It’s been a while since I updated this here! FYI I’ve been using my Patreon as my work diary blog for the last year or more. Go there to fill in the blanks!
I wanted to post a general career update here, things have changed! After 7 years of paying the bills in part by teaching art part time at Syn Studio, I decided it was time to find something more lucrative.
I’ve lived through a few economic down turns now at 50, and the one’s I weathered the best were when I had solid full time work of some kind. The school was not willing to host more classes by me or pay for my prep time, even was reducing my classes in the wake of the pandemic so that simply wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
And while I’m still with Three in a Box, and had hoped for more, freelance illustration work has not been forthcoming this cursed year.
So when I was talking with my old friend Eric Theriault on discord and he mentioned Oasis, the local studio he works at was gearing up for a new season of F is for Family, I got their HR info from him [application portals suck and given I’m a high-school dropout they always screen me out before anyone sees my work], wrote a friendly cover letter and sent them some samples. I got asked to do a test, which went well because they hired me on the spot!
These three images are the test art I did.
So the last few weeks now, about a month I’ve been working full time designing props for F is for Family pre production for season 5. All goes well when full production kicks in I’ll be supervising the dept. Exciting and while a bit intense deadline wise, I’ve been managing well I think? The work is all remote so still in my studio at my desk. I am having to get up much earlier than has been my norm for the last 20 years though, find Saturdays are becoming the sleep deficit catch up day.
I wouldn’t call it hard work but there’s a lot of it to do! Honestly though compared to my personal stuff which is very labor intense, I enjoy the relative simplicity of commercial animation art. And it’s offered a few fun challenges along the way. I’m also looking forward to training on Harmony around the holidays.
I don’t have a lot of time left after work for my own stuff now, but I do have lots of gas in the tanks at the end of the day creativity wise. Same experience I had working at Nelvana in the 90s. So still working away on personal stuff in my spare time, slower than ever but eh, that’s fine. Here’s a chunk of a wordless story I’ve been working on for Mind Engine recently.
I’m still teaching one class a week of cartooning, but it will be my last class for a while when it wraps up in 5 weeks. I loved teaching but it also always feels good to change things up when it comes time.
I’ll be halting all patreon payments, probably as long as I’m doing this job? I can neither work on my own stuff fast enough to justify them i feel, nor need the $ right now. But I’m still updating the blog there and will post what I do get done.
I’m not sure if you’ll still be charged for the first time if you pledge right now, but for sure that will be the only time for a while, so might be a good time to join my Patreon and read the over 400 pages of comics and get all my updates in your inbox?
My YouTube just passed 10k subscribers and I’ll still be updating there when I can too so if you haven’t, go subscribe and hit the bell!
There’s also a series of interviews I’ve conducted with Sam Noir just before the new job started that I’ve got to edit, and will be hopefully not the ONLY episodes of a new Sequential Vodcast/Podcast program, it has it’s own channel here and you can catch them via the Sequential site or FB page. I’ve already published a short version of our talk with Ho Che Anderson, which a text version as well can be found in Issue 7 of the magazine!
See you all around the inter-tubes!
Max