A Year of Waking Up Late

Because my mom's blue pen beats the crap out of all my pencils! (One of the pages from my current two hour daily practice session)

Today marks the 1st anniversary of my freelancing career. I wanted to celebrate this by sharing one of my old blog posts from DA about why I wanted to set up my own studio but for some weird reason I can't seem to find that old entry.

So, instead of that, I'll just share with you something that's kinda relevant:

My Wishlist from March 17, 2008 (And how's life right now)

1. Wish I could wake up at 8 am because I hate waking up at 6:30 to get to work.
     - Yeah, I hated waking up early. 8 am was like this magical time for me to get up. On days that I'd wake at 8 I feel so... for lack of a better term... fluffy. It's like all of my problems have been washed away and the rest of the day would be magical. Now I wake up between 9 and 10 am and start work at 11, so yay, one down!

2. Wish I could be free from the 9 to 6 work life, because really, who wants to live like this?
     - I guess what I really hated from living the 9 to 6 life was the fact that you can't really do much of the stuff that I need or want to do in life after office hours. You can't go to the bank, can't go to the dentist, can't be at the mall at 10 am and go hunt for stuff when there's not a lot of people there yet, can't eat noodles in  Binondo at a whim (Kris, Kat and I just did that yesterday, my brother and I did the same two weeks ago hehe), can't work on a kit while working ( Because a 10 minute break every hour helps to improve focus) plus a plethora of other things but I think you guys get the point.

3. Wish I had my own hobby/work room, because I'm accumulating stuff  and I'm messing up the house.

Problem Solved :)

4. Wish this internet connection would stop acting up.
    - Yeah well, it's still acting up hehe.

5. Wish I had a lightbox.
    - I'm using an old plastic board I bought when I was still working in animation with a lamp under it and set-up in front of my monitor when I need to draw pages so I guess I kinda got this already... but I think I may have to get something sturdier and larger in the next few months.

6. Wish I had a larger scanner, because I hate tiling my drawings.
    - Not anymore! Well, not quite... I still do not have an A3 scanner but I've gone around to that problem of scanning large pages so no more hassles for me in this department.

7. Wish I had a Mac setup.
    - Still thinking about this... but me being an android fan and not willing to spend that much money for power I can get at half the cost I guess this will have to be sidelined for the next few years.

8. Wish I was working on a Linux machine (just for the heck of it... I just might do this in the very near future)
     - I have one but it's wonky right now... I'll be working on it this weekend though :)

9. Wish I had a Cintiq, that's pretty much self explanatory.
     - I wish!

10. Wish I had a dual lcd monitor set up.
     - Done, and it's helped me a lot.... It gives me the power to Facebook while watching anime, watch documentaries while painting and helps me work faster on my documents (because BryanBoy loves his spreadsheets)

11. Wish I could work faster.
     - I like to think that I've gotten faster but I still see a lot of areas that need improvement. The hard thing about working at home and alone is that you sometimes lose track of time. Recently I've been paying closer attention to how much time I actually spend on tasks and I try to mark them in 15 minute and one hour increments so I can understand better the stuff that I spend the most time on.

12. Wish I had tons of money.
     - Ah... that one... I have time, but not enough money hehe! While the financial side of things has been better these past few months there is still a long way to go. I've talked to some of my freelancer friends and it really is true, the first year is often the hardest financially. But it does get better and the longer you stick to your game the higher the rates normally go. Still, not a ton of money but I can say that its a whole lot better now than when I started last year.

13. Wish I had a Beetle, both the old and the new.
     - The Beetle... this one I think I have to let go for now. It's nowhere near the top of my priorities but I promise to myself that once the more important stuff have been taken care of I'll get one for myself.

So it's been a year and what's the most important thing that I have learned? I think it's what you do when you're away from client work. It's a hard lesson and one that I am still learning right now. Most client work can't be posted unless the project has already gone public and most of the time this takes months, even years. The personal projects are the ones that will generate clients so it's actually more important than the paid gigs, plus you get to choose what art to make to address areas of weaknesses in your portfolio.

To wrap it up I'd say going freelance is a good thing if you're prepared for it. I'd say drawing/painting after office hours is always the first step. I missed a company outing before because I needed to finish some pages and I don't hang out after office hours during my last year of being employed because I needed to study. I may have lost some "life" during those years but it's price I paid for the life I am living right now.