As some of you know, Kevin and I (UOVO) are busy at work on our own, partially funded, super-duper-secret project. Which is great. But, since it’s partially funded, we still have to tend to client work.
We’ve said “No, we can’t right now – but please call again” quite a few times to new, and old, clients. We’ve also tended to some of our bigger clients, and new exciting ones, by working them into our production schedule, or postponing production for them until our own production is done.

Mixing in client work works pretty well right now, for two reasons:

Pleasing Someone Else is Easier
Working on client work requires working in a much more objective way. I can’t just do what I want (much of the time), I have to do what the client wants, in a way that pleases them. Personal pleasure comes in second. Being efficient becomes the main goal.

Time is Money
It’s a matter of being economical, too. Working for clients does involve the matter of profit, and the more time spent on a single assignment, the less the profit.
Setting a deadline pretty close to the start date, means you better get started; now.
The old adage: “1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration” (even if it is about “genius”, and not about being creative, per sey… but let’s just say you’re a “creative genius”) is true. At least half of the time. Another one is: “Necessity is the mother of invention”. That’s pretty good too.

Planning, e-mailing, anticipating screwing up; and asking for more time, answering e-mails, taking care of family, eating, making sure you get some sunlight and fresh air – all need doing; and you need to meet that dealine. If you don’t – there’ll be hell to pay.
Well.. not “pay”, really. You won’t be any wealthier if you miss it.

Working for someone else just gets you going. You just do it.

Case in point: when a client says, “no rush” – make yourself a deadline anyways. Otherwise those nice clients’ projects just get pushed further and further into the future.

Working for yourself is a dream. Wake Up!
Working on your own project, unless you are maniaically obsessed by it, working alone, and are doing it soley for your own pleasure, is frikkin’ hard. Now, I am not saying we’re having a hard time of it, ourselves. Considering what we have to cope with, we are coming along fine, really. But I have noticed that we are our toughest client so far.

Personally, we have a lot invested in our little idea, and we want it to work.
At my age, I want to make something that I believe in, that makes a mark, and that leaves an impression for years to come. That’s a tall order. I don’t have a problem with it, really. But after so many years working in production, I know how much time it takes to make something work, and we can’t afford any false-starts. Everything we make has to be useable.

I tend to work off-the-cuff. By that, I mean I work fast and I don’t spend much time sketching in detail before I commit to a design on the computer, and I rarely re-do anything. Instead, I tweek. I move stuff around, add more colour, details, extras. But the base work is there from the start, pretty quickly.

Because this project has so many elements to contend with, and our ambitions run high – I found myself wanting to make something wonderful. I wanted to give myself the luxury of taking the time to do it right. Figure out the details, make it rich. This is where I get in trouble. What I am finding out is; that is not the way I work. And this is not the time for me to start changing the way I work. There isn’t time.

Stick To What You Know
One of the pitfalls of doing something new, (“new” being something big and exciting) is wanting to do it differently; doing it in a way you wish you knew how to, and thinking this is the perfect chance to learn that skill.

Don’t try to learn something new when you have a deadline, or a job, to do. Learn it when you don’t need it. If you see you need new knowledge – get it between jobs. Don’t try something new when your work depends on it.

You know how to walk, right? Do it every day? Know how to run, too? Let’s say you realize you have to be somewhere really soon, and you have to catch a bus to get there. You wouldn’t try to run to the bus stop on your hands would you? That wouldn’t be very efficient. You wouldn’t try to build a bike for yourself (biking would be quicker after all) either, would you? No. You’d miss both the bus, and the appointment. Just run. You’ve done it before, and you know how it works. You know the outcome before you even start.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with enhancing what you can do now. Maybe you can pick up some trick that makes you run faster. Maybe there’s a shortcut to your appointment, that you just thought of. Do THAT. That’s a good use of time and energy.

It’s the same with self-induced work. I mean work that you expect others to actually see, use, and enjoy. You’ll get it out there faster, and better, if you do what you do best the way you know how to do it.

Why do I go on about this?
Well – in starting production, I made that very mistake. We set a deadline for ourselves that was a few months away (usually we have deadlines that are “Now” or a week away), and I felt I had all the time in the world to do what I wanted. I half-filled a sketchbook with fancy sketches of scenes, and embellished them with watercolour. They turned out alright, but what I noticed afterwards; was I didn’t know how to get on with producing the stuff on the computer.

I had thrown a rather large wrench into my own routine.
I don’t know how it is with other creative types, but when my routines get futzed with, I short-circuit. I blow a fuse. I get stuck in the mud. I can’t go on. I have to start again.

Starting again is a pain. But, when you catch yourself early enough, you can get back on track without losing too much time. Now that our deadline is getting closer, I’ve had to reassess that fancy approach to the work, dump it, and just get on with doing what I do as fast as I can, without making anything too fancy.

I figure once I’m done, I can start embellishing. That will be nice.

- I just ran my little picture above past Kevin to see if he understood the reference – and he did – and then he mentioned, “the funny thing about that is; you drew it instead of doing what you were supposed to be doing”. Funny guy. True, though;)

Now- back to those deadlines!