My 100th post!

Awesome, my 100th post, and to celebrate a new painting for you. This one I did just because I love to paint. Most of my upcoming projects can't be shown on the Internet until they have been published by the people that are paying for the project, so I am going to work on doing more "for me" work.

How do you all like this one? I like it. I think what inspired this one is those Ghost hunting shows I've been watching. In a 2 episodes of Ghost Adventures, they made contact with the spirit of a little girl. I remember how sad that was. A little child being killed so young, and her spirit still lingered in our world. I practically cried thinking how lonely she must be. Probably her appearance had became horrible and would terrify anyone who would see her, but inside she was still that sweet precious young child. It's really heart wrenching if you give it some thought.

I am also switching gears as of this painting. It seems like right after Daniel turned me to do some paying work, things went crazy and never let up for 3 years straight. I found myself feeling like a factory, having to turn out one piece after another. Not even able to take a weekend off, unless it was an emergency. I can't even remember the last time i did a piece of work, just because I wanted to see it hanging on my wall. And that's another thing, I've had to do everything digital since I got to Michigan. My workload tripled once I got here. When I got sick last year and was in the hospital, that was a nightmare for me. I was freaking out because I knew I had a mountain of work to do and it wasn't getting done while I was on my back sleeping all day. But they where injecting me with so many drugs, I couldn't help but to sleep.

I do not want to go through that again. Cheryl and I have figured out a solution, and as soon as it comes to pass, I will tell you about it. But we both feel this is the best thing for me and my career. I love what I do and i don't want to find myself in a position to where I have to take on so much work to pay the bills, and the way I have been going about it, that's what has been happening. Now, I will make much more money, and I will not have to push myself everyday to get work done. I will be able to spend more time on my work, making each piece a piece that I am happy with because I had the time to do it right, got paid good and not have to work under so much pressure. I wish I had thought of this 3 years ago. But all things happen for a reason, or at least that's what i think to a point.

This all came about from a post by a friend of mine, Jennifer. She had got offered several thousand dollars for about 40 watercolor paintings. It sounds like a lot of money, but it broke down to where she would be getting 145 bucks per painting. Now first off, Jennifer is a major talent. She does a lot of work for Disney, and she had worked for the company that wanted her to do the watercolors before, and they where VERY demanding and constantly wanting changes. If you know anything about Watercolors, you know it is almost impossible to make changes on the originals. The same with finished pencil work. Digitally, it's a piece of cake, but on the real thing, a real nightmare. 145 dollars for a Watercolor from an artist of her talent is like paying a dollar for the first issue of Superman comics. It's an insult to be quite honest. For the amount of time involved, people in sweatshops in South America make more money.

So Cheryl and I talked about it and said there comes a point to where you have to draw the line. So we decided to go about this completely different, and now I am much more happier an enjoy working again. I am by no means trying to put anyone down here, I am just making a point, and hopefully younger artist can learn from this. To the right side of this page, at the top, you will see links designed to help you. One of them is the standard rates an Illustrator should be paid for their work. Us this as a guide, and don't give discounts. That always bites you on the butt. Most of the time you spend much more time doing an assignment that you first thought, and usually it is not your fault. Make sure in your contracts you have a clause that covers anything "extra" that pops up during the assignment.

In the next few blogs, I will be covering more of the business stuff with you, and talking about the Deadly Dolz and just all the really cool stuff that we have happening. We Love you all. Thanks for stopping by. Peace!