This will be the last part of my ''Back from the Monastery'' Series, about my mentorship with Sam Flegal. This blog will be slightly bittersweet, but not too hard to handle hopefully, haha.
Bear with me.
The Cordyceps King
After a succesful year with the mentorship, ehnancing my skills with art, convensions and web presence, it was time for me to set my first step into the world of big people. I was excited for that, but it didnt go without too ups and downs. It started positively. The piece shown above was the final piece i finished under Sam's guidance. It received the best acclaim of any piece i shared so far. It got a Daily Deviation on Deviantart (my first one!) and i got featured in a French Photoshop magazine. I felt i was in the game!
A few months of work ensued, until a few people i was supposed to work with either werent cancelled or dissapeared from the project due to numerous reasons. I didnt have work for a while. And i felt upset, since i expected alot more after being supposedly having a professional level. I felt bad about it, since i am a pragmatic person. If something in my piece is off, and someone points it out, i fix it. It was harder here, since i did not know what to do after getting the quality of my work to a level i wanted.
I talked with various folks, brainstormed and let the time go by. I concluded the following:
Competition:
When you reach a pro level, and you aren't on top of the food chain, you will have to struggle through it. I barely have contacts in the field i would like to work in, which turns out helps alot on the long run; the Netherlands is more of a comic/graphic design country, which is also why i barley have contacts in the field of art i am doing. I Wondered why i didnt get as many job offers as i could have had, and it turns out art directors tend to hire people way more efficiently when they meet you in real life as well. Emails work way less due to the influx they get each day.
This means i will have to go to other countries to hunt tconventions and the jobs i want on a more efficient way.
When i eventually connected the dots, i calmed and looked at further options to garner my income. Various other seeds besides freelancing have been planted. Besides hunting freelance I am planning to go to more conventions, focus more on print sales, kickstarter and even start a mentorship of my own. All these elements are working slowly atm, but hey, they are working!
Hope these series of Blogs helped you so far. In the future i will try to share something weekly, whatever is on my mind at that point.
All the best!,
JCH
www.joelchaimholtzman.com
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