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A Week in Review #8
7 years ago
General
Part 1: Primary Message
Howdy peeps!
The cycle continues. It seems like a very repeating cycle of being able to go fine for two weeks or so, then crashing and burning for two weeks, almost. I don't know, but I need to fix something. It's become clearer and clearer to me over time what the problem is, but how to fix it is the next question. My current diet prevents me from just getting drunk during working hours, that was working well for me before. lol
What's going on is I feel like I am having a really hard time balancing production time with cost. It extremely varies how long each picture takes, one outlines session could be done in a few hours while another might take me days. Clearly it's dependent upon the amount of detail, but mood and time of day also seems to play a factor into it. The problems that arise with it includes feeling like I just don't have the time it would take to produce the images at the quality I want, especially not at a pace on which I can survive financially.
I am still very interested in trying to find a job that I could work alongside with this, but I haven't had any time at all around trying to keep up with commissions (which on a "good week" the current schedule I have would be working great, it's just for some reason that seems the only last for that few weeks). I have sent out a few emails, but other than that I've been pretty focused.
Another issue I face with it is there is absolutely no time for personal projects, and that's where I tend to make the biggest jumps in improvement between things, because as I've said previously, I tend to take bigger risks because failure doesn't matter when it's a personal project. So if I have to scrap it, I can just forget about it. With commissions, I have a very specific standard to make sure people are getting what they order in the quality at which it was advertised to them. So while I do take risks, they are not as frequent or dramatic, so my growth can be stunted by only doing commissioned work. Not to mention there have been times I've tried to take risks with commissions, and it hasn't lent too well to the situation. While I gladly take responsibility for it and make the appropriate corrections, it does make the process of the commission more stressful for me.
An idea I had was a much more complicated system- which would involve a deposit cost, and then additional hourly costs, so that every image could flow out at it's own natural pace, but my fear with that is that perhaps new people would be deterred because it would be impossible for them to conceptualize what they might be getting themselves into. And for that matter, even existing clients. With predetermined costs, it can be fairly easy for one to prepare and handle commissions in their personal budgets. So for that reason, I'd like to stick with the predetermined cost of a commission, but I'm not sure how to handle these situations where I am really struggling with a dryspell, or art block, or perhaps the commission is just taking a lot longer than they normally do for any reason.
Another idea I have, but I'm not really sure how justify it or fund it, would be to have an "R&D" day every week where I just spend the entirety of a normal work day studying. The Ko-Fi subscription was an idea for this, but I haven't talked or thought much more about it recently due to the lack of time.
This is mostly just rambling, but if anyone does have any suggestions or such I'd be glad to hear them. I'd really like to avoid raising my prices any more if possible, because I'd really like to continue catering to the current crowd I already am.
Thanks for your time, attention, etc. and have a wonderful day!
Bud
Part 2: The Commissions!
This week:
1)
terian - Cleaning Up the Sketch
2)
Tiltermann - DONE!
3) external - DONE!
Buffer:
1)
level000 Possibly Almost Done
Quickies:
1) Anonymous - DONE
Raffle Winners:
#1)
dirtypaws Cleaning up the Sketch
#2) tiltermann
dragonfood 3D Model - Rigging
Howdy peeps!
The cycle continues. It seems like a very repeating cycle of being able to go fine for two weeks or so, then crashing and burning for two weeks, almost. I don't know, but I need to fix something. It's become clearer and clearer to me over time what the problem is, but how to fix it is the next question. My current diet prevents me from just getting drunk during working hours, that was working well for me before. lol
What's going on is I feel like I am having a really hard time balancing production time with cost. It extremely varies how long each picture takes, one outlines session could be done in a few hours while another might take me days. Clearly it's dependent upon the amount of detail, but mood and time of day also seems to play a factor into it. The problems that arise with it includes feeling like I just don't have the time it would take to produce the images at the quality I want, especially not at a pace on which I can survive financially.
I am still very interested in trying to find a job that I could work alongside with this, but I haven't had any time at all around trying to keep up with commissions (which on a "good week" the current schedule I have would be working great, it's just for some reason that seems the only last for that few weeks). I have sent out a few emails, but other than that I've been pretty focused.
Another issue I face with it is there is absolutely no time for personal projects, and that's where I tend to make the biggest jumps in improvement between things, because as I've said previously, I tend to take bigger risks because failure doesn't matter when it's a personal project. So if I have to scrap it, I can just forget about it. With commissions, I have a very specific standard to make sure people are getting what they order in the quality at which it was advertised to them. So while I do take risks, they are not as frequent or dramatic, so my growth can be stunted by only doing commissioned work. Not to mention there have been times I've tried to take risks with commissions, and it hasn't lent too well to the situation. While I gladly take responsibility for it and make the appropriate corrections, it does make the process of the commission more stressful for me.
An idea I had was a much more complicated system- which would involve a deposit cost, and then additional hourly costs, so that every image could flow out at it's own natural pace, but my fear with that is that perhaps new people would be deterred because it would be impossible for them to conceptualize what they might be getting themselves into. And for that matter, even existing clients. With predetermined costs, it can be fairly easy for one to prepare and handle commissions in their personal budgets. So for that reason, I'd like to stick with the predetermined cost of a commission, but I'm not sure how to handle these situations where I am really struggling with a dryspell, or art block, or perhaps the commission is just taking a lot longer than they normally do for any reason.
Another idea I have, but I'm not really sure how justify it or fund it, would be to have an "R&D" day every week where I just spend the entirety of a normal work day studying. The Ko-Fi subscription was an idea for this, but I haven't talked or thought much more about it recently due to the lack of time.
This is mostly just rambling, but if anyone does have any suggestions or such I'd be glad to hear them. I'd really like to avoid raising my prices any more if possible, because I'd really like to continue catering to the current crowd I already am.
Thanks for your time, attention, etc. and have a wonderful day!
Bud
Part 2: The Commissions!
This week:
1)
terian - Cleaning Up the Sketch2)
Tiltermann - DONE!3) external - DONE!
Buffer:
1)
level000 Possibly Almost DoneQuickies:
1) Anonymous - DONE
Raffle Winners:
#1)
dirtypaws Cleaning up the Sketch#2)
tiltermann
dragonfood 3D Model - Rigging