Happy 2014! Just like everyone, I’m reflecting on what happened in 2013 and what I can improve in 2014.
Last year I experimented with how I could improve my work and how to do it more efficiently. Efficiency became key when I was lucky enough to be very busy with illustration work most of the year. I wanted to find the sweet spot between quality and speed. A lot of the blog posts here last year were my explorations in that.
The flip side of being so busy with work was I let my health slip. I stopped exercising. During all-night work sessions I would eat comfort food to get through the stress. My drawing arm and lower back started to ache. I started to realize that if I wanted a long career as an illustrator I needed to take better care of myself.
So 2014 is going to be the year that I figure out how to work smarter. This means I need to figure out a couple of things:
- How to work in a way that causes less stress in my arm and back. I’ve partially solved this problem by buying a monitor arm that allows me to me to use my tablet monitor standing up and at any angle. This has helped my back and my arm a bit.
- I need to figure out a way to work exercise in my schedule so I won’t just drop it when I get busy. I realized that if I keep myself strong, I’ll experience less of those aches and pains of over-working my drawing arm and back.
- I didn’t do any personal projects last year. I want to commit to a project that I can do bit by bit this year so I can push myself as an artist.
You’ll see me post my various experiments in trying to work “smarter” this year. I hope I can figure it out and can report back good ideas.
