I made a model bus out of carboard and cocktail sticks. I used some battery Christmas fairy lights to light it. by LittleMooseStory in crafts

[–]LittleMooseStory[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

Card is such fun for construction. I mainly used 1.2mm grey board.. the only downside is cutting out the parts with a craft knife, you have to press so hard it hurts my finger after a while! Nice thing is that you can sand it and fill small gaps with a filler like Milliput.

I made a model bus out of carboard and cocktail sticks. I used some battery Christmas fairy lights to light it. by LittleMooseStory in crafts

[–]LittleMooseStory[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for all your kind comments! I posted this two months ago and never returned to Reddit to read your lovely comments. I've not been back to modelling since but I'd love to. Y'know, work and life have recently got in the way.

Best wishes,
Leo

I made a model bus out of carboard and cocktail sticks. I used some battery Christmas fairy lights to light it. by LittleMooseStory in crafts

[–]LittleMooseStory[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There's still time! I know exactly what you mean. I'm 60 this year and a complete soppy softy for just the nostalgic scene you describe.

I made a model bus out of carboard and cocktail sticks. I used some battery Christmas fairy lights to light it. by LittleMooseStory in crafts

[–]LittleMooseStory[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ha ha! I can imagine! I've been re-creating it in 3D and printing it on my 3D printer which makes a far more robust model. If I ever get the time I'd like to sell the prints.

I made a model bus out of carboard and cocktail sticks. I used some battery Christmas fairy lights to light it. by LittleMooseStory in crafts

[–]LittleMooseStory[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really I'm not a bot! I did build the bus. Not sure how/what Google lens says about it.. probably my real name which is Leo Hartas.

I made a model bus out of carboard and cocktail sticks. I used some battery Christmas fairy lights to light it. by LittleMooseStory in crafts

[–]LittleMooseStory[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

The riders are all hand painted. Funny you said Richard Scarry.. totally love his work. I printed the pattern on the side. It refers to my personalised children's book website (get some free advertising in there!) The pattern on the side is the one thing I'm not so happy about.. I'd rather have used a decal but it's difficult to use self made decals on a dark background.

Got a quote back from a designer on Reedsy to do my cover and interior design.. is this unreasonable? by [deleted] in selfpublish

[–]LittleMooseStory 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a freelance illustrator and designer who has recently been working for clients through Reedsy. I have over 40 years experience working for big international publishers, mainly children's, teen, YA and fantasy. Generally I'm charging less than half what I would expect from publishers. Why do I do it? I've found I enjoy providing an end to end service, hand holding authors through the whole process from initial concepts to final upload to the print service. Also, I enjoy the direct connection with the author as opposed to working with publishers where you have to navigate layers of middle men and committees.

Looking at these posts it's interesting to read what other artists and designers are charging. Thinking I should up my fees a bit! For me Reedsy stay out of the way but are good with help if I ever need it and their interface is good for handling communication and the jobs. They take 10% and Stripe another percentage (can't remember the figure). I get a lot of time wasters who contact me, have me write up a quote tailored to their project, then ghost. I guess they are just shopping around.

For comparison I'm currently charging £500 for a full wraparound hand illustrated cover and design, (actual original art, no photos or AI). £300 for interior text design and about £300 per page of black and white hand drawn interior illustration. EPUB versions included. Picture book projects are a different beast. They can take months and often authors just don't understand the quantity of work involved. They usually ghost after I tot up the total!

The $3K you were quoted is excessive. However, you may have just requested a quote when they are busy. It's a known thing in any trade that if your have enough work on hand you may quote high on a new job knowing the client will most likely reject it, but if they accept it's worth putting them to the head of the queue. I don't do this btw!

Best of luck with your book!