#somehow managed to finish very old wip in between commissions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

maddiebiscuits · 4 months

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i don't know how to phrase this any other way so i hope you don't find this rude or anything: you are (imo) a very skilled, very prolific art toaster. it's great quality artwork obviously, but your turnaround is wicked crazy fast to me. what does burnout look like for you? how do you manage to toast so many arts? what dark magics must you employ??

The hard truth is I worked in journalism for two years between 2010-2012 and customer service/hospitality starting at 16 years old in 2007 all throughout my life until 2022 and I don't want to go back to any of it now that I'm almost 33 - that's the main motivator to keep my freelance gig career doing art commissions going as long as possible. Fear and loathing of going back to that work environment keeps me focused.

In action...I'm not quite sure if I ever experience 'burn out'? I do experience art 'block' in that I can't think of anything to draw on my own or feel really unsatisfied with my work...so I just goof off with my canvas or do studies, but this doesn't interfere with doing commissions where I am told what to draw.

I just enjoy the physical act of drawing. Sometimes when I'm bored and restless and going for a walk doesn't help, I just draw more. When I was a kid I would just come home from school and draw crap between playing Gameboy/N64/Gamecube or browsing Elfwood/Newgrounds/DeviantART/Gaia Online, so it's literally just a habit now. If I don't draw for a long time I feel anxious and unwell. Somehow I just programmed my brain to think that art = leisure fun time, even if it's for work. I also tend to get into a "zone" sometimes and just put on video essays or music and a few hours later I'll have worked through some commission stuff.

I have three 'task lists' for my workflow:

A public trello board organized by work order types (N/SFW link)

A personal trello board organized by type/date in chronological order

A coloured tagging and folder system in my emails where I can just see the actual dates/timestamps of my last correspondence with a client so I know exactly who in my taskboard needs to be prioritized for their next WIP update

I hold myself to a standard of sending a client a WIP in stages:

rough draft (1-14 business days)

revisions (1-5 business days)

line art (1-14 business days)

revisions (1-5 business days)

final render (1-14 business days)

tweaks (1-2 business days)

So ideally, the client gets a finished commission in 3-6 weeks, so about 1-2 months. For larger projects I send more WIPs and the process is obviously longer. For simpler stuff like chibis, it's rarely a full six weeks. Over holidays I add an extra two weeks to my noted turn-around to account for IRL time off. On all my terms of service I have a maximum four months turn-around, essentially doubling the time I know my work flow is just in case there's some sort of medical or equipment emergency in my life that I need to account for that gives me a buffer (I also notify all clients)

Monday to Friday I wake up usually...late morning/early afternoon? I do anywhere from four to eight hours of artwork, broken up by walks, stretching, eating, cleaning, cooking, hanging out with my partner, etc. I look at my personal trello taskboard and emails to see what must be done and what can wait. I try to get at least 1-2 things done in a day though, be that sketches/line art/renders/revisions.

Right now I am looking at my email and task board, and the client with the highest wait time chronologically is someone who is waiting for their final render (sketch and line art already revised and done for them). Last email correspondence with them on the email says 9 days ago (so 7 business days, I'm supposed to take Sat-Sun off). Their order was paid in full and confirmed by me on November 9 and it is currently December 13, so I'm at about the 5 week mark (not accounting for delays in clients getting back to me of course) and I am very much On Course for my work load, no one has been without contact from me for 14 days or more so I'm pretty ahead of my game right now! I could take tomorrow off if I wanted, or only do 3-4 hours of work if I feel like it.

However the more work you finish and post, the more you show prospective clients your ability to finish orders and show your audience more art for engagement, so ideally I always like posting stuff when I can, it just creates a cycle of positive production and income.

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