SOSFactory is looking for illustrators

Hello, SOSFactory is hiring!!

SOSFactory is a team of freelance artists. We have been working for small and big business like Funrise during the last 3 years. Due to the success of our work we cant accept more orders because of lack of time. So we are looking for mascot designers and possibly logo designers.

Style: Prefferably cartoon style, take a look to my gallery to see some examples. We are open to alternative styles.

Prices: 80-100US$ per mascot design, JUST LINEART. For special clients it would be more.

Deadline: 10-15 days per design.

Quality: Obviously the best, if you dont have a good portfolio of mascot designs, please dont waste your time and mine

Amount: We have around 20 orders per month, so if it works, as much as you can do.

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HOW TO APPLY? Very important, please read carefuly!!!

Send me a email with the subject “Mascot designer available” to sergitosuanez@hotmail.com with 3-4 examples in low res, jpg format. Just your best cartoons.

No notes, no comments here, please.

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PLEASE DONT APPLY IF:

- Dont have experience with cartoons.
- Have lot of experience but no examples.
- You are not serious, friendly and open to corrections.
- You cant meet deadlines.
- You get bored when you draw 3 characters.
- You are a superstar… we are a team.

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Advanced digital drawing (Photoshop Videotutorial)

Click the image to see the videotutorial on advanced drawing with Photoshop.

In this video we’ll learn how to make a digital drawing from a sketch made in pencil, as we do in SOSFactory. If you’re a novice in Photoshop i suggest you to practice first with the basic tutorial on Digital Drawing with Photoshop. In this new videotutorial the main news is that we’ll learn how to modulate the lines giving them different weights; with this we’ll get a much more shocking and dynamic result.

The key consists in using the different thicknesses of the lines in an appropiate way, the aren’t rules here, you need to let intuition be your guide. Let’s take a look to this two examples:

Example A: We have a thin line, without any weight differences. Also take a look at the colored line. the result is much more smooth, because it makes the color interior more important. I suggest doing this when you have to use the character at small scales. Here you can see the basic tutorial on Digital Drawing with Photoshop.

Example B: The line is thicker, there are weight differences and also the line remains black. The result is more impressive. The problem when using this style at small scales is that the line “drowns” the volume; at more line weight, less color interior, this way you will hardly obtain a good volume. Here you can see the advanced videotutorial on Digital Drawing with Photoshop.

There’s a third option which is drawing and inking it in the traditional way in paper, and after that take it to Photoshop to clean it and extract the lines. Here you can see the videotutorial on Digital Inking with Photoshop.

There’s also the last option which i don’t recommend unless you’re an advanced Photoshop user; it consists in drawing the lines directly with your digitalizer tablet.

1. Videotutorial: digital inking with Photoshop
2. Extract comic lineart
3. Videotutorial: digital color with Photoshop

My 17 most stupid searching terms

If you’re a webmaster i’m sure you look often at your website statistics, and more than once you rolled on the floor laughing asking yourself:

1. How did the search engine (google or any other) gave your website as a result for that search.
2. How can people search for those stupid things

Well, here’s my ranking of the most stupid searches, they are organized by stupidity (the good ones at the end), you can take a look at your own and put them in the commentaries, i’m sure you have some cool ones, so share them and don’t be selfish

STUPID SEARCHES

17. Prozac: Ok, i know my blog is depressing… but is it THAT depressing?

16. How to make a shoe: hmmm… good question.

15. How much to charge for electricity: i’ve been days without sleeping making myself this question.

14. Is it hard to draw with Photoshop: it’s ok, not much but it’s a start.

13. The most shocking with the artists and photoshop: i accept interpretations for this search

12. How much is more in the VAT: cheating question, isn’t it?

11. Unpleasant expenses: what will this man think is a "pleasant" expense

10. Make up yourself according to your face, step by step photos: ok, now you think you’ll find a tutorial with your face in it.

9. Disadvantages of water: there are some, sure, that’s why i don’t wash much.

8. I finished psicology at the age of 28: an applause please!!

7. Definition of normal tall: normal tall, normal tall… hmm, you try, i can’t get it.

6. Tests to be rebel: people is really bad… really.

PRIDE OF PLACE

5. I have to pay VAT when i buy mineral water: hmm… yeah, right?

4. What to do if no hair grows in the eyebrows: a question that has been tormenting me all the afternoon.

MEDALS

3. Capes for designed dogs: i need someone to explain this to me please, i’ve been hours trying to understand it.

2. How much to charge to go and live alone: hahaha, the next one was, at what age i’ll loose my virginity?… girl, for this stuff is better to ask someone to read your hand.

AND THE WINNER IS:

1. How to draw a red dot in Photoshop: hahaha… no comments.

CONCLUSION: search engines are bad, people is worst

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Advantages of the Freelance worker

After writing the article about disadvantages of the freelance worker there was people that commented about my pessimistic vision of the situation, and i repeat, this work is for rebel people, nonconformist, ambitious… it has many inconvinients but also many advantages. I wouldn’t change it for any other life style.

Now we are going to talk about the advantages of workings as a freelance.

Fire your boss

Boss: that guy that appears at 12am, 5 minutes after the secretary appears with a suspicios “i just woke up” face, and that hurries you because "we are late"… when you have been working for 4 hours in the office, looking at the wall because nobody gave you a list of the thing you have to do.

Fire the useless boss!!!! Now you are your own boss, so you have total control within all the aspects related to your work.

I don’t want to wake up early

This is my favorite, who says you need to get up early to work? I hate doing it!!!!!! When i do it i lay down 4 hours until my body decides to start… it’s unnatural!!

That’s over, this is my schedule:

11:00 i wake up
11:00-14:00 work
14:00-16:00 rest
16:00-19:00 work
19:00-00:00 rest
00:00-03:00 work
03:00 i go to sleep

I prefer to work in 3 hours intervals during the day, because it’s more productive, and staying up late working while i listen to my favorite radio show. During the night there are no distractions so those are the most productive hours, besides, i coincide with my United States and Australia clients.

If you are productive, you’re worth it

What’s that of investing 8 hours every day? doing anything, being productive or not… how do they help? being productive doesn’t care, you have to be 8 hours and that’s it… even if you’re only looking at the wall.

If you are a freelance worker, forget about that. I establish my working day according to my objectives, when they are complete my working day is over. Some days i work 8 hours, some 4 hours, and others i don’t even work.

What’s a car?

I love it when you go to a work interview and they say the job consists in 8 hours a day… it’s like if you had a teleportation machine Star Trek style. Now you are at home… now you are at work!!!

And what happens with the 2 hours a day you use to come home and go to the office, looking for parking or going home to eat? Aren’t these direct consecuenses caused because of the job? Luckily you get a couple of hours to rest, but you use 1 hour in the road, and you end up eating at the bar in the corner… at the end of the month you see how much you spend in the gas and food, and luckily you can invite your boyfriend or girlfriend to dinner.

If you are freelance and you work through the internet, the biggest travel you’ll do is from the lounge to the bedroom. And the food? Well, to your granny’s home, that’s good enough to travel.

And a tie?

Summer… south of Spain… 4 in the afternoon… 40ºC in the shadow… and you’re wearing a tie… without air conditioning…

From now on you can work with your Freaky Superman shirt, with matching underwear… or without it

Better alone than with bad company

And the relief of not having an annoying coworker?

That one with bad breath, that smokes all the time, that works with the music at the max volume, that wastes half morning talking with the secretary but when the boss comes he looks like the employee of the month.

We don’t have those, if you decide to have a coworker, you choose it, and you are with him if everything goes well, otherwise, he’s out.

No more photocopier

If you are a wage-earning graphic designer, you sure have a close relationship with the photocopier, or even worst, with the coffee-maker!!!… why would they hire someone when they have you to do it?

From now on you are an authentic graphic-web designer, illustrator, writer… or any other area in which you want to work. They pay you to do what YOU decide to do.

Goodbye boredom

If you were a wage-earning graphic designer, i’m sure you know how to vectorize an already designed logo, you probably did that a thousand times by now.

From now on forget about those slave tasks, if a kind of work doesn’t suit you, you just reject the offer. Creativity is what gives you the money and it’s fun.

From SOSFactory i make from illustrations, logo and web design to packaging. When you have so many areas to choose it’s difficult to be bored.

Fell in love only with the ones who like you

When you work as wage-earning worker, your task consists in making your client happy, regardless of your preferences… in my opinion, another mistake.

Think in this: in your city there are thousands of boys / girls, you choose only one from all of them, you chose it according to your feelings, you love him / her and even like that there are some times that the relationship is impossible… why should we expect that the relations with our clients will always be possitive?

The main characteristic of freelance workers is the passion for what he does, not the necessity of making big money. Now you choose the clients, luckily you wont need many of them, and you will be able to choose the ones that have more affinity with you. This ones will give you more satisfactions, with them the work will be cool, easy and profitable… forget about the rest, they will only burn you.

Curiously the clients that pay more are the ones that like your work, and you as a specialist, don’t think that because of working cheap the will like you more.

My work office? In my head

Who says my work office has to be a chair in an office of my city?

My office is in my head, luckily it’s always with me, i can work in bed, in the beach, while drinking a beer in the square of my city…

When my girlfriend had to go to study to Berlin i went with her, and my income was the same… in any other job i would have to choose between my girlfriend and my job.

United States Salary in my country

Another advantage of having a virtual office is that you can work for any client in the world, cheers internet!! We can have salaries of United States level in Spain, or even better if you live in South America or India.

A lot of people accuse us of overloading the market, my opinion is that the one who is worth it, make progress, and in little time has the salary of a local designer, so we compete in the same conditions.

Another question are the businesses that hire people in underdeveloped countries, exploiting workers, where what matter is the quantity of work and not the quality. They don’t have the intention to progress… they are the authentic parasites of the industry.

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Disadvantages of the Freelance worker

I’m starting to get bored of all those blogs that talk about how good is to work as a freelance designer. It looks like it’s normal to get a salary of 6 numbers, work 4hs a day, and having mega clients that ask for jobs anybody would do even for free.

It’s obvious that the possitive side of any aspect of life has more audience that the negative side. This blogs live from the incomes coming from that audience, but i don’t think it’s a good philosophy to ignore it… let’s be realist, being a freelance worker has a lot of advantages, but also a lot of inconvinients.

So let’s face it, if we are more concious about it, we will have more possibilities of success…

Inestability

It is probably the most negative point, it’s the essence of the freelance worker. A month you are stressed because you have more work than you can do, and the next one you are looking for a waiter job because you can’t pay your bills.

This is very common when you are starting, if you follow the advices of the article get a job as a freelance designer in little time you will have stable clients, then you will start to really enjoy your work.

That’s why i recommend starting in this business when you are young and you still don’t have many responsibilities. If you already have a mortgage to pay, or a family to maintain it’s possibly too late for you

Dedication

Something i always comment with my freelance friends, and they agree, is the fact that a freelance worker is a freelance worker 24 hours a day, there’s no resting, if you are not working directly you do it indirectly. The fact is that your brain never stops working, you are always looking for that idea for a design, or that marketing strategy to help you progress.

You also need a lot of work hours, but productive work hours… it’s better 1 hour of quality work than 8 hours looking at the wall.

Summing up: you must work a lot, be productive and you also can’t be distracted.

Loneliness

The freelance designer works the 90% of the cases alone, you can always associate with other designers, and gather with them like in my case, but never get to have a real associate.

This way your worries, problems, stress… stay for you.

Pressure

You are your own boss, if you aren’t able to do a task by yourself, because of your lack of motivation or capacity, noone will help with your work.

So everything depends on you, good or bad… this doesn’t help much when you have to make a creative design.

Continuous change

What works today might not work tomorrow. This is the truth which every businessman has to face, that’s why you have to be updated with the new technology and tendencies…

Multitasks

It doesn’t work only with designing, drawing, writing, painting, photographs or whatever you do, and do it right, you also must learn to be a good businessman, and know about laws and accountancy.

You also need to know, at least, new technologies and tendencies.

Speciality

It looks like a contradiction to the previous point, but it’s not. Think that when a company hires external staff it’s because the company employees don’t have the capacity to do it.

So you must know a bit of everything, but being specialist in something… if possible, in various things.

Vacations and Social Security

Forget about taking a month of vacations like wage-earner workers. Doing it is bad because you will lose clients, your future income; besides, that month you wont have any income… unless you have an automated business, like a blog, an online store… that way you’ll have a bigger margin.

In Spain, the freelance worker is considered as a "businessman", which has risks, so we don’t have the right to unemployment.

There’s no possibility of an early retirement before 65 years of age.

Now we finally have rights to sick leave.

Rentability

A couple of weeks ago i wrote an article about the price of an hour of work for a freelance worker and a wage-earning worker. My conclusion was that to obtain a monthly salary equivalent to a wage-earning worker, the freelance worker has to charge almost 4 times more per hour (in Spain):

"A designer employed in a company earning only 8€/h will receive a salary of 1.166€/month.. a freelance designer, has to charge about 30€/h."

Being a freelance worker will make you pay more expenses that in the case of a normal worker are paid by the boss.

As i always say, this kind of job is made for alternative people, rebels, risky… it’s all or nothing. If you do it well it can be the best work of the world, but it also requires many sacrifices… and not everybody is good for this.

In the next article we will write about the advantages of being a freelance worker.

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1. Advantages of the Freelance worker
2. Contracts for freelance designers
3. My 17 most stupid searching terms