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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1339792
What advice would you give to up-and-coming artists? My advice to those new to the industry is stick with it. I know that is hard to believe for anybody that is younger like my kids. I have two children, one in college and one about to attend. Everybody wants everything now. You have to realize that you need to get in your 10k hours and you have to work to get what you want because nothing is handed to you. Finding your own style is a major hurdle that I as an artist had to figure out. That is one of the things I stressed when I was speaking to the kids in South America. Sometimes it takes an artist quite some time to establish their style and you need to be unique in order to succeed. Do you have any recommendations for obtaining clients? When I decided I was leaving the fashion industry in 2003 and striking it out on my own, I went to New York and knocked on magazine publisher doors. I went to the creative department and showed my work and said I was ready to do anything they had for me. Spot illustrations, anything I could get. It was lean for the first couple years. I started doing work for magazines like Vibe and XXL and things of that nature. I noticed that as I showed I was dependable I would get more work and I went from little spot ads to quarter page and ½ page illustrations and eventually one and two page spreads. It was one of those things that I realized that I was working for promotion and not really for pay. It gave me something to show to get more work and more money to live on. That all led me to getting the Coca-Cola commercial. That was my first blue chip client. I went from Coke to doing something for Infinity Motors. After people saw I worked hard for them I picked up Warner Brothers and that led to Cartoon Network and Marvel and others. It took a long time to get a really good client but once I got them people knew I was serious about this and could be trusted to handle their projects. Now the work keeps flowing in.