Isra AC's Deathline

[isra-ac]

Hi everybody! Let me copy&paste what I just posted on my blog starting my deathline :)

I knew some Crimson Daggers were doing something called “Deathline” but I didn’t know what exactly it was till today, when I read the inspiring post on Dan Warren’s blog about the Deathline Challenge.

Since I came back from San Francisco I’ve been working harder than ever but still a bit disorganized. I even made a schedule a couple of weeks ago and, while things like livestreams started working better, others not.

I got some good advices in San Francisco to keep working on what I like and improve my work. But it’s like, while knowing what I want to do in the future, I didn’t define my goals very well for a concrete time.

Here’s where the Deathline challenge comes. My 3 goals for the next 365 days

1. At least an hour study every day. Maybe some days I paint more studies or spend more time on them, but that’s the minimun requeriment. I’ll try to record all my studies on livestream, but in case I can’t, I’ll upload them here later anyway.

2. Get a job related to what I’m doing and I like. Concept art, design or illustration. A graphic novel is another work I’m interested in, specially after getting some tips by Aleksi Briclot last year, but it maybe can wait a little more. This point involves having a professional portfolio, with impressive pieces in it.

3. Do some excercise, running a couple of days a week or whatever. I’m only 26 and my legs hurt as hell because I’m almost all the day sitting. I always feel like losing my time because I could be drawing in the time spent for excercise, but it’s healthy and refresh my mind, just have to be less lazy in that sense.

There are a lot of things I have to work on, but they could be included in the 2nd point. Let’s see next year, same day, taking a look at this post, if I was able to accomplish my goals, and see how I improved my self in “just” a year.

And this is the result of the first two weeks doing studies





I don't know yet if I'll keep updating it weekly or daily, but anyway, more in my blog:

http://isrartistic.com/blog/

[isra-ac]

Here are the studies of this week, there are only 5 because 2 of them took me two days.



Also, I started running again (after a long long time) as proposed in my deathline. I went on Tuesday and Friday only 20-30 minutes and ended so tired, but I did it!

[isra-ac]

Let me post the 4th week's results of studies. Again there are only 5 because I used two days for two of them.



It's been a month of studies already. And this is my 3rd week doing exercise two days a week.

I feel like, if I continue with this, my painting skills and my health will get better hehe. Well, not sure about health since I don't sleep too much......

[isra-ac]

Hi Daggers!

Sorry for the delay on the update of my deathline status, but last week I continued painting studies everyday and again went out for running two days. I also included a couple of new pieces on my portfolio to make it (hopefully) a bit better.



Yes, some studies took me more than one day again. It's good to spend the required time on some studies, but I prefer ending the week with 7 studies done. I'll work harder on keeping 7 studies done every week.

[isra-ac]

Here are the studies from the last week. Again could do 7 different studies, I managed them better this time.

Studies on livestream Week #6
(sorry for the link, but this time I uploaded them with higher resolution and the page overflows if I embed the image :S)

I went out for running again twice last week, and could finish for my portfolio (including better works will be the only way to get a job)

Things continue going fine for now.

[isra-ac]

My weekly update on this thing, keep doing studies, keep doing exercise, and added a new piece to my portfolio.

Ugh, again I tried to embed the image posted on my blog but it's too big and the thread overflows......let me put a link to the image:

http://isrartistic.files.wordpress.com/2...tudies.jpg

[isra-ac]

Sorry for not keeping this updated, but I just wrote on my blog a new post about my deathline, in case you're interested in:

http://isrartistic.com/2012/05/12/deathl...her-stuff/

This is a copy & paste anyway:

It’s been 3 months since I started my deathline and almost 4 months since I joined Crimson Daggers. I’d need a whole new post to explain how happy I am being part of this group, and how much it helped me and hopefully I could help others. But I’m going to talk about the detahline this time because after 3 months a few things changed. For those who didn’t see it, here is my original deathline.

I’m glad to say I’ve been following the point 3 as planned and trust me, my body missed a lot doing some exercise, I feel much better now and I’ll keep doing.

On the other hand, the hard work related to the next other 2 points, made me have 3 times a couple of days sick in the last 5 weeks. The lack of sleep and an irregular diet made me feel very weak from time to time. And I totally hate being on bed because I want to keep being productive. I’m also going to have less coffee, it wasn’t working on me recently and I was feeling even more tired after having it.

About the 1st point, I had no idea what I was talking about with studies, so I was doing meaningless studies for two months, without applying them, so at the end, they didn’t help me to improve and I only got a nice gallery of well painted copies. In the last month there were days I didn’t do any study if not required, but all the studies I did (or most of them) were applied on speedies, illustrations, etc making me feel I improved more in this month than the previous two.

There’s another thing, at the beginning I related streaming to doing studies but not anymore. At some point someone suggested me to show also personal stuff, would make the channel more interesting and that’s what I’ve been doing. And I’ve been waiting every week till Sunday to compile all the studies in a “studies of the week” sheet, but from now I will post them as soon as I can.

About the livestream, I have to say I’m impressed how I’ve been able to stream every single day for several hours and how much I enjoyed it and helped me to keep working.

I’m going to slightly change the first point as:

1. Do studies every week, apply them and post them.

The second point is more complex, it’s about building the portfolio and getting a job and it will take time. It’s true though, so many people asked me if I work now. I’ve been for a year without a job, since I decided to take digital painting as a serious professional option. I didn’t even try to get one since I’m trying to get better and better because I compare my work to other professionals and it’s not good enough.

But there’s already a date when I will start looking for a job no matter my level: August. In one month I’m going to Singapore to study at FZD school for 6 weeks (Actually I was going to go on April, and I planned it on January, but a few issues made me re-schedule that journey) and after that all my savings will be gone, so money needed, job needed. Till then, keep working hard and try to get better, if something taught me the Crimson Daggers is you can do this by yourself if you work really hard.

In this 3 months I replaced 7 pieces in my portfolio with better works. By August and specially after been to FZD school my portfolio shouldn’t have any work from last year.

I’ll write another post like this in 3 months, still not sure how my trip to Singapore will affect the livestreams or blog updates (I want to keep doing them) but the hard work won’t change at all.