Perfectionism, CMYK & a shout out to Barry in the cupboard (lovin' your work, Barry)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Ship Illustration – Episode: "Perfectionism, CMYK & a Shout Out to Barry in the Cupboard"

Release Date: April 4, 2025
Hosts: Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Tania Willis

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1. Navigating Perfectionism in Storytelling

Listener's Question:
An anonymous listener reached out with concerns about "perfection paralysis" while developing a story for illustration. She shared that a previous agent criticized her narrative for lacking a cohesive story arc, describing it as a "series of events" rather than a structured story. Despite positive feedback on her art, the critique led her to overthink her character motivations and stall her project's completion.

Hosts' Insights:

• Understanding Perfection Paralysis:
  Tania Willis [00:03:05]: Emphasized that "perfectionist paralysis" is a common hurdle and advised not to heavily weigh one agent's opinion, especially when transitioning to a new, supportive agent.

• Developing a Story Arc:
  Tania Willis [00:04:09]: Highlighted the importance of incorporating a crisis or a pivotal moment in the story to transform a series of events into a compelling narrative. She suggested that even minor conflicts, like a character needing the potty and having an accident, can create the necessary tension and resolution.

• Character Development Strategies:
  Tania Willis [00:06:16]: Recommended delving deep into the character's personality by asking a myriad of questions about their daily habits, friendships, and quirks. This comprehensive understanding allows characters to react authentically in various scenarios, thus driving the story forward naturally.

• Collaborative Editing:
  Katie Chappell [00:07:13]: Advocated for teamwork in storytelling, mentioning her experience co-writing with Tania. They benefited immensely from publisher feedback, which provided constructive direction without fostering fear or paralysis.

Notable Quote:
Tania Willis [00:07:29]: "If you know their character inside out, throw a dilemma at them, see how they react, and then you've got a story."

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2. Mastering RGB vs. CMYK for Illustrators

Listener's Question:
A common inquiry addressed was, "What's better? RGB or CMYK?" This question delves into the technical aspects of color modes in digital and print mediums, a crucial consideration for illustrators aiming for both online and physical publications.

Hosts' Technical Breakdown:

• Defining RGB and CMYK:
  Katie Chappell [00:11:48]: Explained that RGB (Red, Green, Blue) is ideal for digital screens due to its light-based color creation, making colors like orange and vibrant yellows "pop." Conversely, CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) is tailored for print, translating colors into ink-based formats.

• Practical Applications and Challenges:
  Helen Stephens [00:12:10]: Shared experiences of clients requesting RGB files for print, leading to muddled and dull colors post-conversion.
  Tania Willis [00:12:44]: Narrated her inadvertent use of RGB for a fully digital project that printed well, attributing the success to a limited color palette and publisher adaptability.

• Best Practices:
  Katie Chappell [00:13:22]: Stressed the importance of finalizing artwork in CMYK when preparing for print to ensure color fidelity. She mentioned the variability within CMYK profiles based on paper types and printing processes, advising illustrators to consult with publishers for optimal results.

• File Management:
  Helen Stephens [00:15:00]: Recounted the logistical challenges of handling high-resolution CMYK files, like large TIFFs, before the advent of cloud storage. Meanwhile, modern practices favor JPEGs and PDFs for their balance between quality and file size.

Notable Quotes:
Helen Stephens [00:12:10]: "I'm like, oh, no, please don't. It's all in RGB."
Katie Chappell [00:16:11]: "RGB is for anything that will appear on a screen... CMYK is for print."

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3. A Shout Out to Barry in the Cupboard

Throughout the RGB vs. CMYK discussion, the hosts humorously referenced "Barry in the cupboard," a nod to the behind-the-scenes technical wizardry that ensures color accuracy in print. This playful mention underscores the often unseen efforts of professionals who manage the technical conversions, allowing illustrators to focus on their creative work.

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4. Encouragement and Final Thoughts

The episode concluded with heartfelt encouragement for illustrators struggling with perfectionism and technical challenges. The hosts emphasized the importance of trusting one's creative instincts, seeking collaborative support, and embracing the learning curve inherent in the illustration profession.

Closing Encouragement:
Helen Stephens [00:10:53]: "Together, but I won't because..."
Katie Chappell [00:10:45]: "Give yourself a shake. A Garrick special."
Tania Willis [00:10:47]: "In a kind way. Obviously."

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Conclusion

This episode of The Good Ship Illustration provided invaluable insights into overcoming creative hurdles like perfectionism and mastering essential technical skills such as color mode selection. Through candid discussions and shared experiences, Helen, Katie, and Tania offered both practical solutions and moral support, reinforcing their commitment to helping illustrators thrive in their creative careers.

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Stay Connected:
Join The Good Ship Illustration community online to access more advice, share your work, and connect with fellow illustrators navigating the creative industry's challenges together.

Transcript

[Helen]

We've got. We've got a juicy question, haven't we?

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Helen]

It says it's anonymous for. For reasons. It says, how can I stop overthinking my story, make a decision of what my character wants, and draw out my dummy to send to my agent to give context? Before I signed with my awesome, very patient and kind agent, I received feedback from another agent who said, this isn't a story. It's a series of events, but not a story. I put on the mean voice myself. That might have been nice. And even though she said my art is great, she said my stories compositions have a sameness to each composition. I appreciated the honest feedback, and I've learned a ton more about writing stories and illustrating this past year. But now I am overcome with perfection paralysis and overthinking my story, and I can't settle on what my character wants long enough to finish it.

[Tanya]

Oh, it's a really, really good question. Really good question. There's nothing worse than that perfectionist paralysis, is there? And this isn't her current agent saying, this is a past agent or an agent that she didn't even go with? Maybe.

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

So I wouldn't put too much weight on one person's opinion, particularly as your new agent hasn't said anything about it. I would maybe take that with a pinch of salt. Don't worry about it too much. Also, if you find an. If you. If you can send your agent some stuff, so they'll send your work out. If you get an a really good editor, they'll help you so structure your story. If they like your work and they want to use you and they like your story idea, they'll help you knock it into shape. I'm just wondering when I used to do a bit of mentoring, looking at people's story ideas, often I would see stories that were more a series of events than a story. And so I think it is handy to think about, is there even a crisis in this story? Because often I would read a story where the illustrator loves drawing nature and loves the idea of children growing up in nature. And, you know, maybe their kids are homeschooled and they're outdoors all the time, and that's, you know, everything about that is idyllic and lovely and you want to say it in your book. But then I would read stories where they went out, they saw a butterfly, they saw a caterpillar, they walked past the ducks, but nothing happened. Nobody fell in the pond, Nobody. Like there was no. It doesn't have to be a massive crisis, but Just a bit of a oh, moment, and then how we gonna fix it moment, or how is it not gonna be fixed, but we find a new happy ending we hadn't expected. It's very, very simply done. If your story really doesn't have a crisis in it or a small mishap, it maybe needs one. But, yeah, I'm worried she's overthinking it.

[Helen]

Yeah. It's almost like the agent. It's not. Is it not really their job to do that?

[Tanya]

Well, do you know what I don't really show. I know everybody has a different relationship with their agent. Everybody does. But I don't really show my agent my ideas, really, because I get so excited to show the publisher. I show them first. Maybe. I know other people don't always do it like that, but I think you're saying your new agent is lovely, but say your new agent doesn't want to send your ideas out because they think they're not ready, but you're struggling and you feel like you could just do with an editor to help. I would just send them out. Also, you're an illustrator too. Maybe your illustrations are wonderful, and they would use you as an illustrator, and then once you've had a couple of books out, then maybe use you as an author. So I would just try and push through it. Either send the samples out yourself, send it to your agent, and say. Say, I'm struggling with the story. What do you think? If you love and trust this new agent who seems very nice, just say, I'm struggling a bit with the story. Do you want to send it out? Just illustration. We send it out and see if we can find an editor who'll help me.

[Katie]

I mean, story arc's something you talk about in the picture book course as well. You know, building some kind of dramatic narrative and a route through it. And maybe that's something that illustrators who come at picture books often it's a weak spot. You've got a series of images, and then you try to lay a story over them, and it lacks drama because you're not thinking in terms of the actual story arc to begin with. But if she's aware of that, maybe that's something that she can tackle directly through some creative writing classes. She knows the link isn't there or that the drama isn't there, so she knows that's something you could do with it.

[Tanya]

You could literally draw the arc. Draw an arc. There's all sorts of ways of doing it. Like, if you think about Oliver Twist, it's like Rags to riches kind of thing. There's like, the orphan has nothing, and they work their way up, and then maybe they suddenly, oh, gosh, it all goes wrong and they lose it all. And then they're. There's that, like, Cinderella story where it's, like, infinitely happy when she marries the prince. Ridiculous idea. But, you know, there's so many story structures. They're all basically the same kind of life is normal. Then something goes wrong, and then it gets happy again.

[Helen]

What's the hero's journey? I've heard that one as well. I know what that is. I think that's a bit like Rags to riches. Like, the hero is struggling and then it's going well again. But then something happens. But then they overcome adversity to help everyone.

[Tanya]

Like in a love story where they're just about to get together, then there's a misunderstanding and then some terrible. And then they. I think Mills and Boon, those. Those romance novelist people send a structure out, a strict structure about what page the couple have to fall out and what page they have to get back together. You know, your crisis in a picture book can be tiny. It can be like, they really, really, really needed the potty, and then they have an accident, and that's your crisis. It doesn't have to be huge.

[Helen]

I like it. Have you read Puddling? I can't remember who wrote it, but puddling is really basic. But they go outside because it's raining to go puddling. Splish, splash, splosh. But then they get water in their wellies and have to go home. It's so basic. It's like it's a big hit in our house.

[Tanya]

I love that. I love that. In her question, she also says something about she doesn't really know what her characters are going to do. And then I would come back to this idea that we talked about a couple of podcasts ago, where you just fire loads of questions at your character. Like, what is my character's hobbies? What weird things do they like to do? What time do they go to bed? What time do they get up? What do they eat for their breakfast? Who are they friends with? How do they know this friend? What's the dynamic in the friendship? Like, just ask loads of questions, and then none of those things might end up in the book. But because you know them inside, you know how they'd react in any situation, then their character really jumps off the page. The reader kind of knows that character outwith the story that you've written because you've got it so anchored in something that feels real and grounded. So maybe if it's a character problem, just ask a million questions to yourself about who the character is.

[Katie]

The character's gonna do something. The character will feed you the dilemma or the crisis.

[Tanya]

Yeah, if you know their character inside out, throw a dilemma at them, see how they react and then you, you've got a story. I wish it was that easy. But you know, that does help. It helps to know that.

[Katie]

I think it helps because she knows what the problem is and so it is something that's actually solvable. The other aspect to this, which is a bit left of field when you were talking about originally saying, you know, when you've mentored people before and they have a love of nature and they have a series of images and it's difficult for illustrators who are not used to writing stories to develop storylines with their illustrations. It's double the work, basically. Writers just concentrate on that and then obviously they have language and construction and the rest of it, but they're not dealing with the images as well. Maybe this person is a non fiction illustrator and perhaps if it's. It's a love of. She doesn't say this in the question, but a lot of people share this similar desire to. To create books that teach about nature and children in nature. That doesn't have to be fiction that could be presented through a semi pictorial, semi or through a character, character led nonfiction that leads you through a series of plants or places in nature. And the same could be. You could do it for a city. So you teach in a non fiction way. It's kind of hybrid, but that's possibly.

[Tanya]

A route to maybe give her. She could give her agent lots of illustration work and say I'm still ferreting away on the stories behind the scenes, but in the meantime, here's my illustration work and see what comes from that.

[Helen]

It's never going to be perfect either, is it?

[Tanya]

Never going to be perfect. And Katie and I have been writing some stories together and we wrote some rough drafts of stories, gave them to the publisher and the editors came back with some magic dust they sprinkled on everything and really helped us really dig into who the characters were. They just made us think about it in a much more constructive way. And it became much, much easier to write the stories after their little sprinkle of magic. Wasn't it?

[Helen]

Way easier. I wish everybody gave feedback like that in a way that doesn't make you paralyzed with perfectionism, fear. Because I totally know what the question asker is talking about. You Know when somebody's giving you feedback and they're like, I could never work again because the. The publisher feedback we got was like. It tricked us into wanting to redo the whole. All the stories, basically, but from a place of being. Like, I'm so excited to work on these now. I know exactly what the characters do and it's going to be so much fun. And then we created a much better thing. So. Yeah, it's like letting people help you.

[Katie]

If you're stuck and remembering that it's not. You know, the perfectionism sometimes comes from believing there is one true answer to this and there's only one way to do it and there isn't, is there? You know?

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Katie]

And as an illustrator, you've got two cracks of the whip. As a picture book author, illustrator, you said the illustration. They might pick you up just for the illustrations alone and help you shape the story up so your story doesn't have to arrive ready made and perfect. Because you've always said, helen, they want some input in that. They want to be able to mold you a bit so that you don't need to be the finished product ready to go straight.

[Tanya]

Yeah. And I couldn't be. I couldn't be my own editor, designer, everything. I haven't got all of those skills. So. It's so nice working in A team and a publisher are well up for doing that. So. Yeah, you need to get your work in front of the right eyes, give it to your agent. And I want to say, pull yourself.

[Helen]

Together, but I won't because.

[Katie]

What's that one?

[Helen]

Katie, Give yourself a shake.

[Tanya]

It's that.

[Katie]

A Garrick special.

[Helen]

Give yourself a shake. A nice one. In a kind way.

[Tanya]

In a kind way. Obviously.

[Helen]

A little jiggle. That was a great question. Should we answer another question?

[Katie]

We could do the RGB or CMYK question now.

[Tanya]

Oh, yeah.

[Helen]

This was one of my favourite questions. What's better? RGB or cmyk?

[Tanya]

I love how that's worded. What's better?

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

Okay, let's take a boat.

[Helen]

What's your favorite one?

[Katie]

You put the RGB on screen. You think, that is fabulous. Look at the orange popping. And then you convert it to CMYK for print, which is what its purpose is. And of course, actually, I'm feeling I'm giving totally wrong information here. I was going to let you vote, but now I've got myself in the weeds.

[Tanya]

Sensible, Tanya. We can't just have a vault.

[Katie]

Yeah. They're just silly. They just want to say. Say these things and you'll be none the wiser at the end of it.

[Helen]

But no, RGB's better.

[Katie]

Katie, stop it. Is it going for print or not? Though you're RGB queen because your stuff is on screen all the time. And color that is in its light form, rgb, red, green, blue, which is what the screen displays. It represents color through light. And if you work as screen based, like Katie, you just stay in RGB mode. But if it's going to print, it has to be in the. The four color litho cmyk.

[Helen]

This is when I start. I start crying when a client's like, oh, we're gonna print that. I'm like, oh, no, please don't. It's all in rgb.

[Katie]

And if you do a direct conversion, don't you. It's awful. All your colors look weak and pathetic and dull.

[Tanya]

I feel like I'm gonna throw something bad in here. Because when I was working on my book of fairy tales, I said to the publisher, because this was. I think this is the first time I went digital. It was completely digital. Do you want it RGB or cmyk? She said, we don't really mind. You can do whatever you like.

[Katie]

Oh my God.

[Tanya]

And I did it. Rgb. And it turned out great. Tanya's crying, but I don't know. You say that. I feel like it must have just been a complete accident. It was fine. It was Photoshop.

[Helen]

A Photoshop bomb.

[Katie]

That's just nuts. I don't understand. Unless they were like.

[Tanya]

I had a really limited palette of like a cadmium blue, a bright red, like a post box red, and a yellow, and everything was in those colors. And what overlapped? Did that make a difference? Is that why it was all right? But the publisher said, we really don't mind. We get lots of stuff delivered RGB and we just fiddle with it and it. And it's fine.

[Katie]

In my mind, I can imagine there's a little room with a man who does the conversion for print going, look, it all turned up in bloody rgb. Just send it to him upstairs. He'll convert it all. But then how does he know what it was meant to look like? Because when you look on the screen, it looks great in rgb. But then you convert to print and it often goes weak and you lose. Orange is the worst orange. And red does orange.

[Helen]

Call it muddy.

[Tanya]

Orange is a difficult color in print, full stop. So is that kind of green, like your jumper, Like a kind of khaki green? A warm green is quite hard to print, isn't it? They're always kind of Muddy.

[Katie]

I think yellows. Yellows are vibrant in RGB and they're harder to print in cmyk. So like for example, for process, if I'm just quickly putting things together in a color rough, I'll do it in rgb. But then as we're getting toward the final artwork, I will make myself work in CMYK so that I can see what it's going to look like. And even then you have to. Well, if you've got a publisher, that's why I think they're set up for print. They probably pat it all into color shape and put the right color profile on it. Because even under cmyk there's about 20 different profiles, like coated paper, uncoated paper, faux graph, US print, all that kind of thing. So they are probably trying not to muddle with the deer illustrator's brain because they know what profile they need to set it up to be printed in China.

[Tanya]

Since then, every time when I've worked digitally since, I've asked the same question, this is cmyk. And then I've done that and that's been good. But yeah, I had a whole book go to print in rgb, please can.

[Katie]

You call them up and ask them what they did and why it was okay, I need to know.

[Helen]

It was Barry in the cupboard, calibrated.

[Tanya]

Screen, somebody working really, really hard. And I had no idea about it.

[Katie]

But the files are always smaller in rgb, which is why from early days in computers where you didn't want your file to be too big, especially if you were generating a load of roughs, RGB keeps a file really small. So I do all my roughs in RGB and then change to CMYK for the final one where it'd be a big heavy file because of all the color profile in it.

[Helen]

High res CMYK, TIFF.

[Katie]

Yeah, then a TIFF, that'd just be huge. You need about 10 men to carry it down to the art directory.

[Helen]

At uni, they were always telling us to save in tiffs, but it was before, like cloud storage was really a thing. So you just have loads of hard drives and be carrying them around with you and plugging them in to save all your tiffs.

[Katie]

And then I never saved in tiffs. I thought that would just blow up my poor Mac. I just haven't got the capacity it did. And you know, JPEGs used to be a bit rubbish, but you can save a good JPEG these days and print from that or a PDF, which is what the printers seem to like, which weirds me out.

[Helen]

But yeah, they make a good JPEG these days.

[Katie]

Yeah. Oh, they're very fine. I just. The poor person who asked which is better. RGB and CMYK is now locking themselves in a cupboard and crying, listening.

[Tanya]

I think you should ignore my RGB thing. I think I was ill advised. It just was a fluke. It worked fine.

[Helen]

I reckon it's because you're Helen Stevens. They were like, it's fine, I'll do it. They were like, yes, Helen, please just send us the artwork. I love you.

[Katie]

Yeah, I think it was that. You've got Barry in the cupboard, all sort it out.

[Helen]

You got Royal Carpet Treatment and they just made it work. Yeah, I wish.

[Tanya]

That'd be nice.

[Katie]

Yeah. So basically, RGB is for anything that will appear on a screen if it's for an app or it's to be shown.

[Tanya]

Oh, it's really terrible when the publishers use a CMYK file for your book cover on Amazon and you see the first launch of it there on the bookshops, when they're just giving a preview of your book and it looks terrible. And the amount of time I've spent pestering my publishers saying, will you change those images? Change those images?

[Helen]

Did they not notice?

[Tanya]

I don't know how they don't notice. You can. I mean, they looked absolutely terrible. I don't know who uploads the images.

[Katie]

It's because they go in one direction. Publishers go to print, they don' Reverse back into screen. Which is why there's a cmyk. CMYK file that will be fine on our website. And all the colors are totally bonked it almost. It can sometimes look like a reversed out slide.

[Tanya]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like a negative.

[Katie]

Yes, that's the word I was looking for. So, yeah, so that's RGBS for screen, CMYKS for print. And that's why they're different. But then you can't say if they're better or not. They're just for the right place.

[Helen]

They have different applications. I remember when I was little, if you go really close to the telly, you can see the red, green and blue. And then a printer.

[Katie]

There's the four color blocks at the.

[Helen]

Top of the ink, aren't they?

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Helen]

C M Y cyan, magenta yellow. Yeah.

[Katie]

Well, we solved everything. Okay, there's two good questions for this week. Hopefully they're useful to someone.

[Tanya]

Bye.