3 KEYS TO ARTISTIC EVOLUTION
Adaptability. Foresight. Perseverance.
I come back to these three things time and again when I look at the past, present, and future of my career. Sprinkled with a little luck, and to be honest, I may not have had the gleaming successful career that I had imagined but it's certainly been interesting. Why is that?
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A few years ago I sent out a pitch for a graphic novel that I’d poured everything into. Suffice it to say, nobody...and I MEAN NOBODY wanted to publish it. I felt pretty bad about it as everything I'd been doing in comics was training for this one book. In fact, if I could have gotten it published, I could have walked away from comics and called it good. But it didn't work out that way.
A few months later, Diamond Distribution, the sole distributor of comics, was shuttering its doors because of the worldwide pandemic. That meant COMIC SHOPS WERE GETTING NOTHING. Retailers, truck-drivers, printers, creators were all being hung out to dry, and people scrambled to find an alternative form of income and entertainment. I saw well-respected pros, overnight put up websites soliciting their "comic book skills" to a wider market. You could smell the fear.
They knew their business very well...and in many cases THAT'S ALL THEY HAD. My heart went out to those talented souls at Marvel because 1/3rd of their books were cut soon after lockdowns started happening. And not only is that a lot of books but think about just the creative end of a lot of books. A typical book has 5-8 (creatives/editorial) people on it…times what, 30 or so titles. On a low-end, that's about 100 people affected. Who will probably not have work to go back to after the dust settles either. There was a lot of uncertainty.
Enter ADAPTABILITY. It's all well and good to solicit your "very specific skills" in hopes of reaching other markets, but if you know nothing or very little about those markets you're going to be starting at the bottom, again. That's why it's good practice to keep an eye out for other opportunities to try. It reminds me of the question from a lot of artists entering the market:
Do I become a GENERALIST or a SPECIALIST?
Do you like working and making money and doing a wide variety of projects? Become a generalist.
Do you just want to rock the world with cool drawings of girls and robots and nothing else but expand it into product lines, stores, animation, etc and hope the money will keep flowing as you explore your new ideas. Strive to become a specialist.
Both paths are interesting, and, in some ways, people can cross over because they're that MEGA-TALENTED!!!
I am hard-working but not MEGA-TALENTED. And I don’t have that gift of marketing that some seem to naturally slide into.
I wanted to specialize but I also wanted to try a lot of things, worried that if I didn't have the “THING” people wanted to hire me for, then I'd be struggling.
I did not want to be struggling.
In my early 30s I had a very wide skill set which in the early days of internet websites, I was trying to show I could do it all. That was totally a bonehead move. My work was consistent but I wasn't helping any Art Directors by being so broad. It took me another 5-10 years to narrow down my client focus in the areas of Pre-production Art which included:
Concept Art & Design
Storyboarding
Video Cut-Scenes/Editing
At the core of it, I wanted to be a storyteller, and I thought these avenues would scratch that itch and make me decent money. What was great also is that in my free time I could:
Do business development (bizdev)
Study a new skill
Learn new software
Network w/people
Attend Industry Tradeshows
It's these types of things that will keep you and your skills growing in the right direction. By reading trade websites and magazines, you can see patterns where your industry is trending. This FORESIGHT will help you create inventive ways to add to your portfolio.
Here's an example. On a lot of social media, people will post FANART for a movie that is going to be announced with a famous actor, comic character or what-not. People rush to get the LIKES by creating faux movie posters, prints of said posters, sketches for sale and the like. One idea I had for instance, to get even further along in that game that I thought might be fun, is to look at the slate of films to come from big studios on IMDB and start developing my own concepts for what might be in the movie. That way...I have a section of work on my site that I can pull from when online film journals start doing the press tour for the film and I can pull potential clients in by posting the work on LINKEDIN.
Taking time for this kind of creative prediction is not only fun, but it keeps you thinking how you can be a part of the conversation and who knows, it may pay off in unexpected ways.
PERSEVERANCE is what gets you through the tough times. Whether it's learning something, or having to work on a project that is not in your wheelhouse it's important to stick with it. It's the only way we learn. Whether we win, lose, fail or overcome the odds there's a good chance you'll have something worth ruminating on. Here's a few questions I ask myself:
Should I ever do a job like that again?
If I do this again, will it be easier? (Most likely)
Was the growth painful or did it dissipate?
Was the ROI (return on investment) worth it?
Looking back on the work, was it challenging in a good way?
Looking back on the work, do I like the results?
It's easy to dismiss something that we do not like or feel anxiety around but that can be a very short-sighted view. In the 90s I remember people saying, "Fake it, 'til you Make It!" which suggested lying to get in the door and then figure it out. I hated the idea. It felt dishonest, but to some degree the sentiment of going in, not being an expert, but having ALL 3 OF THE ABOVE KEYS will certainly keep your career in play in this ever-changing world.
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