Daniel J. Frey has been a “professional illustrator” for the past 14 years. He obtained a BS in Art from Baldwin Wallace College, then graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a BFA in Drawing... and thus his illustrious career officially began. Success came with his marine paintings of current and historic ships, found on products such as calendars, fine art prints, drink coasters, and even on rugs. This year he was in two prestigious shows: Williamsburgh, VA, Save the Bay Foundation Show; and Coos Bay Marine Museum, Coos Bay, OR.

To be released this year, Dan’s illustrations will appear in two children's books: Fairyflight for E Books for Tot’s and Kevin Murphy and the Father of Lies. His clients’ include: Portal Publishing, American Greetings, Warner Bros. Television, Hardrock Cafe Intl., The Cleveland Clinic, General Electric, and The Cleveland Magazine.

Is it necessary to have a college degree in drawing or illustration to establish a career in illustration?
A degree is like having your pet get it’s rabies shot... you know it’s safe. When a client sees that you have a degree, it’s a mark that you are legitimate. Can you get work without one, sure. Does having a degree guarantee success, no. There are no guarantee’s for success except for drive.

How can a new illustrator build and establish a good portfolio?
Here’s a big secret about portfolio’s, as long as the work is professionally presented, style and content does not matter. If you can draw and paint like the old masters, great, do you draw like your missing a thumb, great. I can say this because the bottom line is that those people who get jobs fall between those two extremes. They cover the whole spectrum. What a client wants to see is a piece of work that they think they can sell. If you do work that you like it will show. You just have to be patient and get the work in front of that person who thinks what you do is wonderful and that they can make money with it.

What is the main focus of your work?
My focus is to earn enough money to buy a hamburger when I want it. Illustration has dramatically changed in the past 15 years, to the point that, you can throw out all the rules that once governed this industry. I sit on the board of NOIS, Northern Ohio Illustrator’s Society, and we help new illustrators (and old) get work, do contracts, etc. My information is current and up to date. Throw focus out the window. Illustrator’s could make a reputation in the past for doing one style for one type of publication for their entire life. Now, you are lucky to get an illustration job just once from any single publication. What I do is to create a number of portfolio’s covering the different markets. Children’s books, both simple and complex illustrations, editorial illustration, Sci-Fi/fantasy illustration. I create a portfolio specifically for each. Even the big fish out there are screaming right now that there are no jobs. They are like the dinosaurs of illustration, they had one focus and did it well; now that the literal “desktop” asteroid has hit illustration, they are thrashing about wondering what went wrong. Quick answer, don’t focus, do your art well and create tailored portfolio’s for what has become a boutique illustration market.

How do you collect information or reference material for your drawings? Do you use the internet? Read books and articles?
Every illustrator has their morgue. A morgue is where you collect books, magazines, photo’s that you use all the time for reference. Any illustrator who says that they don’t use reference/photo’s is lying. I have many books; a good place to buy them is at the discount tables at bookstores. The big coffee table books of pictures that nobody wants - you never know when you might have to draw a picture of the beaches of Hawaii - pick up those books. I also use the internet a lot when I need something fast. Just do a Google Image Search and it’s right there in front of you in an instant. I hate to say it, but it’s just about rendered a library obsolete for the sheer reason that you have to drive to the library, look for the book, carry it out, and return it. The internet allows me to type in, “gorilla suit”, and I’ll get 500 images to choose from.

What are some of the tricks of the trade that you use when illustrating?
Every illustrator needs the following, a computer and scanner, a printer, a lightbox. Say I download that picture of a gorilla suit. I print it out. I take it over to my light box. I lay my piece of paper over the image and draw with my pencil a tracing of the suit. I take that pencil image, scan it into the computer, open it up in Adobe Photoshop. Done, I have my pencil spot for a gorilla suit. By the way, many illustrator’s make their entire living tracing photo’s this way, even the most famous one’s do it. It’s not cheating... it’s called a deadline. When you are a working illustrator you need to have multiple jobs occurring at the same time. Any way that you can speed up the process allows you to earn more in a business that does not hand out any mercy for those who don’t want to work.

Any books, articles or websites on illustrating for children's books that you’d recommend?
The most important book that any illustrator should have at their side, children’s book illustrator or otherwise, is the "Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines". If you don’t have this now, run outside right now and go get it. It tells an artist the average pay rates for all images produced, from books to T.V. commercials, stamps, wallpaper design, magazine spots, cartoon books, etc. It also has basic contracts and release forms that can be copied and used. If you don’t have this book run out and get it now! This book is your armore, sword and shield when you venture into the dark forest of publishing. Without it - just like the little boy who said the emperor has no clothes - I’m telling you to look now... your missing something.

Find out more about me and what I do at my website, www.nois.com/frey/frey.htm

Publications:

• Kevin Murphy and the Father of Lies
• Fairyflight
• In the Millennium There Will Be Chocolate
• Cry Wolf

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