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By February 1, 2013:
1.Develop a new professional portfolio, shifting my freelance focus from illustration and design for the music industy, to entertainment/fantasy illustration.
As a part of this:
a)Increase study time to a minimum of 2 hours a day – EVERY day – no excuses
b)Participate in as many Bloodsport challenges as possible
c)Create 1-2 personal pieces for a new, dedicated portfolio per month
2.Become financially stable and viable solely off of my work as a freelance artist.
3.Become more organized, efficient, and focused
a) Use my schedule book effectively
b)Set goals for each month, week and day
I've already started clearing mental space and time for the focus and energy I am applying toward this... today is Day 1 of execution.
Posts: 258
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It's been almost a year since I began my first Deathline. I was initially intending for it to go from 2/1/12 to 2/1/13 – but I ended up setting aside my focus on the deathline around the time my daughter was born. Obviously, I have no regrets about that. The deathline wasn't really well planned and hadn't been a specific thing for me in a while by the time September rolled around. So I've decided to start anew on 1/1/13 and use what I've learned to put together a Deathline that I can truly succeed with.
First I want to go back over deathline 2012. It went well at first in some regards but in other ways it was doomed to fail from the start. The main problem was that my goals and sub goals were a little lofty and didn't really outline quantitive things that I could do and say “yes, I accomplished this task”. The parts where I succeeded were ones where I did do that (ie, studying). But the sum of the studies didn't add up to the larger goals which is the point. In short, I fell into that trap where you're just studying and studying and not really applying it, or not nearly enough. Studies are meant to support growth and, while still being a priority, should definitely be secondary to creating original art. I had it backwards in this first deathline – it's not that I didn't know – but it's one of those things where you can know it and still fall face first into a trap.
But I'm not going to beat myself up too much about the first deathline. I did gain A LOT from it. I did accomplish some goals. I did improve in many facets as an artist. I'm going to go over my deathline and talk about what went right and what went wrong.
1.Develop a new professional portfolio, shifting my freelance focus from illustration and design for the music industy, to entertainment/fantasy illustration.
I do have new work to show and my mental focus is in the right place. But I didn't achieve what I had in mind for a “new portfolio”. The problem was that I didn't know what to expect realistically and it became a burden to even think about beginning something I could put in a “portfolio”. I need to define things better in my next deathline and set quantities as goals and make the intervals much shorter. The failure of this goal was that it was just “hey, by this time next year, I'll have done a bunch of stuff that will change the direction of my career”. I still didn't really know what it was I wanted to do. I just knew entertainment art was the umbrella I belonged under.
a)Increase study time to a minimum of 2 hours a day – EVERY day – no excuses
This worked out really well at first and is probably the only thing I really did well – in fact this was the trap. It became about this – especially in the first 4-6 months. It's not that it didn't help. You can simply cruise through my blog or sketchbook to see that it did help. My anatomy is much stronger – my rendering is much better controlled – my draftsmanship is greatly improved. It did help. But it didn't help the professional side of my goals.
b)Participate in as many Bloodsport challenges as possible
This kind of didn't work out because the Bloodsports cut off not long after I began the Deathline. But it was a very specific and almost pointless goal in some ways. It should have been just to be determined to do various challenges (maybe 1-4 per month or something like that).
c)Create 1-2 personal pieces for a new, dedicated portfolio per month
Here's where I really failed. I basically didn't create anything worthwhile for the first 5-6 months. I started dozens of drawings for this but got into a ridiculously bad habit of hating it before I even knew what it was. Or I would get frustrated that my skills weren't where I felt they should be and it would just fade away.
2.Become financially stable and viable solely off of my work as a freelance artist.
Here, again is non-specificity and lack of personal influence over the goal biting me. I work as a freelancer in the music industry and most of my work is illustrated junk for t-shirts and album art with a very comic book look to it. It's okay and has been lucrative from time to time – but I became a full time freelancer almost out of necessity when the company I was working for in 2011 stopped paying me and several other employees. I had already been making shirts for bands on the side since I had a few friends in bands, so I posted them up on some sites and was able to keep money coming in. But the work in 2012 was spotty at best. At times I was making more than when I worked a full time job as a graphic designer. Other times, we (my wife and I) had to borrow money from family. So, this type of goal, at least in this form, won't cut it for the next deathline.
3.Become more organized, efficient, and focused
a) Use my schedule book effectively
b)Set goals for each month, week and day
Success here. Aside from essentially taking a month off when my daughter was born, I was successful at keeping track of my daily goals. Could be a little bit better and consistent, but for now I don't think I need to make this part of my next deathline.
![[Image: 12-016-AsianSkinToneStudy.jpg]](http://i1243.photobucket.com/albums/gg560/steveillustrates/12-016-AsianSkinToneStudy.jpg)
![[Image: 12-075-GymnastStudy.jpg]](http://i1243.photobucket.com/albums/gg560/steveillustrates/12-075-GymnastStudy.jpg)