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Change in approach to work flow.
10 years ago
This is the journal of a Wild Chinny! It may contain things, and sometimes also stuff.
Helpful links:
Commission Price Guide
Current Artwork Queue
My Art Blog
Twitter Feed
For the first couple of years that I supported myself as a freelance artist, I had no concrete schedule. I worked whenever I could work and I streamed whenever I desired to do so with an audience, or when I needed the interactive element to rustle up some additional commissions. As an extrovert, streaming has appealed to me from the very beginning; talking to people from literally all over the globe while I drew proved fascinating and promoted a certain degree of focus for me.
Over the second couple of years... I began reshaping my work flow to better accommodate the needs of others, both to juggle my schedule with in-person commitments and to provide commissioners with concrete time slots to watch the art created live. This rapidly got out of hand, as I found myself tetrising together absurdly complicated schedules for each week, stressing out over how to fit which piece or ongoing project where to maximize the number of people whose wishes I could grant. When any given day didn't quite work out according to plan, I faced additional stress, guilt, and self-loathing, and would stay up late trying to meet my own expectations, inevitably screwing up the schedule for the day to follow in the process, and repeating the cycle. Art got done but I was an anxious mess. I also experienced a huge amount of artistic whiplash, as rather than working on one project several days in a row and seeing it to completion, my schedule had me poking at bits and pieces of a great many works, which simply did not feel right for me in the vast majority of cases. Starting/stopping work on a particular painting or illustration kills my momentum. In some cases it's good to have a few things going on at once, to be able to set one aside for a day or two, and return to look at it with fresh eyes that are more likely to catch mistakes. The degree I was working with was unhealthy, though, not coming back to given projects for a full week because I had six other things to clock obligatory hours on. In some cases I had commissioners who insisted on me starting and stopping literally dozens of different concept sketches in a single stream session, which was truly madness inducing. I'd just start to get a handle on one, only to be torn away and have to start over and mentally refocus. For the past few weeks I've tried out simplifying this - simply scheduling stream days or offline days with unspecified start times, with the exception of a few ongoing projects. It helped reduce some stress, but not nearly enough, and I've mangled my sleeping schedule. I think I need to do away with stream schedules altogether (but not streaming altogether! fear not, read on).
Awhile back I know I wrote about trying to find a "real" studio job in the face of turning 26 and having to deal with my own health insurance now and other such scary subjects, and I will casually still be looking for that, but I'm willing to remain a freelance artist as well... so long as I can do so on my terms. Not the commissioners'. I will draw/paint/animate whatever you hire me to draw/paint/animate, but I will do so on my terms. I will also try to start dedicating some time to working on my own web comic project, and intend to set up a Patreon for that in the near future. I just can't carry on like I have been. I've barely scraped out enough to survive over the past four years and making that little overall while feeling so anxious hasn't been worth it. On multiple occasions, in a fit of panic, I've seriously considered acquiring a "normal" job just to escape, like food industry, retail, or maid stuff. I even applied to a couple. Considering everything I gave up to pursue art, there's something seriously wrong when flipping burgers seems more appealing - to a vegetarian with a self-admitted compulsion to draw every day anyway - than drawing for other people does.
Please don't misread me: I appreciate all the commission work I've received over the past four years so, so much. All my customers have enabled me to make a living out of art, and devoting myself to it full-time like that has improved the quality of said art much faster than school or anything else ever managed to. I'm extremely grateful, and a lot of you have been fantastic to work with. A lot of the stress and mess is self-inflicted - I should never have given up so much control over my own life in the first place. I'd love to keep working for you all, but in order to do that, I'm going to have to go about it differently. I'm not even sure if this will be the 'correct' different right away, I may have to experiment and figure out what works.
Here's how it needs to go:
I'll have an anticipated work queue, but no specific stream schedule.
Ongoing work/larger projects will be broken down into the queue, which I'll update frequently to reflect my current expectations. No more amorphous ongoing projects of having me draw whatever will be allowed. Piece-based commissions only - one drawing at a time, one painting at a time, one storyboard/animatic at a time, whatever the case may be. If you have one project going with me, I will not work on another until that first/current item is done.
I will send commissioners work-in-progress files of their pieces as they progress, to allow them to request changes and the like. I will not schedule specific stream days for commissioners. I will still stream, but at my own discretion. Do not harass me to stream. Part of why I generated that insanely detailed schedule to begin with was to keep people from sending tweets/shouts/IMs/notes/etc demanding that I stream or pestering me about when I would stream next. Instead of deflecting these things, it made me feel guilty and over-complicate matters. I will no longer allow myself to be bullied into streaming. If you commission me, your money pays for my artwork creation time, but you are not entitled to a show. I am a visual artist, not an entertainer... though curiously enough, the people yelling at me to stream in the past often weren't even current customers, just people who wanted to watch. I'm glad if you enjoy my digital company or watching me make art, but when people did this, it stressed me out. A lot. I enjoy streaming but on my own terms. If I'm streaming at a very specific time for a very specific audience in the future, it may be as a patreon reward or something. I'll consider it. But in general, right now, no. You may happen to catch your piece being worked on live, and if I intend to work on particular pieces in a particular stream I may say so in the posts announcing said stream, but I want to remove myself from obligations to do so, for my own sanity. Please respect this. If this doesn't work for you as a commissioner, feel free to cease commissioning me.
My office hours will be roughly 10 AM - 6 PM EST, Monday through Friday. It may take some adjustment to get my sleep schedule to match this, but I want something reasonable and consistent, and achieving that is a priority for me. My work time may start earlier or extend later, but those will be my core hours to draw/paint/reply to emails/manage anything related to my business.
One of my main goals as an artist and a person has always been to bring joy to others. I was very anxious to continue to make changes to how I work, since I feared upsetting anyone, but my own happiness and well-being needs to be addressed to in order to continue making art. I've literally thought I was having a heart attack three times now due to sheer levels of anxiety (they were just, of course, anxiety attacks, but with very physical repercussions, and it was terrifying). Once I blamed it on taking Claritin-D, which may have exacerbated things, but then I refused to take any such decongestant again and experienced two more, so... Chinny confirmed for having developed issues with anxiety. I don't know if the root cause is absolutely my work, but I know that how I currently manage (or rather, mismanage) it does trigger a great deal of anxiety. As many of you know, I was also diagnosed with carpal tunnel last year, and lengthy streams often resulted in me forgetting to take breaks, despite pain and numbness in my hands. So please, respect how I need to run things to both complete artwork and avoid disastrous burn-out. I will be writing up a much-needed update to my terms of service as well to reflect all this information.
Thank you so much for supporting me and my artwork for the years. I hope to be able to continue making art freelance for many years to come. ♥
Commissions are currently: Closed. (Though feel free to contact for quotes etc.)
Work is not done on a commission until AFTER payment is received! Queue spots are only set in stone when payment is received, be it full payment or some form of deposit. Unpaid slots can be added to the queue, but when they are paid jump above any other unpaid slots.
Helpful links:
Commission Price Guide
Current Artwork Queue
My Art Blog
Twitter Feed
For the first couple of years that I supported myself as a freelance artist, I had no concrete schedule. I worked whenever I could work and I streamed whenever I desired to do so with an audience, or when I needed the interactive element to rustle up some additional commissions. As an extrovert, streaming has appealed to me from the very beginning; talking to people from literally all over the globe while I drew proved fascinating and promoted a certain degree of focus for me.
Over the second couple of years... I began reshaping my work flow to better accommodate the needs of others, both to juggle my schedule with in-person commitments and to provide commissioners with concrete time slots to watch the art created live. This rapidly got out of hand, as I found myself tetrising together absurdly complicated schedules for each week, stressing out over how to fit which piece or ongoing project where to maximize the number of people whose wishes I could grant. When any given day didn't quite work out according to plan, I faced additional stress, guilt, and self-loathing, and would stay up late trying to meet my own expectations, inevitably screwing up the schedule for the day to follow in the process, and repeating the cycle. Art got done but I was an anxious mess. I also experienced a huge amount of artistic whiplash, as rather than working on one project several days in a row and seeing it to completion, my schedule had me poking at bits and pieces of a great many works, which simply did not feel right for me in the vast majority of cases. Starting/stopping work on a particular painting or illustration kills my momentum. In some cases it's good to have a few things going on at once, to be able to set one aside for a day or two, and return to look at it with fresh eyes that are more likely to catch mistakes. The degree I was working with was unhealthy, though, not coming back to given projects for a full week because I had six other things to clock obligatory hours on. In some cases I had commissioners who insisted on me starting and stopping literally dozens of different concept sketches in a single stream session, which was truly madness inducing. I'd just start to get a handle on one, only to be torn away and have to start over and mentally refocus. For the past few weeks I've tried out simplifying this - simply scheduling stream days or offline days with unspecified start times, with the exception of a few ongoing projects. It helped reduce some stress, but not nearly enough, and I've mangled my sleeping schedule. I think I need to do away with stream schedules altogether (but not streaming altogether! fear not, read on).
Awhile back I know I wrote about trying to find a "real" studio job in the face of turning 26 and having to deal with my own health insurance now and other such scary subjects, and I will casually still be looking for that, but I'm willing to remain a freelance artist as well... so long as I can do so on my terms. Not the commissioners'. I will draw/paint/animate whatever you hire me to draw/paint/animate, but I will do so on my terms. I will also try to start dedicating some time to working on my own web comic project, and intend to set up a Patreon for that in the near future. I just can't carry on like I have been. I've barely scraped out enough to survive over the past four years and making that little overall while feeling so anxious hasn't been worth it. On multiple occasions, in a fit of panic, I've seriously considered acquiring a "normal" job just to escape, like food industry, retail, or maid stuff. I even applied to a couple. Considering everything I gave up to pursue art, there's something seriously wrong when flipping burgers seems more appealing - to a vegetarian with a self-admitted compulsion to draw every day anyway - than drawing for other people does.
Please don't misread me: I appreciate all the commission work I've received over the past four years so, so much. All my customers have enabled me to make a living out of art, and devoting myself to it full-time like that has improved the quality of said art much faster than school or anything else ever managed to. I'm extremely grateful, and a lot of you have been fantastic to work with. A lot of the stress and mess is self-inflicted - I should never have given up so much control over my own life in the first place. I'd love to keep working for you all, but in order to do that, I'm going to have to go about it differently. I'm not even sure if this will be the 'correct' different right away, I may have to experiment and figure out what works.
Here's how it needs to go:
I'll have an anticipated work queue, but no specific stream schedule.
Ongoing work/larger projects will be broken down into the queue, which I'll update frequently to reflect my current expectations. No more amorphous ongoing projects of having me draw whatever will be allowed. Piece-based commissions only - one drawing at a time, one painting at a time, one storyboard/animatic at a time, whatever the case may be. If you have one project going with me, I will not work on another until that first/current item is done.
I will send commissioners work-in-progress files of their pieces as they progress, to allow them to request changes and the like. I will not schedule specific stream days for commissioners. I will still stream, but at my own discretion. Do not harass me to stream. Part of why I generated that insanely detailed schedule to begin with was to keep people from sending tweets/shouts/IMs/notes/etc demanding that I stream or pestering me about when I would stream next. Instead of deflecting these things, it made me feel guilty and over-complicate matters. I will no longer allow myself to be bullied into streaming. If you commission me, your money pays for my artwork creation time, but you are not entitled to a show. I am a visual artist, not an entertainer... though curiously enough, the people yelling at me to stream in the past often weren't even current customers, just people who wanted to watch. I'm glad if you enjoy my digital company or watching me make art, but when people did this, it stressed me out. A lot. I enjoy streaming but on my own terms. If I'm streaming at a very specific time for a very specific audience in the future, it may be as a patreon reward or something. I'll consider it. But in general, right now, no. You may happen to catch your piece being worked on live, and if I intend to work on particular pieces in a particular stream I may say so in the posts announcing said stream, but I want to remove myself from obligations to do so, for my own sanity. Please respect this. If this doesn't work for you as a commissioner, feel free to cease commissioning me.
My office hours will be roughly 10 AM - 6 PM EST, Monday through Friday. It may take some adjustment to get my sleep schedule to match this, but I want something reasonable and consistent, and achieving that is a priority for me. My work time may start earlier or extend later, but those will be my core hours to draw/paint/reply to emails/manage anything related to my business.
One of my main goals as an artist and a person has always been to bring joy to others. I was very anxious to continue to make changes to how I work, since I feared upsetting anyone, but my own happiness and well-being needs to be addressed to in order to continue making art. I've literally thought I was having a heart attack three times now due to sheer levels of anxiety (they were just, of course, anxiety attacks, but with very physical repercussions, and it was terrifying). Once I blamed it on taking Claritin-D, which may have exacerbated things, but then I refused to take any such decongestant again and experienced two more, so... Chinny confirmed for having developed issues with anxiety. I don't know if the root cause is absolutely my work, but I know that how I currently manage (or rather, mismanage) it does trigger a great deal of anxiety. As many of you know, I was also diagnosed with carpal tunnel last year, and lengthy streams often resulted in me forgetting to take breaks, despite pain and numbness in my hands. So please, respect how I need to run things to both complete artwork and avoid disastrous burn-out. I will be writing up a much-needed update to my terms of service as well to reflect all this information.
Thank you so much for supporting me and my artwork for the years. I hope to be able to continue making art freelance for many years to come. ♥
Commissions are currently: Closed. (Though feel free to contact for quotes etc.)
Work is not done on a commission until AFTER payment is received! Queue spots are only set in stone when payment is received, be it full payment or some form of deposit. Unpaid slots can be added to the queue, but when they are paid jump above any other unpaid slots.
Amorphous for me was more like, an amount of money just for whatever drawings and work in that amount of time, as opposed to the money being for pre-specified drawings. It was a thing that I allowed without meaning to and never should have, since that work flow personally does not seem to work well!
I completely understand why you are doing this, Chinny, and I still look forward to commissioning you again in the future.
May still ask you occasionally how many hours you think it would take to draw something, though.
Literally the only thing that's changing is I'm not writing a specific stream schedule anymore - instead, I'm making that list of expectations based on what I'm going to try to get done that week during my work hours, and I'll work my way through it. Sometimes I'll stream, sometimes I won't. Sometimes I may even randomly do on the spot commission streams like I used to do back in the day! But I'll decide as I go. All the words are just to explain why I'm making that change, since I worry it may be an upsetting change for some.
Mostly though, I just don't want to work on different projects for the same commissioner in close succession, to help keep the commissioners focused, and it'll be also be a good kick in the butt for me to make sure I get things done and out rather than lingering on my queue indefinitely. :3
And you've never been a source of stress. <3
keep it up!