91-120 ( Originally written March 2017)
Another month complete, and this one is a blur.
In terms of focus I had no particular theme overarching the month so I was essentially free-styling and exploring.
I got some decent pieces out and as usual many not so decent pieces but that's ok because I feel I was efficient on the whole with a few days of struggle but I put that down to me not keeping my shit together.
Only 10 of my pieces this month were ink and paper and they were done in bursts. So no pattern but seemingly based on mood and also I was likely in a place away from my PC. So the remaining 2/3rds were digital and a mixture of vehicle/mecha objects and then some keyframe stuff and the rest being experimentation.
But I must stress this wasn't by design. I felt I took a step back this month and just created without any agenda and from this I observed both positive and negative behaviors. However, going forward I am going to use this 'method' again. It's like clearing the cache from your brain.
For this month I said I would leave vehicles, especially wheeled ones alone. Part of it was to not let them become a chore and also to see if not doing something for a short period of time and then going back into it yields better results and also another remedy to improving creative thinking and execution.
So the coming 30days I am going to loosely commit to focusing on vehicles. Let's see if and by how much I have improved. I super whack at wheels so I need to address that to get that to a useable level. If not higher.
Interiors? I might tackle these a few times or could save for the next 30.
Overall, I feel things are (very) slowly starting to click. I am getting quicker at bringing ideas through (or smarter at not overdoing certain things).
I don't feel I have mastered my time management but I have noticed that I can plough through a lot more in the amount of time that I had during when I started this, likely down to leveling up on my technique rather than better scheduling, though I do pick my battles better now.
But of course, I am a million miles away from where I want or think I can be as an artist yet I am pleased with the progress.
I got a few monkeys off my back but also starting to see the double-edged sword dailies are, or at least from the perspective of trying to become a professional.
I can imagine that when I'm professional I would see dailies as exploratory and a way to blow off creative steam. As a non-pro, this is the case too but it is detrimental towards doing complete projects and working on finesse. Which I feel ultimately are the ones that qualify as portfolio pieces and thus lead to clients and studios hiring you. This is playing in the back of my mind but I'm aware that's probably based on anxiety more than anything else.
Last month I said that I would like at least one of my everyday's to be able to go into my portfolio - as a sign of progress and also to kill two birds with one stone. I would say I have not succeeded over the last 30 days but if push comes to shove I can fall back on a few. So the next 30 I want to bring that level up and have something potentially folio worthy.
Bring on the next 30!
