Thursday, May 14, 2009

Ninja Mountain Podcast #16 - A bargain at half the price

This week it's question and answer with the panel as they wrestle some thorny beasts provided by Jon's Facebook friends and rpg.net! "What brushes do you use in Photoshop?","can you give me email addresses of your favourite clients?", and "will you do me some work pro bono?" are all questions which will not be answered. Instead Ralph discusses shooting day for night, Jeremy shoots a man in Reno just to watch him die, Socar brings sexy back, and Jon edits the whole show to make himself seem much funnier than he actually is. As ever.

Actual questions covered: Bulk pricing? How many revisions? Why art? What music do you work to?

http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/NinjaMountain/NinjaMountain016.mp3

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Show notes to follow.

*Hey Kids! Check out Patrick's blog post today for the background and history of the Mountain: Ninja Mountain, the awful, terrible truth.

12 comments:

Ninja Mountain said...

Sorry to miss out this week, but I was the swine flu. You think my voice is bad normally? Oy. But I'm feeling less diseased already, and should be back next time!

I just listened and I have to say this really was one of the best episodes yet. Great work, guys and gal!

-Patrick

Anonymous said...

"Now that I realize I'm horrible - I quite like myself"

Priceless!!!

MuYoung Kim said...

"You learned to do that by yourself...I'm going to throttle him."

I have this mental imagine that just by being near Ralph Horsley, some of his awesome can somehow osmotically be absorbed. I need to move to the UK...

Absolutely hilarious!

Patrick McEvoy said...

I don't know about that, Mu, but just trading posts with Ralph over the years has caused my typing to develop an English accent...

Hey Caco - thanks as always! I'm feeling almost normal again and should be in form for this week's show. Yay!

Jan said...

Ninjas, I'd like to thank you again for making these podcasts.

I've been re-listening to them the whole Saturday while painting and it seems I'll be listening to them today as well :D

(I obviously started with ep1 and now I'm on ep12)

And they're just as good the second time as they were the first. It's weird, but your voices are great as background for painting.

On topic though: Ralph is entirely self-taught then?! O_O that gives me some hope since I have no art education at all and I've always seen it as a huge flaw.

Ninja Mountain said...

Wow, Jan - going through all of them again! I'm so glad we bear up to repeated listenings. :) I like to listen to podcasts while I paint too - though not while I draw because it takes more concentration.

I don't think there's a problem with being self-taught. I mean, when you get right down to it, we all teach ourselves anyway. It all boils down to what we listen to and act on.

I had training in High School (at school and also night and summer courses I took at a local art school) and a couple years as an Art major at college. However, I learned more - a LOT more - after I was out of school and teaching myself. Different things work for different people!

There are a few things school can offer that you might not think of on your own, but can certainly be found. These are: being forced to work with different media (you just force yourself!), drawing from live models (get friends or find artist model sessions in your area) and learning critique (which you can do easily online these days!). As long as you don't bypass those basics, and read a lot about art, school isn't a "must" at all.

-Patrick

Anonymous said...

Loving these podcasts guys.. making my way through them in a completely random order, and taking something really valuable away from each of them!

Socar, it was wonderful to know you weren't good at art at school... it was my lowest grade too, and I still to this day have to try at it, it's not something that comes easily... it's nice to know there are others who were the same!

Left you a little review on itunes, but I shall recommend this to any and all who'll listen. Keep up the great work!

Ninja Mountain said...

Thanks, Zeph! Glad to have you on board.

You and Socar are better than me. I think if I'd been bad in art class I'd have done something else. School always messed me up. :)

-Patrick

Eva Kristjáns said...

I have only just started listening to your podcasts (currently on #4) and I just wanted to thank you for all that you are sharing. I wish I had had these to listen to when I started freelancing. Today I freelance from home and it really breaks up the silence having your podcasts to listen to while at work. You've created a nice atmosphere where the listener feels like he is a part of the group instead of "just listening". Great stuff.

Thank you, and I hope there'll be more podcasts to come! :)
- Illustrator/Illustration student from Iceland

Ninja Mountain said...

Eva - thanks for listening and big thanks for leaving the nice note. With a little bit of luck we'll be doing it for a long time to come.

Tyler Walpole said...

Hey guys! Great show as always.

On the topic of the number of changes; I'm really surprised that nobody mentioned the idea of asking for more money when the changes became very extreme. I feel that that is something that can easily be worked into a contract before work has ever begun.

My $.02

-Tyler

Patrick McEvoy said...

Tyler - sorry I didn't see this response a while ago, so the reply is late! You are absolutely right that this is something to keep in mind. Especially in the case where the contract is going to be a large investment for the artist (a month or more of work, for example) it's important to build in as many safeguards as possible.

One way to do this is simply to say that after a certain date no matter what's been approved (as long as the delivery deadline has been met) that further changes will be "time and materials" and charge an hourly rate plus expenses. So in other words, if you've finished the work and a month later they come back for more changes, you can work up an estimate of your hourly time and say "I'll do the changes for $xxx.xx, based on the contract". And they can then take it or leave it.

I used to work under this sort of contract a lot when I was Art Directing, and it actually avoids a lot of potential bad feelings on all sides in most cases, especially when you're working with larger clients.

Well, anyway, thanks for the great reply Tyler, and it's great to have you listening!