear borders, rather than being confused by a sea of paper. Lol I don’t know if that’s making any sense at all but I think it helped!
This multiplied by 5.5, plus spare blank ones.
12. Planning Micro-Steps: before proceeding with each step, stop and plan how you will go ahead – especially for parts of the process where you know you can get carried away. For me, for instance, I know I waste time editing my drawings after scanning them into Photoshop. To avoid this, I look at the drawing and decide in one short glance what needs to be edited and fixed – and write that down. I commit to sticking to that list and don’t touch anything else (your client will provide feedback eventually anyway – or maybe they won’t).
You can do the same with colouring/adding texture/finalisation. Write down the sequence of the steps you‘ll take and then commit to it. For a series of illustrations, this will also help make everything look unified, like one big happy family :)
13. Copy and paste minor, repetitive, inconsequential details wherever you can. No shame! In my process, there were certain texts, symbols, letters, and colours that came up over and over again and it was just easier to copy them. This also helps make your pieces look like part of a whole.
The “SDG” text is the same, the “key colour” (green) is also the same. Using the SDG colours as accents in the series was actually the client’s suggestion!
14. Speaking of colours: stick to limited palettes. Unless your client wants you messing with the full spectrum of the rainbow, limiting your scope will save time and yup, you guessed it, it helps make your pieces look more in harmony!
15. Keep the output size of the illustration in mind and do not be tempted to zoom in at 200-300% in order fix minor details no one will end up seeing. This tip, that I got from illustrator Cat O‘Neil, turned out to be so helpful!
16. Be realistic, but not sloppy, about the amount of work you can finish in the given time. In my case, it was helpful to have my agent on the sidelines reminding me not to go HAM on the details. If your client hired you on short notice, they also likely know that there are limitations to the amount of detail you can pack into the illustrations. And if they don’t, then it’s probably better to decline the job.
17. Kick your perfectionism in the butt! You are likely the only one who notices that one little thing that’s off – your client won’t, so let go and don’t bother fixing it. If they do say something, guess what, you can handle feedback because you‘re a grown up that can do challenging things!
(Your contract should stipulate how many/what kind of amendments are allowed, by the way, but that’s a topic for another time)
While super stressed and talking to my mother on the phone, she told me: “Don’t think — just do. If you keep thinking about how stressed you are and how much more work you still have to do, you will only waste energy.”
At first, likely because of my stress, I didn’t think this was helpful at all. But over time this piece of advice started sinking in, and seriously helped me through this project and beyond. So, as you’re finalising your work, after layouts and concepts have long been approved:
Don’t think. Just do.