dalubnie

But I did get a chapter of Thirdborn done! I just have to get around to making an illustration and I should have it uploaded by the end of the this week.

So, how does a chapter with an illustration every other Friday sound?

Also, I have been able to do work on my friend's project.

Why? I’ve been lost for nearly a year. I’ve been looking for a steady job to support my career as an artist, and it feels like every attempt I’ve made has wound up leading to a dead end. First I visited Seattle to find a job as a video game illustrator, only to discover that I am woefully under qualified to do anything remotely game related. Then I tried to find a job in St. Louis with a graphic design firm, only to learn that they were mainly interested in, well, graphic designers and not just any old artist. Finally, I tried to take a step towards becoming an art teacher. I managed to get a job as a studio assistant for St. Louis ArtWorks [link] over the summer, but my subsequent attempts to find a job as a high school substitute teacher were unsuccessful, even when I applied to my own high school.

My parents try to tell me otherwise, but every turned down job application has felt like a failure, and it’s eaten away at my will to apply for more jobs or to even do more art. The only comfort I have is that I still have my part time job at the St. Louis College of Health Careers. 

I’ve made two New Year’s Resolutions. The first is to make some substantial steps towards getting a job. To that end, I’ve signed up for the College of Health Career’s Pharmacy Technician Training Program. I was good at math and science in high school, and my parents are both doctors, so I figured that I might have potential in the field of medicine. Besides, I’ve known artists who had day jobs completely unrelated to art.

My second resolution is to start working on Thirdborn and art in general again. This time I’m going to make Thirdborn a light novel. I’ve already set myself a goal of writing a page each day, drawing one of the characters over the course of a week, and then posting the resulting image and text every Wednesday. In term of other art, there are some family friends that are interested in having me create a comic based off some stories they wrote. 

Maybe I’ll be able to find a steady job and move into my own home by the end of this year. Mayebe not. But one thing’s for sure is that I have to try no matter how much I don’t want to.

Over the weekend I drove up to Chicago to attend Anime Midwest. I did most of the usual stuff that I would do at a convention: exploring the artist alley while showing off my costume, attending the Masquerade to see the cosplay being displayed, attending a few panels (getting a taste of how bad fanfiction can be in the process), and spending the rest of my time playing board games (you should check out "Condottiere" by Fantasy Flight Games). However, the best part of the weekend had to be the fact that my parents drove up with me, meaning that I was able to eat at my favorite restaurants rather than having to scavenge for food at the hotel.

While I'm on the subject of cons, I realize that I haven't talked about my experiences at Anime St. Louis. It was more or less the typical con experience except for the fact that I got to be on the same stage as LittleKuriboh. As one of the guests at Anime STL, he was holding a panel that included a voice acting contests, where random members of the audience would deliver famous quotes from cartoons in various voices. I was part of the second contest, which accumulated in me reciting the Team Rocket Motto in a Dr. Claw voice alongside a guy impersonating Randy Newman. I was a runner up in said contest, and as a result LittleKuriboh gave me a free "Assassin's Creed" t-shirt.

Enough about the past, let's talk about the present. Now that Anime Midwest is behind me, I will have a more free time, and even though much of that time will be spend searching for jobs as a substitute teacher, I think it will be okay for me to reopen my commissions. In addition, I have to upload all the photos I took at Anime Midwest, including ones of my own costume, and some of the work I have done at St. Louis ArtWorks.

I've got commissions to do for and but afterwards I'm going to take a hiatus from that kind of work to focus on my personal life.

There will be 3 things I will be working on over the next month: a pastel portrait for a family friend, by first full-time job at St. Louis ArtWorks, and a costume to wear for Anime Midwest. After that I should have a little time for commissions in-between working on "World Wander."

By now you've probably noticed that it's been a long time since I've done anything on this site. It turns out I was borderline depressed over the fact that my trip to Seattle yielded little to no results in term of a potential new job, and that when I returned to St. Louis I was still a 27 year old man living with is parents and with only a part time job. I had pretty much lost my desire to make any art, and when my Wacom stopped working things only got worse.

 

Overcoming my despair has been a slow process. The first thing to do was continue my job hunt, and I decided to move my search from videogames to a field that I had some familiarity with, education. With the help of some family friends, I’ve been able to find some opportunities that may result in me becoming a substitute art teacher somewhere next year.

 

The next thing to do was find an opportunity to escape from my problems. That opportunity was Anime St. Louis. It was great to dust off my old Heavy costume, walk around with a bunch of freaks like me, and then relax in the board game room when I got tired. I even got to participate in a few panels; I did a Dr. Claw impression for a contest hosted by Littlekuriboh and contributed a few jokes to a “Who’s Line is it Anyway?”-style panel. It also helped that after Anime St. Louis, I was able to attend a 5-year alumni reunion at Washington University, where I met a few of my teachers and classmates from my old printmaking class.

 

The last thing I had to do was figure out what I was going to with Thirdborn. I’ve put a lot of though into it, especially after my Wacom went down, and I’ve concluded that I’m going to throw out almost everything I’ve done so far regarding that universe. Thirdborn is no more. The story will be reworked into World Wander, which will focus on Kara Weslam’s adventures as she explores the various alien worlds of the Nedean Sector.

 

There’s a lot I’m going to do in the near future. My job at the St. Louis College of health careers is going to start again real soon, I have plans to attend Anime Midwest, and I’ve got to get back into making art now that I’ve fixed my Wacom. I’m currently in the process of doing a huge commission for , and afterwards I’ll be starting work on World Wander.