Wow it's been ages since I posted in here.
I've been very bust at work taking classes to move up a pat grade or too. And on the side I have been working on other various projects. I guess my webcomic kind of fell by the wayside a bit. Oh well, it is kind of a for fun thing anyway.
My tax return came in for this year and I got enough to purchase the tool I have always wanted for a very long time - a Wacom Cintiq 12WX! Now I will probably find it easier to create things digitally, work on my webcomics faster, colorize them and stuff. I will like this very much! Hopefully it might put me back in the drawing mood again and I'll re-pick up my web-comic and various projects.
I'm also working on other various things here and there. Like I got this brilliant spark of inspiration to build a fancy dress. I am multi-talented that way - althought I am not a tailor nor a seemstress, I am teaching myself how to modify a dress to make this costume/dress thing. It will be intended to be a costume as well as an elegant dress you could wear on a night out. We will see how it goes.
I find it odd that a lot of artists in my bracket - Cartoon Illustrators / Animators don't take on such projects, nor seek work as airplane mechanics as an alternative career course in their lives. I can also sculpt things - I have done a major project for the City of Seattle. In this hellachious job market and shitty economy, I would hope that my fellow artists and animator people have found work. Often work becomes super scarce to nill in these times. And the only types who have jobs are the "old dogs" who created their own jobs. And most "work" is temp positions, contract work, or Intern work.
Beware of internship work! There are a lot of companies and places exploiting that right now! Make sure when they decide to take you on as an Intern there is an end-date or a possibility of hire-on at a solid date. Many, many companies right now are gobbling up
"free" workers by taking them on as
permanent Interns. You don't want to work for free for years and still have that boss lead you on with a carrot-on-a-stick telling you,
"It's for the experience...." It's a highly competitive world, and sometimes a shift in career path is what is needed to survive.
So - find yourself an alternative profession is the advice I give to art students and other animators. There is absolutely nothing wrong with an animator or cartoon illustrator putting their main profession on the back burner for a while and taking up an alternative full-time job in a total different field. Open up and learn new things! I never dreamed I would work at Boeing ... but I am and I love it and count my lucky stars every day that I go to work. I am training to work up to a higher grade - a Grade 5 position: which can net $30.00 per hour - Full Time. And I have full benefits, 401 K, retirement plan, EVERYTHING. Try finding that in one of those fly by night art shops or animation houses. Most Animation houses only offer contract work, so your only an employee there as long as the project lasts - and no benefits, nothing. The length of the work could last from as little as 1-3 months to a year or 2 (movies take longer). Other places I have been - the work only lasts till they run out of projects for you to work on and then your out the door. Unemployment benefits are not anything to live on and they run out fast!
I got so sick and tired of that!!So now I am at Boeing and I love it. I learn new things - I adjusted to a big corporate environment which teaches me how big business is conducted, and I build things like airplanes. I was a participant at the First Flight of the 787 - I was freezing out on the tarmac on Flight Line in a bright yellow reflective vest directing the crowd where to go. Watching the plane take off, hearing the roar of it's engines was truly out of this world. And that was a world wide breaking event.
I still have my artwork, my cartooning illustration knack in me. And a knack for animation. But it's just a hobby now. I make good money at Boeing - which is a career job. I still have yet to be proven that animation is a career. I haven't seen it yet ... Besides - I'm more of an illustrator than an animator anyway.
Here's a picture I drew just to add some artwork to this blog. It's a lich character I made up - Lich from World of Warcraft:
This is the plain dress, and the pieces I cut out.
These are the pieces I made, they are in their various states.
The front view of the, pretty much completed Dress.
The Back view of the dress.
