One year to rule them all

[chinagami]

1 YEAR LATER UPDATE! SEE POST #6
Thanks for reading. The original deathline is over, but I'll be sure to come back with updates when possible.


My deathline!

I am taking one year off of school (post secondary) to practice and develop a professional portfolio to begin searching for jobs in the world of art (illustration and concept). Whether I succeed or not, I will still consider going to school like Art Center after the year is up.


Start date was April 2014, when school ended,
End date is April 2015, 12 months/ 1 year.

My goal:
To develop a professional portfolio to begin searching for jobs in the world of art (illustration and concept).

Bonus goal:
Illustrate for Applibot


How am I doing this?
Personalized schedule focusing on general fundamental skills and anatomy, followed by studies, design studies of various subjects and personal work.


Just wanted to throw this on here so I have some evidence to look back on when I fail or succeed when the year is up.
Also, since I'm reluctant to put up a sketchbook, I'll see that I update here whenever I hit some sort of new benchmark for myself.

[Wardy]

nice man! wish i could do the same, i still may actually, im just coming out of secondary school now but will be doing a design foundation course for a year, then taking a year out. all the best man, keep the struggle going :D

[chinagami]

Thanks! School will help when you do take a year off. You'll have new knowledge to put to use when you do your own stuff. And I'll definitely keep the struggle going!

[chinagami]

Update 1!

So its only been 2 full months but I can see some progress for myself!
I've decided a few weeks ago to focus on one main area first. Rather than be generally good at everything, I want to concentrate on character design.

So the schedule is relatively the same actually, still practicing anatomy, then a study, then personal work but more related to character design.
In more detail...
anatomy: gestures first always, then studying various body parts..
studies: portrait, environment, materials, master study, character/costumes..
personal: character design, and character illustrations (they're different!)

Before I was also studying architecture, weapon design, and vehicles, which I kept failing at... not that that is the reason I am focusing on characters... but characters seem to me to be the best way to get myself out there quicker, and it's been fun learning how to character design!

Also I want to note that I will have to work soon, so my progress will be slowed and I may not get to complete my daily routine all the time.

Visit my Deviant or blog (or Deviant mostly) if you want to see my work, I hope to post a character weekly!

Until next time...

[chinagami]

Update 2..

Dear Journal... (lol)

Looks like its been another 2 months.

So immediately after getting a job, my art productivity dropped. So for the past 2 months I have been lazing about... I haven't been sticking to my schedule at all. I simply go to work, and play games to relax everyday, every week.

Actually that is not entirely true, its only 1 full month that I did not do any major art. I doodled in my sketchbook but .. that's really not enough.

Uhm, so just now I will re-evaluate everything, and will revise my schedule to be more versatile since my work schedule somewhat changes weekly. This will hopefully allow me to stick to a schedule where I can still hit all the areas of interest. Basically I am changing it up so it doesn't feel too overwhelming. My old art schedule was pretty much designed for a 5 days a week art everyday routine with no outside life involved :D.

So now it's time to hit art hard again. This bad unexpected break might've just helped me refresh my way of thinking and painting/drawing, and has especially made me realize how much I really want to improve and find a job in the art world and not in the grocery store that I work in now!

Also, this thread of mine really helps me remember my goals and for a place to put down my thoughts. I guess diaries really do help :).
I think that's all there is to say right now, let's look forward to my next update where I can say more positive things!

[chinagami]

1 YEAR UPDATE!

ITS ALREADY BEEN A YEAR! That. was. fast.

Let us summarize!:

My original plan was to take a year off from my program to "practice and develop a professional portfolio to begin searching for jobs". Whether I succeeded or not, I would go back to school.
Did I succeed? In a word, no.

I for sure improved. My lines are getting more confident, ideas and designs are making more sense. I even started to learn 3D (zbrush mostly), and it is a very different game but also helps me relate my 2D designs in 3D space.

I need to study more. Lately, I find myself wanting to do art, doing art, and giving up. I also watched some of Anthony Jones' stream and what he said really made a lot of sense. It's not that I suck, but that I keep doing the same things over and over and I'm bored of it (cause I'm not seeing any improvements). And the reason that I'm frustrated and can't paint a certain thing, is cause I don't know anything about it! I need to start studying what it is I want to paint if I want to paint it. Don't know how clothes and folds work? Go study it.

In my original post, I also said I will be following a personalized schedule. How did that work out... I followed it loosely throughout the year. The strict schedule went from doing a bit of everything, to being more character design oriented. From there I stayed with characters. When I say I followed it loosely, I mean that I did follow it, but everything was geared towards mech/combat armour/sci-fi/robots. Not ideal, but it gave me a focus. I definitely need to spread out my character design skills.

So I somewhat succeeded... I definitely got practice in, but failed to put together a portfolio. I did studies, sketches, brainstormed ideas, but I don't feel like I took anything far enough to show in a portfolio.

My next step: REALLY REALLY FOCUS. Easier said than done, but that's that.

School-wise: I plan on continuing my program that I took a year off from.

"New" goal: Develop a portfolio and just keep going.

Thanks for reading. The original deathline is over, but I'll be sure to come back with updates when possible.

[Jeso]

Okay, to me, this reads failure all over the place. Let me explain why, you tried to make a huge commitment, a year long commitment, you pretty much lacked the focus and the will to see it through. Let me explain further before you think I'm just an asshole, You really cannot treat your commitments , specially the huge ones, like that. See, now your goal for your 2nd shot at it, its the exact same as the first one, but what if you have succeeded the first time? how much better would it have ended for you? You probably would actually had a portfolio and chances to get professional work. So whats gonna happen the next time around? the same? and the third year, and same goal? no portfolio? And even worse, now you are going back to school, which means even if you give it your all, you wont get as good a chance as you had the previews year. Now dont take this too seriously, i understand that life is life, and you gotta do some shit, like survive, and work a part time to put some food on the table, but this is just like a cautionary tale for me, and for you and for everybody else, that might happen to stumble upon this like I did. To not give up, to not loose track, to when you think you are doing your best, to push a little harder. A year is a loooong time,
for what people can achieve if they focus 100% in their art, it can take you places.. Still i commend you for giving it a such a hard try, with lots of dedication, and I'm sure you improved a lot either way. So kudos to you.

so.. with that..

LIVE AND LEARN... live and let live.. live and let draw! AMEN! lol im outa here...

[Amit Dutta]

I was at a presentation recently given by Errol Gershon, who teaches the business side of art and how to be successful as a creative at the Art Center. Immensely useful. I can't distill it all down, but I will give you a few key pointers.

1. P2.D2
(the 2's are meant to be "squared" but can't figure out how to do that in a post)

This stands for Passion, Persistence, Determination, Discipline. Without any one of these you will fail. I never heard it boiled down like this before but upon examination it really holds up. I realised I had everything, but I have always been quite low on discipline, so that will be changing. Figure out what aspect you are low on and address that. I would say for most of us, discipline will be a weak point.
Another thing to note is that two of these are internal motivations (Passion and Determination), the other two are action oriented (Persistence and Discipline).
You cannot have intent without action, because you will get nowhere. And action without intent is just randomised motion that will get you somewhere, but with no purpose in mind.

2. SMART goals. This is a very standard criteria to create your goals, used in business a lot.

S : Specific
M : Measurable
A : Achievable
R : Realistic
T : Timebound

If your goals aren't SMART, there will be issues in meeting them.
So look at your goal that says: "Really really focus"

It isn't specific, it isn't measurable, is it actually achievable because there is no criteria in place for what focus means? In this case does it sound realistic when you don't know what you are aiming for? It isn't timebound.

Instead you should say something like:
I will do 1 hour of art practice on 6 out of 7 days a week for the next year.
Boom. SMART.

Your next goal: "Develop a portfolio and just keep going"

Not SMART. Instead:
I will work on 1 portfolio piece a month for the next year until I have 12 of my best artwork to showcase

Doing this will ensure you know exactly when you are about to fail on a goal.

3. Reasons and Excuses.

Most people come up with all sorts of things to explain why they failed. Most of these things are excuses, not reasons. You want to ditch any excuse that you ascribe after the fact to why you failed. Things like, "I didn't have enough time", "I didn't have enough money", "My circumstances weren't conducive to my practice" etc. These are excuses. If you didn't have money, then you make enough to support yourself. If you didn't have enough time, then you juggle things around, reprioritise and become more efficient so you have the time.

Using an example of your own "So immediately after getting a job, my art productivity dropped."
Nice excuse blaming the job. No, your art productivity dropped because you allowed it to. Playing games all weekend to relax as time off from your job, was your choice. What about after work? You could have been doing art. I worked fulltime, a 10 hour day, and would go back home and do another 4 hours on my art. I did this for over a year.
Do you want it bad enough?
Psquared-Dsquared. What's missing?

Make sure you have reasons for failing and then address them, don't make excuses.

4. A couple of tips.
Reevaluate your goals all the time. Sometimes they may need to change. A goal is not something to hit, it is an incentive to create movement towards something you wish to achieve. Be prepared to shift your target even as you are flying towards it.

Keep physical lists of what you need to get done for the week/day. I believe physical ones are better than the electronic ones because they are more visceral, especially when you put them up where you pass by and see them everyday. Plus crossing them off is an awesome reward.

Before you go to sleep each day, spend a few minutes thinking about what you are going to be ticking off your list for the next day. You will wake up with these things reinforced in your mind and find it easier to do.


Hope that wasn't too harsh, but sometimes you need to be told direct and honest when you are letting yourself get away without any self-accountability. That's what we are here for :) but ultimately you need to be able to generate this yourself as well.

[chinagami]

Thanks for the comments Jeso and Amit. None of you were harsh at all. It's always scary to read critiques and comments but that's ultimately why I'm here. The sole purpose of me posting my deathline was for me to have "evidence to look back on when I fail or succeed when the year is up". And to let the community here witness my progress or lack of.

I will definitely have to discipline myself more and learn to work smarter.

[Zearthus]

So how has things been chinagami?