Updates, thoughts and Happy New Years! (Patreon)

Happy New Years!! Thank you so much for sticking through this sticky year with me, I hope my drawings brought you some joy in these strange times.

*FEWF* we’ve almost made it out of the dark, foggy tunnel that is 2020, and I’m so hopeful for the new year, even if it’ll probably start out a bit rocky. This year has been tough but I’m excited for the new projects and riso prints I have planned ahead. I reaalllyy want to start drawing a 'demon a day' thing, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to stick to that but I'll definitely be sharing them here when I do! Maybe it'll be a per week thing? I am planning to start a new makers series in the spring, hopefully with more thoroughly checked Latin this time and of course with lots of bugs and birds, same as last time! And I will be officially pitching my first children's book so I can't wait to share more with you on that! 

Update on the delayed prints-- 

October’s print is halfway drawn, I’ll be doing a little live drawing session on instagram tomorrow (sat 1/2) at Noon PST if you’d like to join!

Here’s a sneak peek of it now, plus the small print that will be accompanying it!:

November’s print will be The Nutcracker and the Mouse King print, which I almost have ready but I’m not quite done tweaking yet! Here’s the closest I’ve gotten on it- but there are still some small things I want to change before I officially send it out to you. I'll share my process on this piece soon!

December’s print is sketched out and coming soon, I’m just not sure if I love it yet so I’m going to work on the others and then send this one out asap after they’re done.

Some thoughts on this year and work/lifestyle choices:

This year I started my first full time art job in animation as a character designer and I want to share some of the thoughts on what I’ve learned about freelance, animation, going into a full time job after freelance, and burn out.

I have worked freelance gigs my whole art career. Working freelance exclusively has been a lot of fun, but now that I’ve taken a break from it because of my full time job I see how it was the cause of a lot of my anxiety and stress. One major downside of exclusively freelance work is scheduling accurately. No matter how hard I try to plan out my month or quarter, something always seemed to go wrong, even with buffers (and don’t get me started on how long it took some companies to pay). One long term freelance gig usually can’t pay the rent, so I’d have to take on several projects at once to make sure everything was taken care of. I take work based on timeline, if they’ll allow me to take on fewer random small jobs (good pay), and if they are personally rewarding and might get me more desired work in the future. Some months nothing comes in and I have to hustle to make work for myself, sometimes I’m in over my head with 6 freelance jobs all due in the same week. That hustle was fun once, but the past few years I’ve found it exhausting, plus I’ve had to make tough decisions and have had some projects slip away because of my chaotic schedule. At first, I thought book projects would be my solution to the crazy deadlines and low pay. They usually have larger budgets and longer timelines, but I’ve found the edits and the timelines to be just as unpredictable. Book projects have to be passed through so many hands (AD-editor-senior editor-author-marketing-higher ups/etc.) and sometimes the timeline I originally agreed to is busted because they haven’t heard back from someone vital. Being at the bottom of the edits chain, the deadlines can get pushed back months after I assumed I’d be turning in my final artwork OR deadlines have to be kept and I’m left racing to get final artwork in to meet their contract requirements. I’ve had months go by without word on final images, only to get serious structural edits back that are due in a week. This happens in lots of different artistic fields, not just publishing, and I feel is also an issue of not standing up for myself and following up aggressively, but it’s something that’s been really weighing on me and I didn’t expect would be a large burden in my art career.

So, this year, I did visual development freelance work on a new animated kids show (around March) and then was working so much for them through June that they hired me on full time to tweak my vis dev to their show style, becoming a full time character designer. This is my first full time art job (and animation job) and after 9 months I couldn’t be happier. This may sound silly but I didn’t know what I was missing when I was working alone. It’s been extremely rewarding working with a team of passionate, creative people. I learned SO MUCH from my team this year and that has been refreshing and revitalizing; it’s not what I expected. I didn’t realize how much I desperately needed and wanted this learning environment. I learned so much about perspective in character design and how to make strong silhouettes while keeping within the show style, thing’s I’ve known but with twists to make things efficient and empathetic for animators. I felt like I was in school again, with supportive and kind peers and teachers encouraging me along the way. I even went down a rabbit hole of youtube art teaching videos to help keep the feeling strong throughout the work day. I was excited to pick up learning anatomy again, focusing on the basics of light and color and how to improve my craft overall- not just how to make good designs and concepts or work efficiently in a composition, things I feel I’ve given outweighed importance lately. I also watched a lot of artist bio videos, artist sketchbook series, artist interviews and artists talking about their influences to keep my spirits high. Some of note that I started with were the Proko and Draftsmen channels, anything from Bobby Chiu, and the James Gurney channel. I also watched a lot of random stuff but these were a great start for me to suddenly have 100 tabs open.

I also want to talk about burnout while trying to juggle freelance and my full time job this year. Now, I’m not sure if this is also because I’ve been stuck at home for 9 months and haven’t been able to see anyone/travel, but not being able to take substantial breaks meant I experienced some serious burn out. Drawing was like pulling teeth and I was working so much my wrist started to ache. I still had commitments on book projects and freelance gigs when I started my job so I was working all day and then finishing up projects at night, with weekends and in-between time dedicated to patreon and shipping out prints from my store on Sundays. There was no free time I set aside for myself. Around mid November I finished all of my extra projects and really, really needed to stare at the wall for a few days, but then it was time for the holidays, finding gifts, sending them, and spending hours on zoom chats with family. Don’t get me wrong, I love gifting and chatting with my family, but it was far from a break. I didn’t know how I had done all of the holiday stuff in years prior, I was so exhausted, but I think I have a better idea now of why it used to be possible. Freelance at least allowed me to take time off when work was slow, therefore I would go above and beyond on my own time. After a few days of staring at the wall feeling helpless or like I’d never work again, I would get inspired to make something that was truly fulfilling- truly creatively mine. That down time was totally vital to me actually wanting to draw and feeling creative in any way. The thing is, that lifestyle was so stressful and painful, how do I find the balance between full time work and freelance? And I guess what I’ve found is full time animation work, which is contract/steady pay for basically a year- and it’s GOOD pay. Even at union minimums I’m making more a month than I ever did freelancing. Knowing I’ll be getting the same paycheck every week has helped me feel immensely better day to day, physically and mentally.

If all goes to plan (which it never does, but a loose map can’t hurt) I think, in the future, I want to work a year or so full time in animation, which allows me to build up some savings, and then take a few months off to do a combination of freelance and my own work- with lots of down time baked in. This is VERY hopeful but it’s really the lifestyle I want to strive for. This has been something I’ve had a lot of anxiety about for a long time- what the right path to happiness is for me, while still living a full creative life. The residency I did abroad last year was immensely helpful for understanding this lifestyle I want to strive for. It made me say no to all incoming small work, helping me to stay focused and energized about the work that meant the most to me. And now that I know working on a team is fulfilling, I want to carve out time for that work as well. A balance is what I think is best, especially a financial balance. This lifestyle was never my goal before, and I think it took me this whole year to really understand how >completely< stressed I was with my freelance schedule. And it took a year to also realize that my residency helped me understand that time off is essential. I hope this is helpful for any other creatives out there trying to figure out what work style is best for them!

I want to add that his Patreon is the reason why I can take those breaks and focus on projects that will be most fulfilling to me! I’m finishing up a book pitch now that has many characters from my subscription series, so I’m excited to share with you all what this will be when it’s safe to share!!!

Thank you all again, from the bottom of my heart, and I hope you have a safe and happy new years!!!

-Natalie