Hello! I am an illustrator and I've been offered to illustrate a graphic novel. The people who will be hiring me wants to know if that's something I can do alone. I don't know much about how to illustrate a graphic novel, and they don't either. Is this feasible? I'd like to learn more about the process before agreeing or disagreeing to work on the project. If you've got any advice, I would appreciate it so much! Sincerely, Maggie J.
Hey Maggie,First off congratulations on the gig! We might as well dive right in... Iām not sure if I can tell you whether or not you can do it, only you can figure that out. However, I can give you some general hints and tips to help see how much work you have ahead of you. Iām going to get payment out of the way and assume itās a paying gig, if itās not a paying gig and theyāre only promising exposure: Donāt do it. Thereās nothing wrong with working for free, but a graphic novel is likely going to take 6 months to a year out of your life, chances are you donāt want to put that much work into something for free unless you yourself are the Writer/Creator/Artist. And no publisher or writer worth their salt is going to ask you to do a book for free, for exposure, or solely for a percentage on the backend.More to the point: A publisher only promising exposure = a publisher without money to pay you which = a publisher who wonāt actually expose your work because they donāt have the overhead to properly market a book. Save yourself time and stress and avoid this. Itās easy enough to say āYes, I can do it, for X amount per page :)āTime tables. First off, you need to know how long the book is. Most OGNās are anywhere from 90-120 pages. In standard comics thatās 4-6 issues (or 20 page chapters) in length. Speaking of chapters, you might want to divide it into chunks like that if itās not already split up that way. This will help you keep track of your work flow.Hire help. Most people canāt do a full graphic novel by themselves, some can, but most canāt. This is completely normal so donāt beat yourself up if you canāt. If you need to, hire or tell the publisher to hire a Colorist and Letterer. Taking on those two responsibilities on top of having never drawn a graphic novel is likely too much work for your first time. Itās almost too much for me! Plus there are really talented professional letterers and colorists who are far more adept at that kind of work than I am. Think about it this way too: The better your team, the better you look in the end. Itās a weird but wonderful truth in comics.Communicate honestly. Part of this goes back to time tables. Figure out how many pages you can finish a day, a week, a month, and be honest about that with your writer and editor. One of the most important parts of this job is communicating with your editor and being honest. If you canāt finish X amount of pages by Friday, let them know so they can plan accordingly. Donāt feel too bad, youāre only human and it doesnāt impress anyone or help you at all to kill yourself pulling all-nighters to get the book done.If you want tips on art and that sort of thing, I highly highly highly recommend the books: Framed Ink, Framed Perspective Vol. 1&2 by Marcos Mateu-Mestre, all of which are available on Amazon and are some of the most helpful books Iāve ever purchased.I hope that helps!