You can see that art stream replay here - Drawing a Horror Skull Concept
The original idea behind this design was for a t-shirt design, one type of artwork that would have a central and uncomplicated image that could fit on any colour t-shirt (except probably green, who knows lol)
The unexpected glowing look of the neon green and yellow paints was something that looked cool and it gives a nice radioactive feel to the skull.
I definitely will be using those neon paints again!
I wanted the premise to be that the parasite had drained the life force out of the mans head, that's why it looked zombified and rotting away and then the parasite after feeding off it's host for some time, just suddenly bursts out of the hosts chest and eats through the hosts brains leftovers and then on to another host the parasite would go.
Such a lovely design of my usual ink sketchy artwork. This was based on an idea in my head and it turned out pretty much how I thought it would, only a bit better.
I would have liked to add more brain chunks and the eye a bit more mangled in the ink sketch, but I'm happy with the way it was created.
The demon skull had to be a bit more in the centre and the other skulls stretching rotten flesh surrounding it, it was a minor change that I felt I had to do, although I do like both designs, I do feel that I could do a 3rd version of this drawing and mix it up even further.
Something that I never thought about whilst drawing these, they look like pizzas, which was unintentional.
Again, I'm still working on this concept for a t-shirt design and although I like the drawings so far, I feel it just needs a little bit more development and also finishing or rather neaten up the inks on the drawings.
For this drawing I wanted to try and go for the disgusting chaos plague, sort of like the Nurgle creatures with a lot of rot on this rotten helmet with almost intestine like gas mask tubes.
As a kid, I never could perfect the ink work on this or similar types of drawings and so in later life, I'm happy to try and realize this fantasy stuff more now that I love to draw dark horror themed stuff more now than ever.
One of my most favourites is the Plaguebearers and I've never really successfully drawn one that I've liked, so I hope to have a go and see how that turns out.
As with other ink drawings of creatures and monsters I really enjoy inking the flesh textures as I can waste a lot of time inking loads of them details on a piece of artwork.
A dark demon souls necrosphere ink sketch I did in an art stream here - Drawing Dark Thing
I guess this is another common theme for me to draw. The thick outline on the top of the design really is bugging me, so I'll have to work on that a bit, maybe get some more inky textures in there to work that thick ink line out.
I love inking this stuff!
A Cthulhu Shoggoth ink drawing design on a Black T-shirt. This together with a few more designs form a collection of dark art death metal ink drawing designs that look effective against the black background of the t-shirt colour.
I'll be doing more designs such as this if you have any ideas, let me know in the comments, cheers!
Twins of Evil Black t-shirts available with my artwork on them. I've tried hard to start creating a handful of designs that are original and unique for the Death Metal crowd. I'll be working on some more, but all will be like this, transparent inked drawings on black t-shirts.
Now to begin with we simplify the process by starting out really basic and we can build up the drawing from there. We need to plan, but not get the rough sketch set in stone, we can alter things as we go along.
We start off with a basic circle, I drew round a suitable old lid to form the shape of the pumpkin quite loosely.
Then we mark in the eyes nose and mouth with teeth, it doesn't have to be perfect, just think of it as a guide for the detailed work to come later.
Then we draw the lines running through the pumpkin that give it that look and maybe make some of the outside lines not as smooth.
Now Just add a few more teeth and clean up the lines for the eyes and the nose.
Now add frown lines on the pumpkin and a stem on the gap at the top of the head.
Now we can go ahead and ink everything we have penciled in and at this stage we can alter some stuff, maybe add more teeth in the gaps if you wish or more detail as you ink all the outlines
Now lets give the whole pumpkin more details and texture, this could mean more gum lines around the teeth and slowly build up the textured rot for skin, with bags around the eyes.
Now we can give the Halloween pumpkin more depth with some shadows with some sketchy looking ink hatching, the shadows are all underneath, so any lighter areas will be left he white of the paper. The obvious areas around the eyes I want the eyes to appear sunken, much like a skull would be and the teeth will have shadows just around the gum line to make the teeth deeply rooted.
Erase all the pencil lines now and then colour the whole thing with a thin yellow acrylic wash (you could use pencil crayons or felt tip markers) Then I use the same golden yellow paint without thinning it down with water and paint the eyes, nose and mouth area just to make it appear more golden like a glow.
Now use an orange paint (pencil or marker) and aim for the shadow areas and the segments of the pumpkin, then take a red colour pencil and start to draw blood drips from the mouth and anywhere you like, make it as bloody as you like, use a stronger red marker if needed, cover the teeth in a few drips here and there.
In today's Daily Sketch I wanted to focus on this Cthulhu creature sketch that I created for a client a few months ago. They wanted a Chihuahua head with tentacles and claws and something that would look quite creepy and horror themed and so this was what I came up with.
For most of 2020 and 2021 sketching, drawing and inking these Cthulhu themed creatures has become an obsession and one that I happily embrace any chance that I get.
When it comes to the inking process, I love inking all the textures on creatures skin, the flesh texture is one of the most relaxing to do on these monster drawings.
For awhile I've been offering an illustration service drawing these Cthulhu creatures over on Fiverr. And the gig that you can check out is here - Draw You Dark Cthulhu Creature Art if you or someone you know may want one of these types of creature drawings.
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| Photo by Marko Blazevic from Pexels |
Before we get into each ways you could potentially make money, it is important to remember that there are no quick ways to make money unless you are lucky enough to start earning instantly, nearly all the steps mentioned below take a certain amount of time to build up and create the income, there is no fast track, there is just the process of doing and it could take months before you start to see regular earnings.
Before considering any of the following ways to make money with your own artwork, you need to really narrow down what type of artwork that you create, so you can make a plan to focus on a handful of these money making ideas and really make the best use of your time.
1. Commissions
These are the first pieces of work that you might have a go at first, friends and family are usually your first port of call to test out this method and really think about pricing, then from there you can think about offering commissioned art pieces as a service and structure your pricing in different tiers, such as (just an example) black and white ink drawings £50, full colour drawings £100 or a larger painting £200.
Knowing your worth in time and effort that it takes to create the art that you do is vital to your pricing.
The best ways to do commissions is to offer either fan art of games, books or movies, customers are always looking for an original art piece that is nostalgic to them or that creates a feeling for them.
You could offer portrait commissions of friends and family or even pets from your potential customers. People often want a good quality original piece of art that they can look at and remind them of a loved one or pet that has passed away or just as a focal point in someones house.
Once you get more established as an Artist you may become known for creating the art that you make and be recommended to other potential clients. Also don't forget about personal work too, you can create original art that has not been commissioned and future fans of your work will buy that.
Speaking as an Artist myself, I've had mixed feelings about doing commissions, on the one hand, some customers have been great and allowed me to do my own thing with great results, but on the other you are likely to get them customers that drain your very life force and stress you out with never ending revisions which make you question your sanity and whether you actually want to offer commissioned art ever again in the future.
In this instance it is a good idea to take an upfront deposit that is often non refundable to allow for any extra revisions, the more you take on art this way you are more likely to weed out those time wasting people who want your art for next to nothing or they may not pay you at all.
2. Art Prints
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| My Venom art prints |
Similar to art commissions, art prints allow you to make limited editions of your original art from ink drawings, to paintings or art that took you a long time to complete. Again you can do a mix of fan art and personal art. Statistically speaking fan art is going to sell more so do more of that artwork and if you can broaden what you offer, for example, if you only draw manga stuff, but feel you can draw Disney or cartoony stuff then aim to offer that in print form too.
Do your own research and see what print companies are local to you that offer good deals on getting your art printed on quality papers. You could print your art prints out yourself if you have a good printer but that option is considered more expensive for you what with buying good paper and printer ink cartridges.
You could sell art prints at Comic Conventions, art fairs and art shows, usually you build up your stock of prints over time and you have to re-invest profits back into getting more prints but selling the prints will pay for this over time as you build a name for yourself.
3. Print On Demand Products
Selecting certain art that you've already done for POD products such as T-shirts, Mugs, Hoodies, Postcards and Skateboards can be quite lucrative if you hit on some best selling designs.
There are a number of print on demand websites that you could join and sell your art:-
Zazzle
Redbubble
Teespring
Society6
Being creative about the best use of your time and fitting your designs on specific products is the main thing you do on these sites. Not all designs you create will fit on certain products, so you have to work out what art can go on each item.
The best thing to do is create artwork that is seasonal which is all through the year, aim for the holiday designs such as Christmas, Birthdays, Halloween, Valentines Day, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, St Patricks Day.
Look for the top trends or best selling designs that are already on the print on demand websites and try and create new designs accordingly.
4. Publishing Books
There are books you can get published, usually through the self publishing route through Amazons KDP (Formerly Createspace) program and the types of books you can upload could include Art Books and Sketchbooks, Colouring Books, Comic Books/Graphic Novels and even low content items such as Journals, Planners and Diaries.
The Amazon marketplace is a great place to have your books available for sale, although it is quite competitive, like anything your have available for sale you have to have a marketing plan in place to get your books out there and seen, hook them customers in!.
5. Licensing Your Artwork
Licensing your art on a companies brand products could be an option for you. either on the in house company products such as cards, T-shirts and Skateboards to name a few, you can negotiate a price for essentially renting out your designs for a limited time or indefinitely.
This is where your own research comes into play, make a list of potential companies to write proposals to on spec. and be prepared to have some good quality samples of your artwork in high definition attached within your written proposal.
Licensing deals have been known to be in the 5 -6 figure range for some Artists as your art could be featured on some household products you may already know as you just never know what is possible until you do the work to get there.
This is something I am working on and will document my results in a future blog post.
6. Create An Art Course
Whatever art you make and create, you might consider making a course on the processes of how you made a specific piece of artwork. and to do this you may have to have written notes on the process, also work out whether there will be video instruction with photos and detailed information that students can follow with ease.
There are sites out there that can help you create a course and help you structure one and have it ready for sale with a link.
But there are some premium sites were you can pay to host an online course or membership, such as Kojabi, but they are expensive.
Let me know which ways you make money with your art the best in the comments. I'll be following up with a second post with more ways to make money as an artist.
If this post has been useful for you, please share with others that may find it useful too, thank you!
Also read Making Money With Fiverr As An Artist
Here is an ink drawing sketch I did of Azathoth, a HP Lovecraft creature of the cosmos who was said to be a writhing mass of tentacles. I also did a live art stream in which I drew and inked this artwork.
Here's the art stream - Drawing Azathoth Creature
Currency Conversions
Whatever part of the world you are from, you will have to work out whether you have a good currency conversion in your own money as the site pays you in American US Dollars, so for instance I am from the UK and so if you earnt $70 I would have to work out Fiverrs cut which is 20% and then calculate the currency into your own to determine the actual amount you will receive by taking both amounts off, so it would be worth my (and yours) while to price high, so that your earning amount is a decent amount you can actually do the work for.
Fiverr Level Tiers
There are 3 main tiers for offering your gigs and they are Level 1, Level 2 and Top Rated Seller. All levels you would have to maintain standards to keep at that level, the higher the level the more gigs you can create, but bear in mind if after the 15th of each month you don't meet Fiverrs standards you'll be demoted to the lesser level.
Fill Out All areas of your Gig offer
By filling in every part of your gig offer you are really making sure that your freelance gig has the best chance at getting noticed and you being messaged for work.
Make sure you provide samples of current artwork or whatever you provide, you usually get 3 top photo spaces and also an additional PDF spot were you can show a digital book sampling of your work.
Fill in the keywords in all the places you can, on photos including categories and try and create an in depth description of your offer, you need to convey exactly what it is your are offering for sale, make it clear, try to anticipate questions that the customer might have, for example, do you do Logos as well as just illustrations, explain that if you do or you don't.
Don't forget to work out a good price for the work you will do and also work out any gig extras which can make you extra money on top of your gig, always charge for extra revisions and make it clear in your description. For example if you are selling an $85 illustration and the customer wants to use the art for a t-shirt that will be replicated many times over, then a commercial licence extra is needed on top of that, the price is up to you.
Lastly fill out your profile page too with enough info about you that you can fit in, the description is short, but maybe direct customers to message you first before ordering, which leads in to the next bit...
Always message the customer along the way
At the start it's best to talk with the customer and get a good clear idea of what they want, speaking from experience, I always do this now, as before some clients would just pull the trick of more revisions needed after you've finished like they've changed their mind about what they wanted and it meant more work for me that usually was unpaid as you felt backed in to a corner.
Keep in touch with the client every step of the way as they will appreciate it, if you are late to deliver for whatever reason, it's good to let them know, so that they can add on extra time if needed.
Letting the customer know about the design or work with updates is the best way to reassure them and let them know that you are working on their work and they may be more likely to tip you, you never know.
Use The Fiverr Forum
The forum is a great way of interacting with other sellers on Fiverr, you can find tips that work, find out problems that have solutions or even ask for help from more experienced freelancers.
Use the Fiverr App
Download the fiverr app on your phone and you can get real time customer inquiries and message notifications which makes it a lot easier especially if you are away from your computer or out of the office.
If you want to sign up to fiverr here's the link - http://www.fiverr.com
I'll update this post with more useful info in time, if there are changes.
For years and years I've suffered with depression and the only thing that has really brought me out of that depression is drawing and art, although my family play a big part of me being still around I'm sure too.
I don't really know when it started, but it began to fester into my mind, possibly through self doubt and a lack of self confidence and self belief that my art could ever get anywhere.
On reflection this could stem from my early school years, in which I would consider myself as sort of a social outcast, I mean I had friends that I had a laugh with, but I was shy and reserved around others which made it very difficult and put pressure on me as a child in primary and secondary school and even when I started College and also beyond in working life.
Art can heal depression and anxiety by just the process of creating it. The motivation has to be there of course and you need to get past frustration if the work doesn't turn out how you would like.
Creating art for the past few years for me has been a life saver in a way as I've seen a growth and improvement in my own artwork and a slow growing self confidence in sharing my art works more often, even though not everyone is interested in it, but that's ok, that's life. That's art.
I think, that just by starting to create new art, you are on the journey as an Artist, but also on the road to healing from depression. Of course there could be other factors at work, financial pressures, life commitments, stressful job, or anything else that could interfere with your mental state.
When we leave School, for most people, their child like creativity evaporates if they don't pursue something creative and for some we lose that which we need to make our lives happier and more fulfilled. The ability to create something out of nothing is an achievement, whether it looks good or not, it's the enjoyment of making that can benefit how you see yourself.
Try to look at why you are suffering from depression and try to improve them areas of your life and throw in a ton of art while you are at it.
I'm always here for anyone that's dealing with depression or anxiety, because I know what it's like.so if you need to reach out, then I'm always available, direct message me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waynetully
Beat depression by doing what makes you happy.
I recently did this twisted horror ink sketch in an art stream. Often the ink drawings of this sort are some of the most relaxing to sketch and draw and always come easily when I'm drawing this made up horror art from my imagination.
Important Note: I will say that Fiverr isn't for everyone as there are some annoying things about using this site, such as the cut that Fiverr takes out of your earnings and even any tips that you may receive, but having said this, it's a site that exists to bring freelancers and Customers together for mutual work based offers, so the site itself would need to make something to host and maintain the website.
You'll also find that sometimes it's a small percentage of Customers that can really hinder your progress on the work that they ask for. We all know that some Clients can be quite demanding and in turn ask you to revise an order several times which can become an issue and one that you will have to address if you want to carry on providing Services through Fiverr.
Starting out on Fiverr: Provide A Need
When beginning to make that decision to use this Freelance option for your art, you have to decide first of all what you yourself are going to offer and whether your Customers will actually buy, so first look on the actual homepage and search for what it is you are going to offer and see if the Gigs pop up. Once you know that there is a market for the artwork, then you can begin.
There are many art options to create work for Clients:
The key with Using Fiverr is if you can diversify with more than one on the above list then your chances of making money will increase significantly over time as you build a reputation in each art area. But when starting out, try and build one area out first and then gradually add other strings to your freelancing art career.
Remember that you will be sending the scanned images to your customer digitally, so make sure they are high quality and high resolution scans at 300 DPI (dots per inch) or more.
Create Specific Gigs That Provide A Need
Gigs are the name for your offers and you need to really explain what you are offering and what you will not do and you need to get specific with all the keywords that you can write in your title and description so that it's clear what art you will sketch and create for the Customer.
There is space for adding some samples as well as a short video also showing you as the Artist and what work you will make. Consider filling out your Gig with everything you can to give your offer a good chance for getting searched in the marketplace.
Tip: Download the Fiverr app on your phone if you can, as you can reply to messages about orders through your phone quicker and also if you leave the app open then you will be classed as Online through the Fiverr search filter, so you may get more enquiries.
Always Offer Extras
On each Gig you create, you have the option to add gig extras to earn even more money, you can charge for each revision needed or charge extra for coloring your design. Or even charge for Shipping. Always work out what extras you can offer as you could increase your income.
Creating artwork of any kind for Clients can usually mean they will be using the design Commercially to sell or to be used again and again, so it is a good idea to offer commercial license which you can charge a fee on top for the purposes of using your art in different ways beyond the main transaction.
I myself have been using Fiverr on and off for a few years and my most popular gig over there was this one - I'll draw Black Ink Album Horror Art Illustration In the 2 years with this gig I made nearly $4,000,(which doesn't sound a lot, but if I would have focused on this alone, I would have made more!) but I didn't promote it as much as I should have as I also had other commission and freelance work coming from different sources so I couldn't commit to just this one or a handful of gigs.
Once again, this site may not work for everybody, but give it a try Fiverr.com
Also see - Making Money With Fiverr: Important Things You Need To Know
Limited A3 edition art prints of a Venom illustration I created are available over on Artpal
This was created in mixed media with Copic markers, Faber Castell polychromos coloured pencils and a bit of paint.
Venom was a favourite comic book character as a kid growing up, even now to this day I love the character, he's become an Anti-Hero and always great to draw. Especially the Symbiote details ink intricately inked details.
This is also a premium priced art print with only 50 prints available in A3 size.
Get one of these limited art pieces here - Venom Art Prints
Drawing an imaginary dark souls creature boss concept is something that I wanted to try and have a go at creating for quite awhile. If you've played the Dark Souls video games, then you'll know that the bosses in the game are some of the most amazing concepts I've seen and that in turn inspired me to have a go at sketching, inking and coloring a boss creature.
Here is the video - How I drew an imaginary Dark Souls Boss Creature
A couple of Resident Evil Nemesis head artworks I have been working on. The second one I started a few years back and have only just dug out the drawing under a stack of other artwork and have started to finish off the ink work and add some more colors.
The first one, sort of similar I did the basic ink drawing awhile back and colored this in on an art stream recently here - Colouring Nemesis Head Artwork
I did a Nemesis Acrylic Painting which is available for sale
Mainly used copic markers which are excellent for smooth blends and skin tones etc.
Draw a dark souls 3 infested corpse. In this video I go through the drawing process of creating a rotten looking corpse that appears to have ghostly ectoplasmic maggoty stuff spewing out of it's belly. (sounds nice lol)In the video I used a sheet of Strathmore Grey toned paper and some liquitex basic paints such as the neutral grey 5 and a white.
The paper really gave a great mid tone to help balance out further shades of grey and together with the inks of the undead corpse, it really stood out as a cool concept kind of sketch.
Here's the link to the video - Drawing Dark Souls 3 Infested Corpse
Or you can watch it below....
So this is a zombie horror head ink drawing I did in a live art stream over on YouTube. I shall try and post a drawing daily here, no matter what, even if it's not quite finished or even if I don't think it's good enough.
Doing daily sketches for this purpose can help you improve in your drawing and really helps you focus on the art that you want to create.
Inking Demons Head step by step with ink process. I used a regular black Sharpie marker for the darker areas to build off on with other ink pens such as 0.7 Uni Pin fine liner and a 0.1 and a 1.0 for any medium sized ink lines.
1. Start off with a loose pencil sketch of your idea, the looser the sketch the better to add detail later on. I used a 6B Staedtler pencil for the quick sketch
See this other example of a different Demon Head being drawn and inked for further inspiration.
Over on YouTube I have been doing some live art streams which have been fun to do and show me drawing,inking or creating my art whether that is commissions or other art that I need to get done. So I have started to collect the art streams into a playlist Art Stream Replays so that they are accessible after they have streamed and uploaded.
The more recent uploads are quality HD video content as I'm currently using an iPhone to do these streams.
I put together a playlist of quick Artist Art Tips and I'll be adding to it as time goes on. Hopefully there may be something of use to help you in your Artists journey. - Quick Artist Tips
Last year I did an illustration for a Double Feature card set from RJF Designs that featured White Zombie and The Ape and I have some art cards for sale, limited to 25.
They were available here (Sold Out!) - Bela Lugosi White Zombie Sketch Art Cards
All cards were signed by me.
A few years ago I drew a couple of drawings trying to work out the Cerberus Hellhound and was quite happy with the results at the time, see post here - Drawing Cerberus Hellhound
Over time though, my artwork and style has evolved and become something better and so I thought I would re-draw that creature and see what it would look like or see if I could improve upon it. Could it be reworked or was it just a stroke of luck how I actually drew an artwork that just seemed to work out in composition.
Here are the two work in progress scans I did, the first one was the initial line drawing before all of the inked details added in the second one. I kept the overall composition, but just went overboard on the ink pen details and made the creature a rotten looking hellish version, much like the skin had been ripped off to reveal the flesh.
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| Cerberus Hell Hound ink line drawing |
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| Cerberus Ink drawing with a black gel ink pen |
Working on a couple of split Demon head artworks, currently a work in progress for the ink drawings, but I am sort of obsessed at drawing combined heads, like skulls and other horror creatures and making them look cool.
As the title of the video suggests I do forget to make simple and quick videos or posts like this that break down a process of paint sketching.
So here is a quick video that breaks down how I achieved this simple paint sketch based on a nightmare I had about weird Lovecraftian creatures, I think the Purple of the design really made it vivid in my minds eye.
It's a very short video and hopefully it shows and inspires you to create something similar with whatever you'd like to have a go at painting.
Paint Sketching Something From My Nightmare
