A MAP of my JOURNEY to become A PICTUREBOOK ILLUSTRATOR

A 30,000 foot view

Or, How I became a picture-book illustrator in 35 steps.

Over the past 2 years, I’ve written 650 newsletters that talk about or elude to the different aspects of my particular journey of becoming a picturebook illustrator. But when you break it down there were only 35 steps, here they are:

1. I forgot I was a person who made art

2. “You should pick a style”

3. I wanted to be a cartoonist

4. I drew comics daily and posted them on Instagram

5. I realized that was a bad strategy

6. I looked at what the cartoonists I admired did daily and throughout their career

7. I realized I needed an agent

8. I realized I needed a portfolio to get an agent

9. The algorithm served me an AD of a course I could buy that will help me do both

10. My mom bought me the course, it was for drawing picture books for kids

11. I realized picturebooks were basically comics (or at least that I could see them as that)

12. I thought I would ace the course, but realized I don’t even know what ‘good’ looks like!

13. We got pregnant! ( I have 9-months to make this thing work)

14. I don’t know what good looks like, but I know what hard work looks like

15. I finish the class with 5 portfolio pieces, I know they’re not good enough, but I send them out to get feedback

16. Meanwhile, I decided that since I don’t know what good looks like, I would accept that the teacher’s examples of what good looks like was law.

17. I work every day building out my portfolio

18. I take specific classes for the areas I’m stuck at

19. I work on a plan B simultaneously and get to work with a creative director to improve some skills.

20. I take a year’s worth of online art classes

21. I get a day job (part-time)

22. Baby is born, COVID ends

23. I started to get responses from agents, mostly rejections

24. I take the class that started it all again, get very precise feedback from the teachers, and apply all of it.

25. I build a portfolio website

26. I get offered a book and paid in advance (and the book gets delayed 2 years)

27. I was offered agency representation by a prestigious

28. The offer is withdrawn because I’m ‘too ambitious’.

29. I started a critique group with peers from class

30. I reach out to industry pros for advice, I don’t know what the next steps are

31. One says You’re almost there, keep going.

32. I get offered agency representation by a ‘new’ agency

33. I get offered a picture-book, and then a 2 book series, before you know it I’m booked for a year!

34. The contract on my day job expires.

35. So I guess this is my full-time job!

---

My journey was a series of realizations, I got some of those realizations by taking the wrong actions, and others by getting good advice. There is a lot to be said about learning from experience but good advice works so much quicker.

---

Incidentally, if you’re looking for advice, I offer a limited number of 1-1 meetings each month, where we can talk about any of the things in the list above, or if you click the button, there are a few more ideas we could discuss.

Book a meeting with Adam Ming

Schedule a meeting

Book meeting