A few years ago I became seriously ill. I was in a coma on heavy duty meds, and had a kidney transplant. I’m much better than I was, but I can’t do a lot of things like I could before.

We’ve now got quite a few kids in the extended family, so a while ago I wrote a short story to try to make it easier for them to understand. My wife and family like the story and have suggested making it into a picture story book. Problem is, I can’t draw and my imagination isn’t very good.

How can I get pictures for the story if I can’t do it myself and don’t have the money to hire someone? I want to avoid using AI tools because of the potential copyright issues.

I haven’t tried the services like Fiverr because I’ve heard that they force a race to the bottom on prices, but does anyone have any experience, or have any ideas of what I can do please?

Thanks in advance :)

  • Saigonauticon@voltage.vn
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    7 months ago

    Well, here in Vietnam a lot of art students and graduates would probably be quite happy to take this on.

    I recall RMIT has a local job forum, for small jobs for current students and alumni. The instruction is all in English, so communication should not be a problem. Maybe other universities have the same.

    Or maybe an art school in the Philippines where English language instruction is also common? I bet they have job forums too.

    In my workplace we’ve got a 3D designer or two, probably not ideal for your task though :(

    BTW using AI to generate an image as an artistic brief is a great application that supports both human and machine artists. This is my biggest use of the tech in production so far – really great especially when language barriers are present.

  • livus@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    @Tippon if you are going the traditional publishing route, publishers don’t actually expect children’s book authors to provide the illustrations necessarily.

    If you are self-publishing, I suggest you reach out to the kidney transplant community (support groups etc) to see if anyone can volunteer.

    There might be someone else in your shoes who can draw and not write, who would love to be part of this project.

    • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      7 months ago

      That’s a great idea, thanks :)

      I’ve just mentioned in another reply that the book is currently a bit too personalised, so probably wouldn’t appeal to other people. If I can rewrite it a bit to remove any personal details, that could work though :)

      • livus@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        I think that might be a good thing to do if you can; there are probably others in your situation who would love to have a book like this.

        You could even do something like donate proceeds to a kidney charity or hospital.

        • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          7 months ago

          That’s a good point. I’m lucky enough to have received my kidney from a live donor, and the story is about how they saved the day, and because of that I was able to have a family with my wife, so it could go down quite well. I’d have to remove the personalised information, but that shouldn’t be too hard :)

    • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      7 months ago

      This made me laugh, thank you :)

      While I’m not averse to sailing the seas on occasion, this is one of those times where I should do everything by the book.

  • Paragone@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Have you considered www.OpenClipArt.org ?

    XOR, you can simply learn actual-drawing, which isn’t difficult, it does require a kind of honesty/patience & the actually right instruction…

    The book you’d need is “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, the 4th Definitive Edition”, by Betty Edwards.

    These drawing-pairs are from her 5-DAYS killer-class.

    https://www.drawright.com/before-after

    Unless you’re autistic, like me, 5 days is possible.

    _ /\ _