Uncategorized

21 Jan

Posted at 05:33h in Uncategorized
I love a good book. My wife and I have five large bookcases filled with books and four more boxes of books in a hall closet. A surprising number of them we've actually read. But life gets busy and I've got less time to read than ever. Thankfully, there are audiobooks I can download and listen to while working on client projects. Of course as a professional artist I usually can't listen while I'm in the conceptual or sketch phase of a project because it is too distracting. Building the structure of an illustration requires my full concentration. But once that foundation is laid I can relax a bit and listen as I do the inking or coloring. Audiobooks can be more expensive than their paper-and-binding counterparts, but I don't mind. Personally I'd rather spend $25 on something that I will actually listen to rather than $15 on a book that I will never get around to reading. Reading means carving out time to give a book my full attention, whereas listening to an audiobook can be done in the background while I'm simultaneously working on something else. Ah, multitasking! I don't buy novels, I'm more of a nonfiction guy. Here's a few of my favorite audiobooks (in alphabetical order):

17 Jan

Posted at 06:33h in Uncategorized

Here's a neat site I stumbled upon recently. Illustrator Dani Jones has compiled a list of fifty nifty Illustration links. I've only briefly visited a few of the links so far, but it looks like a good list with lots of informative and/or inspiring stuff dealing with various aspects of illustration. I'm looking forward to browsing more of the links...

16 Jan

Posted at 16:33h in Uncategorized

On top of a busy week for deadlines I'm having some major issues with my computer. Among other things I've got to re-install my operating system and try to recover over 100GB of deleted files. It's not pretty. I spent most of the afternoon under a desk in the corner of my studio curled up in the fetal position while...

11 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Uncategorized

After 28 episodes on DVD those crazy veggies from VeggieTales are starring in their second big-screen feature film, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (official site). "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" started out as a Silly Song on VHS way back in 1997 (every VeggieTales episode has at least one Silly Song). The song became so popular that the Pirates...

10 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Art & Business, Uncategorized
Yesterday I listed some of the "Con's" of freelancing. Please read that first if you haven't already. Now that that's out of the way I want to focus on some of the "Pro's", the terrific and exciting aspects of freelancing which, in my opinion, far outweigh the negatives and make the whole adventure worthwhile. If they didn't, I wouldn't have stuck at it for ten years and counting: Pro #1: You are your own boss. You decide when to work and when to take a break. You decide which projects you will work on. You negotiate the deadlines. There are no superiors to report to (just make sure your clients are happy). No boring meetings. No annoying co-workers. You enjoy a great deal of freedom compared to your cubicle-bound counterparts. You can buy groceries at 10 am when there is no traffic and no lines at the checkout. You run your own show! I can't think of a career choice that offers you more personal freedom.

31 Dec

Posted at 01:44h in Uncategorized

Today is the last day of 2007. New Year's is always an occasion for looking back to reflect and then looking forward to the coming year. So I thought this would be a good time for me to pause and evaluate my blog. I saw a big jump in readership this year, and it's been a fun challenge for me to...