Thoughts on the bloodsport

[Mikel Butler]

I think you should do the challenges once a month and people should have the whole month to do them. Yes, two weeks is plenty of time to do an illustration if that's all you're doing in those two weeks, but the thing is most of us have other crap to do.

I think that's maybe too long for a single challenge. Maybe as an option, if we still did 2 standard 2-week challenges alongside. At least then there's the opportunity to spend a whole month working on two illustrations simultaneously, the possibility to come out the end of a month with 3 portfolio-class pieces, and if ever you feel the standard challenges are too hard or don't have enough time, you could at least fall back on the one-month.

Only a handful of people are even going to get any kind of recognition for doing them.

But your forgetting one of the other benefits of doing these challenges: if you actually honestly push yourself, and treat each challenge as a legit paid commission, your work will improve drastically—most especially if you push yourself through a challenge you may not find particularly enjoyable.

The Miyazaki and Zelda challenges weren't going to be fun for me so I didn't bother. I don't care about those properties and spending weeks of my life working on illustrations of them wasn't going to be worth it to me.
. . . I hate Zelda and I didn't want to spend two weeks drawing a Zelda picture. Give me the option to choose my game to redesign and I'd be far more willing to do the challenge.

All the more reason why you probably should've taken the challenge seriously. Exactly what percentage of your freelance commissions do you expect to be fun, whilst simultaneously making a living? Sure, there's potential to work on a really fun challenge, and that helps push you through the end of a project, but another opportunity these challenges bring is to work on a project out of our comfort zone! Here you have the opportunity to spend two weeks pushing yourself on a project you don't like, without penalty of losing a commission. What do you have to lose? Nothing. What do you gain? Experience spending two weeks illustrating a picture you hate. What if someone wishes to hire you for Zelda work?

Oftentimes we don't have the luxury of choosing or turning down commissions, and these challenges would aim to reflect those conditions are not meant to be always fun all the time. Some of them are fun but really difficult, some of them or easy but not up your alley, and they mix it up a bit. Some jobs are going to be specific (Gauntlet, Miyazaki, Zelda), others will give you almost total freedom (Monster/pet, swamp elder, action figure, monster hunter). Beggars can't be choosers, and Bloodsports is a great way to get used to that fact.

And if you want to redesign Star Wars, then do what Dave does: do it on your own time! No one and nothing's stopping you but yourself.