what freelance illustration is like.

"Hey, wanna make a quick $200? This Greek dude on the left in this picture's opening a hamburger joint and he needs a caricature of himself eating a hamburger, you know, small, compact. Reds, oranges and yellow are the standard colors i think."


Ok, cool, a simple, open-interpretation quickie.

Heres the first mockup:


The first is always a baseline, to see what your client is like, since they never, ever, know what they want.

Yeah, its a bit bizarre but its within the constraints; warm colors, a dude eating a hamburger. I kept it sized to easily fit a business card AND kept the figure one piece so one could, in theory, paper toy it up and stand them upright, if, in fact, one were so inclined to do so. It would have been neat, i assure you.

So i send it in and..

"Dude, are you cwazy? This is for an actual hamburger joint opening up in inland empire. Sorry if i was confusing, i just need a simple line drawing that sorta looks like the guy in the picture, like these sorta:"



Ok, so they just want some crappy, generic hamburger dude. Came to the wrong person for generic, but i'll see what i can do.

Heres the second one, all cleaned up and finished:


Response:
"We prefer something more whimsical or playful like bob's big boy, can you change it?"

No idea why the first email didnt mention any of these details. Plus "whimsical" is just ridiculous.

So anyways heres a couple sketches thatr more "whimsical". The first is a blatant Spumco ripoff and im obviously irritated by the end of the second, giving him pan legs/flute, whimsy-ing that shit right up:



So, a week after the initial email, and 6 days longer than it shouldve taken, i get another email.

"Oh well... These greek a-holes are saying that we took too long and they found someone else. Dicks."

"Awe, fuck those idiots i hope their shop burns down."



And that, in a nutshell, is what its like to freelance.