Another reason I avoid commission work is I do not yet know what it will take to produce art on command. When I completed my first book, and especially my second, I thought I did. But I am no longer certain.
Taking a commission is making a promise. I’d rather not make it unless and until I know I’m going to keep it.
Constant good-natured advice from my wife, and the results of my own projects have taught me both that I need to be able to flit from project to project like a butterfly, and I need to be able to double down on a project with a “Hell or High Water” attitude. I can’t just adopt one approach; I have to do both. Which means every personal project needs a tinkering phase and a production phase so I can delineate which mode I’m in.
Hat Trick is going to be so much better because I didn’t begin production on it right away. I can recognize now that the climax needs work. I.E., adding a real climax would be a start. I knew it at the time I storyboarded it. But I was too burnt out and desperate to finish to pay the nagging doubt heed. I needed the emotional space that only time could provide to make that call.
So, we need 3 kinds of phase:
- Tinker Phase
- Just playing around
- Project is free to be continued or abandoned or scrapped for spare parts
- Draft Phase
- Goal is to create a complete thing, from beginning to end, at lowest quality needed to get the idea across.
- Work fast. Finish.
- Project is not free to be continued or abandoned: the draft must be completed.
- But, once the draft is completed, the project must be set aside for at least one month, and then evaluated. Options include:
- Abandon
- Additional draft
- Produce
- Production Phase
- Kickstart projects. If the Kickstarter fails, the project may be set aside and put into production later.
- Once the Kickstarter is finished, if production continues, production receives Hell or High Water commitment.
So, what does this mean for my current mess?
I’ll get back to you.
