Sure, “just doing the work anyway” is something that can be effective if you’ve dealing with mild anxiety about not being good enough at drawing or something. But that sort of anxiety isn’t a mental illness, that’s just part of being human. 😛

What it sounds like @christopherh is asking, is: “How does someone deal with a mental illness that significantly affects their ability to function, while working fulltime as a freelancer?”

Sadly, I don’t think that’s always possible. If anyone reading this doesn’t understand why I might say that, then I’d encourage them to watch “The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive” by Stephen Fry. If you broke your hand, you wouldn’t be drawing until it healed. In a similar way, if you were experiencing a mental health crisis, your energies might be best put towards getting better.

That doesn’t mean that a having a mental illness would necessarily prevent you from creating excellent, meaningful work, or even necessarily from working as a professional. An example of someone with clinical depression who earned a living as a creative writer was Ned Vizzini, who was one of my favourite authours as a teen and sadly committed suicide in 2013.

I don’t know if I really have much advice, other than to be realistic about your limitations, and take care of yourself by working with a licensed psychologist.

Not everyone can handle the same pressures or an intense schedule. If you have a mental illness, you may need to alter your art goals to accommodate your treatment. You may need to develop your drawing skills at a slower pace, by working in bursts when you are able to do so, and taking breaks when you need to focus on your health.

A therapist would probably be able to help you deterime whether or not pursuing a freelance career would be a good idea when dealing with your specific illness.

Thank you so much for the input! I especially like the point about learning the basics before trying to digital work. That is something I had not considered.

@zombie-rhythm Very interesting! I definitely have a lot to learn. Thanks! I live in a fifth wheel and don't have much room for a photo studio but I have been looking things up on youtube. I tried the outdoor method, as shown in my post, and it still looked dark. I tried to match the view to match my colors but it seems it would have been better to oever expose and then it would have come out less dark. I think we're going to try it again. We've done it twice already and, though we increased the ISO and F stop it looked too white to me and didn't look like my art so we turned it back down. Now, it seems we should have left it as it was and it might have turned out better. I used brighten/contrast in GIMP and it looked less dark but th colors were kind of weird and I need to learn more about making adjustments in GIMP too. I have to say I am learnin ga lot with each project I try to complete. This ia a whole new area of learnign for me 🙂

These are all great ideas. I’ve been able to spend more time practicing now that I am on vacation and I’ve found that using the correct brush size and better arm movement definitely help. I’ve also started using a cheap protractor to check and tighten up some of my angles because I often end up with buildings on a slight tilt. Thanks for the help — I’ll keep at it.

@lidia-ull
I absolutely love your work! When I’m stuck or especially when I’m not satisfied with my work, I listen to a book on my audible called Do The Work by Steven Pressfield. Great inspiration and helps explain the resistance you’re feeling.

Thanks for the helpful mini review @smceccarelli ! I don’t draw in vector much at all, so it’s interesting to hear how you found it. Cute illustration, btw! Love her hair.

@laurel-aylesworth Okay, now I'm looking at number 1 and it could be lovely to really get in there and see their facial expressions. You could always do more than one 🙂

@amber-bellerjeau Thanks Amber I did not mean to imply i got placed in big art contests,it was just some small websites contests.I would say to people enter If you really want but just be aware if you see your art in a game a few years from now there is probulary nothing you can do about it

@Christina-Kal There is an app called MagicPoser by Wombat Studio, Inc. 53.8MB. It's a Pose tool for artists. You can test the whole version out 7 days free and get a lesser version for free, and pay the full price (not sure roughly 6-15$ if I recall). When I work with people, I will probably buy its entirety. It has updated (the full version) with props but its cool you can be flexible, rotate, see different lighting, and combing figures. 4.4 Star rating. I use an Ipad Mini.

Check out magicposer.com
Even their videos can really help.

🙂 Heather B.

I've been doing a little project of making post cards for some of my facebook friends. Here are what I've done so far. I am not using pencil at all so they are a bit rough. I sit down, think of something to draw and start roughing it in with water color lines, then I paint and finally do ink.

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![0_1531970856096_37264458_10215427339490188_8376942576766287872_o.jpg]

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Oh, wow, thank you for posting it here!

@amelia-bothe Hi. I know some people here are saying that is ok for your portfolio to have more pieces but I disagree. Is my opinion and I can be wrong, ok?
I se great pieces in there but another not so great. One great piece can bring you work with a lot of luck, one not so good piece take away work from you instantly. Is like a job interview, you can answer perfectly all the questions and perhaps, with a lot of luck, they can hire you, but one and only unfortunate answer and you are out of question.
If you can make great pieces, you know which they are and therefore, which they are not. My advice is to let 10, 12 pieces and take out the rest. And I'm sure that no one has to tell you which ones.
I know that there are great artists with a lot of pieces in his portfolios. First, the pieces usually are all great, and second, they are already in the market, they have work, they have reputation, they have connections, etc. in other words, they can do whatever they want, almost.
I don't really know (I was desconeced a lot of time) where we are with the domain page. Is always better to have your own, but I don't know if now is acceptable to have a Wix domain for work seeking purposes. I know that a few years ago was like a red light but times change so quickly now...
Well, great job. Congratulations!

yes, 8x10 and 10x8 with 32 pages is the most standard size. Of course there are books of all sizes, but that is a good one if you don't have specs from a publisher or are making a book dummy.

Thanks all!!!

@lee-white Cool, thanks!

Had a quick look mate. Very slick. Looking much better. Well done.

I second Andrew's suggestion. The Surface Pro will run full apps...definitely get the i7.

ToonBoom is a pretty popular software for 2d animation and is good to know. They used to have a free version, but I'm not sure if they still do.

For 3d I'm not sure what all the cool kids use now. Blender? Is Maya still a thing? IDK.

It could be helpful to learn Adobe After Effects too, but...

...the MOST IMPORTANT THING is having strong drawing skills and knowing the basics of animation. The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams is a great book to have. No software can make up for lack of fundamentals.

@dottyp Haha for sure! Though, knowing just how much I seem to like re-learning hard & painful lessons over and over again... haha

Thanks! 🙂

Hello all!
I'm submitting an illustration that will be part of a month long exhibition and digital prints are accepted. I will have a large print [25"x25"] that I want to hang unframed but mounted on either gator board or something equally sturdy but inexpensive. I did find this place but would prefer to spend as little as I can and still have a professional lovely looking piece. I know it can be difficult to get a really smooth adhesion, so in this case, I'm not sure I want to DIY.
Does anyone have any recommendations or knowledge of this?