Top Three Ridiculous Requests Of The Week

Greetings cuddle muffins! Alrighty then, so I’ve got a couple of offerings from the bin of hopeless adverts here for your delight, delectation or just general ambivalence. So, here are this issues top three unbelievably shocking artistic requests made towards the creative industry…

Third Place:

Looking for an illustrator / artist who can draw up 14 little cartoons (black/white) each pertaining to a description (e.g. chess, science, etc.)
To be used on a website.

It shouldn’t take long for the right person to produce what we need. Pay is $40 for the project, including any changes to be made after feedback.

Remember the translation guide I posted a few days ago? The eagle eyed amongst you will note the careful use of the phrase “shouldn’t take long for the right person”. Of course we all know what they really mean by that, not that they left you guessing there as they follow it swiftly up with “Pay is $40” (if you can’t be bothered getting out the calculator, he’s offering $2.86 per illustration) and just as you’re reeling from the sheer brass neckery of it all, they finish you off with the kicker “including any changes to be made after feedback”.
Ouch! Good luck with that…

Second Place:

I am writing a children book and would love to toss some ideas around as far as the illustrations go. Maybe see what you have to offer and go from there. At the moment NO PAY IS OFFERED. How ever if we continue and see a common vision, than I would love to make a select person the illustrator for the book and list you as such on the cover.

Again we can refer to our handy-dandy translation guide for this one boys and girls, see where she says “NO PAY IS OFFERED” that gives us some indication of what she has in mind here. However, even without this glaringly obvious factoid, we’ve also got the old ‘jam tomorrow’ tactic, the promise of future work and fame, fabulous fabulous fame as she promises to list your name on the cover no less! This of course is after you’ve trawled your creative talents giving her an unspecified number of ideas for HER book, which, if she likes them, she may decide you can then bring them to life for her – for free. If she doesn’t like them, you’re out on your ear anyway for the same amount of no money. Plus, she might just take your ideas and saunter off into the sunset with them. “Toss some ideas around” indeed!

The Winner:

I need an excellent illustrator to make a rendering of a battle scene with George Washington from the Revolutionary War. Piece should be stylized and resemble porcelain etchings and artwork with decorative elements.

Please email me for specifics, I need this ASAP. $150

This is, without a doubt, the clear winner of this post’s selection. How could anyone top this…well I suppose if they were asking for the same thing and offering less money. Yes, granted, they didn’t have the out and out bare faced cheek to not offer any pay at all, but $150 for a rendering of a BATTLE SCENE from the revolutionary war, starring George Washington resembling porcelain with decorative elements. I’m sorry, come again? You want what now? For how much?!
Then just to really take your breath away, they begin it by asking for an excellent illustrator (for $150?!) and end it by saying they need it “ASAP”. Oh right, yeah, last minute porcelain etched battle scenes, it’ll be with you by five.

Tune in next time for more shocking discoveries from the world of freelance illustrating…

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Back Away Slowly

Alright, so I’m out hunter gathering as per usual. In between being hopelessly distracted by electric guitar versions of the Skyrim theme tune. Oh so good…

But rocketing back to the job hunt thing, you ever look at an advert and think, hum, working for someone like you might be as fun as being basted in honey and dipped in a barrel of fire ants, but that’s purely conjecture. Take this advert for example:

What blind publisher did you use?

Just looking at this ad’ raises a few question marks about what working for this person might or might not be like. Whether or not these suspicions are valid, one may not know. You’d have to actually work for them to find out and by then, it could be too late.

Behold, the fact that this person is a published writer (apparently) and yet doesn’t seem to realise that the letter at the beginning of a sentence really ought to begin with a capital. And they haven’t just done it once, but every single time. Leading me to hypothesise that either they genuinely don’t understand basic grammar, or their publisher has a very patient proof reader, or perhaps their shift key has fallen off their keyboard.

Coupled of course with the fact they said there instead of their.

I’m not saying that I’m the poster child for perfect spelling and grammar, I too suffer from occasional mis-strokes, type-o’s, genuine ignorance and simple grammar issues (such as starting a sentence with an ‘and’) but I’m not claiming to be a published writer.

 

It may be petty and pedantic I know, but if they clearly think so little about their adverts and will happily slap dash out a mindless request for an artist without taking the time to even so much as use more than one hand (possible explanation for lack of capital letters) then we’re either dealing with an amputee, an unbelievably lazy ”writer” or a serial master-debater.

One can only imagine that working for them would be something along the lines of

“Oh I don’t really know what I want you to do, just sort’ve draw…a thing..with, I dunno, a hat.”

So, you do and then you’ll get.

“Uh huh yeah…I like it but, I dunno, can you kind’ve change, like, everything?”

And this will repeat, ad nausium, until you’re not even anywhere near the original description you were given and before you know it you’re getting requests to add trampolines and sail boats and exploding planets into the background of two ponies kissing as a pictorial representation for an elephant in a hat going on a picnic – or something.

I’m just saying. That’s the impression I get from reading this advert. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but if experience has taught me anything it’s that sometimes you’ve got to go on your gut instinct with these things before you end up sobbing over your drawing board as you redraft your sketch for the tenth time wondering why you didn’t decide to become a milk man.

Oh yeah, and plus the very last thing at the bottom of the advert…