Tag: advice

Another Scam alert for Artists

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Today I received a message in my email from my website’s comment form. Now, I do absolutely get cold contacts through this form that are absolutely legit and lead to perfectly good projects. Some of my favorite projects have come from cold contacts from that form. However, it’s the internet. Not everything on the internet is safe or true. Just for self-preservation, I’m always just a little suspicious of new inquiries that come to me this way.

The message I received today read:

Name: Joan
Email: joanfallk@gmail.com
Message:
Hello,
I am Joan. I got your contact details online. Can you work on an illustration project and get it ready before the due date? I have prepared the scenarios to be illustrated. I just need an illustrator or cartoonist to draw the images. . Please get back to me for more details. I prefer email and text correspondence for record purposes.

208-505-8842

Warm regards.

Joan

Now, this message isn’t glaringly wrong but just seems a little off to me.

She got my contact details online? Well, sure. She contacted me through my website’s contact form. That seems a little odd to mention.

Can I work on an illustration project and get it ready before the due date? An unspecified due date. Again, seems a little obvious. Of course, if I take a project, It’ll be done by the due date. I won’t take a project if I don’t believe I can meet the due date. It’s surprising she’d mention that because it’s just a part of the job.

Saying she’s prepared the scenarios to be illustrated is fine, but an awkward way to state it.

At this point I’m pretty sure this is a scam, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why. Maybe I’m overreacting. It could be legit. I figure I can spare a couple more minutes to respond just to verify one way or another. So, I said:

Hi Joan,

Thank you for contacting me.  Depending on the details on the illustration project, I can probably help.

Can you tell me more about your project? 

Thank you,

Karen B. Jones
Illustrator

She responded fairly quickly with:

Hello Karen,
Thank you for your interest in this project. The illustrations/images are to be used for a presentation in a Workshop coming up soon. The title of the workshop is FAMILY – THE NUCLEUS OF THE SOCIETY. We have broken it down into Phase 1 and Phase 2.This is Phase 1. The attendees are students between the ages of 17 and 25. I require your service to illustrate the under-listed scenarios. Please make it a horizontal (Landscape) presentation, Cartoon styled (2D images),full illustration ( head to toe), colored (CMYK) but a plain white background. The illustrations should fit on a standard letter size – (8.5 x 11″) and be delivered in PDF format. I want 1 year exclusive right to the images. Also, note that these illustrations will be handed out to the participants in printed form. I just want the illustrations to paint a vivid picture of the theme of the workshop. The delivery date for the images is January 27, 2024. This is the outline of the scenarios to illustrate:

* A Caucasian Family : Father, Mother and their 2 teenage children (any gender) all standing and clothed.
* A Black Family : Father, Mother and their 3 teenage children ( any gender) all standing and clothed.
* A group (not more than 5) of young and middle aged guys with the caption ‘Uncles’
* A group (not more than 5) of young and mid aged ladies with the caption ” Aunts”
* An elderly woman and an elderly man standing by side with a caption “Grandparents”

My budget for the job is $700 per piece( Total is $3500 for the first phase). Let me know if that’s fine. If it’s not please get back to me with the price quote and what would be your preferred mode of payment? I’m proposing a certified bank draft, a cashier’s check or bank certified check considering the amount involved. I look forward to reading from you soon.

Warm regards.

Joan

So, this client sounds rather corporate (AI generated?) compared to the typical legit client that contacts me through my contact form. Usually corporate-sounding clients come in through my art rep and the contact form brings in mostly self-publishing authors. So, right off I’m skeptical.

However, she wants head-to-toe cartoon figures drawn isolated on white. Lately I have been posting art samples of just such images. Maybe that’s why she contacted me. It’s certainly something I could do. So that’s a point in her favor. Maybe she’s for real.

She already knows exactly how much she wants to pay without feeling me out at all on how much I’d want to charge. To be fair, I do have clients come to me with a set budget, but they’re generally publisher clients coming in through my art rep. Also, without getting into my pricing structure, this is suspiciously high for what she’s asking for.

Her target audience are people aged 17-25. She wants cartoon art from a children’s illustrator for an audience of young adults? That doesn’t seem to fit. Now, I will happily illustrate for all ages, but cartoons showing simple happy families just don’t seem to match the audience.

However, nothing for sure. Any of those details might be absolutely fine.

To me, the big red flag is that she’s really quick to suggest a certified bank draft, a cashier’s check, or bank certified check. This indicates it’s probably a fake check scam. More on that here. Usually, I use Paypal when accepting payments from clients that cold contact me through the internet. It’s safer for both parties that way.

She also hasn’t told me anything at all about who she is or who her organization is, or even very much about the purpose of this family values themed workshop.

So, I decided to bait her one last time. I considered just telling her to contact my art rep, but I don’t really want to make Janet deal with her. That seems mean. So, instead I asked her:

What organization do you represent?  Is this a church workshop? 

Thank you,

Karen B. Jones

Her response was:

Hello Karen,
I am an independent academic consultant. I work part-time as a researcher and I also teach music on the side. That is how I earn my living. From time to time I organize seminars and workshops to educate the younger generation on chosen subject matter and hire professionals to give speeches at these seminars. This is absolutely free at no cost whatsoever to the participants of the workshop. I approach well-meaning individuals, organizations and large corporations for sponsorship of these programs and present proposals to them. As a giveback initiative, most sponsors want to be part of it. I do not source clients from any online platform. I organize, get a sponsor and meet deadlines. Below is my contact information:

Joan Falken
1210 E McKinley St
Boise, ID 83712
208-505-8842

The illustrations will be used in a slide lecture and the sole aim of the workshop is to enlighten the younger generations on the importance of the family as the single most crucial foundation of every society. To teach them family values and impact them with adequate knowledge about family and the role of the family in the society.

We cannot over-emphasize the need to teach the younger generation the importance of the protection of the family, themselves and appropriate social interaction.

Warm regards.

Joan Falken

Hey, lookey there! We’ve got an Academic Event Organizer! Ding-ding-ding! That cinches it.

Definitely a scam.

(More on the Academic Event Organizer scam here.)

Did you notice her email was joanfalk@gmail.com but she finally signed her full name there at the end as Joan Falken, not Falk. I’m not sure if that means anything, but given the rest, I don’t like it.

Oh, and I looked up her address on google. Now, this isn’t definitive, but in today’s world, google can pretty much always find an address, if it’s a real address. In this case, it found a crossroads, but none of the buildings around it have that house number. So, I’m pretty sure the address doesn’t exist.

Did you notice she’s supposedly a freelancer, but didn’t link to a website for her freelance business? She’s also not on linkedIn.

And then the whole emphasis on traditional family values for young adults bothers me. I don’t want to get too political on this blog, but the phrase is so often a dog whistle. Even if it’s not a scam, I don’t want to do a project for a seminar that’s going to turn out to be some sort of anti-LGBTQ, purity culture event.

So, yeah. You all be warned. Stay safe.

SCBWI Illustrator Day

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I just finished attending a webinar hosted by the KS/MO chapter of the SCBWI. I have been doing illustration long enough now that a lot of these seminars (in person and online) are sort of reviewing things I’ve already picked up. But I did get a few points that were sort of new, or at least good to be reminded of. And it’s always good to get out there (metaphorically because it was on zoom) and actually discuss things.

The subjects were picture book dummies and working with art departments.

There was a lot of information, but the advice I took away was:

Continue reading →

Things I’ve Learned About Breastfeeding

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It occurs to me that I should write down all the stuff I’ve learned about breastfeeding before I forget about it.

Background
I nursed my first daughter until she weaned herself at 22 months. I’m still nursing my second daughter, who’s just over two years old. She doesn’t show signs of weaning herself, so I’m starting to taper it off to force her to wean now.

Starting Out
It hurts. Even when you know what to expect and what to do, it hurts. But only for the first week or so. The deal is, your nipple isn’t used to being constantly sucked on and your baby doesn’t automatically have her technique down perfectly. She will latch on wrong a time or two at first and that will injure your nipple. Having her continue to suck on an injured nipple just increases the injury.

What to do? Put a lanolin cream on it. This does nothing for the pain, but it keeps the scab that’s forming soft. This will make nursing on the painful nipple a bit easier. It’s natural and non-toxic, so you don’t need to worry about wiping it off before nursing again. Use ice packs between nursing to help with the pain.

Nursing Pads
There are lots of options for nursing pads. I used the disposable ones occasionally, but I mostly used washable cloth ones. I liked the kind with a bit of lace on one side because the lace helped keep them in place in my bra without any adhesives.

Nursing Clothing
For the most part, you don’t need to buy special nursing clothing. T-Shirts work great. Just pull them up to nurse. The top of you T-Shirt will cover you pretty well, and the baby will cover your belly. Button-up blouses work well too.

Nursing Bras
These are essential. Forget about pretty, lacey things for now. You just need to find one that’s supportive. Unfortunately, I can’t find a nursing bra that fits me as well as a standard bra, but I do the best I can.

You’ll likely find yourself wanting a sleep bra, perhaps for the first time in your life.  When you’re very full of milk, they can be heavy and a little extra support is helpful.  More importantly, however, you need something to wear to keep your nursing pads in place.  Because you’ll likely leak a lot and otherwise you’ll get milk soaking your nightgown and sheets when you wake up.

Mastitis
I occasionally get a mastitis infection if I don’t nurse as often as normal the day before. I end up with too much milk and it causes an infection. I get a fever for a day and feel pretty miserable, but I’m better the next day. To prevent this, I try not to change my nursing patterns from day to day. Especially on days when we have company over or we’re traveling.

Pumping
It’s a nuisance. I did it for a year with my first daughter so my husband had milk to do one feeding at night. I also did it occasionally to prevent mastitis when I had too much milk but the baby wasn’t interested in nursing.

Storing It
I froze it in the baby bottles.

Reheating It
I used the microwave. I know that experts will caution you against this. But as long as you make sure to shake it up before giving it to the baby, it works fine. Shaking it is important to prevent hotspots that the microwave can cause.

Nursing in Public
It’s really not that big a deal. Have the courtesy not to flaunt it (face away from other people in the room and, if possible, find a private corner) and they will have the courtesy to avert their eyes and give you your privacy.

Milk Supply
Sometimes it will seem like your body isn’t producing enough milk and you start wondering about ways to increase your milk supply. I’ve seen lots of advice about teas and herbal supplements and such. The first thing you should try is to just drink more water. Seriously, that was all it ever took for me. That always solved the problem. If you’re dehydrated, your milk production goes down.

Breastmilk vs. Formula
Breastmilk is free. I’m cheap. I breastfeed.

Paying Cash Instead of Plastic Makes you spend less? Not for me.

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I keep seeing articles advising people to pay cash for things rather than credit cards because most people spend less when that way. It annoys me a little, because it assumes everyone uses cards the same way.

For me and my family, we definitely spend less when we’re paying by plastic rather than cash.

First, let me explain how we use our cards. We pay off our balance every month. That way we don’t need to worry about interest rates. I like having the option to make a minimum payment and let the balance ride if I need to. However, we haven’t needed to do that for years.

Second, I track everything we spend with our cards. Our credit card companies categorize all our spending for us pretty well and I use Quicken to categorize it even better. I save receipts and go through them occasionally to figure out exactly what we bought and feed that into Quicken as well. So, everything we spend with plastic will eventually have to be accounted for and justified.

Third, we get a 5% discount at Target when paying with our Target card and we get a Cashback Bonus from Discover, which I roll back into paying off the accounts. This makes for a very slight discount over everything we purchase with plastic rather than cash.

Fourth, we have two people using our checking account. If we each draw money out of the ATM or use our check cards and it’s a few days before we balance the checkbook, we may risk overdrawing the account accidentally. We do have overdraft protection, but that’s a $20 or $30 fee each time we use it. You don’t have run that risk with a credit card.

Fifth, I don’t track what I spend as well when paying cash. I don’t keep receipts when I pay with cash. All I track is how much comes out of the ATM. I know when I purchase with cash I won’t have to account for where the money went, so I don’t pay too much attention to it and tend to spend more.

I understand that this is not how everyone, or even most people, handle their accounts. For many people they do spend more when using credit cards. However, this is not the case for everyone. I know it isn’t for me. It annoys me when financial experts present financial tips like this as if it is a one-size-fits-all solution. For some people, they’ll spend less when they pay by cash. For others, they spend less with plastic. It just depends on your individual spending and accounting habits.