 Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. The Alumni Career Pathway Series is a collaboration presented by the Alumni Relations and Career Development and Work Integrated Learning Offices. Before we get started, I would like to acknowledge that this panel is being moderated on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Slava Tooth peoples who are the rightful protectors and guardians of this land marked on a map by Vancouver. The Alumni Career Pathway Series is created to demystify different career paths for both current students and early career alumni. Tonight's panel highlights illustration and the multiple career pathways available within that field. This panel is being recorded and will be available to watch afterwards on the leeway.ca under resources. The leeway is the social and professional networking site accessible to all Emily Carr University community members. Students who sign up to the platform between now and the end of reading week will be entered to win an Opus gift card. At the end of the series, all episodes will be available on both ArtsWork and the Alumni website. ArtsWork, which is the student and alumni job board run by the Career Development and Work Integrated Learning Offices. They also provide alumni and student assistance with their professional development through one-on-one advising sessions and co-curricular activities. To introduce myself, my name is Sara Mulchan. I'm an artist here in Vancouver, where my work dissects private and public disclosure and parasocial relationships. I represent the Alumni Relations Office here at Emily Carr, and I am an alum myself graduating in 2015 with a BFA in visual arts. This evening, we have an amazing panel comprised of alumni here to talk about their career pathways and professional journeys. Before we dive into the panel introductions, we're going to launch a quick poll to get a feel for the room and find out how many of you are students, alumni, or faculty. Shannon will launch the poll. Looks like we've got predominantly students tonight. So welcome. It's wonderful to have you all here. I'll just share those results, mostly students. The format of tonight's panels will begin with taking a few moments for each of the panelists to introduce themselves. If you would like more information about our panelists, I've included some information within the chat. I'll be followed by a series of questions, and lastly, we'll open up the breakout rooms to give you an opportunity to speak directly with any of the panelists. We'll get started right now. Tonight I am pleased to welcome Jazz Gordon Gilchrist, Cole Pauls, Makoto Chi, and Pandora Young. Starting with Jazz, please share an introduction to yourself and your current work. Hi, I'm Jazz. I use he-him pronouns. I used to work at the Reading Center at Emily Carr back when I was a student, and I was part of the people who started Comet Carr, if that's still on the Comet Club. I'm a graphic artist, a graphic novelist, rep by Jennifer Zantian. I just last October I started pitching my graphic novel series called You'll Live Forever. It's a story about Black royalty, necromancy, consequences of colonialism, and the responsibility of those in power. So I'm currently pitching that, and while I'm waiting for bites on that, I am developing two more pitches for graphic novels. I have a note here that says mentioned D&D, so anybody who plays Dungeons and Dragons, I do too. Cole. Hey, I'm Cole, and I'm originally from the Yukon. I also graduated Emily Carr in 2015 with an illustration manager. I'm known for my book, Dockwater Warriors, which is a language revitalization comic that has Southern Toshoni in it, and it's about these like native power rangers and they take down colonialism. I'm also known for my other comic, PizzaPunks, which I'm just finishing the collection now, and it's going to be published with Conundrum Press in April. And yeah, I've just been doing a lot of freelance stuff and yeah, mostly indigenous work. Cole currently has an animation on the side of Emily Carr on the digital screen as well. Which is really cool if you haven't seen it. Makoto. Hey y'all. I'm Makoto, I use he and they pronouns. I also graduated from Emily Carr in 2015 with the illustration degree, which doesn't feel like that long ago. I'm a tattoo artist and an illustrator. I'm mostly known for my tattoo work, I think. But I also do occasional like editorial illustration gigs and more traditional illustration contracts. And supplementing that I sell like zines and patches and prints. And I draw like a lot of kind of like gender bendy chimera figures and use a lot of my work to talk about like gender and power and ritual and stuff like that. And last but not least Pandora. Hi everybody, I'm Pandora. I like the rest of us. I graduated at Emily Carr in 2015 with a BFA in illustration. My first year actually that we had our illustration major, if I'm not wrong. Since then, I've gone on to specialize in just really big giant graphite drawings pencil drawings but also paintings and more recently digital paintings. I'm entirely freelance and I have essentially no collaborators at this point in my career I just exclusively make pictures and then I sell pictures as prints and so that's sort of the, the makeup of my, my career at the moment. I don't know anybody else who is doing that so maybe that's something that I can contribute as a template for a possible, possible career for you guys. Awesome. I will open up the floor to our panelists now and ask our first question which is how did you first get the attention of publishers clients or galleries, and how has your method changed over time. I, I still do, I still do this. I go to a comic conventions and I mean when they were still happening, but yeah I first started going to Emerald City Comic Con, which is in Seattle, and I would just go there, and I would go to publishers booths and give them my current scene and then tell them like about the series or what I was planning to do with it. And then what I changed is I realized I was going to the wrong convention, and I should have been going to TCAF which is the Toronto Comics Arts Festival, which I did the poster for this year which is kind of crazy to me. But I realized like the Canadian comic scene was not going to Seattle and that it was like you know staying within Canada so I really broke through by you know going to TCAF. Yeah, similarly, like working in galleries I often like made it a point to like work alongside galleries or at events, and just like being present in gallery spaces even with, I wasn't like super sure of my work. And I think this goes for a lot of visual arts practices but like I made a point or an emphasis of just being like I'm here and this is the kind of work that I do. And yeah just being like physically present there. I did a little bit of you know in the gallery circuit earlier on in my career and you know just some open calls, but my parents were big time Star Trek fans nerds. They owned a computer shop, you know and so that even from like the 80s computers were a huge part of my life and so even from the infancy of my career, I was on, you know deviant art or, or Twitter or whatever it was Instagram you know I had this really innate social media presence from from minute one and that wasn't something that I felt was emphasized, like at all, generally in my time at Emily Carr and it really surprised me how little encouragement we were getting how little of a push we were getting to be to have that presence. And so now that I'm not really in rotation at galleries anymore. It's, it's my ubiquity in social media that is generating almost all the attention I get anywhere as people are all finding me because I'm everywhere on the internet. Kind of a mix so similar to Cole, I did comic conventions, mostly just local ones, then calf Vancouver comic arts festival is a big one for me that I did in 2017 to before quarantine. And so, like Cole I dropped off my comics as well. But I was way more nervous about it was like, take this. I'm surprisingly that didn't get me a job. And then what I started working towards was, I also realized I didn't know how to do numbers aren't the biggest thing for me. So I realized I wanted to get literary representation. I heard from friends who have been represented, as well as just listening to some talks from other artists. And that seemed to be like what I wanted to go for. So I was started to come open to that idea. And really this summer started doing research for that and then through during summer. The eyes were on people of similar heritage is to me. And during that time, some really, really powerful allies were in the art field were retweeting artwork. And this is an artist named Victoria Ying who worked on tangled is just fantastic retreated my work. Her agent followed me I followed her and I sort of researched her work and what she stands for. And then we eventually make contact and that's how I. Yeah, got my agent. So that's okay. Thank you all for sharing that. The next question is, what is help do you get to where you are in your career and what advice would you give for others who want to follow a similar path. I liked what most said about like attendance. And it's kind of like, you know, a bit more difficult right now, but it definitely makes a difference. And you, you continue to go to the same spots every year you attend the same conventions. You go to the same publisher six years in a row and you're like I'm still here I'm still making comics I still have these ideas that I want to create. Yeah, that's a presence is definitely a big part of it. I also say for comics. I grew up reading a lot of long form comics, I just basically read manga all day. And so when I was younger, all I was only envisioning like those 300 chapter projects, which was fun to think of but didn't really get me anywhere. And the most important thing that helped me was actually just planning out a sort of one full fully starts finished comic and finishing that that taught me more than any just imagining these like 10 year long projects would do. So, just on a sort of both art and narrative work. You can learn a lot while you're still having fun like whenever I'm watching any sort of animation or even movie. Like, I'm obviously enjoying it but also still like analyzing and if something I find a scene like makes me feel like really like a really strong feeling or like something's really well done I was just like, rewind it and then try to break down how they like made that happen. I think that helps. Yeah, and I also want to like expand on what Pandora brought up with social media, like I think the big Instagram boom actually happened while we were attending Emily Carr. And what I've helped found helpful is like, not just being like productive but like aggressive about that and aggressive about showing that. Like a while ago I used to have like deviant art and live journal and a blog space and Instagram and Tumblr. So, doing whatever I could to get eyeballs on my work and cast a really wide net is really helpful for me. And being honest about how hungry I was for that kind of validation. And also to like refer back to van calf and going to conventions like I tabled at van calf for the first time myself a couple years ago and it was really wild. Like, I don't make comics or like narrative scenes or like sequential work like that at all. But there's a lot of overlap between what I do and the kind of work that sells there and the kind of like culture that's there. And in doing that I like met a lot of people in person when you online and also just like consolidated a lot of relationships there that turned into like indirect collaborations or gigs or like tattoo clients. Like really feeding into my social networks like my friends has been really helpful, because like, it just like makes it so that we're sharing resources and like pulling that together and not just like on our own by ourselves in the world the way it often is. So yeah. For me, this was maybe one of the hardest questions that I read that they sent us because so much of my career has been entirely accidental. And so I didn't know if I could, I could actually advise on something that that just happened because of circumstance. What I can maybe comment on is that a lot of the advice that was sort of given to me in my art education in my gut. I always didn't think it was right like I felt it was off the mark. You know, this idea of like every every fiscal quarter you have to print thousands of mailers and individually address them to hundreds of different housing houses and then send them to the, you know, in the mail in the mail mail, like on camelback across the Sahara and I again just having a really, really computer based background I thought that can't possibly be right. And, and so I never had I never did and I never have and I probably won't ever. And what I do now which is make a picture, I bypass the gallery completely, you know at a gallery you paint one picture you sell it one time the gallery takes half and I was like, this is how people starve, and not to like the gallery institution is not one in the art world, but if just from from a business perspective I was like, I feel like there's other ways to be doing this I can make one picture and sell it infinity times as a print. And so I set up a print shop and my instincts generally have been right. And so I can just say that like the institutions we have are important but this industry is changing its influx and you are a creative person. It is completely your prerogative to invent the new models that we are that we're using. So, you know if your instinct is telling you something, you know your business instinct whatever. Follow it. I think that's really good advice. It's always important to question like if something you hear isn't like sitting right in your gut to kind of follow that guy because there's a reason that it's not going to work for you or your practice or your career. So, I know most of our illustrious nights all prints as well so I think it's good advice to remember that you can make an infinite amount of sales off of those if you so choose. Sorry, I just want to add to jazz is comment about like finishing stuff. Because that was like one of the biggest things that made people turn their heads at me was like I finished my book. And that's when publishers wanted to look at it and consider it to actually be published. When I had dog quarters issue to came out. I handed it out to all the same publishers that I approached for the third issue, and they all told me the same thing they're like let me know when the books done. And when the third book came out and I was like this is the final chapter to my book. That's when I got job offers. And I was like oh you finished the thing that you told us that you were going to finish two years ago and it's actually done okay now I believe that you will, you know you can accomplish something. Yeah, I just want to speak for some of what's being said in the chat right now and that like a couple of us have like emphasized our relationship to social media and those platforms are also in flux, and if you do work that is deemed like volatile to their terms of service which is like a lot of really cool work as Pandora understands. Then they can like boot you off and yeah just like finding appropriate and adequate spaces to exhibit your work is going to be a new thing for this new crop of students. And that's like kind of exciting and scary at the same time. So I think that's a good point about the kind of moderation changes that have happened to the social media platforms. I'm like victim to that same same thing as a painter so it's, it's definitely difficult because a lot of the cool work does get censored on the note of like positive and negatives. What makes an illustration portfolio stand out both positively and negatively or good and bad. This is, this is a weird one for me because I went to a lot of different, you know, advisors, we did the New York trip and we talked to different, you know editorial art directors, dozens of them, you know, over the course of my education and almost across the board everybody said have a signature style have a recognizable signature style. And, ah, I maybe that's true like maybe the most successful artists and illustrators are the ones that you can recognize at the drop of a hat but then you look at somebody like, you know I don't know Picasso had 10 different, you know, periods over his life and like the universe is not poorer for Leonardo da Vinci having taken three years off just to dissect eyeballs like his art was better it was cooler so I don't know I like a portfolio because it's the diversity of stuff, you know, and, and show me that you can take somebody else's style and like decode it from the inside you know that's interesting to me. Yeah, I'm not working in concept art but I was looking to it at some point and still pay attention to the spheres, and what people are saying is exactly that like if you're going to work in TV, especially TV, or in TV, you need to be able to emulate the style that's given to you. So having yeah showing diversity can actually really strengthen that because it means, oh you can adapt to this show and this show. Yeah that's a good point like it really depends on what field you're trying to go to. Because like, you know there's a lot of jobs where you need to be like a cookie cutter style whatever like the studio style is. For me it's kind of weird because it's like I, I'm kind of torn between like my form line and indigenous artwork and also like my illustrative punk comic so I've like slowly tried to blend them together as much as possible. And I've learned that like that that works I suppose at least for me is like slowly like having a diverse profile or portfolio where I can do two different jobs, but at the same time, not trying to divide myself in half and just keep on going where I want to go. And that's like me having fun mixing those two things together. And I think it's worked out for me just because pretty much all the jobs I get now are things that I would do on my own. And a lot of art like a lot of people who approach me want to hire me for like what I do personally and it's not like I want to hire you to do a Disney princess it's like I want to I want to hire Cole for his artwork and for his own style. When we got these questions I like mulled over this one for a long time because I'm like I don't, I'm never like in a position where like I can deem what is or isn't like a good portfolio. And I think for me the question isn't so much like what's good or bad about a given portfolio but like, is it appropriate to what you're applying for. Because like what's been brought up already is that like different jobs will after like very drastically different portfolios. I can't really remember the last time I put together a formalized portfolio might have actually been like my like Emily Carr submission package. But yeah kind of towards what Cole was saying for what would constitute my portfolio now which is my social media feed. I really put out there the kind of work that I really just want to get and want to do. Like being honest with myself about the kind of work I want to do and what I have energy for and then presenting that to the world has been really helpful for me. But in other instances it might be really helpful to like have a diversity of work. Like Pandora I also got the same message from a lot of like instructors and people like looking at my work at Emily Carr being like you have to have a style that's recognizable that's like the thing that you have to achieve during your time here. But there's also like, I'm not sure if you folks are familiar with like Jillian Tamaki's work. She's a comic book artist but her latest book is like a whole bunch of different styles and it's like her book that she made so yeah. Yeah, I also like to say, yeah what Cole and Cole have said, it sort of applies. It's sort of a constant. I don't think they still talk about this but when I was in school talked about when you're, you know when you're working and you're making your like okay these are like the three sketches I've done what do you want to do. There's sort of sometimes pressure to include, like, just for the sake of diversity to include like something you don't actually want to do. And like 100% that's the one that the client is going to choose and you're going to be stuck with that. So what, again what my coach and Cole are saying about really putting out what you want to work in is important. Another note just on the side of concept art is also, so concept art, what we see a lot of the concept art we see is really pretty like paintings that are more really promotional material and that's good, but especially in animation concept art for animation and video games. Anything that's using 3D models. The important thing is to understand that a concept artist is making designs for like 3D modelers take forward. So they don't just want to see stuff that's pretty. They do want to see stuff that's pretty but they also want to see how can you show something that will function. So like, can you show a character turning around. Can you show like objects with notes of like textures and stuff like that. So that's important. The types of portfolios that I do are pitches for comics and I don't want to derail everything here but when we do breakout rooms. If you want I can sort of like break down a comic pitch. So today, just building on Makoto and Cole we're talking about you know do the kind of work that you want to do show the kind of work that you ultimately want to do but Cole use the word I think enjoy or the work that brought him joy. That's a that's a big one for me. You can look at a person's portfolio and see if they're having fun, right, like the joyfulness of it and so do the work that that you're just like having a blast and I think it comes naturally. So the realm of psychology but you know it works. I just want to call attention to a comment that was in the chat regarding a website portfolio and I just wanted to make sure that our audience, if they haven't seen the chat is having a very vivacious conversation as well. I think alongside our panelists that they should definitely be aware of that and it will be that having a robust social media is fantastic but as Adam points out in the chat, having a website that is up to date with samples of your work shouldn't be overlooked. So always keep that in mind. Yeah, of course. Just expanding on what I was saying a minute ago but then then remembering that social media exists. The work that you're having fun doing and the joyfulness of your work and that people can read. Don't be shy to extend that to social media. Don't have fun with your people you don't need to be this sort of untouchable marble cast celebrity break through that barrier, talk to everybody joke with them, let them see your personality, because they're, they're honestly they're buying you as well as your art. And so don't be afraid to do that. Definitely, especially when it comes to networking at the conventions that you've all mentioned earlier or galleries is that people remember a memorable moment and an interaction, not just your work so it's always important to kind of create that impression. No one wants to like kind of hear now, like how important networking is really because it makes us all awkward as artists but it is super important. Any thoughts further on that question about portfolios. Yeah, yeah, just like another thing to tack on to the social media conversation. Definitely have like your contact information as accessible as humanly possible. Like the number of times I wanted to send someone's like feed to like a job or something and like we couldn't figure out how to get in touch with them has happened a lot more than it should. So yeah, I'll allow people to get in contact with you. Yeah, that's, that's an excellent point definitely make sure you're as accessible as possible. If you're looking for work because so often, when, at least from the alumni standpoint when I'm looking for our panelists tonight for instance I need to be able to contact you as transparently as possible so it definitely makes it easier if there's a way for me to reach you even if it is through social media. Our next question is, do you still engage or access in peer or community critique style feedback since leaving university. Yes. All, all the friends I made at Emily car. If they still live in Vancouver I'm still probably really close friends with them. There's certain classmates that like I've like stuck like glue to them. And, you know, six years later after graduating with them. I'm still like best friends and I still talk to them every day. And it's something like I can't imagine living without at this point, especially the people that I made connections with at Emily car, because I think that was one of the biggest things I got out of art school was like the community that I built around myself and the peers that happened to be in my class and I think it's really important to like talk to everyone. In your class and in your like in your bubble, because you know someone who is making like super realistic work might have like really good critiques on like your super cartoony style or something like you. Yeah, it's very, it's very important for me to keep those people in my life and in my circle and often jobs that I'm at least I'm doing right now is that like publishing things come out a year from now, or like two years from now. You're not allowed to share it with anyone, but I like you can share it with like your close friends because you know they won't share it and like they can give you an honest opinion about it. And you're kind of like stuck hiding all these drawings you've done. But with like your tight group of like four people you can at least still show them and get an honest opinion about it before it gets published a year later and even then like things to get published a year from now I'll probably still look at funny because I'll be like I draw those legs differently from now or something like that. So, yeah, it's something that I keep on bumping into the further and further into my career is that like a drawing that I'm doing today is going to be released like nine months from now. And it's kind of like a blessing and a curse because I get to draw every day but no one gets to see it until it's like really old, at least in my eyes. No, for me. I was a complete recluse a long time before the pandemic I work in complete isolation I live alone. And so don't be like me I one of the things I missed the most about Emily cars you go to class and they give you a project and then you get 30 different versions of it and you watch it evolve and be born. And I love that and I miss that so much. And because all my friends are sort of non art people I'm I beg them for feedback and they're like it looks really pretty and I'm like as harder I need harder criticism. Yeah, whether whether physical or virtual, you know, keep the connections that you make and gather them around you when you can find them. So, yeah, just speaking from. I'm the bad role model on this one. I was wondering how Pandora would answer that question because I like bump into her at the grocery store once a year or so and I think that's like to see her. And yeah, this question really makes me miss like the before times, because like art jams in person would be kind of like a regular thing but like I would do amongst friends and like cultivating those spaces outside of school is actually like really difficult in some aspects because we're not like thrown together structurally and like you have to work to make time for that to happen. But it does happen and has been like really really like beneficial and like necessary to like a lot of my artistic growth and my like growth as a person. So yeah, and some of those spaces, sometimes feel more like affirmation spaces rather than kind of like rigorous academic critique. But yeah like finding out who you can tease what kind of information out of is like also a really helpful social skill that we're all working on. But yeah. Yeah, I, yeah same as Cole, my, my friend group from Emily cars are still my some of my closest friends. I did see some people commented that they do dnd and yeah, they're my dnd group too so I see them every week. Yeah, I still will run a lot of things by them and I sort of like Makoto is saying you can figure out who is really great at giving what sort of information so I have. Yeah I've got my friend who I go to for does this look good and I've got my friend that goes to. Okay so this isn't working narratively how can I fix it. I guess the biggest difference between now and during University is everybody is somehow even more busy now. I didn't know how I mean well not pandemic but post University. So I guess what changed was when I'm asking for help. I had to make sure that I can help them help me like say, obviously keep with keep it open for anything they want to say but like give them being like, I need help on this like this is something that I'm struggling with give them some starting points. That helps, and also always like, if it's going to be a big thing. I take them out for lunch or whatever I just it's really nice to be conscious and sense of people's time. Especially if they are working in a field where they give advice. I, people don't always say pay me but I will always like offer to give some sort of compensation. So yeah it's like a friend thing but it's also like you're all artists. It's nice to respect each other in the way that you respect any other artist. That's a really good point when it comes to sourcing feedback, especially from people who give it professionally is about whether or not you can first be considerate of the capacity and whether or not they have the, the time for it, but also compensation for their skill set. I mentioned in the chat that I just wanted to throw out because the topic of concept art had come up. And it's just from Tony and he says if someone wants to study concept art for games or films, they're a specific major. And jazz this question might be for you since you kind of brought up concept arts. So you did illustration and Emily card if you want to do concept art for most of Emily card I thought I wanted to do concept art, and I pivoted at last and fourth year and was like, comics. What I found was, I think you're going to get time, you're going to get to be able to spend more time specifically on making concept art if you make it to your projects in illustration. I don't regret going into illustration but I wish I knew more about the animation pipeline. If you're in animation you're going to be learning sort of the whole process and what I talked about a concept artist, needing to sort of know the rest of the pipeline to do their job. I do wish I had that skill. So I would say animation or illustration, but whichever one you do, if you can take a leftist from the other and make friends with the other like I lost my family, I don't know what to say but back in my day animation and illustration were like siblings. My favorite part would be leaving the illustration room at like 1059 to get out before 11 and always seeing that there would always be an animation student in on their Cintiq working. Yeah, so I guess conclusion of the answer from my perspective is, Anastasia animation or illustration overlap the two, make friends and connections learn both skills. Does anybody else have any insight. It looks like we are good on that I will just throw a question from Michelle. I'm so excited to that which is, can a student ever benefit from being self taught and animation and I know someone here who is Cole. Yeah, I, I did that animation on Emily Carr all by myself and it was the first one I did. My first year at Sova in Dawson. And I had, I think I had like four or five months to do it all. And about half of that was re learning how to animate and picking apart my friends brains that were professional animators and then again yeah like Janice said like, I'm trying to bring them compensation because you know it's like, just because you're a plumber you wouldn't ask like your like Tristan friend to like do a job for you for free. And, yeah, I mean I benefited from learning alone I suppose but it was kind of felt like I was isolated on island trying to like figure it out and like ripping my hair out so it was very useful to have friends who were in the animation and be like, this is totally going wrong I don't know what's happening and they'd be like no that's totally normal, you should just add more frames or slow things down or, you know, whatever and yeah it's, I guess this goes back to the last question it's like it's very valuable to have those old classmates of yours that are still in the field and you can go can I pick your brain about this for a minute. Yeah, I would, I would agree with all of that and as well like, even if you choose to be fully self taught just through either whether it's internet tutorials or online learning and just like trial and error. There's always benefit in trying to teach yourself something now. So that I hope that helps Michelle. Since we're kind of on the topic of resources anyway. What are some good resources professional affiliations or social media sites to follow for people who are just starting out for me it's like my follow for illustration is just like. Instagrams that like share panels or like share old illustrations like there is a website called 50 watts that I used to like obsessively go over and it's like old sci fi illustration so I kind of like more try to absorb different forms of illustration versus like following like comic book resources calm to find out what the latest like comic book gossip is it's kind of more like I try and surround myself with like inspiration and like work that I want to like try to achieve like the same kind of line weights or like emotion or something. Like I try and read lots like I try I probably read like three or four graph novels a week. And I like really benefits myself personally so I guess it's not really like social media or anything but like absorbing the media that you participate in is really helpful for me because you might have to draw a scene with like a chain link fence and there's a motorcycle and there's like an explosion in the back and then you're like oh how do I do this. So I flip open a book that I know has all those things and I use that as reference and I go oh well this mango artist was able to do this with a really thin line for this like European like artist did it differently with a brush stroke so I kind of more absorb like like if I need to draw a bicycle I look at like 10 different versions of how people have drawn it and then I kind of like pick apart my favorite things and then absorb it into my drawing of that bicycle. And cool as we just asked if you could repeat the name of the website that you mentioned oh 50 watts and feel free to like post the link in the chat if you're able probably find it. For me I have this thing that I call going shopping which is I will visit you know Pinterest or Google images or whatever whatever website have you and just scroll just me and run through and I've just got a you know folders with literal terabytes of cool stuff that I find and if ever I'm you know can't think of something I just open up my my folder and you know take a cruise through and then instantly I've got 25 new ideas and I've got a year's worth of work in front of me. This is a little risque but I'll throw this out there if you're a figurative artist like me who does a lot of like human bodies and stuff. So if you're asking for resources porn, pornography, I have like subscriptions to different websites because you can you know every single muscle that you could ever possibly want to see in every different lighting condition from every different angle already exists and it's there and you can get at it but that's just I mean that's just one of the subcategories of things that you can get online. In terms of references but my greater point is sort of like I do going shopping perusing through whatever spaces, it could be a museum, you know, put yourself in the spaces that inspire you and give you ideas. Yeah, that would be sort of the resource that I could, I could cite. This is the stuff that I, I guess I don't know who's what people who are interested in totally but I'm coming from a comics perspective. There is so something I just learned about in the last year there's a hashtag that comes up twice a year called DV pit which is specifically a sort of like pitching event for marginalized creators. So I've just made a list to see if I can, I don't know how much I can paste into the chat. Let's see. Let's see how many posts. Oh cool. They didn't, it didn't split down my categories or my good bulletin. But yeah, so DV pit comes around twice a year to the first one there. There are a few. There are a few threads on pitching and querying. The place is five agents so I was recommended these I haven't used them yet, but I got recommended by a bunch of people and I was going to use them but then I got my agent through Twitter. But publishers market is a paid subscription, but it's monthly so you don't you what you can do is once you have a pitch, then you get that for like a month, do as much as you can. I wanted to say subscribe for like the whole year query trackers free and then just framed in because the book that helped me a lot with composition, which is really important for comics and for animation, and then color and light is a great book by James Gurney on color and light. So people who are concept artists you've probably heard of it if you haven't it's a really great one. That sort of breaks down like the actual like how everything actually works, everything. Yeah, those are my guides. For me, I guess I'm a little bit old school, but stylistically, all of my references are like my art books. I've tried really hard to do like contrast shopping and even like saving little like tags on Instagram but I just like never look at the stuff that I save digitally it just kind of like floats there because I have like a little ping of Sarah telling like I completely forget about it. But if it's like compiled in like an actual physical object I will look at it. And this is also led me to like compiling folders of images that I print out like, as I did an elementary school and have like a do with hang with that. I guess like for like tattoo specific stuff. The Canadian Red Cross has like a really comprehensive and detailed bloodborne pathogens program that if you're ever interested in tattooing like over the board or like DIY is really very for you to know. Otherwise, a lot of the resources I get are also like my friends who are art workers just like going through what they're going through and talking about that on social media. For example, like my friend Kim, who on Instagram is I think like live bird party. They are going through a lot of contract work right now that's really complicated and they like highlight like issues that they are like dealing with their, the contracts and talking about those. And also, I don't have any resources for this on hand right now. Learning how to do your taxes and getting on that as early as possible is something that I really recommend doing if they haven't like set time aside with you at school to like figure that out. And also doing stretches to take care of like your wrists and elbows and back because I'm like 30 and I have carpal tunnel syndrome and that's really wild. I have, I think I have a link to like a self care zine or something that has a lot of like stretches to recommend I'll see if I can find it in my drop box and I'll link it if I can, if I can dig it up, give me a second. If that's ever important, I will just throw out that the Richmond Art Gallery regularly puts on taxes for artists, which would be valid and relevant for any freelancers or people who are doing a combination of freelance work and work where you get a T for. You know, the Richmond Art Gallery just regularly regularly does that as well as car fact also puts on those same kind of workshops because it is a gap when it comes to taxes for artists. And above and beyond taxes. They, you know, get a rudimentary understanding of copyright law, understand what you own, because it's more than you think. So I don't have any specific examples of that but I would say Google it and there's lots of resources out there that that would be one I'd really emphasize as well. And Makoto there's a question about if there's any classes you would suggest for people who are interested in tattooing. I don't know about specific classes for tattooing. I do know. There's like quite a few tattooers. I know personally who kind of got a rudimentary lesson on tattooing through watching really bad YouTube videos. It's kind of one of those practices where you kind of have to learn by doing it and unfortunately doing it as a very high stakes practice. You can start off on linoleum or fake skin or citrus fruit before you tattoo people. And then practice. A couple of friends of mine have compiled in their like Instagram stories, a lot of resources for beginner tattooers, I'll see if I can dig those up to and paste them into the chat. Otherwise, yeah, YouTube, YouTube is a friend. The next question is, what is the biggest challenge for illustrators at the moment. One we've, one we've talked about is the ever changing algorithm for getting noticed. So it's one of the things like Makoto put it best is that it's scary but also exciting. So learning to work with that. This is the next thing I'm going to say is sort of going to be weird considering the next question because it's one of the things where it's growing but not fast enough but it's growing. So what I've been hearing a lot about, especially since summer is payment of comic creators but also in lots of industries, especially for marginalized people, but this is also going to go to the next thing which is that having these movements like Black Lives Matter, Me Too, there's more people are getting platforms and more people are listening whether they're, you know, just educated or whether they're forced to. So there is growth. I guess we'll go into that at the next one. But yeah I'd say we're getting there but we're still behind where we need to be for respect, proper respect for everybody. And double down on that payment issue. Something that has come up pretty recently on social media and stuff is Fiver, which I don't know if everyone is familiar with it but it's like an app where you can like offer illustration jobs for only $5 or up to like $20. And it's really just like downgrading like the like importance of illustration and the importance of like paying people for their work and stuff like there wouldn't be an app for that for like doctors, you know, like it's like crazy that there's something like that for illustration. And people make like YouTube videos about it where they like they're like I hired 100 artists for $500 to all draw me differently and it's like this weird community that I think that is not helpful for the illustration community and I don't think it should be a thing I get like illustration can be inaccessible for people with like financial issues and stuff but like there's ways to get around it like I offer different prices to different organizations depending on who they are and what they do. So, yeah, I don't know, I don't, I don't like Fiver I don't think it should be a thing. Yeah, just a note on Fiver it. It definitely has impacted not just illustration but a lot of different creative industries, not limited to but including the graphic design, communication design, animation, any sort of branding, it's basically like a full blown it's really cheap and a lot of creative industries and it is, I would say it is definitely like a major challenge, especially for industries like illustration, where people just don't want to pay the money to have say like a book illustrated. And it's really like it's, it makes me cringe that platform so thank you for bringing it up cool. It's exploitative, like straight up. Absolutely. I did get a good laugh as well jazz at the doctor with two hours. So simple but so good. Very funny. If you're, you're a young starting artist, you know it might be tempting to join one of those like Fiver or I forget the other one it's I can't remember but you know you're, you're, you're going to get underbid by somebody you know you might feel like I'm starting off I can, I can offer my services for you know five bucks and build up a portfolio. And that's that because what you're doing is undercutting the entire industry, your fellow artists get paid less and ultimately you'll get paid less because the entire industry standard has been brought down so don't participate in it, don't join it. You, you as a dead beginner artists are better than that. You're worth more than that is what I mean to say, you know, get that money. There's words like predatory like apps and industries gallery work has that as well. There's like, I'm not sure if it's still around but there's like that raw artist thing that was going around where you kind of had to like pay or sell tickets to participate in it and it was basically like a pyramid scheme and there's a lot of that out there just trying to participate on people who like want to get their workouts sincerely. So being like aware of that is something that you have to like unfortunately have your antenna out for. Another thing that's like really hard in industry is just like the amount of admin work that you have to do to like be a working artist is like absolutely bonkers and shouldn't be understated. For every job I do I have to send like 700 emails and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of time. So just factor that into like how you're like divvying up your energy for life. And for me, just to say like gallery work can be really really labor intensive and is labor intensive and not very lucrative. Like I make maybe 50% off of every painting that I sell and there's no guarantee that I'm going to sell. So when I do gallery work a lot of my income comes from making prints for that show or making zines and making like smaller accessible pieces for that show. There is a question in the chat that I just wanted to call attention to which is from Michelle it says, what are your tips for finding out who your audience is. And there's an example here for example family friendly or mature artwork Michelle's been figuring out what her work is about and most of the time people know her for cute work so she's just looking for an idea of like how to find your kind of niche your audience. So you can have separate streams, you know you can, you can have an account for your adult work and you can have an account for your kitty work and you can even use you know two different pen names for those. If you'd like to keep them separate, you can have them going to the same stream if you just have sort of a, you know the feature image just says not say for work and scroll at your own peril kind of thing. So aside from the work that you're making or that you want to make, you can find out that stuff if you switch a lot of your social media accounts to like a business account. Then suddenly you unlock a lot of access to your analytics and you can look at who's visiting from where what age groups what you know gender what you know what other peripheral interests you know do these the do my audience like sports. Do my audience like Star Wars you know and, and so know that there's a lot of information accessible to you and study it for sure. I'm sorry go ahead. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I kind of have like two audiences, and it's like this. Interesting divide for me because it's like pizza punks is like kind of like kind of just like surface like gang strips and there's not a whole lot of depth to it. And the audience that like reads it or like young people who, you know, listen to like fast music or something. And I guess, like, I found those audiences by just doing comics for myself and I was like well what would I want to read what would I want to read as a child. Like creating Dakota Warriors that was kind of like my whole premise of it was like I want to make a comic that would blow me away as a kid, because I want to see myself I want to see my own community in it. So I guess like the work I've done. I just do it for myself and then like the people eventually have caught on and followed. And it's like a slow burn because like, when my book came out last year, I got a lot of questions where they were like how does it feel to be like an overnight sensation and I was like, it's, I'm not like this book took me three years to make. And I've been self publishing comics for 11 years now. You know, so it's like, yeah, you saw my first book but like there was 500 pages before that that you never got to see that is kind of like the growing pains of making your own audience and making your own voice and your own illustration style so it's like this really slow burn that, you know, eventually hopefully people catch on that like, Oh, this person's making like comics about indigeneity and his own identity and like I found this niche area where there's not a lot of people doing it. And that's kind of how I get like flooded with jobs now at this point is because there's only X amount of indigenous illustrators. So if three people say no and I'm the fourth person in line, you know, it's kind of like, they can only go to so many people if they want it to be like authentic. Yeah, and I think like, like I also have my like two different streams of practices divided like I have my, and like more personal and gallery work and then I have my tattoo work. And also I feel like if you are making work that is interesting to you and is honest to what you want to make your audience will kind of like find you, and you'll kind of like be in this kind of like reciprocal relationship of like identifying your work within your audience and them seeing themselves in your work like the gallery work that I do is like basically like kind of like furry porn in a lot of ways. So, I didn't really know that about my work until recently. So I've just kind of like found my people once again. I think it's also useful. Like this is sort of the pattern I've fallen into is a one for you one for me kind of model like the majority of my audience might want this thing and I love doing that but I also want to do this so do one for you one for me. And yeah, that that has really worked well and keeps it keeps it marketable. I was also going to mention. Once we get back to a version of the before times. Yeah, yeah illustrator comic artists. If you go to those live events where you are a vendor. That's a way to get instant. I mean instant feedback. It's, I really like it. I'm, I mean, I guess I'm here so I guess I do talk about myself but I found it was really fun to get into conversations people about people who are buying work but like what they were interested in. And that sort of, first of all, it's just nice, and it's comforting, but it did help me like be like okay so this is why you're interested in what I'm doing. Most of it is, and most of it to me ended up being like, I like Dungeons and Dragons, this is a cute mimic, but you do learn a lot. And you can also eavesdrop on people when they're reading your book like a few meters away so not know you can also ask the same questions on social media and see what brought people to your work, see what they like about it what their interests are in like engage with your audience, because it really does give you an insight like jazz just mentioned. Our next question for our panelists and we've touched on this a little bit, but we're going to, you know, dive a bit more in is how has the illustration field evolved. For me, it's like, I said it before it's like kind of like this resurgence of like authenticity in illustration and kind of jazz touched on it before to where it's like, there's these movements that have happened recently that have put spotlight on POC artists and people like corporations have come to realize that like if they want. Like the general public's like approval or if they want like the approval from a certain community what you do is you hire someone that's authentically from that community, and you give them a platform and you hire them to do their work. So, yeah, it's a. So, kind of like this growing realization of like, just because you can draw something really awesome doesn't mean like you're like you should be drawing that or like you're allowed to draw like cultural appropriation is like a constant thing that comes up in my career and talking about my work. Partially because I'm a white presenting indigenous person and a lot of people will question my identity. And a lot of times I have to like prove who I am to some people and kind of like at this point now it's like people know who I am as an author so they hire me for who I am but there definitely was a part of my career at the beginning where people are like you're indigenous like why and how you know like and I had to like constantly prove myself to these people. Yeah, I also say it's like, it's a struggle where like I said before it's getting better for marginalized creators but it's still there's lots of work. So, like, what I'm, what I'm really glad to see is the people who are constantly pressuring industries to continue to change. So like, you know, there was that black square thing and in August which was, or June that was a July it was a tough summer. And they're the people who just wanted the you know the instant gratification to look cool, or whatever, but then there are still people I see that are still doing the work that are being good allies, and then people who are making platforms for themselves, or being giving those platforms, and pushing those forwards is what's important. It's also the industry, there are, in some way, there are different options now which is nice. I've talked to their comic artists who people weren't taking publishers weren't taking the risks on their work so that he went through Kickstarter and have been super successful. So the good yeah the good news is like now there are more ways to approach things there's not just like one way of doing everything. So, for a lot of us here, I think maybe the majority of us, accepting the younger students in the chat room we all remember the word Napster, and that we all were witness to the complete collapse of an industry. Music used to be this industry and then it was democratized and you could access it anywhere and we learned the, we learned the lesson that if you want art and culture to be generated by the people. You know the people who make this work that you love, we are going to have to ourselves fund them. You know there's not some giant corporation behind them and so it's really it's democratized not just the art and the product, but the, the, the funding as well and so like if you're somebody like me. You know, I am a completely crowd funded income, I entirely bypassed you know the gallery circuit I bypassed an agent at all and so this is such an awesome time to be an artist or an illustrator because a lot of the gatekeeping has been removed from this industry. And so you're having a lot more participation from a lot more levels and across those levels to. But yeah, you know, further to sort of resources and Fiverr like the opposite of Fiverr might be something like Kofi or or Patreon where you can just directly talk to people and say listen do you like my stuff like keep my light bulbs on you know help me and so. I think a couple of the ways the industry have changed and I'm, I'm totally jazzed for it I think this isn't we're in a golden age for illustrators. Yeah. I'm also seeing that like, there's so many resources available to people if you have like internet access and a computer. What that's doing is like making a conversation like louder that calls into question like the emphasis on institutions like like the gallery, whether or not that's still like a viable thing. The tattoo apprenticeship is something that's definitely in the process of like, not quite being broken down but definitely turned in people's hands and understood differently and like art schools as well. It's an ongoing thing. Also, yeah to what Pandora is saying spaces like Patreon or like coffee or Kofi are like another option for people, especially if your practice is quite nebulous and doesn't like fit into a particular kind of category. And again, the like unfortunate flip side of that is that those platforms will host your work so long as it like fits within their terms of service. And yeah if you do stuff that's like a little bit more explicit then you're going to have a hard time finding like a space to show your work or to make money off of it. And what I'm hearing is that Twitter is kind of the current safe space for that. But that could change at any minute. Yeah, I had to break up with Patreon. Our next question is what experiences have had the most impact on your artistic development. I can tell a story. When I was 15 years old I lived in Japan, and my family knew that I was obsessed with manga. And every single Monday morning I'd be out in front of the store before it opened waiting for the new shonen jump. And so my host family saw that there was a shonen jump road show going around, and they bought us tickets and we went, and it was just that would they would take the actual like raw comic pages the drawing pages put them in a frame put them up on the wall and for I could like physically approach what were these like almost religious treasures. And the thing that was totally unexpected and paradigm shattering for me was that as you approach them. They were casting shadows. They were three dimensional. They were caked in whiteout. There was so much whiteout and tape and eraser marks like they were gnarly pieces of work. And it was an epiphany that like even these people who I viewed as masters and gods were screwing up and that and that these these relics were really just taped duct taped together held together with like duct tape and spit. And it was this revelation that wait, wait a minute, you know, I can, I can do this I can, I can sort of cobble cobble together something that in the end looks great and it sort of it doesn't matter, you know how much spaghetti sauce in my case that you spill on it along the way. That that it's just, you know, at the end of the day like does it look cool and and you know don't don't worry about about perfection. Something for me was like I grew up in the Yukon and from when I was 14 to 18. I would come to Vancouver for a week and I would spend a week with my uncle and my uncle was in the video game industry here in Vancouver. And he would take me like everywhere I would go to every single comic shop in town would go to the art gallery. I even got to go to the studio. And something that really stick out with me was going to the gift shop at the art gallery. And I saw Michael Nicole Yagalones is read a high to manga for the first time. And I think I was like 14 or 15. And it blew my mind because I'd always imagine the idea of mixing my indigeneity with comics and making my own indigenous story. But I finally saw an artist who had done that themselves and not only did it but like as a master like form line artists like made this master piece where if you take all the pages out and lay them flat they make a huge like mural. And I was like this is insane like it. So like discovering that book at a young age like gave me permission to like make my own work like that and I still like I'm giddy to see whatever book Michael Nicole Yagalones does next and it's a yeah it's a treat like I got to meet him once too and that was like I got to like geek out over him and I feel like I'm kind of like the crazy fan but at the same time I really value like getting to meet like an artist you really really admire and they give you like the time of day to like look at your art and give you like thoughtful feedback and Yeah, it was like reading that book was like my epiphany I was like oh I should I can do this too. Not as. So after graduating Emily car the next year, I went to a lot seems come back to bank at bank apps been pretty big to me, but they're sort of, you know, there was something that I was struggling a lot with that I for years and years I literally no idea how to say, and then I. This leads into I applied for bank and I got in and I work with a friend who lives in Victoria, and this we sort of those 2017 we procrastinated a lot and basically ended up with about six weeks before bank have to make a full comic. We challenge ourselves to make a wordless comic because I use too many words. And when I figured out that I was able to address this thing that I couldn't put into words for about five to six years. But the process of working on that comic was different than I think anything I've ever done before or after. It's the only time I felt like I had to, like, I actually had to do something like it was more important than anything to me to actually like create this thing. And that gave me this weird amount of energy that also listening to the attack on Titans soundtrack, but it was just sort of six weeks of straight focus that was. I want that again I want that back give me that time to her time machine. Yeah, I see in the comic story, whenever you are feeling down the attack on Titan soundtrack will bring you back up and listen to the OST right now. This is great. Wow like kind of parallel to like what jazz just talked about. A few years ago, a few friends in mind banded together to put a show together for us talking about having a partial Asian racial identity. It was called dirty knees at untitled art space. And for a while I had been like turning a lot of those concepts in my head, but in like coming together and collaborating, not just an art but just like in a space together talking about our experiences. Just kind of like made real a lot of like things that we were thinking about into the world and kind of like helped me think through a lot of, a lot of things that I was like really stuck on for a long time, and we're just kind of ruminating and and I think like birthing that into the world kind of helps me like get through that. And collectively with a bunch of my friends was like a really intense experience. And also, while making that work listening to the Akira soundtrack was like perfect and it's also like an amazing soundtrack if you have like a deadline it'll just like really get you through it. I love that. There's one question I want to get to in the chat before we start moving towards the breakout rooms where students you can continue to ask these alum any questions you'd like. I would recommend for someone on how to reconnect with your past ECU or university friends that you haven't seen since graduation. I personally would just say like reach out like find them on social and like try to connect with them. And you know even if it's just like bringing up a memory that you shared while you were in school. Yeah, check out their work and say like hey, you know what you've been working on recently is like totally dope and can I pick your brain about it, you know tell me about it. Yeah, just like shoot your shot. That's it. Yeah, for me, who I think a lot of artists to have sort of hi, I've got imposter syndrome, and also a lot of anxiety but when so when I think what they're saying is great which is just be direct when somebody reaches out to me and says, Hi, how are you who haven't talked to in years I'm like, somebody brings up something very specific. Like, yeah, like they talked about their work like work, or memory, or even just like shared interest that just being direct and specific is great. People want to know that you care. I'll go back to the comic conversation and say that like, there's times where I've tabled at conventions and old classmates have are either just in attendance or like they're tabling themselves. And you haven't seen them and like X amount of years, or maybe you saw them recently or whatever, but it's just so exciting to be at a convention and a different city like I was like when you go to Toronto, it's like the coolest thing to see all your Vancouver friends also tabling there and you feel like you have like a Vancouver squad. And it's like the most surreal but also like amazing thing to just like not know that they're there but you walk by their table and you're like, Oh my God, you're here to look at us now we've done so much. And it's just like really cool to have that like, aha moment where you're like whoa, you're here and it's really cool and you chat for a bit or like maybe you trade comics or your zine or whatever and you have like this fulfilling moment with like an old classmate it's a cool feeling. Yeah, I used to joke that because I think it's 2017 or 2018 we had a whole line vancalf of ECU people and I remember I jokingly call it the alumni show. I like that. I know an artist actually somebody who I like really super admire and every year they send out Christmas cards with their like art on it and they'll make like a series of 100 and you know when you get one that you're like one of the VIPs or whatever so you know, people like getting, you know swag. Doesn't hurt. Yeah, that's true actually sent out like 150 Christmas cards to people this year. And a lot of it was like the old friends and classmates that I haven't talked to in a really long time. And it was like the coolest thing ever to get a card back from them and like, you know it's a portrait of their partner and them and their for baby or whatever and it's like, yeah it just feels really nice to get something in the mail. I've got yours on my fridge cool. It's really cute. Did we miss anything before we open up those breakout rooms. I will say most that a really important thing about emails that's something I did not realize becoming a full, a full freelance illustrator is that like someone's paying you two grand and you're doing one illustration it's because you have six meetings to finish that illustration and that's something like I was sort of warned about but I didn't like take it very seriously but now that I'm like doing art full time it's like probably like 40 to 45% of my time is like dealing with like the the emails and going back and forth between clients because you have to like draw a sketch and then you draw the pencils and then you draw the inks and you have to get everything approved slowly. And it's kind of like this laborious thing and yeah it's something I did not really think about because I always had done art for myself this whole time and I had my own deadlines. But now, you know you're working for money for other people and it's. Yeah, I can feel like a job sometimes when you have to do all that work. I think someone in the chat was asking about me see. How do you have balance professional fun art with all of your schedules the way they are. I don't know how much more balance I have is like always in flux. It really depends on like what I'm doing with my time at that given moment. I try really hard to like keep my email time within a specific path of my day, and the rest of it towards artwork. So building like energetic or time based containers for myself have been like necessary for me. I also have ADHD so I have to like real myself in a lot. In a lot of ways. So yeah just like keeping as regular a schedule as possible, considering all of my jobs are irregular is something that I'm striving to do all the time, and failing. I'm the diametric opposite of that in so far as I'll sit in front of the canvas all day on the carpet and draw and when I get tired I just lay down on the carpet in like a pile of braider wrapper fall asleep. And then I just wake up whenever that happens to be like you know 3am or 5pm or like whatever so I have no schedule whatsoever but I do garden. If you have something that like requires your attention to stay alive, then at least once a day you drag yourself out to attend to the petunias. But if you're bad at this skill. That's normal. Yeah, I found that I haven't. Yeah same it's it's tough to balance. Both I found that I basically as soon as we graduated my friends and I started playing D&D and that sort of been like my fun creative outlook. My master so I'll come up with stuff story story wise they can't necessarily do in the graphic novels and some of them will draw stuff for that. But yeah, it's, it's different for different people, just try to stay healthy, if you can. If you can have it something I like there's that question of what you would tell yourself if you could go back in time. I really build more habits, because I've found that motivation isn't a reliable resource it's nice when it happens. But if I'm still working on it if I had a time that I would be like, I show up and I'm doing this work that I would have started doing that way earlier, if I could.