@nyrrylcadiz said in March Prompt "Book Cover":

his is exciting! I’m thinking some fairytale or the little prince.

My wife just demanded that I do The Little Prince!

My workplace has been organized and cleaned up (made easier by the fact that I just did so before we started going through this book). Doing so made me realize what are the two biggest Open Loops I deal with: on a daily level it's piles of clean clothes all over my work area (we're great at doing laundry, but terrible at folding it and putting it away), and on an annual level it's tax season, which is just gonna have to be sporadically open until all the documents come in and we can file. But at least now I've got all the forms I have gotten so far filed away, ready to go.

And for a quick circle back to Idea Debt, I'm trying something new. At work I've labeled and set out an "Andrew's Idea Debt" jar, so that when I or any of my team members come up with a fun idea/project that I don't have any time for, I'm writing it on a slip of paper, folding it up, and placing it in the jar. I'm curious to see how this works out long-term, but so far, it's been a relief letting these ideas go to the jar.

The concept of idea debt really resonates with me. Because I do so many things (professionally and for fun), I always have more ideas than time, so most stuff gets catalogued in the back of my head only to resurface a couple times a year. Here's the list of just the stuff I've been thinking of doing/have started working on within the last 6 months:

• “Big” digital painting for SVS
• Short sci-fi comic to serve as a prologue to a larger graphic novel
• Series 2 of “Bad Apples” acrylic paintings
• Disney fan art digital paintings for my family
• Flat Pop Portrait collections: Star Wars, Disney Animation, Pixar, Quentin Tarantino, Guardians of the Galaxy
• Hard boiled/film noir fantasy screenplay
• Translate Bad Apples paintings and Inktober illustrations to t-shirt designs
• Write and record an alternative rock album
• Creative a series of super short cartoons for my animation/motion graphics portfolio
• Curate/strengthen/add to my illustration portfolio
• Write and illustrate these picture books: The Wood Sprite, The Knight’s Son, an alphabet book. an animals around the world bedtime book, a polar bear christmas book, and an inner city twist on Little Red Riding Hood

I'm really looking forward for later on in the book where we'll work on trimming down to focus on what we can actually get done, and to see all the great ideas that come out of the artists on this thread.

I'm most active on instagram: @aj.illustrates

@demotlj I found the core of my dilemma is a loop as well. Mine goes something like this:

Why don’t I get 1.5 hours of illustration work done a night?
Because the kids take forever to get to bed.
Why does it take them forever to get them to bed?
Because they’re not on a set bedtime routine.
Why aren’t they on a set bedtime routine?
Because my wife and I are exhausted when we get home from work.
Why are we exhausted when we get home from work?
Because we stay up too late?
Why do we stay up too late?
Because the kids take forever to get to bed.

This was a really easy loop to fall into once we had our second child (they are 6 and 4 now). However, assessing the trade-offs really makes it obvious what I need to do. For example, the trade-offs for keeping things the way they are now are that I can be lazy and chill with my kids as the evening ticks by, but I feel guilty for
not putting the work in, clients may possibly have to wait to receive proofs, I dread work piling up because of that, and I end up resenting my wife and children for not helping me get to my evening illustration work. However, the trade-offs for solving the problem are accepting the initial resistance, blow-back, and stress of enforcing a consistent bedtime routine, but I'll (eventually) have more time for and pleasure in my illustration work, with the added bonuses of having happy, rested children and more one-on-one time with my wife.

Late to the party, but here's Christmas coloring page I made for the kids at my church. Happy New Year!

@amelia-bothe This is real great start! The thing that I notice is the right foot. It feels like it should be up on its heel a bit, rather than flat on the ground. And perspective wise, it should be larger, since it’s closer to the viewer. The rabbit and the face in particular are fantastic.

@kristin-wauson I really like this! My only recommendations at this point would be that the shadow under the child and bear may be a little dark and maybe the child could be turned toward the viewer a bit in order to see some of the face (still keeping the hug of course). I'm excited to see where this goes from here!

I think this is a fantastic idea for those of us who are looking to shift the focus of our careers onto illustration. I'm a full time graphic designer, so my personal website contains a mix of graphic design, motion graphics, and illustration, so having a place on SVS for me to collect JUST my illustration work would be huge for me (and others in a similar situation) while I retool/reorganize my existing portfolio site.

No matter which way you go on the decision, thanks for even considering this!

I’m going to work on 3 things. First, this weekend I’ll be producing a painting for Art Con 14 in Dallas. After that, I’m going to slide into Slowember and take my time translating my acrylic painting style into Photoshop (up until this point the majority of my digital work has been vector based in Illustrator) to produce a new portfolio piece. During that, I’ll also be developing and nailing down character designs for a sci-fi graphic novel, since Inktober brought a little interest my way for comic book work. Basically, I love to keep busy!