Where to get illustrations for book.

Question

I've written a book that needs about 50 weird illustrations. Is there any way I could get that done without paying thousands of dollars?

Here's an example of the instructions for one. I kind of doubt that Photoshop could be used for this, but what do I know?

4D Olympic Swimming Pool with Racers. There are four requirements.

1) Color coding

Start with an ordinary 3D Olympic swimming pool with racers. Color code the racers. The color depends on the distance above or below the surface of the water. We use a continuous spectrum of color from red to violet. The highest point of a swimmer that is above the water -- usually a hand or an elbow -- is colored violet. The lowest point is colored red. Everything in between is colored continuous spectrum -- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

2) The shape of the pool

3D: A plain ordinary 3D Olympic swimming pool contains water with a boxlike shape.

4D: Our 4D pool has a similar boxlike shape but is equally deep as it is wide.

3) Swimming lanes.

3D: There are eight 2D lanes side by side, each with one racer.

4D: There is a 3x3 array of 3D swimming lanes, each with one racer, for a total of nine racers. Each racer is in the center of his/her lane, so to us it looks like all of the racers are underwater.

4) Orientation of the racers

3D: The racers are all headed in the same direction. They are all more or less horizontal.

4D: The racers are all headed in the same direction. They can "roll" in any way. One might appear horizontal to us just by chance. Another might appear to be upside down. The others can be anywhere in between these. The color coding doesn't change.

jane-e · Accepted Answer

patrickpowers wroteI've written a book that needs about 50 weird illustrations. Is there any way I could get that done without paying thousands of dollars?By “illustrations”, do you mean drawings? If you can find the right ones from Adobe Stock or another stock photo service, be sure to get the correct license for what you are doing.Another solution would be to draw them yourself with Adobe Illustrator. If you don’t know it yet, you’ll want to learn it first, as there is a learning curve. You might start with course on linkedin learning (formerly lynda.com) and/or individual training with an Illustrator instructor. If you hire a graphic artist, then you can expect to pay for the time and for the expertise.Those are the only three solutions I can think of.

KShinabery212 · Answer

My suggestion would be to get graphics from a stock site such as Adobe Stock and pay for unlimited usage.

What I dislike is when people try to get brand new illustrations for next to nothing. There is a whole movement with hashtags that artists are using saying that their art has value.

For me recommending people to use university students and pay them next to nothing is also bad. Reason being I have visited some schools (even high schools) and seen kids creating artwork that rivals that of people who have been creating artwork for decades. Here in Duesseldorf, I saw 15 year old painter that painted a realistic cityscape.... better than artists I know in their 40s!

You get what you pay for. I think artists of all ages should be aware that their art has value. The days of creating logos for 15 dollars for brands that become giants is over.

I also dislike the crowdsourcing sites as well. People want artwork for next to nothing.

One can get designs done cheaply in poorer countries, but then you are taking advantage of the artists there.

To me you get what you pay for. I know that if I sell artwork of mine or create logos, I have a limited usage clause in my contract. Which is very smart for artists to do.

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