For my fourth creativity opportunity, I chose to dive deeper within my professional skills and try out another children's book. The children's book was a fantastic experience, and it had been a while, at this point, since I did my last children's book, so I decided to see where my skills brought me and began developing a children's book. Of course I didn't get paid for the development part and the team was more than welcoming to my sketches and character design concepts. That was my main goal, to create characters that would be able to reflect the true story the children's book was based off of, while also bringing in a likeness to a specific style of characters.
The style was very Disney-like and I experimented with drawing different ethnicities to expand my diversity in characters, and the client wasn't very helpful. She had a specific idea of where she wanted the project to end up and so to her there were very specific requirements. It was hard work and took weeks to sketch out, then edit, the re-sketch, and then refine, however looking back I'm very grateful for the experience because it not only allowed me to explore my range in character building and take some creative liberties, but also taught me a lesson that even though in the moment I was stressed by the client, I was able to keep my composure and do what was asked of me.
The development opportunity was what later helped me make it into the final sketches, which I did get paid for because it was a proper job, however the character development was completely free of charge. Going into it, I had no intentions of coming out with any monetary compensation, and I didn't for the development part, but I was able to use that as a learning opportunity, which then paved my way to work on the official illustrations for the book which I did get compensated for.
I learned so much about work ethic, creative freedom, and character development that I'll really be able to put to good use, and that I somewhat already have. I've been able to apply everything I've learned to jobs after the project and use it to my advantage to be a more efficient worker and balance my creative freedoms.
Comments