As a follow up to my last post - I'm still alive!
I have been working my full time job for about 6 months now, and I love it. I work with some great people, and I couldn't be happier. This job not what every "Sheridan illustrator" would want coming out of school, and I'm sure some of my peers would look at this job as going backwards in my career. I would have to disagree with them.
Working in a structured environment, it has taken me a few months to readjust my personal life and work life to get comfortable. Of course in this time of adjustment, I didn't do any personal work. That's the truth. Barely even a doodle. But now that I've gotten into the swing of things, I've gotten my personal work back on track. With the experience of working with people on an everyday basis at work, and more knowledge of how a business is run, I couldn't wait to get back into freelancing. I started to pull everything together and collected a couple clients. Some who knew me, but I finally got a client who was a stranger to me. It's a step right? It feels good.
I know that Sheridan prepared us to be freelancers...but they also taught us to only be freelancers. Sure, they spoke of the other jobs that existed, like comic book artists, video game designers and art directors, but those were only for the elite. We were supposed to get our money by sitting on a dock with a fishing pole inside the water of work hoping for a bite. The further into these teachings I got, the more uncomfortable I grew. I wanted financial independence. I wanted a house, and maybe even a family. Of course there are Illustrators out there that are very successful and have been fortunate to have all of these things due to their work. But as much as I loved to draw, the reality hit me that maybe this won't get me to all of my goals in life. Getting back to my point, having the full-time job designing is pretty great, and it allows me to illustrate on the side. I just needed to adjust my definition of "success", and it is different for everyone.
I couldn't be more happier with how things are going, and who knows what could happen in the next few years.
