A few years ago I became seriously ill. I was in a coma on heavy duty meds, and had a kidney transplant. I’m much better than I was, but I can’t do a lot of things like I could before.
We’ve now got quite a few kids in the extended family, so a while ago I wrote a short story to try to make it easier for them to understand. My wife and family like the story and have suggested making it into a picture story book. Problem is, I can’t draw and my imagination isn’t very good.
How can I get pictures for the story if I can’t do it myself and don’t have the money to hire someone? I want to avoid using AI tools because of the potential copyright issues.
I haven’t tried the services like Fiverr because I’ve heard that they force a race to the bottom on prices, but does anyone have any experience, or have any ideas of what I can do please?
Thanks in advance :)
I want to acknowledge that this question is generally well-intended, but also want to point out that artists are working just like anyone else. If you want good artwork, you should expect to compensate the artist for their time and expertise. I’m not an artist, but IMO paying someone on Fiverr values art more than looking for a free option. I think that’s probably your best bet for the criteria you have. Alternatively you might try to commission someone you find online. Hope you find what you’re looking for!
Thanks for the advice, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
I’m in an awkward position where I think I’ve got something that will make the kids happy, but I can only do part of it, and I don’t want to take advantage of someone for the other part. I’m looking for something that can hopefully do both.
Give the person who helps you credit for it. Like, put their name on it.
Sometimes people like to do things just for the satisfaction of doing them.
… promise them exposure, artists LOVE that
Artists are people just like everyone else. Which means they are capable of consenting to giving away free work.
True.
This made me laugh, thank you :)
While I’m not averse to sailing the seas on occasion, this is one of those times where I should do everything by the book.
I mean, unless you just have the absolute worst narcs for a family, it’s not like it matters what you send them
@Tippon if you are going the traditional publishing route, publishers don’t actually expect children’s book authors to provide the illustrations necessarily.
If you are self-publishing, I suggest you reach out to the kidney transplant community (support groups etc) to see if anyone can volunteer.
There might be someone else in your shoes who can draw and not write, who would love to be part of this project.
That’s a great idea, thanks :)
I’ve just mentioned in another reply that the book is currently a bit too personalised, so probably wouldn’t appeal to other people. If I can rewrite it a bit to remove any personal details, that could work though :)
I think that might be a good thing to do if you can; there are probably others in your situation who would love to have a book like this.
You could even do something like donate proceeds to a kidney charity or hospital.
That’s a good point. I’m lucky enough to have received my kidney from a live donor, and the story is about how they saved the day, and because of that I was able to have a family with my wife, so it could go down quite well. I’d have to remove the personalised information, but that shouldn’t be too hard :)
Use a whiteboard notebook so the kids can do the drawings themselves?
I’ll double this, I’ve got a kid’s game called CoraQuest where they got kids to make drawings/sketches of their ideas, and had an artist touch them up for production. The art in the game is great because of this.
Why would you do that to me! :o
CoraQuest looks amazing, but it’s out of stock everywhere here :(
That’s a good idea, thanks :)
Now to see if any of the little buggers can draw :D
Well, here in Vietnam a lot of art students and graduates would probably be quite happy to take this on.
I recall RMIT has a local job forum, for small jobs for current students and alumni. The instruction is all in English, so communication should not be a problem. Maybe other universities have the same.
Or maybe an art school in the Philippines where English language instruction is also common? I bet they have job forums too.
In my workplace we’ve got a 3D designer or two, probably not ideal for your task though :(
BTW using AI to generate an image as an artistic brief is a great application that supports both human and machine artists. This is my biggest use of the tech in production so far – really great especially when language barriers are present.
Whoa I didn’t expect to see a fellow Vietnamese on lemmy.
Could you link to the RMIT art forum?
I’m an even more unlikely thing! I wasn’t born with any Vietnamese heritage – I immigrated to Vietnam and integrated. I’ve met as many as five others like me in the last decade or so!
The RMIT forum isn’t specific to art, it’s just a job forum where you can post jobs available to students:
https://rmitvn.careercentre.me/employer/default/RMIT-Careers-Portal
I’ve used it once to hire a software developer. It was much better than VietnamWorks, the big online HR thing in those days. I don’t like VW much.
BTW you should have a budget, scope, and timeline when you post a job. It will make it much easier to hire someone, e.g. how many illustrations, what format (Width x Height), what style, when do you need it done by, and a pay range. I would estimate at less than 80$ or so, it would not be worth the trouble for most illustrators who are any good. Notably, most RMIT students are from wealthy families.
If you can read/write Vietnamese, let me know and I can maybe point you toward better resources. English-language-only leaves few options here.
Have you considered www.OpenClipArt.org ?
XOR, you can simply learn actual-drawing, which isn’t difficult, it does require a kind of honesty/patience & the actually right instruction…
The book you’d need is “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, the 4th Definitive Edition”, by Betty Edwards.
These drawing-pairs are from her 5-DAYS killer-class.
https://www.drawright.com/before-after
Unless you’re autistic, like me, 5 days is possible.
_ /\ _
Can you help me understand what you mean by “ Unless you’re autistic, like me, 5 days is possible”? Are you saying you think you can’t learn to draw in that time frame because of your autism?
not the OP you replied to, but someone else who loves the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book.
I think 5 days is ambitious. but a lot of what the exercises are doing is training you to see a different way. so it’s not impossible.
someone neurodivergent may struggle to get what the exercises are trying to teach or to reach the point they’re aiming for, so it might take them longer. those more inclined to pick it up faster probably aren’t going to need the exercises in the book; it’s already natural to them.
as we grow up, we learn “this is what a tree looks like, this is a dog looks like, this is what a car looks like”, etc etc. the way we see a new car then goes through that filter of “this is what a car looks like”. those filters are great for quickly identifying things and generally being a human in the world, so you don’t get hit by a car while you’re still figuring out if it is a car.
but those filters get in the way of drawing accurately. your eyes aren’t literally filtering anything; that’s all in your brain. so you need to learn to stop that part of your brain when you draw. that’s the biggest part of being able to draw decently. the rest is technical skill you get with practice.
I’d still recommend the original OP look for an artist collaborator, since children’s books need the illustrations to be as strong as the writing. there’s no way to get there in just 5 days.
Someone neurodivergent might also see those things faster.
One possible interpretation is that autistic individuals can sometimes tend to go a bit overboard when finding a new hobby. We will sometimes find a new topic so engaging that we develop a “special interest” in it and spend days/weeks delving into every possible piece of information and niche knowledge available about that topic, considering all the implications and what-ifs and following all the informational leads.
Spending merely the minimum time required (which in this example is apparently 5 days) to get proficient is harder to estimate because an autist may instead need to spend weeks learning everything. Or, they might not.
For me it’s the opposite - I want to learn the minimum needed to accomplish something, and being forced to study is very difficult. At least, that’s how my brain sees it.
I want to learn, and would be happy to focus on a drawing class, but the neurodivergent part of my brain sees that as torturous. Being forced to do something that I don’t want to do, even if it leads to me doing something that I do want to do, is like nails down a blackboard.
Your description of “being forced to do something” sounds like a distinct situation from a special interest. Special interests are driven by the individual themselves, not forced upon them. I wonder if what you’re thinking of might be the phenomenon called PDA (“pathological demand avoidance”, or more recently rephrased - more accurately IMO - as “persistent demand for autonomy”).
Yes, that’s why I said it’s the opposite ;)
I don’t know what it’s called, but I know that I really struggle with doing things that I don’t want to do.
Have you considered www.OpenClipArt.org ?
I hadn’t, mainly because I hadn’t heard of it before :D
It looks like a great resource though, so thank you :)
Unfortunately, the chances of me learning to draw are slim. I can draw a passable doodle if I can get my head in the right place, but as I said in the post, my imagination is awful. I can’t picture things properly, so can’t get a mental image of what I want the thing on the paper to look like. I’m waiting on a diagnosis of autism and ADHD and possibly aphantasia. Trying to get things down on paper is very difficult for me.
Before cheap, ubiquitous photographic reproduction, drawing was taught to people as a skill.
You might not be the next Gary Larsen (I’m no dillitente) but I bet if you tried you could become a good illustrator.
Having said that, you still have to learn inking, coloring, etc.
Just wanted to say I think most people can learn the skill in the same way most people can learn to write a rhetorical essay or do arithmetic.
Edit: not trivializing your issues, friend, just offering encouragment!
Becoming the next Gary Larson unfortunately does not equal being a good illustrator
Ha ha, I know. But his work gets the point across.
not trivializing your issues, friend, just offering encouragment!
Don’t worry, that’s how I took it :)
You make a good point. I need to try drawing and keep practising. Even if it does turn out to be useless for the book, I can still draw with the kids.
I might even make them feel good be being so much better than me! :D
Make a children’s book about practicing skills and getting better at them.
I helped a friend’s six year old daughter learn that by having her make the same paper airplane repeatedly until she mastered it.
Apparently nobody in school had yet taught her that one’s level of skill is not a fixed thing. Before that thing with the paper airplanes whenever she’d try something new she’d see her first failure and then exclaim “oh, I can’t do this!” and then give up.
Honestly nobody taught me about practice making skills better in school either. Not sure why such a fundamental part of using one’s brain is neglected in our schools but it is.
That’s a very good point. I’m hopeless at practicing. I’ve got ADHD, so find it hard to do something that I don’t want to do at the moment, and when I was younger I could pick up new skills fairly easily, so never bothered learning properly. I would do as much as it took to be ok at something, then usually stop there.
Yes, and even stuff you might not publish could show what you are looking for to an eventual illustrator you might work with.
Very true. I need to get my ideas across, and that’s probably the best way :)
Talk with people about the book until you find someone who’s excited, and who has some artistic skill. Then go halfsies with them in terms of the credit for the book.
That would be ideal. I think the book is probably a bit too personalised as it is though, and wouldn’t be too interesting to people outside the family. It could make a nice challenge to rewrite it a bit and change some of the personal details though :)
You can use royalty free stock photos, like from https://unsplash.com
I hadn’t thought of photos, I was leaning more towards cartoony drawings. I’ll have a look, thanks :)
Learn how to draw poorly, stage photos of what you want to showcase in the picture, then trace over it. It’d be 100% more genuine and unique. This can be learned in a week at most.
That’s a good idea, I’ll give it a try, thanks :)
Search for creative commons or public domain artwork - Wikimedia Commons is a good start, or a google image search (under the image search bar select tools -> usage rights -> creative commons rights)
Or don’t worry about the copyright issues of AI and learn to use that to create things you want - I suggest SDXL is the best option
a google image search (under the image search bar select tools -> usage rights -> creative commons rights)
Huh, I didn’t know that existed. Thanks for the heads up :)
Contact your local art college and see if there are any students looking for work experience and a bit of cash.
That’s a good idea and could work. I’m a bit concerned about taking advantage of someone though, especially if they’re young. I’d have to be careful.
making it into a picture story book
As in formally publishing it? Or just sending it to your family?
The only way copyright, especially around AI, could conceivably be a factor is if you intend to publish and sell it.
For now I just want to publish it for the family, so vanity publishing. Some of the family have suggested selling it though, so while I don’t personally think it would sell, I want to make sure that I’m doing everything properly.
Another option would be to hire an illustrator and draw up a contract where they may have a small upfront cost, and give them a cut of the sales.
Or you can contact a school and see if anyone would like to do it for
freethe experienceThanks for the suggestions :)
It’s not something that I’m planning on selling, hence the low budget and why I haven’t gone down that route. If it did sell I’d be over the moon, as well as really shocked :D
When my dad made a book for me, he had me illustrate it. When I want cards for people I get the kids to illustrate it.
I think getting them together, telling the story, letting them draw them getting THAT bound and sending it to them would be better than ripping off an artist, the kids won’t mind artless illustration if they created it and the story will have somewhere to land since they will have heard it.
That’s a lovely idea. I’ll have to see if any of them can draw at all :D
Another option is to shop it around agents and publishers and make the illustrations someone else’s problem!
Good thinking! :D
make shitty artwork on purpose, its cool
Then I might be the coolest person you’ve ever met :D
