Fashion Illustration Careers with Draw A Dot's Marcus Kan

hey hey party people welcome to today's video today we're going to talk about the future of fashion illustration and today i have with me mr marcus kahn the founder of draw a dot and a fashion illustration connector in the industry i'm so excited to talk about fashion illustration and he's actually going to answer all the questions that you asked in the poll that i posted in the youtube community tab so before we get to your questions marcus please introduce yourself to my youtube audience who you are what you do and why you do it hello everyone i'm marcus i'm the founder of raw dot um i started this fashion illustration community in 2013. originally i plan to just showcase some of my favorite fashion illustrations from all around the world on my blog and also on instagram but later on i started to work with brands on different contests and somehow i became an agent and represent artists on different in-store events so um i have worked with brands like burberry versace victrum rov you name it i have done something with them before um so right now we do have also an online store to actually help artists to actually sell their works to give them a platform to try to figure out how to sell their artworks to the audience and of course so you were also part of the patreon group so maybe we can talk about that one too this is the plat this is the smaller community where we are helping illustrators to develop their skills and also help them to build us more solid foundation so that they can create like they can get more jobs yeah so i'm going to drop links to all of marcus's stuff the online store the patreon his instagram in the description box below i highly recommend that if you are interested in pursuing fashion illustration as a career um to check out his patreon i'm a member of his patreon and um the group has a discord where the members talk amongst themselves with marcus i'm there too um and it's good it's like we give each other feedback we talk about fashion news we uh you know congratulate each other on jobs scored and you know give each other feedback on work it's like networking and making friends and you know if you've watched my how to network video you know that i strongly emphasize building of true and sincere relationships within networking and not just like hi what can you do for me sort of networking right and so this is why even though i'm not trying to like pursue an illustration career at this point i love being part of that group for the community and also just like keeping up with the industry and learning about what's going on in fashion illustration well that's for me personally but that's also something you can get out of it as well yes and we also have a lot of activities every month as well so uh we do have a monthly zoom session on uh different topics such as like nft uh we recently talked about online store and also uh teach you how to build a portfolio and every every month we also do like uh a live sketch session together uh for example if it is uh during fashion month then we probably have a couple of them because some of the brands i have connections so after doing the sketches i can show it to the brand and there's a chance for you to get more exposure because they might want to share it on their social media account as well and because i'm an agent um for patreon members there are times that if my roster doesn't have that particular style i'm going to look into our patreon group because i know those patreon members are more serious about like building the career and i want to give those opportunities to those people as well um finally fashion week i actually am sending some illustrators to the shut backstage yep to do some live sketching so this is a one of them live sketching i'm in your patreon why aren't you sending me because you're not in new york you're not in milan listen listen if you're like hey zoe go to milan and i'll send you backstage at some show i would buy a ticket immediately shut up how dare you um next season there's always next season but yes i i do i do have connection with brands because i do have an agent in europe as well and she can actually help me to like connect to different brands and see if we can send illustrators to milan paris or even new york so i really love live sketching yes so the first time i did it i was so terrified but it's such an adrenaline rush it's so fun yeah and if you're really good at doing live sketching there are actually a lot of job opportunities as well so we can probably go into that later in this video okay before we get into that i just want to say one more thing about your patreon the draw dot uh patreon that i really love is when you do have guest speakers my favorite was of course yuri the textile yeah the print designer who used to work at dries van notten i've i learned so much from him and we connected on instagram we're pals we dm and stuff so let me if y'all like print designers if you all are interested in hearing from yuri and his experience in the and his business now and all things print design let me know in the comments and i will try to get one yeah but i also have a video i still have that video in the in the patreon group so if you they can access that yeah you can watch back all the past videos but of course zoe you probably have more like questions to ask eerie on like textile things because i'm going general but you're probably going very very deep yeah so let's let's jump to the questions i did make a list of the most frequently asked questions and the the questions that got the most likes as in people who are the most interested in talking about these things so number one do you think long term being a fashion illustrator is a living wage career uh the question the answer is also a question how passionate about like how are you do you see the passion in doing drawing do you like drawing um can you spend a few hours a day to draw is this your oh if this is just a hobby if this is just a hobby then stay with it don't think about making a lot of money because i think that if you want to you treat this as a long-term career you need to put effort and energy in it um but if you tell you say that i have other things in mind then fashion illustration is not going to be your thing because this industry right now because of social media is super competitive there's just so many artists out there right now looking for jobs some people are really successful can actually make this as a career because they work hard they reach out to people they connect they have the right connections so that's the short answer for that obviously they are more i can talk about what about you what do you think so i think it's a matter of whether you decide that you're gonna prioritize it yeah because you know if you're not prioritizing it then you can come up with a lot of excuses for why your career didn't work out like oh um i don't have time it's like well try to remove things from your life that you don't need and put this as a priority well i don't have money for a lot of materials there are people out there who are just doing pencil and paper drawings like saying like his work is unbelievable it's all pencil it's all pencil okay so you don't you don't need expensive stuff i don't know anyone the internet has ruined that excuse for all of you basically like get online start talking to people like you can't just build a social media profile and expect people to flock to you you have to follow accounts you have to engage with people ask questions dm them give them compliments start conversations it's not enough to just sit around so those connections you envy other people for having you have to start those connections as well so it's just a matter of like did you work hard enough did you work smart enough like all these like stupid hype sort of like uh headlines it's did you prioritize it and there is no overnight success so don't think about saying that oh i i did this drawing i put it up i attacked someone famous tomorrow i'm gonna get a job or i'm gonna get uh an amazing fruit basket from the celebrity there's no such thing you have to work really hard on this um i mean social media is good but it's not enough for you to say i'm just gonna sit back and relax and wait for people to come and approach me you have to build a really solid foundation uh you probably have to go back to the old days look for emails contact those people um if you know who is the creative director or marketing or the marketing person for this brand approach them show them your work those are the people who can actually have the budget to like hire you to do some work social media person they actually don't have a lot of power i have talked to some uh brands before usually social media who handle social media the interns a lot of people they don't value social media enough to put like a fully paid highly salaried person in that position and interns don't have a lot of power they always have to go through different departments so in this case you might as well okay sure if you like that dress draw it and then tag the brand and if they reply if they do it you can i would say one of the tips is try to see if they can connect you to the marketing department you might have a better chance i have a question for you that i get a ton in terms of design usually but i think it relates yeah so i have students who don't want to put their portfolio online who don't want to share work because they're constantly afraid that someone is going to steal their work about that you should be proud of your own work if you are not even willing to actually show this to the public then who is going to see your work that's problem that means people are gonna steal it people are gonna steal it i mean you gotta keep pro you're not gonna just make one artwork you're gonna keep producing it um i have a lot of artists actually complain this as well because they will be like oh my god this brand actually uh took my work and put it on t-shirts obviously you have to find a way to sue them or stop them from doing it but you have this is like this both sides for for each like for each opportunity if you don't show it to the public who's going to find you i'm not going to know your work but if you show it obviously there's a there's a chance that they people are going to steal your work for example um remember we did um i did the draw dot together uh project where we tried to uh promote uh anti-asian like hate crime and one of the illustrations actually got reposted by so many uh celebrities and someone actually took the print and printed and sell it on the street but at the same time we can't stop that because some people want to make money out of it but but eventually because of social media they will eventually find who is the real artist and they will dm like a lot of people actually dm other artists say that oh my god i saw this i saw this and eventually like people will know and will not support those people so same with artists who is not willing to publish their work a you can do is do watermark on your artwork you can put a signature on your artwork um if you don't want to show show a lower quality of your artwork because you can save it you can scan it scan like instead of doing a hundred percent high rest do fifty percent because if it's on um on the print it will looks really ugly pixelated and then if it's on a shirt you can't even see anything it's gonna be so blurry and ugly so no one's going to buy it but my suggestions is you need to promote yourself even though like social media right now is free there's both sides of this the good side is you can you can start to think about how to use social media to promote yourself but at the same time obviously people might want to steal your stuff but you can also use social media to call them up i'm sure i've seen a lot of artists do that all the time it's like oh my god this friend took my print and then i'm going to call it like and then can you help me to like stop this brand from doing it if the followers are actually really loyal to your work they will do it and eventually tell me all the time when people steal my videos yeah like most of the time they'll be like zoe this person has like a whole video of yours on their website without crediting you they tell me all the time yeah yeah but it's the same as other youtube videos because for example um if mtv is showing a clip of a performance i'm sure the artists like fans will also record that clip and put it on their own youtube channel you can't really stop that i mean eventually because you're you're famous you have made it that's why people want to want to like copy you or do like studio work if you're not famous who cares so you should actually treat this as sort of like a little compliment because oh my god i'm getting noticed by people now and whenever you you start to get noticed by people something's bad will usually like happen and it really depends on your mindset am i gonna keep going or i'm gonna like get depressed and say oh my god people are taking my work i would say keep going because ultimately people who want to work with you will know who is the original artist like for example if someone still uh steal your artwork and then the brand approach that that person that person cannot recreate that illustration because that person has no skills yeah that's the beauty of illustration even more than design is like it's so much harder to recreate and mimic your line quality or the way you use color or your brush stroke all these things like yes you can't imitate it so yeah it's 2021 you have to get yourself out there no one can help you if you can promote yourself no one can promote you like you can show me your artworks and i would say oh my god this is amazing can you publish it if you say no then i'll be like then what do you want me i'm supposed to deal with it i would be like what do you want me to do with it do you want me to uh show it privately like i i like even on my website when i have the agency i have to show people's work so if you give me the artwork i see so much potential in you and you're like i don't want people to see it then sure you know what happened you'll be famous once you die because after you die we probably like someone will probably go to your computer and take all your artworks and put it online then sure you will get money after you die but it will be too late i actually did tell my husband that once i die he needs to burn all my sketchbooks because i don't want anybody to see all of that yeah no yeah like once i die you will erase my internet history and you will burn all my sketchbooks yep all right so this segways into our kind of our next grouping of questions how do i get a job as a fashion illustrator and what kind of jobs out there for fashion illustrator so fashion illustrator there are a lot of sub categories you can be an in-house artist for brands what they do is they will do portraits of the vips i know dior has a position like that so keep an eye on that and i also know that artists too so yes then also what you can do is um i think one of my patreon members got hired by a brand in italy it's a pretty big brand too just in-house sketching like doing uh designs so create prints if you like to do prints textile that's the way to go like yuri basically he does all the prints for treats back then um that's the way to go you can also be a teacher if you're really good at drawing you can just like apply to colleges or even have your own master class or online course to teach uh you can also if you are more aggressive start an online store but when it comes to online store there are a lot of things that you need to think about uh that's why two weeks ago i actually do a two-hour session to teach people how to do it on my show because i have the data from my online store and i also have some feedback from um from a brand that was a good question what can you like what should you make to cater the math audience um if you are doing portraits if you like david downton doing portraits you don't need an online store but you need a really good connection because people will commission you to make portraits but is this again is this gonna be sustainable i don't know if every month you get five to six portrait uh requests and use charging a grand each sure you can survive no problem but if you're a starter you might not charge that high then you have to figure out what to do like my job is to actually open all the possibilities for you i try to help you to do a like to build your foundation and choose and then you choose the path that works best for you and some people also like to draw um book covers editorials those are the things that you can like those are the things that you can do too but how can you get your first job you reach out you enter contests for example um jordon i do a lot of uh contests and open calls every month participate do that and then put it in your portfolio because the more you participate if you if you win for example um recently i did a contest with private policy and then the winner the prince actually was print on the shirt this one so so which is really cool because for that artist now she has a really really good like um case to put in the portfolio saying that i have done this i have won it i have this physical product and brands will start to like okay maybe i will want to work with work with this artist and also if you want just try to approach smaller brands collaborate with them doesn't matter like you can say oh do you need a social media campaign with illustration if they they say they do but they don't have a lot of budget then you can you can just consider if you want to do it or not i would say do it because you're you're new to this you need artworks to like to build your portfolio but ask for a little compensation it could be money it could be products it's really up to you okay two things number one i have a friend who she's a freelancer in a slightly related but not illustration category and uh so somebody asked her like can you do this thing for me what's your day rate and she said this is my day rate i'll do it for you for half if you put me as your first phone call every time you have another project like this and then you can pay me full for the next projects yep so she worked that out so that she was paid 50 that first job only but then she guaranteed her next job yep where she was paid full full price that's smart now that's smart you can do that and at the same time always like one of the tricks i tell illustrators to do is when before you give the rate make sure you do some calculation and then you can also say this is my regular rate but because i really want to work with you this is the rate i'm giving you yeah she definitely said this is the cheaper rate like you have to let them know like normally you're not like this this cheap yeah yeah but would you say that most fashion illustrators or a big percentage of them work more of a freelance lifestyle freelance gigs yes absolutely but um i think one of the and then the biggest question is how do you get the job that is always the number one question i get from my illustrators and the question is how aggressive for you how are you approaching your clients um do you talk do you have good connections uh use your connections if you if you are really good at doing uh live sketching in-store events is a really good way to go do you know do you know any store owners that want to do something like that um if not then do you know anyone that can connect you to some brands or some source that lets you have the opportunity to do that i can tell you that life sketch events can make you a lot of money it can be super stressful during that two hour three hour period but after you like i am done i don't need to talk do any more and here's my money yes you can do that and this is why i'm training my my artist my patreon group to actually do live sketching because you only have six to eight minutes to draw a person and you have to make sure that it works because if they don't like it they actually will tell the store managers like i don't like this artist yeah i just i would like to interject by saying yeah you do not need to work with like ferragamo as your first client ever no in fact i would recommend you don't like go to your local shoe store or whatever you know what i mean like go to whatever local boutique and say let's do an event together and i'm gonna do this and we're gonna market it together yeah we're gonna draw a crowd and we're gonna have a party like a post pandemic let's get you back in the store and trying things on like fun party and i'm going to be there i'm going to be doing illustrations and you're going to have a sale and blah blah blah one of the events i did they only got a portrait from me it had a receipt for something they bought so they were kind of like filtering people that people who are actually buying products or getting portraits done by me because there are a lot of people you know so you can do something like that and then get your feet wet with a smaller boutique exactly and get attention and you can you're definitely going to get better at it as you go yep absolutely so start with small and then and then go back because and also because when you are working at a smaller store you will you are not as stressed as working for a big brand so those are the things that you should think about like start with small go for the smaller stores uh do something fun enjoy yourself i always tell my artists like if you do this kind of live sketch events make sure you enjoy yourself talk to people because those people might connect you to other jobs as well for sure birthday parties weddings those are the money like you can make a lot of money of making like going to those gigs i have a friend who is a print designer for a fashion brand and she loves watercolor and she doesn't get enough of it and so she likes she does um illustration for children's books yep but she has a literary agent so if you want to illustrate books you're going to need a literary agent because they are in the book world yeah and they have the book connections if you want to get into book illustration so look into a literary agent yeah so next question is there a market for fashion illustration in video game world absolutely um we don't know you're excited to talk about this let's talk about video gamers have so much money i have talked to so many artists and tell them to please please think of a way to actually combine video game characters and fashion together like you can do it as a creative project obviously like you can't sell those prints because both items are copyrighted like the character is copyrighted and then the clothing you don't really want to like deal with like for example chanel lv they probably will come in after you um but there's so much money there because every single like from what i know in a lot of people actually buy a lot of clothing like accessories for comic-con back in 2012 brother did a collaboration with final fantasy on an editorial so cool 3d images love it um recently 2019 louis vuitton actually did a collaboration of league of legends and they actually create a collaboration too you can actually buy the products physical products in store that's cool that is really really cool and recently valenciaga did a collaboration with fortnite and if you're a gamer you know fortnite is one of the most popular games in the world right now so if you can get like if you can think of a way to create illustrations based on fashion like characters and also fashion you combine them together there's a really good chance they will want to hire you to do something um i think there is a instagram account called no nori i can send it to you later maybe you can put it up on the screen yeah that is a 3d model and then she basically just dressed up in different fashion designers brands is she using like clothes 3d or marvelous designer do you know what program she's using i don't really know uh but funny thing is she is actually represented by a modeling agency oh yeah so 3d virtual model is another thing so you have to think think about if you can create that character you dress them up there is a chance that you will get a lot of attention i have um so a lot of you know i have a facebook group and a lot of people in the group they share work and we talk about our work and you know give each other feedback and stuff and i have several people in there who work in cloth 3d and they post work and one of the people who post them differently uh regularly she she does video game avatars in cloth 3d and because she has a design background she really designs like really fantastical garments that most people can't think of think of and she's like i have a day job zoe but i do pay my electric bill with selling these uh close 3d avatars i'm like that's a start she's paying bills with it like i like it there's just so much potential in the video game world it's more like how are you going to do it and how are you going to execute this i will say uh look at all the most popular games right now like see which franchise is the most popular like you can even do mario brothers you can do final fantasy and then look at the characters because they are already like built they already create for you to just like look at them read this like redesign their outfits that can get a lot of tension because if you're looking for the editorial probably they will want to hire you to see if you can do something like that for them because right now i don't i don't know how long this photography editorial gonna last because because of the pandemics there's a lot of people cannot travel to do all the photo shoots they have to find a way to present the clothing and sometimes they like to have 3d models and then dress them up because that would be really cool and also if you look at vogue if you look at all those um other magazines they start to have videos as well so if you are animator you might actually get another bonus point because you can probably do and a short animation imagine if your work is on vogue how many people want to hire you after so i would say start thinking start brainstorming what you want to do don't be afraid like create what you like to do and see if people respond to it and don't worry if your first video doesn't work because every day you can produce more and eventually one will hit someone in the internet the good the beauty part of internet is you don't know who's actually looking at your work and then when two might be using uh instagram too with a private label i bet you she's got a finsta yeah got a fake account so on that note i've seen both photo realistic fashion illustration and more esoteric abstract illustration what are the purposes of both and which style do you think will dominate the field in the coming years photorealistic work i would say it's really just showing your skills um if i'm an editor of a magazine i my first question is i already have a photo why would i want to hire you give me a reason to hire you to do those works again um but if you if your market is i want i want people to hire me as a uh as a custom portrait to do custom portraits then yeah you can show that but is this going to make you a lot of money i don't really know i can't really tell you because remember when you do art it's supposed to show your creativity and when i look at your artwork and you're basically just copying from a photo i already crossed off there is no creativity there no matter how good your skills are so basically i would just say okay can you use this skills to create an illustration that is not from a photo that does not inspire a photo if you cannot do it i don't know how i why i want to hire you yeah there's no reason for me to hire you and a lot of people also abstract on the other hand has a lot of potential because first of all you can't really copy you for example there's a handbag like look at glenn's work there's a handbag and then there could be like a hand coming out it's all it's all about the artist's world he's showing you his world but with products that part that if you have a photo realistic style you have to take it beyond copying um a photograph as you were saying like you can take a realistic style but you have to incorporate a concept a really creative concept to it so maybe like if you draw the drapes of a gown and the drapes look photorealistic but like the actual concept of the piece has to be above and beyond just a person standing yeah on the middle of the paper yep like i want to see a person jumping or having a really interesting pose or if you're doing action yeah backdrop i want it to be a super cereal black background those are the things remember when i look at your artwork i want to see sort of something that i can relate that can evoke my emotion if you just give me a runway illustration it looks so real i'll be like cool you have amazing skills but what's the point because you're wasting your you're wasting your your time and energy because you will not be you are not giving your full potential an art is supposed to create something that evoke people's emotion and without copying others work and also for people who actually uh do photo manipulation artworks you gotta be super careful because the photographer never gives you the permission to do it like you take a picture from down from vogue obviously you will give credit to the photographer but but the photographer never gives you the permission for you to work with their photos and if you do it and if you actually sell it there's a chance that they will come after you because it's my work why are you touching my work so when i talk to my illustrators i would say try to avoid doing that try to like i've talked to some really successful illustrators too what they do is they're gonna like have sort of like a database of faces a database of eyes facial features and they're just going to combine it to do different like to do to do different phases and they will also have different cookies to actually like do different actions and now have to figure out how to place the cl uh the garment on the figure that is what you should be doing you can be super realistic if you can do that good for you there's a market for it but if not you have to figure out how to make it happen because i can tell you that this area right now for some reason is really competitive and people if you go to instagram you search fashion illustration many people do this kind of stuff there's nothing special anymore and i will look at them like why would i want to hire you because when i do a mag when if i have a magazine editor i want something special i want something different um for example if you say i'm really good at doing photorealistic like portraits my my rate is a thousand dollars per piece i can tell you that because this is this is super popular someone probably like i would do it for 50 and the editor is like it's the same style why not i go for the because it has no style it's photo realistic yeah it's just for realistic there's nothing nothing special about it but with you but if when you actually have a unique style then people like yeah i have to pay i have to pay this guy because this person's work is just so unique we cannot find others do that so i think first of all the the the number one thing you need to do right now is to discover your own unique style how can you put a flare on your artwork so people can recognize right the way and this is basically what i do with my patreon group all the time is like teach them how to discover that they will show me a lot of artworks i'll be like i think that there's potential here can you further develop it can you add this element to make it better so i i i think i can tell you the photorealistic artwork i think eventually will go out because at one point when 3d animators gonna get into this game that will that whole portion be like see you later because we don't need that 3d animator can actually make realistic people as well yeah like like whatever photo realistic color pencil illustration you're doing is just it's just not going to compete with the animators unless you want to go for like just competition then yes then go for it that's a skill competition like showing interesting concepts is the way to show how you are valuable and irreplaceable yep because there's skill sets that you can replace but if you're somebody who can come up with the ideas and also execute in a cool way that's okay the next question is kind of related to that can i use whichever specific medium i prefer or does the market prefer and demand a specific medium or does the market demand we use a lot of many different mediums this is uh this is a pretty popular question i've been hearing this question a lot uh in my own group and also on clubhouse earlier this year the answer is it really depends on what you like the most it doesn't matter whether you hand drawn your illustration or you just love to do digital illustration ultimately the goal is i look i want to look at your concept i want to look at your skills i want to make sure that illustration looks super cool on paper or on a campaign if you're comfortable with using pastel to draw by all means go forward keep going because i used to have an illustrator who doesn't like to use um tablet to draw digital illustrations and she's like yeah i don't like it because it will lose that personal touch and i would say by all means keep doing it because there's a market for it and if someone just love to use tablet to do it then do it it will save you some money as well because all you have to do is a tablet and a good uh stylus to actually draw um in a in a sense you might think that the hand-drawn illustration is you can price it higher just because of the cost of the paper of the materials but aside from that i would say both of them are equally important right now because ultimately we're just looking at your style your skills and also the subject matters i will add one thing is when it comes to hand-drawn or hand-painted illustrations a lot of people cannot tell the difference between different mediums yep i will post something on instagram or anything and uh people will ask me is that marker is that paint but people can't tell um just like your average person who's not like you know someone who illustrates themselves your average person can't even tell the difference so number one pick the one that you like because that's the one you're most likely going to practice more and get better at because you enjoy you're enjoying yourself and i think ultimately uh they're gonna buy the thing that looks good yeah and so you just gotta work on making it look good and what's gonna help you make it look good practice enjoyment yeah but yeah don't be afraid to try both those because you can do hand-drawn and digital you can have both skills in your pocket and under your belts because um sometimes i do i do know that for some events the brands will request for digital illustration some brands will be like i want traditional can you do traditional stuff so it will be good for you to do both and practice and there's nothing wrong with that i think it's better to have more skills for people to select than just say yeah i can do i can only do watercolor because sometimes that um the brands will be like i like your style the reason why they don't want people to touch the paper is because of like for example covet they don't want people to touch things so they would rather you to actually like draw it on tablet and send it to those people it's like contactless i had a live sketching client who always wanted me to work with markers yep because one they had branded paper that they wanted me to use that was not suitable at all for watercolor number two the product in their store was kind of expensive they did not want me to have jars of watercolor uh water and like this like whole very messy setup they wanted like basically just like a thing full of markers very tidy they don't want to make a mess like with people partying around and stuff so they requested specifically that i use markers or color pencils like a very tidy thing so having more tools in your arsenal definitely helps just practice different like tools uh both traditional and digital i think you can do both but i if you ask me if there's one particular that is better than the other i'll tell you no because every brand is looking for different things so on the topic of digital versus hand illustration i get a lot of questions about digital versus hand uh what skills are in demand if you want an illustration job at a company and two what is selling better in terms of prints and products uh what is actually in demand for there's actually no i don't i can't do you see a trend or is it just a particular trend because for example for the jobs that i have done for my like for the brands they are looking for different things but ultimately you gotta be creative they never ask you to just like look at this photo can you recreate it so i think creativity is your main element your work should be reflecting who you are and how creative you are uh if you are not creative enough they'll be like sure cool you have good skills that's it but we need something because what they do when it comes to the company like this is the concept this is the thing that i want to promote can you create something awesome you're not going to ask the the companies like can you show me a photo and then i'm just going to directly copy the photo to illustration they will just like then what's the point for me to hiring you there is no point here's my thing with photorealistic is learning photorealistic can be an excellent stepping stool it's kind of like a lot of uh painters when they're in painting school they go to museums and they set up their easel in front of one of the old masters one of the great masters and they tried to copy the painting literally brush stroke for brush stroke but that is a learning tactic they're not trying to copy it and sell copies i mean there there's a tiny percentage that could do that but their goal is to learn concept they're learn uh knock on them uh brush strokes how to manipulate those brush strokes lighting how specific painters lit their canvases things like that and then they take what they those techniques that they learned and then they apply it to a style that they develop for themselves and that it's a stepping stone so when you see those uh those artists in the museums copying a reubens that's what they're doing and so that's something that teachers of all kinds of drawing and painting will teach you but eventually it's a stepping stone at a certain point you have to know like you have to know how gravity affects hair so that when you are drawing somebody with long hair and you have wind blowing your concept is wind blown if you are only if you've only been doing photo realistic and you've only been copying exactly how the wind blows on that runway in that particular way you're not going to be able to be like oh well hair would go like this you need to actually like study a lot of hair and draw hair and like how curly hair bounces as opposed to really straight hair like mine or whatever so you have to like it's always a stepping stone to how you develop concept i always say to illustrators you can actually sure you can mimic someone's style for five to six months just to understand how it works but after that you have to get out of that of that like mimicking thing and then you need to develop your own style and you develop your own subjects like you need to start creating what what is known as your style because i will sometimes ask the artist like how do you define your style what's so special about your style what is the unique element there i know there's some illustrators just like to do some neon outline that is really cool i have seen that i have seen people just love to uh just use pencil uh color pencils to do stuff but then it's really colorful and um it's just so cool when they combine the fashion and the landscape together is really cool uh i have surreal artists who constantly put like eggs or eyes in their artwork that is recognizable so my number one question will always be what is your niche like what is your flair if you have no flare sure i your work is good but it's not good enough for me to pay you a lot of money to do an amazing mural or like even window display because there's nothing special about there you know on that note i do think that it can be a really great tool to figuring out your own style by uh temporarily copying someone else's style i used to do a project in my illustration class where i wanted them to do an illustration that mimicked a famous illustration like and copy that style the way they outline something or not outline something the way they use color the how they shade something whether it's like soft like gradient shading or like really bold crisp shading and they would have to bring in the illustration so we can compare how well they mimic the style and that can be a really great way to figure out what you like like you might decide i love a heavy bold line like this is the kind of look that i like and maybe later on you play with like different kinds of heavy bold line to incorporate in your own work but again that is a stepping stone yes like mimicking like antonio is really in the press right now because of the fendi collection um they did uh based on his artworks and antonio is someone that my teachers at otis loved and really pushed us on and there were things that i loved about his work there are things where i'm like it just doesn't mesh with my style okay and that's fine to like study someone and try to like mimic them as closely as possible and then you figure out what you fight against and what you really love and want to explore more and don't be afraid to evolve your style because a lot of artists just don't stick to one style forever i have some artists with eve off like every two years the style will just change a little bit and in 10 years it's completely different because you are allowed to change it you will you allowed to evolve because every year you might say oh i feel like i'm more comfortable with this style right now and then what's so cool is you actually bring your old style into the new style you bring back some elements from the old to the new to make it your own and then eventually in 10 years if you actually look at your art what you'll be like oh my god i have done so many artworks and look at my style has changed so much and i'm really happy with my style right now but maybe in five years i would evolve again don't don't get don't be afraid to do that if you look at all like the famous artists they always somehow will start to evolve this sound as well designers are the same you know you look at famous designers who've been working for 20 30 years and their style evolves as well as their own personal just where person evolves and when you look at fine art movements and you know bauhaus ran its course surrealism ran its course because and i hate to use the word trend in this scenario but that's really what it is it's like things fall in and out of favor not necessarily in a commercial sense but in things that people want to be looking at yeah i'm just like a very visual i like looking at this sense yeah and create i would say if you're really good create pop art pop art is always fun like i have not seen a lot of people using this kind of style to create fashion illustration yet so that's something for you to think about i think that's the end of our questions is this assistant anything you want to like go over i mean my advice for all the illustrator is don't give up don't give up easily it's just the famous one always have to do a lot of work they will always think oh my god this this artwork is going to like make me famous but no they will keep doing it until one day they're like yes i'm going to be like i make it i finally have made it um and i can tell you that always listen to people's advice and if you have a if you have a coach i always listen to your coach because they will know what works for you whatever you draw i can tell you that sometimes your favorite artwork is not the one that make you famous it's probably the one that you will like me it's all right but that will get the most attention and there's definitely something to be said about things that are more mass appeal it's a mass appeal because unless you have a really good niche market you know exactly what your your your followers want or your fans want your customers want then sure keep doing that but if you're still like searching for the path then i would say listen to people that you can trust and they will guide you and people with experience because they will know what works and what not and how to create like what kind of artworks you can create to put it online at the online store that will sell and they will also like give you suggestions on how to promote yourself i think right now a lot of artists are lacking this they don't really know how to promote themselves they will pro produce their artwork and assume that people will love it and will hire them and this is like a misconception and i want you to know that you have to put effort in it before people starting to come in and ask for like us to hire you and like ask you for some really awesome custom works to piggyback off of that even though i really hate that word because clubhouse really ruins that term piggybacking you know what i mean yes yes yes but like going off of what you were saying you know we you know illustrators they we practice drawing constantly painting whatever medium you're using but y'all don't practice approaching people and talking to people and emailing people at like because these are all skills that are required of us especially freelancers especially because your freelancers are constantly hustling for the new gig right and so oh like you can sit there and be like i'm not good at cold calling i'm not good at emailing i'm not good at talking to people you didn't you weren't good at drawing um you may have thought you were but you were not in the beginning nobody is good at the thing in the beginning and so you need to put in a a certain amount of time practicing and talking to people um i mean the patreon group is really good because y'all are on the discord a lot and sharing things which is great but the best yeah we yeah we do a lot of things like that's like just as important to practice as it is your actual illustration skills and it requires practice it a friend and i were talking a little bit about this concept of shamelessness the other day and not do not mistake shamelessness with rudeness you never want to be rude what i mean by shamelessness is don't be embarrassed about uh approaching people and then don't be embarrassed if they never contact you back yeah okay it'll happen it will always happen you think everyone writes me back no not everyone writes me back yes me too they attend something i'm looking okay i'm a there's a specific company i'm looking right at you i'll you have to swallow that pride and just have be a little shameless about it be like fine fine don't write me back yep we'll follow up with you in a week don't don't bother them like crazy though but yeah like have a little like just just up and like and those are also skills you got to work on you want to you want to reach out to as many people as you want and you can and then also at the same time when you actually get to see them find a way to promote yourself like tell them who you are what you do sure maybe 9 out of ten people be like whatever you're just like an artist but maybe one person will be like you know what your works are really cool i want to work with you this is how opportunities happen even maybe there's no like job at this moment they were like i'm gonna create something so that you can be part of this so yeah you just have to in a really rude term you have to hold yourself out marcus inappropriate content for youtube oh yeah so you're so used to talking to your illustrators behind a paywall you forget we have to keep things clean you're fine so you have to sell yourself you have to find yourself how much better you have to find a way to sell yourself and figure out who you want to work with and also with your style see which which brand will align with your illustration works aim for those brands don't scatter and just like i want to do this brand i wouldn't do this brand because at one point you will also change your style to suit that brand that might not work for you like i have artists who only concentrate on drawing mosquito marc jacobs those two brands and then i have people who will be like i love rick owens i will only concentrate on rick owens and you know that if you like to draw moschino you probably won't be drawing rick owens because they are two different like aesthetic like fun and bubbly and you know so you have to know where you go like where you where you think you want to stand like are you going to align with this brand or you're going to align with this brands and then afterwards start to create artworks that will get their attention i think that is what will work best for artists who are looking for opportunities who are just starting to build a portfolio if we were talking about this before in terms of promotion it's like you have to promote it's not enough to just like put something up there you have to figure out ways to promote and actually promote it across your social media like buy advertising if you need to um use pinterest let me tell you something about promoting and you know i i do promote my online store but i promote youtube videos except for your like five stalkers like the super fans every creator on the planet has some super fans and that's great every creator needs super fans i love my super fans i was joking on twitter like if your youtube video doesn't have a super fan that says first is it really a youtube video so i i love my super fans i love the ones who are like fighting to say first that's great yeah except for those like five super fans not everyone is reading every single one of your posts and so you might think that you're promoting too much you're there you're not you might think you're posting about something too much you're not not everyone is reading every single thing that you put out there yeah so promote more than you think you should and you'll probably be still be under promoting exactly um especially when it comes to instagram stories not people not a lot of people actually looking at your stories just that's why you have to constantly post it and promote it and don't be afraid to promote your works because you can think about look at other brands fashion brands when they have a new product the stories of every single day you will see stories on that particular product but are you tired of it no because you know it's the brand's like strategy they have to market the product obviously they have to do this i'm not going to like say oh my god you're so annoying i'm going to unfollow you if the if the followers actually love your work they understand they're like that's fine don't worry about it you can promote your artwork it's your platform do whatever works for you don't be afraid saying that oh i'm going to lose followers because i promote too much of my work if you lose if those followers unfollow you they are not your true followers you're not your friends apologizing horse on instagram and i have seen literally a hundred instagram stories from her wearing her met gala dress and i love all of them i have seen her wear that beautiful metallic dress with all of her native you know jewelry thing i like all of them and she's posted 100 times it's fine it's fine girl keep posting they're beautiful yeah because you basically she is proud of what she wore at the at the mad gala and for example if you're an artist you're proud of your work obviously i'm going to promote it all the time and she knows all her fan art in her instagram stories by the way she's really cool stuff from her or from here yeah so you can also do this kind of fan art too but uh one thing i will say to illustrators who plans to do more like a lot of fan art don't because once you start doing just fan art you will lose a lot of followers once you switch gear oh yeah yeah that's one of my artists for me is like once you start for example once you start drawing kim you have to continue drug him or else you're going to lose followers and no one's going to look at your other work so be really really careful of what you draw and how to build your instagram uh grid because that will determine how brands or companies will look at your work and they determine whether they want to hire you or not this is something that i coach too i tell people how to create a grid and what works for them what not yeah a lot a lot of things when it comes to the business side of fashion illustration it's not just busy you do a lot i am busy i but at the same time enjoy what i'm doing um i i get excited when like uh brands show my artists work on their instagram stories or when i do a contest and those works actually show up on the brand's account i get super excited and i'm really proud of all like whatever the artists are doing because they deserve the spotlight they deserve that exposure i mean my job is to find a way to get you the ticket to be in front of that door but once you're at that door whether you can open the door you can get more opportunities or not it's really up to you i can only do so much for you i think this is why because of all the things marcus does this is why i called him a connector like i couldn't find like the perfect word because he does so many things i'm like i think connector is a good word for marcus yes lvmh hire me i will connect you to different illustrators who do different projects for sure for sure yes do you have any other questions you want to ask me because i'm here yeah so if you have any questions for marcus drop them in the comments below or you can um check out i'm going to have all his links his straw dot instagram his patreon and everything in the description box so hit him up join his patreon community you will see me floating around i will slap my eyebrows on and join a zoom meeting um all those good things so please give this video a thumbs up if you learned something new today if you loved having marcus on let me know in the comments if you would like any other specific uh interviews on my channel and uh like and subscribe like and subscribe i can subscribe yeah uh please the thumbs up actually do help my channel a lot so share subscribe hit the notification bell drop your comments like all those ways you show me love and i will see you in the next video thank you bye

Channel: Zoe Hong

Views: 10,678

Keywords: zoehong, zoe hong, fashion, fashion illustration, marcus kan, draw a dot, fashion careers, interview, fashion professional, video games, fashion illustration for video games, fashion collab, clo3d, 3d illustration, animation, fashion industry, fashion illustration industry

Id: NtI-5Cj5Zss

Length: 64min 26sec (3866 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 05 2021