Bake it till you make it! - Illustrator Tom Hovey
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Bake it till you make it! - Freelance Illustrator Tom Hovey
For Tom, the guy behind the illustrations on the Great British Bake Off, freelance life was years in the making. After studying illustration at university, Tom worked in a series of full-time, temporary jobs while pursuing illustration on the side.
Tom’s story took a turn when, by chance, he landed a role as an editing assistant on a TV show. Tom was honest about his situation: “I’m not interested in a career in telly, this is just something to pay the rent. I’m going to be an illustrator.” Management paid attention and came back to him later with a proposal.
That TV show was the very first series of The Great British Bake Off and, while maintaining his full-time role as an editing assistant, Tom spent his evenings and weekends illustrating for the show.
Skip ahead to today and Tom’s running his own studio with a team of freelancers and a new intern every year. They’re producing work for the Bake Off franchise and other clients in the food industry, as well as selling prints through an online shop.
Listen in the player above to hear Tom’s freelance story, or keep scrolling for highlights.
Tom Hovey
“Freelance life is a non-stop hamster wheel. Bake Off offered me a life, and freedom, and a support network for my family. And it offers me a chance to take time off. I know that I've got that period in the year where I can just defrag and not be completely stressed all the time, where other freelancers don't necessarily get that option.”
Securing the rights to your work
After a few years working on the Bake Off Illustrations, Tom realised there was more he could to protect his own interests.
“Up to that point, I was just like, "Yeah, it's a contract. I want work. I'll just sign it." I hadn't paid much attention to it.”
Tom hired an IP lawyer to make up terms so that he’d own the copyright to all the line drawings for the Bake Off work. After he colours it and makes it into what you see on the screen, the production company own the license, but the line drawings belong to Tom. Because of that, he’s able to sell prints.
“Taking that initial risk of paying out hundreds of pounds for an hours work of a lawyer, that really helped. The print sales are now a massive part of my yearly income. It's incredible. It's quite hard to manage sometimes, especially at Christmas when I'm still incredibly busy with Bake Off, the print sales are through the roof.”
Tom says that sales have grown year on year, with 95% of orders coming from the United States, where Bake Off has a huge fanbase.
Finding a unique style as an illustrator
“I had that dual life of having two styles, and constantly looking for a new style that I thought would give me the traction that I wanted in illustration.”
Tom says he put that aside, sat back and looked at what he was doing. He realised he’d already created a style through the work that he does for Bake Off.
“I'd worked consistently in this style, developing it, changing it and making it better year upon year, week after week.”
Tom dropped his other style of work and began to focus solely on food illustration. With a keen interest in food and a buzzing food scene in Bristol, where he lived then, it felt like a good fit.
“It's made my life so much easier, because the process that I use for creating the illustrations for Bake Off, I use for everything. And that was just so ingrained in my brain. I do that so unconsciously.”
Tom says that focusing also opened up a world of possibilities. When he’s looking to do personal projects in the same style, food is an endless basis to draw from.
Hiring interns and growing a team of freelancers
One of the hardest things Tom’s had to do in his career is pass on his style to young illustrators. Since 2016, Tom’s taken on an intern every year to help with production.
“I've partly become a teacher. And look, there's a lot of stuff that I've had to let go, because nothing is ever going to be as perfect as if I did it in my head, but I also have to consider the fact that the graphic is on screen for six seconds. No one notices how I've slightly coloured the raspberry differently.”
Tom’s interns work with him for a year and then have the opportunity to stay on the books as a freelancer. In growing a team, Tom held on to the advice he got from a fellow freelancer.
“Take on lots of jobs and don't do it for your company to take lots of profit. Give the bulk of the rate to the freelancers so that you're paying them a good wage and they're feeling valued for the work. As long as you're making something off it... in essence: two thirds go to the freelancers, a third goes to the business, because you're also project managing it but your time isn't taken up by doing the work.”
And to the graduates and students he meets, Tom says this:
“Don't be too hasty to get into this world that you're going to be in for the rest of your life. When you're young, go and see the world. The one thing I do regret is that I didn't go travelling more.”
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podcast transcript
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and freelance Illustrator Tom Hovey
Transcription by humans at Rev - try them for yourself!
Steve Folland: As ever. How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. So I graduated uni in 2006. I did illustration degree at Bournemouth. I moved to Bristol after university with a couple of friends. I didn't assume that I would walk into a freelance career. So I went and got a full-time job knowing that it was never going to be a job, it was just going to be something to pay the rent while I drew in the evenings and at night, and try to pursue that freelance life.
Tom Hovey: So I didn't really get much work. But I just carried on what I was doing at uni, and just drawing every day, every night. Did gig posters for mates bands, and for close to no money, never anything that was going to prop up my rent and all that stuff.
Tom Hovey: But I started posting work ... Or I was posting work on Myspace, and Facebook, because that's pretty much what there was at that time. And I guess the first thing that I got involved with after uni was, there was a collective called Daydream Collective. And the guys that ran it got in touch and said that they put on group shows in London, and would I want to put some work in for it?
Tom Hovey: So yeah, so they put on a group show in the M&C Saatchi headquarters in Golden Square, in Soho. So I went down to that. And it was, they just took over the space, filled it full of art, and graffiti artists, and that kind of stuff, and that was my first introduction to the art world. And I carried on working with them for quite a few years.
Tom Hovey: The next year, I went down and actually took part in filling the space with illustration and graffiti, me and two other illustrators did one huge wall of a street scene with characters, and loads of stuff going on. I mean, it was a really pivotal time for me. I was going down to London a lot, getting involved with these shows, meeting loads of people through those shows, and then being asked to do other work.
Tom Hovey: And I somehow became a mural artist. I was doing pretty much all the stuff that I was doing was just big drawings on the walls, and paintings, and that sort of stuff. And it was never something that I had really planned on doing. And none of this I got paid for. There was no payment, it was all ... And it wasn't that thing of, "If you get this, it'll be exposure." It was just like, "Come and be a part of a collective and just do this cool stuff." And that's all I saw it as.
Tom Hovey: After that bank holiday where we spent the whole bank holiday drawing all over the walls of Saatchi's foyer, I then got asked to do another show on Carnaby Street. And then there was another show straight after that. And I'd only planned to go down for the bank holiday. And I just stayed, and didn't really tell work I wasn't coming back, so I got sacked obviously. But I didn't really care, because it was like, "Oh, it's just a temp job, isn't it." I had no interest. This is what I'd always planned to do, just go out and just see what I could get my hands on. I had no plan. Tom Hovey: And through working with those guys, and from people coming to those shows, I got random little jobs that were paid, for people like Red Bull, and Henry Lloyd, and Agent Provocateur. And they weren't massive things, but they were just ... They were quite interesting little jobs. And just for me, it was just a little peep into the world of being a freelancer.
Tom Hovey: But during that time, by doing murals and that sort of stuff, I just had to develop a style. Because I had no experience of doing murals whatsoever before I went down that first weekend. And I really didn't do a good job on those walls. Because before that, I'd always just took the approach to my illustration that I would plan nothing, just have an idea of what I wanted in my head and just splat it out on the page, and just see what happened. And obviously when it comes to doing that on a wall, you can't just go, "Oh, well that's crap, I'll just do another." It's there. And it was in this grand foyer of this massive ad agency.
Tom Hovey: Being young and naïve, me and all the boys, we would just drink all day, and all night and stay up until four in the morning painting. So I just drew loads of really bad and offensive stuff. And a lot of people weren't particularly happy with what I did. And it taught me a lot of really important lessons about, A, planning your work, B, reading the room, and knowing what not to do.
Tom Hovey: But also, working alongside some of these graffiti artists that were incredible, they came in on the Saturday morning, rocked up with a illustrated page of what they planned to do, and just bang out this wall. And it was 1,000 times better than anything that we were doing. And just do it in five hours, where we were there for four days. And it just taught me a really important lesson about pre planning, and professionalism.
Tom Hovey: But during that time, I developed the beginnings of what my style would become years and years later. But by painting in acrylic ... I had painted lots of characters and that kind of stuff. And I would paint in acrylic, because I had an understanding of painting, do textured painting and all that kind of stuff. And then I would go over the top with POSCA pen. And that basically, without me really realizing, became the style that I ended up using for Bake Off, in a slightly different way. But so yeah, there was lots of good stuff that came out of that time.
Steve Folland: Wow. So you stayed in London, did those shows. And I mean, whilst you described them as small jobs, those were big names that you were getting approached for off the back of that work, right.
Tom Hovey: Kind of. Yeah. And just being around the guys. So the guys that ranthat collective were just really big champions of me, and what I was doing. So they would just push me. They were just those people that were just running around town going, "Oh, look at this. Look at this. Look at ..." To clients. And they acted as agents. There was never contracts or anything like that. But they just pushed me, and just like, "Hey, come and do this."
Tom Hovey: So we went to Red Bull's offices, this huge amazing office with, there was a band there at that time, and they had a slide going from one floor to the next, and having their rooftop bar and stuff. And it was just ... It was a really nice way to, after leaving uni, get into, "Wow, this is ... There's a lot to be had in this world if you push yourself, and just put yourself, and just say yes to stuff."
Steve Folland: So how did you move it forward and seize that? You've started to make connections, your work is being seen. And what year was that? Was that a year after you finished?
Tom Hovey: Yeah. So that was 2007. So I was just doing a lot of sofa surfing, staying on mates' sofas that lived in London. Our plan, me and my girlfriend who I'd met in uni, we were like, "Right, let's move back to my parents in Wales, and just get our heads together, and figure out what we're going to do."
Tom Hovey: so we moved back in with my parents. And I just planned to just try a million different things, and just see what stuck, because I wasn't really happy with what I was doing work wise, and I was a bit confused. And during that period, I tried so many different styles. I was doing photorealistic pencil sketching, I did watercolors, I did digital character design, and that sort of stuff. And none of it was really anything, and I wasn't really getting any work from it. I was getting traction on various social media sites and stuff. But none of it was leading to work.
Tom Hovey: And during that time, I took a really mental job, which was so stupid. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. I got approached to be an artist for this thing called a motion comic. But basically, it's like a feature film, but with flat illustrations, and they would cut up the flat illustration, and just move things within the frame. It was a weird kind of thing. Anyway, it was ... The pay was basically, "Once we've drawn enough of the film, and we get funding from a studio or whatever, then you'll get paid." Tom Hovey: And I knew going into it that that was insane. And my brother-in-law is a lawyer, and I actually showed him the contract, and he was like, "Well, I mean, it's not good. But it's up to you. If you think there's a chance it's good and it will be worth your while." And so anyway, I worked on that for six months for no pay. A studio in my parents garage. And then it got dropped. So I didn't get paid for anything. It was in a set style, so it wasn't even work that I was interested in.
Tom Hovey: So yeah, so that was another really important lesson on, don't take insane jobs like that. Et paid. And so after that point, I was like, "Right, we really need to get our heads together." So we then decided to move to London in 2010. And you may have guessed at this point that I'm not good at pre planning, all that kind of stuff. So I had no work lined up moving to London. My girlfriend, being the opposite, got a job a month early. So she got a job with Macmillan - the cancer charity. And because we moved down a month early, I hadn't planned to get ... I had planned to do something work wise, but had done nothing. So I just got a job in a pub.
Tom Hovey: And then my friend worked in TV. And he said, "Look, this production company I work for are looking for people to work in the edit of this new TV show we're working on. So just put your name in." And I got the job. And it was working basically as a, it's called a logger. But it's basically an edit assistant in the edit of what turned out to be the first series of The Great British Bake Off.
Steve Folland: So you're sitting there looking at all the shots, and fairly mundanely writing down stuff to help the editor, right.
Tom Hovey: Yeah, to a point. But so I was in the ... Basically just in the back of the edit suite on a little desk, while the editor and the director sat at the front of the room. And that was nine to five, five days a week for months. And they were really nice guys. I basically told them, "I've come to be an illustrator. I'm not interested in a career in telly. This is just something to pay the rent."
Tom Hovey: And they actually came to me a week or so later, because they were like, "Right, we're putting the show together, and we realized that it's basically a lot of people cracking eggs, and flour, and bowls, and then looking at an oven. And not until 20 minutes into the show you actually see a cake. So it's hard for the viewer to visualize what's actually being created. So do you want to come up with some ideas for sketches, basically a visual element that can help the viewers understand what is being created?" So yeah, that was basically how I got the gig.
Steve Folland: That is so cool. For chances of it. But also the fact that you didn't hold back from saying what it was what you really wanted to be doing.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. Well, I think I've done that throughout my life really.
Steve Folland: But that means, how long did you have to work on those illustrations? Because you're actively working within that show as it was being made.
Tom Hovey: Well, that was the story of the next few years really, is that pitching wise, I did a couple of sketches, honestly three sketches, and then I got it. And the first series, it was just black lines. So there was no color or anything like that. So they were fairly ... And the brief was for them to be a sketch that the bakers could have drawn in their kitchen notebook. That's why, when you see the graphic on screen, it's on an open book. So it's as if they've sketched it out like, "This is what I'm going to create. Then I go and create it."
Tom Hovey: And that's why the illustrations sometimes look better than what actually is created, because it's what they planned to do, not what they actually did. So yeah, so it was ... I would work a day, and then go home at night and draw all night and on weekends. And I did that for the next six years, working full-time jobs and then doing that. Yeah.
Steve Folland: That opportunity comes along, and obviously nobody knew what that show would be, or what it would become. So how did it feel when that finished, and that went out? Did you consider yourself then you were a freelance illustrator? Or did you just go back on with things? Back on with life.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. No, I certainly didn't ... I felt like it was a big opportunity, and it was great, going from really getting ... I think the most I had got paid for a job up to that point was maybe 800 quid for a mural job. And to be fair, this wasn't much more than that for the first series, partly because, A, I was on an entry level wage for the show. So they were like, "You're not an illustrator. You can't charge loads of money." And B, graphics is the last thing that ever gets budgeted for. And especially, they hadn't budgeted for any graphics on this. So there was close to no money.
Tom Hovey: So it wasn't like the money had changed my circumstances. So after that point, I was just like, "Well, I need to still be working." So I basically carried on working full-time in TV. In essence, I was a freelancer in TV then for the next three years, because you're basically working from job to job, and you're basically hustling. You're making connections, producers, directors, whoever, work production managers, and basically saying, "I need some work." I just basically worked as a runner on lots and lots of TV shows. By the end of it, I'd worked up to a researcher.
Tom Hovey: But again, it was just something to pay the wage. And I'd go home every night and then draw. And when I was doing Bake Off, I'd be drawing until two in the morning sometimes. Me and my girlfriend then, but wife now, lived in a one bed flat in Stoke Newington, and the desk was in our bedroom. So she'd wake up in the morning, and I'd be asleep on a pile of cake drawings and the desk.
Tom Hovey: And the TV work is not easy work. I'd be doing 16 hour days sometimes on a set, and then going home, and I was ... It was a good job I was young really, because you don't really feel that when you're young, you're just powering through it, and you don't feel tired like we do now.
Steve Folland: So you kept working your way through TV jobs, drawing in your spare time, what you had of it. And obviously you were sharing that to your social media. But were you ever sending things out to people, trying to push forward the illustration work?
Tom Hovey: Yeah. But there was a bit of duality going on in my brain, because the work I was doing up tot hat point, and continued on doing was the polar opposite of cakes. I had a moniker called Twisted Loaf, which I basically did all my work under that I've ... I've got a website, and it's still actually up, it's called twistedloaf.com, of all the work I did at that point.
Tom Hovey: So yeah, it was hard, because I didn't ever think that cake drawing was what I wanted to be doing. And all the skulls, and monsters, and all this other stuff that I was doing the rest of the time, it was a back and forth. So I was constantly trying to get work doing that sort of stuff. And during that time, it was about the same time actually that I got Bake Off, I joined another collective called the Dead Sea Mob.
Tom Hovey: And it was three or four other, who at the time were big gig poster artists, they did lots of band artwork, arm full of tattoos, and beards, and all that stuff. And we put on lots of art shows around London, and then eventually around the country, like Bristol, Newcastle, Manchester, Brighton. Usually mural shows where we'd go to different towns and cities and get people that we liked as well to come and draw big murals, and then do prints, and just put on a show really. And it was really fun, and it was great.
Tom Hovey: But I had so many things going on. I was working full-time in TV, and then trying to do all this Dead Sea Mob work, as well as doing cakes. So as you can imagine, my website was a mess. People did not understand what I was or who I was. And so basically, all of it suffered. I ended up not having time to do as much as I wanted to, and go to all the shows that I wanted to with the Dead Sea Mob. And I was just tired all the time obviously. My girlfriend never saw me.
Tom Hovey: So yeah, it was a mental time. And I loved living in London. But I had very little time to actually enjoy it. And we didn't really have much money, because the Dead Sea Mob stuff didn't make money either, that was just a cool, fun thing to be doing as well. And we got loads of traction through ... We were in lots of magazines like V&A, and we got invited to do a show in New York, and that kind of stuff, which never actually happened in the end.
Tom Hovey: But eventually, it fizzled out. But the guys that I met during that time, amazing illustrators. And Richey Beckett, and Dan Munford, Drew Millward, Tom J Newell, God Machine. They're massive illustrators. And we're all best mates now. We go on an annual holiday together where we all just get together and talk about drawing.
Tom Hovey: So basically, we decided to move out of London, because the reason I had to keep working in TV was because I just had to make the crazy rent. So we moved back to Bristol, and it meant that I could basically just do part-time TV stuff. So because of the connections I had, I could just go back and do that logging stuff from home, and then work part-time freelance. So I did that for six months, working from home, and started to go a bit loopy working from home on my own, because I'd just been ... I'd been in London seeing a million people all day long, and then suddenly going and working from home.
Tom Hovey: So then in halfway through that year, when Bake Off started up again, I went and got a studio in a shared studio, and went full-time freelance. So that was 2013. And yeah, so been full-time freelancer since then.
Steve Folland: Wow. So when you went, as you say, full-time freelance, you're in your own studio space, was it on the comfort of the fact that you had that Bake Off job? Or did you have other work lined up?
Tom Hovey: So Bake Off was ... So as it went from series to series, and got more and more popular, they started to add shows to it, to the Bake Off cannon. So it was the British Bake Off, and then we did Junior Bake Off, and then they'd have a couple of Christmas specials, and then they started doing Comic Relief Bake Off. I can't remember what year it was we started doing American. But I think it was maybe 2015, something like that.
Tom Hovey: But so Bake Off started to basically take over most of my year. But yeah, I was also doing ... I had a few just random illustration jobs that would just come in week by week, month by month, or whatever. And then I had a couple of long running monthly jobs for ... There was one for a science magazine, drawing up homemade experiments you can do from home. That was fun.
Tom Hovey: So yeah, I was basically just busy all the time. It's one of those things really, isn't it? And I think it's prevalent of a lot of illustrators that as soon as you go full-time, you have the time to take on those things. Whereas, before, you maybe wouldn't be emailing out as much, you wouldn't have as much time to pester and hustle, so you wouldn't get much back, so cyclical thing really. But yeah, I was suddenly then just busy all the time. And I was still busy a lot with Bake Off, I was still working every evening, and every weekend, and stuff, just because of the amount of work it was.
Steve Folland: How did you find when you made that transition? Obviously you were great with your skill of illustration. But what about the business side of it?
Tom Hovey: Yeah, it was a learning curve that I'm still learning. Every year, or every couple of years with Bake Off, for instance, I would, just out of necessity really, to pay the rent, I would go back and say, "Look, this is a lot of work, I deserve more. This is why I deserve more." And just basically just keep hammering, and just getting my rates up every year.
Tom Hovey: A few years in, I got in touch with a lawyer, through someone I met in this shared studio actually. There's a pot noodle company called Kabuto Noodles. They shared our studio. And one of the guys there, he'd obviously set up a company, so he knew about IP and stuff. So he put me in touch with his IP lawyer. And I basically went to him. And it seemed like something that was crazy for me, who didn't have much money at the time. But I just thought, "It's in my interest to go and get my terms in the contract set out." Because up to that point, I was just like, "Yeah, it's a contract. I want work. I'll just sign it." Hadn't paid much attention to it.
Tom Hovey: But then I started to think, "How can I figure this out so that it helps me a bit more?" So I basically got terms put into the contract that ... Because up to that point, the copyright to all the graphics was theirs, because that's just a standard thing for graphics in TV. But because I was doing all this work, and it was hand drawn, the line work is hand drawn, and I color it digitally, I got the lawyer to make up terms so that I own the copyright to all the line drawings to the Bake Off work. Once I color it and make it into what you see on the screen, the production company own the license to that.
Tom Hovey: So I got those terms set. And from that, what it meant was, that I could sell prints of my line work. Up to that point, I wasn't selling prints, or anything like that. So I had no other passive income that would help my meeting my monthly net every month. So yeah, I started doing that in 2015 I think. Year on year, it's just got better and better. Now, pretty much all my print sales are to America. But maybe 5% to the UK. Because America absolutely love Bake Off, and it's on Netflix. They've got access to every series. So they're obsessed with it. And obviously America is massive, so there's so many more people that could be into it.
Tom Hovey: So the print sales are now a massive part of my yearly income. It's incredible. It's quite hard to manage sometimes, especially at Christmas when I'm still incredibly busy with Bake Off, the print sales are through the roof. But just taking that step myself really helped me in the long run. Taking that initial bunts of paying out hundreds of pounds for an hours work of a lawyer, that really helped.
Tom Hovey: And with regards to other business, the other business side of stuff, I'm still learning. I'm not massively great with money. I just had to just figure stuff out year by year. Being part of the AOI really helped. I never had an agent or anything like that. So when it came to pricing up jobs that came in, I would always go to the AOI and ask their opinion.
Steve Folland: So for people who don't know, what's the AOI?
Tom Hovey: Oh, the Association of Illustrators. It's a trade industry thing for illustrators. Anything that you're worried about, they can help as an association. So pretty much every job that I've got in, I put to them. Even if I don't take their full advice, at least I've got an idea of how to respond to clients. Because without having an agent, how do you know? So just replying to emails, and having the right wording when it comes to offering a license for your work, saying, "This is the UK license. This is a worldwide license for one year, two year, three years." That sort of stuff. I had no clue about any of that. So all that stuff is stuff that I just picked up year on year.
Tom Hovey: And yeah, in 2016, I was ... I just spent basically, I think it was about 20 months I worked out that I've worked consistently on Bake Off related projects with no break. You know, all myself. Because I did a Bake Off coloring book in the middle of the two series. So I did nine months worth of Bake Off work, then went straight into the coloring book, which took three months or whatever, and then went straight into doing the next year's series.
Tom Hovey: So after that point, I was completely burnt out. I burn out several times during that period. And so being pushed by the production for one, and being pushed by my wife to say, "You need to get some help." So I formed Studio Hovey, limited company, and took on my first intern through the internship at UWE, the University of Western England, in Bristol.
Tom Hovey: Yeah, and from that point, I've taken on interns every year. Graduates basically. As soon as they graduate, I take them on, and they work with me for the rest of the year. And then if they want to, they come back the next year and work as a freelancer. So they usually come back for another year, and then they start their freelance career, and move onto somewhere else. Steve Folland: How cool is that? Did you find I easy to bring somebody on?
Tom Hovey: No. Incredibly hard. Because in essence, they're working in my style. So the point is that I needed help with the production of the artwork, because there's so much of it. It's hundreds of drawings every year. So Casper ... His name is Caspar Wayne, really good illustrating animator now. He came on the first year, and he did the coloring. So I trained him for a couple of months before he started.
Tom Hovey: Because I was just like, "How on earth am I going to get someone to do the work, and for me to be happy with it?" Because I've never considered how I do my work. I just do it instinctually, and do that. And so it's been a ... That's been one of the hardest things probably that I've had to do, is work backwards figuring out why I do what I do, why I put that line there, why I do that shading like I do it. And then actually vocalize it, and teach it. I've partly become a teacher. And look, there's a lot of stuff that I've had to let go, because nothing is ever going to be as perfect as if I did it in my head, but I also have to consider the fact that the graphic is on screen for six seconds. No one notices how I've slightly colored the raspberry differently.
Tom Hovey: It's been a really hard thing. But it is what it is. It's part of growing as a business, and basically meant that I could have more of a work, life balance. Because in 2016, I had my first daughter. And so it was partly because of that, partly because I needed some help. And the production company also came to me and said, "Look, we appreciate all the work that you do, and it's great. And we're just aware that we keep on adding shows to your roster. What if you got ill? Who would do all this work?" I was like, "Yeah, I don't know."
Tom Hovey: So it came to the point where, so now I have ... So my little brother actually works for me. He's worked for me for the past few years. He's also an illustrator. And you can look him up, Alex Hovey. His work is incredible. He works with me. This year, I've got a guy called Liam Callebout. He was an intern last year, and he's come back as a freelancer this year. And I've taken on a new intern, a chap called Che Dedames. He's a really good illustrator. So he's just graduated as well. So there's four of us now.
Tom Hovey: So it's grown and grown. A lot of my job as well is now just project management and all that stuff. But what it means is, is that I don't work past half past four, I don't work on the weekends. Because I've got eight month old twins as well now. So my time is massively reduced. So I cannot work in the evenings, I cannot work ... And I do my personal work and stuff in the evenings. But I don't work at all on the weekends now, which is nice. It's hard. Hard for me, because I'm itching. But I do it.
Steve Folland: Yeah. Wow. So that came about by bringing other people to work alongside you. And you called that, so, Studio Hovey.
Tom Hovey: Yes.
Steve Folland: And does that mean ... Because maybe I've misunderstood. But when we watch Bake Off for example, the illustrations are animated as well.
Tom Hovey: Yes.
Steve Folland: Do they, the TV production company that is, do that? Or do you provide that?
Tom Hovey: No, so I provide that. So that's part of what I do.
Steve Folland: And was that what you've always done? Or have you invented that, as it were, along the way?
Tom Hovey: No, it's what we've always done. Just partly because they do voice over, over the graphic to just explain what they're making, a little bit about them, and then some arrows pop up just to point out ingredients and that sort of stuff. So it's the crudest form of animation possible. We create the graphics, I layer up black line, then the colour, then a slice is cut out of the graphic if needed, and then one, two, three arrows.
Tom Hovey: And literally, I just send them five files. Each of one of those things is a flat TIFF, and then each of them textless, because they syndicate around the world and stuff. So if other countries want to put different languages on there. So, yeah, so for each illustration, I then have to make up 10 files, and send them over as an episode. It's a three gig file or whatever, of each. And then they just drop those TIFF files in, in sequence into the edit, and it animates.
Steve Folland: Nice.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. So in essence, I can call myself an animator, but any animator would bulk at my knowledge.
Steve Folland: Though, at Studio ... I've seen some other work that you've done for Channel 4 since, beyond Bake Off as well, I think.
Tom Hovey: Yeah, so there was a period when I thought, "I'm essentially creating TV graphics. Why don't I try and ..." That was when I first went full-time freelance actually, in 2013. I thought, "I need to see if I can add some more strings to bow." So I taught myself After Effects, because I wanted to see if I could get work doing other animation. And within a couple of weeks, randomly, a director from Channel 4 said, "Look, we're doing this documentary about female genital mutilation. Can you provide some light animations to ... Because it's a really hard topic. There's a lot of tough interviews and stuff going on. Can you provide three 30 second animations to intersect those periods that are helping to explain things that are going on in a ... Not a humorous way, but a slightly lighter touch."
Tom Hovey: So I was like, "Yeah, of course I can. I'm an animator." And so then my friend who worked for an agency in Bristol, would basically come over after work every day, and I'd have a list of questions of all the things I'd got stuck on that day, just doing it step by step, just being like, "Right, how can I turn this world into a sphere and make it spin?" That sort of stuff. And he would just come in, and just be like, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And that's how I learnt. And somehow created that in four weeks. So it's just that thing of, you just fake it until you make it really.
Tom Hovey: But after that point, I realized that my brain is not the right brain to be doing animation. I didn't ... After Effects is such a massive thing, and it's so ... You have to be so on top of it to know everything that's going on. I didn't have the brain power to keep doing it. So yeah, I didn't do much after that.
Steve Folland: Interesting. So you stopped doing it. But is it something that you, as Studio Hovey, hire other people to do for you while specializing in what you do best?
Tom Hovey: Well, to be honest, I know animators, like I said, my first intern, Casper, he's an animator. So I see part of the thing that I offer, the guys that come in, guys and girls, that come in as interns, and then stay on as freelancers, I say, "Look, in essence, you can stay on my books as freelancers." So if jobs come in, and I don't have time to do them, I offer them out to those guys. And if they've got the skills to do it, then I offer it to them. And then I project manage them.
Steve Folland: It's an interesting thing though, when you start to work in that model of getting that pricing right, how did you find that? Because obviously you're paying somebody, but your business is trying to make a profit, you're doing your own thing, but you're project managing stuff.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. Well, a few years after moving into that shared studio in Bristol, me and a couple of guys moved into a really nice little studio in the centre of town. There was three floors, and just a few little businesses. There was an animation studio run by one guy on the bottom floor called Reflective Films. And he was just one guy. And it was a similar thing to Studio Hovey. He would just get the job in, and bring freelancers in as and when he needed them.
Tom Hovey: And he gave me lots of good advice on how to run that sort of model. Take on lots of jobs, and don't be doing it for your company to take lots of profit, if you know what I mean. Give the bulk of the rate to the freelancers so that you're paying them a good wage, and they're feeling valued for the work, and you're ... As long as you're making something off it, in essence, two thirds go to the freelancers, a third goes to the business, because you're also project managing it. But your time isn't taken up by doing the work, if you know what I mean.
Tom Hovey: So I try to use that model in a sense. We don't do loads and loads of extra work on top, because Bake Off takes up so much of the year. And so I've got to a point where Bake Off starts in May. It's obviously slightly different this year because of lockdown and stuff. But it generally starts in May, and runs on until December, and then a little bit into Feb, January, February. But not much.
Tom Hovey: So I usually take that January to May as down time. And I mean, the last ... Last year we had babies. So I took a paternity leave, and then with my first daughter, did the same. But then the other years, I just take it as time for me to just do whatever I want, personal work, and personal projects, and that sort of stuff. And just investigate other ways that I can take the business, and that sort of thing. So it's been a really helpful way of having that business model set up. It's been really helpful in me pushing my thing forward.
Tom Hovey: Because I've talked to friends who, we've discussed it as, the freelance life, it's a non-stop hamster wheel. And as much as I appreciate Bake Off, and what it's given me, and that kind of stuff, it is something that I've done for a really long time. And it obviously can get tiresome of doing a similar thing over and over. But at the same time, it's offered me a life, and freedom, and a support network for my family, and that sort of stuff. And it offers me a chance to take time off when I want it. I know that I've got that period in the year where I can just defrag, and not be completely stressed all the time, where other freelancers don't necessarily get that option. So that's how I see the balance in my life now.
Steve Folland: And it pushed you to develop your business in other ways, in bringing other people on, that you might not have done otherwise I guess.
Tom Hovey: Yeah, for sure.
Steve Folland: So do you work from a studio now? Or do you work from home? I mean, outside of the whole lockdown scenario.
Tom Hovey: Yes. That was the plan. So September last year, I moved back to Wales, back to Newport, where I grew up. Partly because we'd just been priced out of Bristol, so we moved back and bought a house here. A month or so after that, we had the twins. And so March, or February ... Maybe it's February, March, I went back to work, to start back after my paternity leave. And I joined a shared studio in Cardiff Bay, which is really nice, called Rabble.
Tom Hovey: And it was great. Had a desk. Just got it all set up. And literally the week before lockdown, moved my Mac, and my Wacom tablet, and everything into the studio. And then it was like, "Hey, guess what. Nope." So yeah, unfortunately, I've had to let that desk go, just because I was paying for it. And so we've jigged the house around. So I'm now in my studio. So I've got a really nice space where I can work, and it's just a new way of working, working from home, and having an intern that I've had to train remotely has been quite a challenge. But it's been really good.
Tom Hovey: Actually, it's worked really well. We just have Google hangout chats a few times a day, and just talk about the work that we're doing, and that kind of stuff, and Dropbox is ... It basically just makes everything seamless. So yeah, it's all right. We're coping. But yeah, as soon as we can, I'm going to get back into a shared studio, because it's ... Yeah, I don't have to hold a baby. I've bought really, really good noise cancelling headphones. But it doesn't really help if my wife opens the door and just hands me a baby.
Steve Folland: You said that in your illustrative style very early on, that you plan nothing. Are you someone who plans now? I don't mean in your illustration work, but in your freelance business. Tom Hovey: Yeah, for sure. Because like I said, those days taught me a lot about what not to do really. So in ... I can't remember what year it was. Maybe 2015-ish, I realized that I was at a point where that dual life of having two styles, and constantly looking for a new style that I thought was going to be the style that I thought was going to give me the traction that I wanted in the illustration, I just put that aside, and just sat back and looked at what I was doing.
Tom Hovey: And I was like, "I've been looking for a style all this time. And I've actually created one through the work that I do for Bake Off." Without really realizing it. I'd worked consistently in this style, developing it, and changing it, and making it better year upon year, week after week. So I was like, "Why am I beating myself up? Just put all that character design stuff to bed." And I had a pretty keen interest in food. And the food scene in Bristol was really good at that point. Lots of my friends are chefs.
Tom Hovey: So it just seemed like, "Let's just focus on food illustration." All the work you're getting in is people saying, "Can you draw food? Can you draw..." And I'd take it just because I wanted the work. And I was like, "Why don't I just... This should be my style." So from that point on, I just focused on me being a food illustrator, and it's made my life so much easier, because the process that I use for creating the illustration for Bake Off, I use for everything. And that was just so ingrained in my brain. I do that so unconsciously. It's made my life so much easier and stress free, and opened up a whole world of possibilities, because when I'm looking to do personal projects, and personal work, it's an endless basis to start from. So I've done lots of really fun side projects to do with food. So yeah, it's been good.
Steve Folland: And how important are side projects to you now then?
Tom Hovey: Yeah, I think they're really important. Over the past few years, when I was in the studio in Bristol, we overlooked St. Nicholas Food Market. In that food market is a food hall called Sauce. So after the birth of my first daughter, I... After paternity leave, I wanted something to get my teeth into. So I went in there, and I knew the guys that worked there and stuff. So I basically spent a week or two just hanging out with all the staff. They've got a butchers in there, a green grocer, all that kind of stuff. And I just took just loads of photos, and sketches of everything that went on in that food hall.
Tom Hovey: And then I just worked up some illustrations based on that. Not even to do anything with really, just as something for me to just try some new techniques out, and just try some new styles, and that sort of stuff. And the thing is, is that from my point of view, I do do side projects, and they don't always see the light of day.
Tom Hovey: I did a series of fruit slices as illustrations with the intentions of making prints out of them. I started it maybe three years ago. I'm yet to put them on my website. You can see them on my portfolio, but they're not actually available to buy yet. Every year, I'm like, "Right, I need to sort that out, and put them up."
Steve Folland: What holds you back? Tom Hovey: Time really, to be honest. And maybe a bit of, "Ah, I'm not happy on the colour at the back. Should I put text at the bottom?" And then it's just like, oh, and then another job comes in, and then I just put them back. But yeah, this year may be the year they go up. Who knows.
Steve Folland: Okay. Right, well let's get them up for Christmas, hey, and I'll list them in the Being Freelance gift guide.
Tom Hovey: Great.
Steve Folland: If you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be? Tom Hovey: I've thought about it. And it's difficult really, because I don't really have regrets on the path that I chose, because it was all fun. I mean, a lot of it was really stressful, because I didn't have any money. But I think the one thing I do regret is that I didn't go traveling more. And that's what I do say to graduates, or students that I meet, is that don't be too hasty to get into this world that you're going to be in for the rest of your life. When you're young, go and see the world.
Tom Hovey: My wife, as soon as we graduated uni, she went traveling for nine months around the world, and I was like, "No, I can't come. I need to start my career." And obviously I did nothing for nine months. So there's a pang of regret. I went traveling around America, and stuff like that. But I wish I'd just seen more of the world, like South America, and stuff. So that's maybe the only thing that I'd say is, it will come. As long as you work hard. Give yourself a little bit of a break. You've been in education for the last 10 years, or whatever. Go and see some of the world, get some life experiences, and then crack on.
Steve Folland: Tom, thank you so much. And all the best being freelance.
Tom Hovey: Thanks for having me. That was great.
Steve Folland: As ever. How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. So I graduated uni in 2006. I did illustration degree at Bournemouth. I moved to Bristol after university with a couple of friends. I didn't assume that I would walk into a freelance career. So I went and got a full-time job knowing that it was never going to be a job, it was just going to be something to pay the rent while I drew in the evenings and at night, and try to pursue that freelance life.
Tom Hovey: So I didn't really get much work. But I just carried on what I was doing at uni, and just drawing every day, every night. Did gig posters for mates bands, and for close to no money, never anything that was going to prop up my rent and all that stuff.
Tom Hovey: But I started posting work ... Or I was posting work on Myspace, and Facebook, because that's pretty much what there was at that time. And I guess the first thing that I got involved with after uni was, there was a collective called Daydream Collective. And the guys that ran it got in touch and said that they put on group shows in London, and would I want to put some work in for it?
Tom Hovey: So yeah, so they put on a group show in the M&C Saatchi headquarters in Golden Square, in Soho. So I went down to that. And it was, they just took over the space, filled it full of art, and graffiti artists, and that kind of stuff, and that was my first introduction to the art world. And I carried on working with them for quite a few years.
Tom Hovey: The next year, I went down and actually took part in filling the space with illustration and graffiti, me and two other illustrators did one huge wall of a street scene with characters, and loads of stuff going on. I mean, it was a really pivotal time for me. I was going down to London a lot, getting involved with these shows, meeting loads of people through those shows, and then being asked to do other work.
Tom Hovey: And I somehow became a mural artist. I was doing pretty much all the stuff that I was doing was just big drawings on the walls, and paintings, and that sort of stuff. And it was never something that I had really planned on doing. And none of this I got paid for. There was no payment, it was all ... And it wasn't that thing of, "If you get this, it'll be exposure." It was just like, "Come and be a part of a collective and just do this cool stuff." And that's all I saw it as.
Tom Hovey: After that bank holiday where we spent the whole bank holiday drawing all over the walls of Saatchi's foyer, I then got asked to do another show on Carnaby Street. And then there was another show straight after that. And I'd only planned to go down for the bank holiday. And I just stayed, and didn't really tell work I wasn't coming back, so I got sacked obviously. But I didn't really care, because it was like, "Oh, it's just a temp job, isn't it." I had no interest. This is what I'd always planned to do, just go out and just see what I could get my hands on. I had no plan. Tom Hovey: And through working with those guys, and from people coming to those shows, I got random little jobs that were paid, for people like Red Bull, and Henry Lloyd, and Agent Provocateur. And they weren't massive things, but they were just ... They were quite interesting little jobs. And just for me, it was just a little peep into the world of being a freelancer.
Tom Hovey: But during that time, by doing murals and that sort of stuff, I just had to develop a style. Because I had no experience of doing murals whatsoever before I went down that first weekend. And I really didn't do a good job on those walls. Because before that, I'd always just took the approach to my illustration that I would plan nothing, just have an idea of what I wanted in my head and just splat it out on the page, and just see what happened. And obviously when it comes to doing that on a wall, you can't just go, "Oh, well that's crap, I'll just do another." It's there. And it was in this grand foyer of this massive ad agency.
Tom Hovey: Being young and naïve, me and all the boys, we would just drink all day, and all night and stay up until four in the morning painting. So I just drew loads of really bad and offensive stuff. And a lot of people weren't particularly happy with what I did. And it taught me a lot of really important lessons about, A, planning your work, B, reading the room, and knowing what not to do.
Tom Hovey: But also, working alongside some of these graffiti artists that were incredible, they came in on the Saturday morning, rocked up with a illustrated page of what they planned to do, and just bang out this wall. And it was 1,000 times better than anything that we were doing. And just do it in five hours, where we were there for four days. And it just taught me a really important lesson about pre planning, and professionalism.
Tom Hovey: But during that time, I developed the beginnings of what my style would become years and years later. But by painting in acrylic ... I had painted lots of characters and that kind of stuff. And I would paint in acrylic, because I had an understanding of painting, do textured painting and all that kind of stuff. And then I would go over the top with POSCA pen. And that basically, without me really realizing, became the style that I ended up using for Bake Off, in a slightly different way. But so yeah, there was lots of good stuff that came out of that time.
Steve Folland: Wow. So you stayed in London, did those shows. And I mean, whilst you described them as small jobs, those were big names that you were getting approached for off the back of that work, right.
Tom Hovey: Kind of. Yeah. And just being around the guys. So the guys that ranthat collective were just really big champions of me, and what I was doing. So they would just push me. They were just those people that were just running around town going, "Oh, look at this. Look at this. Look at ..." To clients. And they acted as agents. There was never contracts or anything like that. But they just pushed me, and just like, "Hey, come and do this."
Tom Hovey: So we went to Red Bull's offices, this huge amazing office with, there was a band there at that time, and they had a slide going from one floor to the next, and having their rooftop bar and stuff. And it was just ... It was a really nice way to, after leaving uni, get into, "Wow, this is ... There's a lot to be had in this world if you push yourself, and just put yourself, and just say yes to stuff."
Steve Folland: So how did you move it forward and seize that? You've started to make connections, your work is being seen. And what year was that? Was that a year after you finished?
Tom Hovey: Yeah. So that was 2007. So I was just doing a lot of sofa surfing, staying on mates' sofas that lived in London. Our plan, me and my girlfriend who I'd met in uni, we were like, "Right, let's move back to my parents in Wales, and just get our heads together, and figure out what we're going to do."
Tom Hovey: so we moved back in with my parents. And I just planned to just try a million different things, and just see what stuck, because I wasn't really happy with what I was doing work wise, and I was a bit confused. And during that period, I tried so many different styles. I was doing photorealistic pencil sketching, I did watercolors, I did digital character design, and that sort of stuff. And none of it was really anything, and I wasn't really getting any work from it. I was getting traction on various social media sites and stuff. But none of it was leading to work.
Tom Hovey: And during that time, I took a really mental job, which was so stupid. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. I got approached to be an artist for this thing called a motion comic. But basically, it's like a feature film, but with flat illustrations, and they would cut up the flat illustration, and just move things within the frame. It was a weird kind of thing. Anyway, it was ... The pay was basically, "Once we've drawn enough of the film, and we get funding from a studio or whatever, then you'll get paid." Tom Hovey: And I knew going into it that that was insane. And my brother-in-law is a lawyer, and I actually showed him the contract, and he was like, "Well, I mean, it's not good. But it's up to you. If you think there's a chance it's good and it will be worth your while." And so anyway, I worked on that for six months for no pay. A studio in my parents garage. And then it got dropped. So I didn't get paid for anything. It was in a set style, so it wasn't even work that I was interested in.
Tom Hovey: So yeah, so that was another really important lesson on, don't take insane jobs like that. Et paid. And so after that point, I was like, "Right, we really need to get our heads together." So we then decided to move to London in 2010. And you may have guessed at this point that I'm not good at pre planning, all that kind of stuff. So I had no work lined up moving to London. My girlfriend, being the opposite, got a job a month early. So she got a job with Macmillan - the cancer charity. And because we moved down a month early, I hadn't planned to get ... I had planned to do something work wise, but had done nothing. So I just got a job in a pub.
Tom Hovey: And then my friend worked in TV. And he said, "Look, this production company I work for are looking for people to work in the edit of this new TV show we're working on. So just put your name in." And I got the job. And it was working basically as a, it's called a logger. But it's basically an edit assistant in the edit of what turned out to be the first series of The Great British Bake Off.
Steve Folland: So you're sitting there looking at all the shots, and fairly mundanely writing down stuff to help the editor, right.
Tom Hovey: Yeah, to a point. But so I was in the ... Basically just in the back of the edit suite on a little desk, while the editor and the director sat at the front of the room. And that was nine to five, five days a week for months. And they were really nice guys. I basically told them, "I've come to be an illustrator. I'm not interested in a career in telly. This is just something to pay the rent."
Tom Hovey: And they actually came to me a week or so later, because they were like, "Right, we're putting the show together, and we realized that it's basically a lot of people cracking eggs, and flour, and bowls, and then looking at an oven. And not until 20 minutes into the show you actually see a cake. So it's hard for the viewer to visualize what's actually being created. So do you want to come up with some ideas for sketches, basically a visual element that can help the viewers understand what is being created?" So yeah, that was basically how I got the gig.
Steve Folland: That is so cool. For chances of it. But also the fact that you didn't hold back from saying what it was what you really wanted to be doing.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. Well, I think I've done that throughout my life really.
Steve Folland: But that means, how long did you have to work on those illustrations? Because you're actively working within that show as it was being made.
Tom Hovey: Well, that was the story of the next few years really, is that pitching wise, I did a couple of sketches, honestly three sketches, and then I got it. And the first series, it was just black lines. So there was no color or anything like that. So they were fairly ... And the brief was for them to be a sketch that the bakers could have drawn in their kitchen notebook. That's why, when you see the graphic on screen, it's on an open book. So it's as if they've sketched it out like, "This is what I'm going to create. Then I go and create it."
Tom Hovey: And that's why the illustrations sometimes look better than what actually is created, because it's what they planned to do, not what they actually did. So yeah, so it was ... I would work a day, and then go home at night and draw all night and on weekends. And I did that for the next six years, working full-time jobs and then doing that. Yeah.
Steve Folland: That opportunity comes along, and obviously nobody knew what that show would be, or what it would become. So how did it feel when that finished, and that went out? Did you consider yourself then you were a freelance illustrator? Or did you just go back on with things? Back on with life.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. No, I certainly didn't ... I felt like it was a big opportunity, and it was great, going from really getting ... I think the most I had got paid for a job up to that point was maybe 800 quid for a mural job. And to be fair, this wasn't much more than that for the first series, partly because, A, I was on an entry level wage for the show. So they were like, "You're not an illustrator. You can't charge loads of money." And B, graphics is the last thing that ever gets budgeted for. And especially, they hadn't budgeted for any graphics on this. So there was close to no money.
Tom Hovey: So it wasn't like the money had changed my circumstances. So after that point, I was just like, "Well, I need to still be working." So I basically carried on working full-time in TV. In essence, I was a freelancer in TV then for the next three years, because you're basically working from job to job, and you're basically hustling. You're making connections, producers, directors, whoever, work production managers, and basically saying, "I need some work." I just basically worked as a runner on lots and lots of TV shows. By the end of it, I'd worked up to a researcher.
Tom Hovey: But again, it was just something to pay the wage. And I'd go home every night and then draw. And when I was doing Bake Off, I'd be drawing until two in the morning sometimes. Me and my girlfriend then, but wife now, lived in a one bed flat in Stoke Newington, and the desk was in our bedroom. So she'd wake up in the morning, and I'd be asleep on a pile of cake drawings and the desk.
Tom Hovey: And the TV work is not easy work. I'd be doing 16 hour days sometimes on a set, and then going home, and I was ... It was a good job I was young really, because you don't really feel that when you're young, you're just powering through it, and you don't feel tired like we do now.
Steve Folland: So you kept working your way through TV jobs, drawing in your spare time, what you had of it. And obviously you were sharing that to your social media. But were you ever sending things out to people, trying to push forward the illustration work?
Tom Hovey: Yeah. But there was a bit of duality going on in my brain, because the work I was doing up tot hat point, and continued on doing was the polar opposite of cakes. I had a moniker called Twisted Loaf, which I basically did all my work under that I've ... I've got a website, and it's still actually up, it's called twistedloaf.com, of all the work I did at that point.
Tom Hovey: So yeah, it was hard, because I didn't ever think that cake drawing was what I wanted to be doing. And all the skulls, and monsters, and all this other stuff that I was doing the rest of the time, it was a back and forth. So I was constantly trying to get work doing that sort of stuff. And during that time, it was about the same time actually that I got Bake Off, I joined another collective called the Dead Sea Mob.
Tom Hovey: And it was three or four other, who at the time were big gig poster artists, they did lots of band artwork, arm full of tattoos, and beards, and all that stuff. And we put on lots of art shows around London, and then eventually around the country, like Bristol, Newcastle, Manchester, Brighton. Usually mural shows where we'd go to different towns and cities and get people that we liked as well to come and draw big murals, and then do prints, and just put on a show really. And it was really fun, and it was great.
Tom Hovey: But I had so many things going on. I was working full-time in TV, and then trying to do all this Dead Sea Mob work, as well as doing cakes. So as you can imagine, my website was a mess. People did not understand what I was or who I was. And so basically, all of it suffered. I ended up not having time to do as much as I wanted to, and go to all the shows that I wanted to with the Dead Sea Mob. And I was just tired all the time obviously. My girlfriend never saw me.
Tom Hovey: So yeah, it was a mental time. And I loved living in London. But I had very little time to actually enjoy it. And we didn't really have much money, because the Dead Sea Mob stuff didn't make money either, that was just a cool, fun thing to be doing as well. And we got loads of traction through ... We were in lots of magazines like V&A, and we got invited to do a show in New York, and that kind of stuff, which never actually happened in the end.
Tom Hovey: But eventually, it fizzled out. But the guys that I met during that time, amazing illustrators. And Richey Beckett, and Dan Munford, Drew Millward, Tom J Newell, God Machine. They're massive illustrators. And we're all best mates now. We go on an annual holiday together where we all just get together and talk about drawing.
Tom Hovey: So basically, we decided to move out of London, because the reason I had to keep working in TV was because I just had to make the crazy rent. So we moved back to Bristol, and it meant that I could basically just do part-time TV stuff. So because of the connections I had, I could just go back and do that logging stuff from home, and then work part-time freelance. So I did that for six months, working from home, and started to go a bit loopy working from home on my own, because I'd just been ... I'd been in London seeing a million people all day long, and then suddenly going and working from home.
Tom Hovey: So then in halfway through that year, when Bake Off started up again, I went and got a studio in a shared studio, and went full-time freelance. So that was 2013. And yeah, so been full-time freelancer since then.
Steve Folland: Wow. So when you went, as you say, full-time freelance, you're in your own studio space, was it on the comfort of the fact that you had that Bake Off job? Or did you have other work lined up?
Tom Hovey: So Bake Off was ... So as it went from series to series, and got more and more popular, they started to add shows to it, to the Bake Off cannon. So it was the British Bake Off, and then we did Junior Bake Off, and then they'd have a couple of Christmas specials, and then they started doing Comic Relief Bake Off. I can't remember what year it was we started doing American. But I think it was maybe 2015, something like that.
Tom Hovey: But so Bake Off started to basically take over most of my year. But yeah, I was also doing ... I had a few just random illustration jobs that would just come in week by week, month by month, or whatever. And then I had a couple of long running monthly jobs for ... There was one for a science magazine, drawing up homemade experiments you can do from home. That was fun.
Tom Hovey: So yeah, I was basically just busy all the time. It's one of those things really, isn't it? And I think it's prevalent of a lot of illustrators that as soon as you go full-time, you have the time to take on those things. Whereas, before, you maybe wouldn't be emailing out as much, you wouldn't have as much time to pester and hustle, so you wouldn't get much back, so cyclical thing really. But yeah, I was suddenly then just busy all the time. And I was still busy a lot with Bake Off, I was still working every evening, and every weekend, and stuff, just because of the amount of work it was.
Steve Folland: How did you find when you made that transition? Obviously you were great with your skill of illustration. But what about the business side of it?
Tom Hovey: Yeah, it was a learning curve that I'm still learning. Every year, or every couple of years with Bake Off, for instance, I would, just out of necessity really, to pay the rent, I would go back and say, "Look, this is a lot of work, I deserve more. This is why I deserve more." And just basically just keep hammering, and just getting my rates up every year.
Tom Hovey: A few years in, I got in touch with a lawyer, through someone I met in this shared studio actually. There's a pot noodle company called Kabuto Noodles. They shared our studio. And one of the guys there, he'd obviously set up a company, so he knew about IP and stuff. So he put me in touch with his IP lawyer. And I basically went to him. And it seemed like something that was crazy for me, who didn't have much money at the time. But I just thought, "It's in my interest to go and get my terms in the contract set out." Because up to that point, I was just like, "Yeah, it's a contract. I want work. I'll just sign it." Hadn't paid much attention to it.
Tom Hovey: But then I started to think, "How can I figure this out so that it helps me a bit more?" So I basically got terms put into the contract that ... Because up to that point, the copyright to all the graphics was theirs, because that's just a standard thing for graphics in TV. But because I was doing all this work, and it was hand drawn, the line work is hand drawn, and I color it digitally, I got the lawyer to make up terms so that I own the copyright to all the line drawings to the Bake Off work. Once I color it and make it into what you see on the screen, the production company own the license to that.
Tom Hovey: So I got those terms set. And from that, what it meant was, that I could sell prints of my line work. Up to that point, I wasn't selling prints, or anything like that. So I had no other passive income that would help my meeting my monthly net every month. So yeah, I started doing that in 2015 I think. Year on year, it's just got better and better. Now, pretty much all my print sales are to America. But maybe 5% to the UK. Because America absolutely love Bake Off, and it's on Netflix. They've got access to every series. So they're obsessed with it. And obviously America is massive, so there's so many more people that could be into it.
Tom Hovey: So the print sales are now a massive part of my yearly income. It's incredible. It's quite hard to manage sometimes, especially at Christmas when I'm still incredibly busy with Bake Off, the print sales are through the roof. But just taking that step myself really helped me in the long run. Taking that initial bunts of paying out hundreds of pounds for an hours work of a lawyer, that really helped.
Tom Hovey: And with regards to other business, the other business side of stuff, I'm still learning. I'm not massively great with money. I just had to just figure stuff out year by year. Being part of the AOI really helped. I never had an agent or anything like that. So when it came to pricing up jobs that came in, I would always go to the AOI and ask their opinion.
Steve Folland: So for people who don't know, what's the AOI?
Tom Hovey: Oh, the Association of Illustrators. It's a trade industry thing for illustrators. Anything that you're worried about, they can help as an association. So pretty much every job that I've got in, I put to them. Even if I don't take their full advice, at least I've got an idea of how to respond to clients. Because without having an agent, how do you know? So just replying to emails, and having the right wording when it comes to offering a license for your work, saying, "This is the UK license. This is a worldwide license for one year, two year, three years." That sort of stuff. I had no clue about any of that. So all that stuff is stuff that I just picked up year on year.
Tom Hovey: And yeah, in 2016, I was ... I just spent basically, I think it was about 20 months I worked out that I've worked consistently on Bake Off related projects with no break. You know, all myself. Because I did a Bake Off coloring book in the middle of the two series. So I did nine months worth of Bake Off work, then went straight into the coloring book, which took three months or whatever, and then went straight into doing the next year's series.
Tom Hovey: So after that point, I was completely burnt out. I burn out several times during that period. And so being pushed by the production for one, and being pushed by my wife to say, "You need to get some help." So I formed Studio Hovey, limited company, and took on my first intern through the internship at UWE, the University of Western England, in Bristol.
Tom Hovey: Yeah, and from that point, I've taken on interns every year. Graduates basically. As soon as they graduate, I take them on, and they work with me for the rest of the year. And then if they want to, they come back the next year and work as a freelancer. So they usually come back for another year, and then they start their freelance career, and move onto somewhere else. Steve Folland: How cool is that? Did you find I easy to bring somebody on?
Tom Hovey: No. Incredibly hard. Because in essence, they're working in my style. So the point is that I needed help with the production of the artwork, because there's so much of it. It's hundreds of drawings every year. So Casper ... His name is Caspar Wayne, really good illustrating animator now. He came on the first year, and he did the coloring. So I trained him for a couple of months before he started.
Tom Hovey: Because I was just like, "How on earth am I going to get someone to do the work, and for me to be happy with it?" Because I've never considered how I do my work. I just do it instinctually, and do that. And so it's been a ... That's been one of the hardest things probably that I've had to do, is work backwards figuring out why I do what I do, why I put that line there, why I do that shading like I do it. And then actually vocalize it, and teach it. I've partly become a teacher. And look, there's a lot of stuff that I've had to let go, because nothing is ever going to be as perfect as if I did it in my head, but I also have to consider the fact that the graphic is on screen for six seconds. No one notices how I've slightly colored the raspberry differently.
Tom Hovey: It's been a really hard thing. But it is what it is. It's part of growing as a business, and basically meant that I could have more of a work, life balance. Because in 2016, I had my first daughter. And so it was partly because of that, partly because I needed some help. And the production company also came to me and said, "Look, we appreciate all the work that you do, and it's great. And we're just aware that we keep on adding shows to your roster. What if you got ill? Who would do all this work?" I was like, "Yeah, I don't know."
Tom Hovey: So it came to the point where, so now I have ... So my little brother actually works for me. He's worked for me for the past few years. He's also an illustrator. And you can look him up, Alex Hovey. His work is incredible. He works with me. This year, I've got a guy called Liam Callebout. He was an intern last year, and he's come back as a freelancer this year. And I've taken on a new intern, a chap called Che Dedames. He's a really good illustrator. So he's just graduated as well. So there's four of us now.
Tom Hovey: So it's grown and grown. A lot of my job as well is now just project management and all that stuff. But what it means is, is that I don't work past half past four, I don't work on the weekends. Because I've got eight month old twins as well now. So my time is massively reduced. So I cannot work in the evenings, I cannot work ... And I do my personal work and stuff in the evenings. But I don't work at all on the weekends now, which is nice. It's hard. Hard for me, because I'm itching. But I do it.
Steve Folland: Yeah. Wow. So that came about by bringing other people to work alongside you. And you called that, so, Studio Hovey.
Tom Hovey: Yes.
Steve Folland: And does that mean ... Because maybe I've misunderstood. But when we watch Bake Off for example, the illustrations are animated as well.
Tom Hovey: Yes.
Steve Folland: Do they, the TV production company that is, do that? Or do you provide that?
Tom Hovey: No, so I provide that. So that's part of what I do.
Steve Folland: And was that what you've always done? Or have you invented that, as it were, along the way?
Tom Hovey: No, it's what we've always done. Just partly because they do voice over, over the graphic to just explain what they're making, a little bit about them, and then some arrows pop up just to point out ingredients and that sort of stuff. So it's the crudest form of animation possible. We create the graphics, I layer up black line, then the colour, then a slice is cut out of the graphic if needed, and then one, two, three arrows.
Tom Hovey: And literally, I just send them five files. Each of one of those things is a flat TIFF, and then each of them textless, because they syndicate around the world and stuff. So if other countries want to put different languages on there. So, yeah, so for each illustration, I then have to make up 10 files, and send them over as an episode. It's a three gig file or whatever, of each. And then they just drop those TIFF files in, in sequence into the edit, and it animates.
Steve Folland: Nice.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. So in essence, I can call myself an animator, but any animator would bulk at my knowledge.
Steve Folland: Though, at Studio ... I've seen some other work that you've done for Channel 4 since, beyond Bake Off as well, I think.
Tom Hovey: Yeah, so there was a period when I thought, "I'm essentially creating TV graphics. Why don't I try and ..." That was when I first went full-time freelance actually, in 2013. I thought, "I need to see if I can add some more strings to bow." So I taught myself After Effects, because I wanted to see if I could get work doing other animation. And within a couple of weeks, randomly, a director from Channel 4 said, "Look, we're doing this documentary about female genital mutilation. Can you provide some light animations to ... Because it's a really hard topic. There's a lot of tough interviews and stuff going on. Can you provide three 30 second animations to intersect those periods that are helping to explain things that are going on in a ... Not a humorous way, but a slightly lighter touch."
Tom Hovey: So I was like, "Yeah, of course I can. I'm an animator." And so then my friend who worked for an agency in Bristol, would basically come over after work every day, and I'd have a list of questions of all the things I'd got stuck on that day, just doing it step by step, just being like, "Right, how can I turn this world into a sphere and make it spin?" That sort of stuff. And he would just come in, and just be like, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And that's how I learnt. And somehow created that in four weeks. So it's just that thing of, you just fake it until you make it really.
Tom Hovey: But after that point, I realized that my brain is not the right brain to be doing animation. I didn't ... After Effects is such a massive thing, and it's so ... You have to be so on top of it to know everything that's going on. I didn't have the brain power to keep doing it. So yeah, I didn't do much after that.
Steve Folland: Interesting. So you stopped doing it. But is it something that you, as Studio Hovey, hire other people to do for you while specializing in what you do best?
Tom Hovey: Well, to be honest, I know animators, like I said, my first intern, Casper, he's an animator. So I see part of the thing that I offer, the guys that come in, guys and girls, that come in as interns, and then stay on as freelancers, I say, "Look, in essence, you can stay on my books as freelancers." So if jobs come in, and I don't have time to do them, I offer them out to those guys. And if they've got the skills to do it, then I offer it to them. And then I project manage them.
Steve Folland: It's an interesting thing though, when you start to work in that model of getting that pricing right, how did you find that? Because obviously you're paying somebody, but your business is trying to make a profit, you're doing your own thing, but you're project managing stuff.
Tom Hovey: Yeah. Well, a few years after moving into that shared studio in Bristol, me and a couple of guys moved into a really nice little studio in the centre of town. There was three floors, and just a few little businesses. There was an animation studio run by one guy on the bottom floor called Reflective Films. And he was just one guy. And it was a similar thing to Studio Hovey. He would just get the job in, and bring freelancers in as and when he needed them.
Tom Hovey: And he gave me lots of good advice on how to run that sort of model. Take on lots of jobs, and don't be doing it for your company to take lots of profit, if you know what I mean. Give the bulk of the rate to the freelancers so that you're paying them a good wage, and they're feeling valued for the work, and you're ... As long as you're making something off it, in essence, two thirds go to the freelancers, a third goes to the business, because you're also project managing it. But your time isn't taken up by doing the work, if you know what I mean.
Tom Hovey: So I try to use that model in a sense. We don't do loads and loads of extra work on top, because Bake Off takes up so much of the year. And so I've got to a point where Bake Off starts in May. It's obviously slightly different this year because of lockdown and stuff. But it generally starts in May, and runs on until December, and then a little bit into Feb, January, February. But not much.
Tom Hovey: So I usually take that January to May as down time. And I mean, the last ... Last year we had babies. So I took a paternity leave, and then with my first daughter, did the same. But then the other years, I just take it as time for me to just do whatever I want, personal work, and personal projects, and that sort of stuff. And just investigate other ways that I can take the business, and that sort of thing. So it's been a really helpful way of having that business model set up. It's been really helpful in me pushing my thing forward.
Tom Hovey: Because I've talked to friends who, we've discussed it as, the freelance life, it's a non-stop hamster wheel. And as much as I appreciate Bake Off, and what it's given me, and that kind of stuff, it is something that I've done for a really long time. And it obviously can get tiresome of doing a similar thing over and over. But at the same time, it's offered me a life, and freedom, and a support network for my family, and that sort of stuff. And it offers me a chance to take time off when I want it. I know that I've got that period in the year where I can just defrag, and not be completely stressed all the time, where other freelancers don't necessarily get that option. So that's how I see the balance in my life now.
Steve Folland: And it pushed you to develop your business in other ways, in bringing other people on, that you might not have done otherwise I guess.
Tom Hovey: Yeah, for sure.
Steve Folland: So do you work from a studio now? Or do you work from home? I mean, outside of the whole lockdown scenario.
Tom Hovey: Yes. That was the plan. So September last year, I moved back to Wales, back to Newport, where I grew up. Partly because we'd just been priced out of Bristol, so we moved back and bought a house here. A month or so after that, we had the twins. And so March, or February ... Maybe it's February, March, I went back to work, to start back after my paternity leave. And I joined a shared studio in Cardiff Bay, which is really nice, called Rabble.
Tom Hovey: And it was great. Had a desk. Just got it all set up. And literally the week before lockdown, moved my Mac, and my Wacom tablet, and everything into the studio. And then it was like, "Hey, guess what. Nope." So yeah, unfortunately, I've had to let that desk go, just because I was paying for it. And so we've jigged the house around. So I'm now in my studio. So I've got a really nice space where I can work, and it's just a new way of working, working from home, and having an intern that I've had to train remotely has been quite a challenge. But it's been really good.
Tom Hovey: Actually, it's worked really well. We just have Google hangout chats a few times a day, and just talk about the work that we're doing, and that kind of stuff, and Dropbox is ... It basically just makes everything seamless. So yeah, it's all right. We're coping. But yeah, as soon as we can, I'm going to get back into a shared studio, because it's ... Yeah, I don't have to hold a baby. I've bought really, really good noise cancelling headphones. But it doesn't really help if my wife opens the door and just hands me a baby.
Steve Folland: You said that in your illustrative style very early on, that you plan nothing. Are you someone who plans now? I don't mean in your illustration work, but in your freelance business. Tom Hovey: Yeah, for sure. Because like I said, those days taught me a lot about what not to do really. So in ... I can't remember what year it was. Maybe 2015-ish, I realized that I was at a point where that dual life of having two styles, and constantly looking for a new style that I thought was going to be the style that I thought was going to give me the traction that I wanted in the illustration, I just put that aside, and just sat back and looked at what I was doing.
Tom Hovey: And I was like, "I've been looking for a style all this time. And I've actually created one through the work that I do for Bake Off." Without really realizing it. I'd worked consistently in this style, developing it, and changing it, and making it better year upon year, week after week. So I was like, "Why am I beating myself up? Just put all that character design stuff to bed." And I had a pretty keen interest in food. And the food scene in Bristol was really good at that point. Lots of my friends are chefs.
Tom Hovey: So it just seemed like, "Let's just focus on food illustration." All the work you're getting in is people saying, "Can you draw food? Can you draw..." And I'd take it just because I wanted the work. And I was like, "Why don't I just... This should be my style." So from that point on, I just focused on me being a food illustrator, and it's made my life so much easier, because the process that I use for creating the illustration for Bake Off, I use for everything. And that was just so ingrained in my brain. I do that so unconsciously. It's made my life so much easier and stress free, and opened up a whole world of possibilities, because when I'm looking to do personal projects, and personal work, it's an endless basis to start from. So I've done lots of really fun side projects to do with food. So yeah, it's been good.
Steve Folland: And how important are side projects to you now then?
Tom Hovey: Yeah, I think they're really important. Over the past few years, when I was in the studio in Bristol, we overlooked St. Nicholas Food Market. In that food market is a food hall called Sauce. So after the birth of my first daughter, I... After paternity leave, I wanted something to get my teeth into. So I went in there, and I knew the guys that worked there and stuff. So I basically spent a week or two just hanging out with all the staff. They've got a butchers in there, a green grocer, all that kind of stuff. And I just took just loads of photos, and sketches of everything that went on in that food hall.
Tom Hovey: And then I just worked up some illustrations based on that. Not even to do anything with really, just as something for me to just try some new techniques out, and just try some new styles, and that sort of stuff. And the thing is, is that from my point of view, I do do side projects, and they don't always see the light of day.
Tom Hovey: I did a series of fruit slices as illustrations with the intentions of making prints out of them. I started it maybe three years ago. I'm yet to put them on my website. You can see them on my portfolio, but they're not actually available to buy yet. Every year, I'm like, "Right, I need to sort that out, and put them up."
Steve Folland: What holds you back? Tom Hovey: Time really, to be honest. And maybe a bit of, "Ah, I'm not happy on the colour at the back. Should I put text at the bottom?" And then it's just like, oh, and then another job comes in, and then I just put them back. But yeah, this year may be the year they go up. Who knows.
Steve Folland: Okay. Right, well let's get them up for Christmas, hey, and I'll list them in the Being Freelance gift guide.
Tom Hovey: Great.
Steve Folland: If you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be? Tom Hovey: I've thought about it. And it's difficult really, because I don't really have regrets on the path that I chose, because it was all fun. I mean, a lot of it was really stressful, because I didn't have any money. But I think the one thing I do regret is that I didn't go traveling more. And that's what I do say to graduates, or students that I meet, is that don't be too hasty to get into this world that you're going to be in for the rest of your life. When you're young, go and see the world.
Tom Hovey: My wife, as soon as we graduated uni, she went traveling for nine months around the world, and I was like, "No, I can't come. I need to start my career." And obviously I did nothing for nine months. So there's a pang of regret. I went traveling around America, and stuff like that. But I wish I'd just seen more of the world, like South America, and stuff. So that's maybe the only thing that I'd say is, it will come. As long as you work hard. Give yourself a little bit of a break. You've been in education for the last 10 years, or whatever. Go and see some of the world, get some life experiences, and then crack on.
Steve Folland: Tom, thank you so much. And all the best being freelance.
Tom Hovey: Thanks for having me. That was great.