marty petersen artwork & design

studio line: 303.467.0101 martytheartist@gmail.com

Greetings, and welcome to the section where I (hopefully) demystify any and all questions & concerns you may have about the entire “hiring an illustrator” process! If you have a question or issue that isn’t covered here, please do email me, and I can add it to the information I’ve posted! :-) Here are the most common & frequent questions I’ve received-

1) First & foremost, what is it you do exactly?

I design, sketch, draw, & paint imagery in many styles/techniques, by hand digitally (on the computer.) By using a large digitizing tablet and pressure-sensing pen, I can evoke the look of traditional hand-created media (pencil, pen & ink, various painting styles) while maintaining the benefits of digital media- ease of emailing you progress shots for approval stages, layering art elements for future tweaks/changes, multiple versions based on one main body of work, etc.

2) What are your qualifications and experience?

Here's my background & work history in a nutshell- I grew up drawing, painting, sculpting & carving anything I could get my hands on; amazingly the folks supported this and allowed me to continue to develop along the artistic vein. I won some awards in High School art contests (woohoo), and the sweet ol' gal that taught my classes said I should consider going into a creative arts field (thanks Ms. McAndrew!). I graduated from Kendall School of Design, majoring in Illustration and Commercial Art. I moved to Colorado on a dare from a fellow Kendall grad; we formed an Ad Agency and set up shop in Aspen (FUN times). I worked as designer/illustrator there for several years, also carved a few signs for local bars/restaurants; then expanded to do free-lance illustration projects as well... also airbrushed several motorcycles and vans on the side. Went free-lance full time, moved around a bit (including 2 years in Taos, NM), finally settled in the Colorado Front Range area (near Boulder/Denver).

A partial client list includes Simon & Schuster, Celestial Seasonings, IBM, Coors, GE, Snickers/Mars candy, Ford Motor Co, Turner Broadcasting and many others... various book publishers, ad agencies, multimedia & e-learning developers, print houses; local, regional and national clients.

3) What's the typical process?

Designing, drawing & painting for me is a daily natural affair, but I've come to realize that the actual work process remains a mystery to many people I've talked to. So, here's a short explanation of the "how"-

Generally I'll be contacted by clients thru phone or email. On the phone, the first contact can be brief - sometimes I'm just asked if I am available to work on something, how soon a project can be completed, etc. We can also include a general discussion of any budget range you need to adhere to, any samples on my site that you'd like me to emulate, etc. We initially establish that we can collaborate on your proposed concept.

Email is great soon after a first phone contact, as this is your chance to include clear expectations, needs, timetables and any other pertinent details, where in a call you might forget key points... as we move forward we now have written record of your important project details to refer to.

So by now we've established the art needed, how it needs to be used, a rough budget range based on how complex the art style, number of elements and images you need (see "Pricing" which follows next), and the the proposed turnaround time. Within a few emails and/or calls we will determine what rough budget will allow what level of illustration, and if it all fits then I will quickly sketch one (or several) "roughs" for you to consider... these are quick, crude sketches just to establish the layout/placement/point-of-view, etc.

After we have the rough sketching to reference, I can set a more fixed budget range, often including a "cost ceiling" which gives you the security of a cap on what the art's final cost can be. *This stands firm unless the rough design we agreed upon is changed by the client once we're underway, then we can agree to any additional cost for the new design's direction.

At this point you commit to the project by mailing, wiring or PayPal-ing a 1/2 total budget deposit on the project. If you don't accept the rough idea(s) & sketch(s) and decide not to proceed, you owe nothing (but I retain all rights to my design sketches). This has never happened to me by the way. :-)

Next I develop a more finished sketch if necessary, based upon the rough chosen layout sketch. I encourage clients to confirm as many changes as needed at the sketching stage as it is usually a lot more difficult (or impossible) to correct things when the final artwork is done!

Now for the really fun part; I begin illustrating your final art, often in "layers", which simply means that some (not all) elements can be independent of each other; and can be moved, scaled, and modified somewhat even as we see the final image begin to take shape... you can be involved as much or as little as you'd prefer in the creative process, but digitally painting my imagery certainly does allow you to be in the loop with emailed "peeks" at the art-in-progress!

Once the illustration is completed to my satisfaction, I email you low-res files to look over and determine if you're totally loving the final product (of course you are!), I make any adjustments you feel necessary, then that's it! At this point you are expected to make the 2nd payment in full for the agreed upon budget, and I then send you the final high res illustration either electronically or on disk by mail; or both if you'd prefer. By the way, I always archive any and all artwork I've done for you, just to be safe.

4) How is artwork priced?

I work in one of two ways; either by hour or by agreeing to a fixed budget range (clients usually prefer the latter). For smaller projects, or several different creative pieces, I can work hourly... please note I recently lowered my hourly range of $80 - $120 per hour (depending on the art's usage/distribution) down to a fixed rate of $60 per hour, to remain competitive in this fluctuating economy. Some clients will say " just do this and bill me for your total hours"... in this case the rate is a fixed $60 per hr.

The more popular way is still somewhat based on an hourly estimate, but offered in the form of a calculated budget range as mentioned earlier. It works like this- I examine the proposed project, talk about the style/technique you desire; then make a calculated range based on my experience painting everything you see here on my site! I'm usually pretty accurate with the calculation, and with the for mentioned "cost ceiling" you can be sure of a cap on what the final cost can be. I will now repeat myself here; *This "cost ceiling" stands firm unless the rough design we agreed upon is changed by the client once we're underway, then we can agree to any additional cost for the new design's direction.

Generally projects are done on a payment agreement of 1/2 up front, 1/2 upon completion and acceptance of final artwork. I send low res views of the artwork throughout the process, and final high res files once the final payment is made. I often send final artwork by using an FTP site (for transferring files much too large for email restrictions), or I can burn a CD or DVD and overnight a disk if preferred.

Note; upon final payment in full, you also receive ownership and copyrights to all work created for your specific project by Marty Petersen Artwork & Design, including sketches and final art

5) I want much more art than I can afford, is that okay with you? :-)

All right, that question was a bit silly but does bring to light a real issue- It's important that both parties don't spend too much time discussing and planning a great illustration project if, for what is required, the budget and/or deadline simply doesn't 'fit'. It may be that my own work schedule is taken up with other current projects preventing me from meeting your tight deadline, or that the billable hours it would take for me to complete the illustration (and therefore the cost) doesn't tally with the budget you've allocated for the project. Luckily with all the styles/techniques I've created, and shown on this site; an accord can usually be met... with perhaps the chosen art style altered to better fit the budget, deadlines tweaked slightly, etc. It all depends on the nature of each project. Ideally, all pieces will fit together with no grey areas.

But it is sometimes the case that budget and deadline have no give, so in that sad instance it is better that no time is wasted from both parties, so you can source other providers and I can put my time into scheduled work etc. A bit 'boo-hoo' but ultimately positive in the long run. :-)

6) Does an illustration's art "style" affect the final cost of that illustration?

Very much so! If you really look at a collection of images, you can start to see how the detail levels can vary wildly; then when you consider the artist must place all those details by hand... the more detail in a given art style, the more time is likely involved in it's creation! Consider this; I can paint a lovely fresh, green,somewhat graphic leaf. (easy, and pretty fast.) Then I could add dimensions & shading to that same leaf. (a bit more time, still easy.) If the leaf is a focal point in the art, I might want to put in dimensional veining, more surface texture. (a tad more time.) Oooh, perhaps water drops on the morning leaf scene could be pretty effective) (each drop with sunrise glints and a leaf shadow, this project is still going.) Wait! The client wants me to illustrate the whole staff's faces reflected in the water drops. (WHAT?!?)...

Well okay, you probably get the idea, right?

7) What final file formats can you provide?

Most of my illustrative work is created within Photoshop and/or Painter, so the file format options are really extensive; .TIFs, .PSDs, .PDFs, .JPGs, .PNGs, .TGAs, etc etc. Note that all "hand-painted" artwork of this type is raster-based, not vector-based... raster files are "pixel-based" files, not "math-based" files (like Illustrator-type files), so they cannot be infinitely scaled up without eventual visible pixilation. We easily work around this as with any Photoshop artwork, photos etc simply by creating the original art in very large file sizes... and scaling any image down is never a problem.

*If there's an additional question or concern you have, please don't hesitate to ask!