We no love you long time….

Again, A looooong lapse in posting, mostly due to feverishly working to get projects out. However, the holidays (and a freak blizzard) have allowed some time to get caught up on project updates. A lot has changed over the past year, project volume, artist rosters, and most importantly, future focus.

The work will continue to be churned out to the same high standards, but an additional focus will be on idea/concept generation. This isn't necessarily towards the end of profit, but rather to flex the art muscles. One key thing I see many (commercial) artists falling into the trap of is becoming artisans as opposed to artists. You can be a master of executing a project within a set of parameters dealt out to you by a contractor, but can you create? If you're just an artisan, you can easily be replaced by someone of equal or greater capability...or these days, someone of equal or greater capability living in another country with a lower standard of living...and thus cheaper fees. One must be able to define their value outside of project execution. Efforts *must* be made to establish oneself as a creator of ideas in order to create more value to clients. Once your standing with them has moved from artisan to artist, their wellbeing is at least somewhat directly related to yours, and vice versa. It keeps the natural march towards internal corporatism at your larger clients from resulting in you being on your keester looking for work. This isn't to say that this march is either good or bad...it just is. Learning to successfully navigate through or around it will only be to your advantage.

To sum it up, anyone can draw Wonder Woman or Wolverine....but those who get and keep the work are those that maintain a fan base derived from bringing uniqueness to the table. One of the foremost artists who have mastered this is Adam Hughes. He's long ago left the "artisan" label behind and moved into full-blown "artist" territory, and thus insured security in his field. We all must follow in kind if we're to maintain any measure of longevity in our chosen niche. Food for thought....