Why You Should Never Wait Until You’re ‘Good Enough’

If I were to make a bingo card for sayings budding illustrators say ‘When my work gets good enough, I’ll start sharing my work/getting a website/pitching to clients’ would be featured all over that little sheet.

Don’t get me wrong, I 100% get the thinking, but scrap it! Burn it! Scribble over it!

If you’re hoping to carve out a career as a Fashion Illustrator, do not and I repeat, DO NOTTT, wait until you deem yourself ‘good enough’ to starting actioning anything.

Why you ask? Well Imma tell ya…

You probably think you’re doing yourself a favour waiting until you’re better at drawing to put yourself out there…

‘When I’ve improved it’ll be more likely people will want to commission me…’

‘When I get better at drawing I’ll be more confident sharing my work’

‘Next year I’ll probably be more comfortable pitching to clients’

But… That day never comes.

There just isn’t a day when you wake up and think ‘this is the day, I’m now ready’.

I’ve been doing this 12 years and I still feel like I want to climb into an arty hole and do life drawing for the next 12 months and reemerge a better artist.

But you’d be hindering yourself, shooting yourself in the foot with your own good intentions.

So lemme share a few reasons why…

1. ‘Good Enough’ is a moving goal post

Like I said, there just isn’t a day when you wake up and feel ready, You’ll never deem yourself good enough.

You’ll never get to a stage of ‘ahh, I’m ready’ because they’ll always be something else to focus and improve on.

All that is doing is making the start line further and further away

I look at my work from a few years ago, even work from last year and think jesussss how was I ever commissioned

So you can imagine what I look back at and think of when I see my work from 10 years ago

But I was still commissioned and got work in, the clients were happy, I still got paid.

I might not like the work looking back at it, but it did what it needed to do.

I look at my work now and just see all the things I could improve on…

So if I was waiting around for the day I felt good enough… I’d probably still be waiting! And the last 12 years of my career wouldn’t have ever happened…

2. You could have progressed so much in that time

Telling yourself you’ll start when you’re good enough is actually a form of procrastination and protecting yourself.

It’s scary to put yourself and your work out there, so why go out into the wilds with just a loin cloth and a butter knife when if you wait a year your iron clad armour is being delivered from the blacksmith.

What in the Game Of Thrones analogy was that, Jesus.

But if you wait another year, that’s another year gone where everything could have been progressing alongside you.

What you should be doing is building your presence alongside building your art.

Because even if that day finally does come where you wake up, the sun is shining and you feel like you’re ready and good enough to go out there and get the work in…

That might be in 5 years time!

In which you’ve missed out on 5 years of getting your work out there, missed out on potential clients, commissions, followers, web traffic, boosting your SEO ranking.

So your work might be stronger, but now you’ve got to begin the slog of trying to get it seen from scratch.

And a lot of those things above naturally accumulate over time, there’s that saying ‘The best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago, the second best time is today.’ and same goes for this!

3. Your art only makes up a small piece of your career puzzle

The marketing and business side of being an Illustrator are fundamental skills if you want it to become your job, skills that you’ll learn, hone and improve over time just as much as your actual drawing skills.

As there’s so much more than drawing that goes into being an Illustrator full time, there’s marketing, client liaising, pitching, content creation, finances, scheduling, taxes, contracts, all these things that take time to learn and understand…

The longer you put it off, the steeper the learning curve when you finally do get round to going after that career you dream of.

So it’s much easier to drip feed them in over time, stagger them so it’s not so overwhelming.

It’s better to do these things in manageable chunks, if over the next year or two at some point every few months you tick off sending your first invoice, putting your website together, sending a pitch out, negotiating with a client, posting on social media, signing a contract, then it’s a much smoother ride and easier to get your head round.

Don’t treat drawing and the business side of things as 2 completely separate entities, they’re just 2 sides of the same coin that you should be developing together.

4. Learn on the job

Everyone’s gotta start somewhere!

Most other jobs have paid training, think internships, apprenticeships, junior positions… in no other industry are you expected to be perfect straight out the gate, you’re paid to learn on the job.

So, just do the same.

There’s so many different jobs and clients that make up a career in illustration, and people need illustrators of all skill level and price points.

I worked for friends, family, small businesses, graduates, students… their budgets were obviously smaller but so were their expectations (for the most part) so all those smaller jobs let me gain experience working to a brief, working with a client, dealing with amendments…

These jobs were much lower stakes, so I could afford to be a bit naive, or slow on the learning.

Even my first big job I said yes to a call out on Twitter for an event artist, I’d never done it before, the entire preparation for it consisted of me doing a 5 min sketch of a friend over coffee as practise and then I just went and did it.

I didn’t see a call out for a Live Event Illustrator and thought ‘oh I’ll practise for 2 years then apply’

I do like a good sink or swim moment though…

But in general nothing will make you improve quicker than doing it on the job, and as long as the client has seen past examples of your work they know what to expect, so just practice and cash a cheque at the same time.

5. Let others tell you no

My biggest mantra is don’t tell yourself no before letting others!

You waiting until you’re ‘good enough’ is essentially saying no to your own work at this current state, but when you think about it… what gives you the right?

It’s a clients choice to commission you, and their own money… so who are you to tell them no.

If you put your work out there, someone see’s it and likes it, and commissions you for a project…

They’ve already seen your work examples, so they know what to expect from you if they are to work with you!

It’s not like you put up some Botticelli paintings on your website, get commissioned and then hand the client a stick man.

People have free choice, it’s their choice to commission you, so don’t close that door before they even get a chance to walk past it.

So there’s a few reasons why you shouldn’t wait until your good enough!

The thing is, people think that professional illustrators have ironclad confidence in their own work.

But truth be told, we ALL have insecurities about our work, things we want to improve on and we all have wobbles where we don’t feel like we’re good enough.

But the difference is, we get on with it anyway.

So stop shying away and hiding your work, go post! go create a website! go put your work out there and just see what happens.

Remember it’s other peoples decisions to commission you, not yours, all you have to do is be open to it.

If you’ve read all this and thought ‘I WANT to be doing all that and putting my work out there, I just don’t know where to begin!’

Then lemme help… time for a lil plug

My Career Masterclass has reopened!

If you’re wanting to learn step by step how to turn your fashion illustrations into a career, then come join!

We go through everything progressively, so we start off going through various income streams available to fashion illustrators, you pick which ones are suitable for you.

Then we cover career goals, what financial goals and projects do you want to achieve, then we go into branding, how do you brand yourself as an illustrator to get the work you want.

After you’ve figured out what income streams, goals and branding you want for yourself, it’s time to get it out there!

We cover social media platforms, how to create content, get work, pitch to clients, put together a website, network, how to price jobs…

Then we finish up with the reality of being a freelancer, so we’ll cover contracts, scheduling, mindset, productivity…

It’s an extremely comprehensive course, double the length of the OG Business Course, and it’s been rated 10/10 by the first round of students who took it in March!

There’s only 7 spaces left, course begins 16th June, grab your space here

Come join the How To Become A Fashion Illustrator Masterclass

See you in there!

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