josie

Yeah at this rate I'd ask for donation to science and then cremation. Pop my ashes in one of these and create a nice place for birds to sh!t on people from. https://www.thelivingurn.com/pages/product I was on the gardening part of amazon using up a gift card and kept coming upon those bio-pod tree things. Now this thread. Uh.. universe... are you trying to tell me something?

Ah, the Canadian sky burial I used to think burying me whole was the only way to go. I was young and still had more beliefs than logic, I think. Now I think about my grandparents, fully embalmed, in their excessively expensive caskets... and it seems worse than cremation in terms of slow decomp and honestly, more of a slow defiling than a natural process. I've been fascinated by forensic anthropology and such for many years now. I would want my body to go to science. Costs money, but I bet the students would have a good time with all my metal parts. Side thought. My parents recently moved out of our family home- 35 years in it. Every beloved pet we had who passed is buried in that garden, and something about them being there really bothers me. I know it's silly. But I think I'd be one of those weirdos that cremates her pet and has the ashes incorporated in a small sculpture or something. Especially as an apartment dweller now.

I don't yet! It might be a bit before I have that sorted out. Testing the template idea with valentines day stuff in the next few days first. I'm hoping to have it fleshed out next month- and I'm working on "guinea pig" jobs right now. But if they have anything specific in mind, feel free to toss me their way! My website doesn't have a lot of wedding friendly examples right now, but it's proof I can draw! It's in my signature below.

Yup, you got it. Keeping it simple to start, just files. Simple illustrations for the SavetheDates. Simple illustrated maps (reception/ceremony locations). Bridal party who's who program stuff, table "numbers" (sit at table 6, or groom's favorite movie- illustration)... Essentially 3 templates to choose from- from simple portrait illustration to full on realistic painting, prices pre-determined with a la carte for additions (add your pet, add a scene, add a certain flower, etc). This way I don't get slammed against the wall by a bridezilla nightmare customization scenario. You get your portraits, names/info swapped in, colors swapped. That's it. You get what you pay for unless you wanna pay more more more. I'll gladly take your money, but I want to offer this as a boon to the cash strapped couple. This industry is absolutely insane- most people I know getting married now are doing it on a tight budget, but still want something nice. I've done some looking. The rustic barn loopy cursive text fad has to die soon. There's not a lot of custom illustration out there, and what there is, I think I can do better.

I made a post last week on social media about mayybe getting into the wedding business and have received 7 requests already. Working on the first one today. Never thought I'd go this route, but I like making people happy and, hey, there's money in that banana stand.

Not dumb at all. I’ve tried to get in with a lot of those sorts of places and never received a response. They usually/always have a guy already and only need the one person. Or they need you on site in whatever big coastal city for games. Still, I went after quite a few of those, especially with my video game background. No dice, yet anyways. Most ad agencies have a dude who mainly does graphic design for them and takes care of their illustration as well. The style right now is flat vector and typography, so no need for a full illustrator. For something different they reach out to freelance- I did a few of those last year. I try to offer myself as a “use me to set yourself apart” service. The only response I’ve received of the good 80+ companies I’ve gone after was from Pegula Sports/Ent last February and I didn’t get past the phone interview. I’m working on organizing better. Offer specific things. I can do anything mostly but I think I’m running into the problem of being too nebulous for easy consumption. Marketing and shizz. Got a friend helping me on that now.

Doublin' down- congrats Liger! Oh absolutely. I see it everywhere. Someone supports cause A/is happy about thing A, person butts in "YEAH WELL DON'T FORGET THE AWFULNESS OF CAUSE B/THING B YOU HORRIBLE PERSON". Take the smile, enjoy it. Savor that sh!t. Pump it up, roll around in it, blast it from the rooftops. There's enough rough crap to go around.

I SHALL OVERCOME seriously come on people go on and on about how cool old school hockey/basketball/whatever programs were with illustrated portraits of the roster, illustration on the tickets were often saved and framed in "man caves", people LooOOoove a good artistic rendition of their team! It's gotta happen again. It's gotta.

I'd personally love that. I've done some work for 26Shirts and enjoyed the fact that I've raised some money for various charities. Maybe there's something there!

haha thank you! I haven't really found a good way to sell directly. I tag the teams/players in work I do, and sometimes it takes off, but even when it does (PK Subban shared the painting I did of him, earned me thousands of interactions), it's never lead to much. Made one or two print sales off the PK phenomena. I'm also shy to go to them because they have cease and desist-ed some of my fellow portrait artists. Technically what I do is probably illegal. Most of the poster companies/pro sports graphics places choose to use photography. It is much cheaper for them, they can pay an intern a few peanuts to hit it with a filter or overlay some type and call it a day. Someday it will be my life's work to make illustration important again (heyday was the 80s). People love it. Companies just don't know they need it.

Unfortunately that's not an option for me right now. I just moved here from Rochester last May. This was supposed to be my "hey a bigger city, with SPORTS!" chance. That and d4rk is well ensconced here, and after 3 years of long-ish distance, I don't want to run off. Rock and a hard place.

;) Oh yeah, since we live minutes from the airport, if they win against the Jaguars, and it's not polar bear's rim freezing out, we might go and greet the jet. Could be interesting.

I agree, but there's not a whole lot of money in it, I'm not sure there ever will be. I'll get more respect from banks/etc once I've had it for 2 years- seems to be the magic number. One year down. No wonder most small businesses fail in the first 3 years- it's daunting as all hell. Speaking of, I'm going to log off and get back to work.

good call. That was here on Tuesday... I sat on Wherle f*ckin' Drive for over a goddamned hour trying to get downtown. Definitely the winds +everyone getting out early + mucky snow. My 35 minute commute took 2.5 hours. But of course, seeing the pileup minutes from my apartment, decided to just count my blessings and enjoy all the podcasts loaded up on my phone.

god, wasn't that a fun read? Love how he failed to mention all the money raised by playoff happy bills fans for charities. I mean, we were driving to a NYE party and listening to the radio, and I said to d4rk how you'd think we'd just won the Super Bowl the way everyone sounded. And we only made it in because of someone else's loss! Tears, joy, all kinds of emotions. I think it's cool. If you give this city even a taste of pride and glory, they'll give you everything they've got. Never been in another area/city/region like it.

I think they did that once at RIT when I was there- windchills were like -30+ or something, they cancelled evening classes. Of course most of us didn't know and went anyway. My class that night was half full, professor was like, well, you're here, let's just hang out if you want. And it was a fun class, so we went to Java's and had a good time. We all joked RIT was getting soft about the weather.

Sometimes it's all you can do, man and thanks. I know I've got the talent, I just have to find the place that wants me. I'm not sure it's in Buffalo though. Or i just don't know the right person. In the meantime, the bills, they pile. I was doing some banking and my god, they make you feel like absolute sh!t when you have a 16k income. Especially since it used to be 50k. It was very much a "why are you even here" feeling. "Don't you have ANY other source of income????" asked and called multiple times. No. No I don't. I'm sorry. I'm a waste of space. Jesus. "what is your job? oh, self employed?" And you can hear them thinking "probably sells some MLM lularoe BS and calls herself a boss babe" still better than working for my old company i guess.

Eh, just all the upbeat new year glitter has worn off and I'm staring down another year of struggling to make ends meet. I'm not hopeful to find a job. No one ever buys prints- certainly not enough to make it worth it. All the employed artists I know are just factories pumping out inspiring messages and it's like.. yeah, easy for you to say, you have a paycheck and a future and don't feel like a drain on your goals/relationship/feel worthless. I have to do better this year. I'm praying I get a few good clients and big jobs. Considering trying to crack into the wedding industry- people love to part with their money for their big day, but I'm still not sure how to go about executing my ideas for that. I'm terrified. Feels like a giant black hole is swallowing me up.

Word is McCoy is practicing. I didn't know that before I decided to draw him today, but here ya go

I appreciate it. Even if we close and I just want to wait it out for a bit. I'll let you know. I'm more worried about my boss if she gets here. Eastbound 90 is now over 100 cars piled up. We'd be done by 9-ish, but by then who knows. I'd probably host her at my place so she can hop on the 90 in the morning.

God. Browns fans. Every time I go home, we pop by a local sports bar. Last couple times I was there were Sundays, so I was in my Bills garb and they in their Browns attire. Even though we made the playoffs this year, there were lots of exchanged knowing glances and "I know how you feel, bud"'s which usually turned into talk about the Red Wings fall from grace and the Sabres just Sabre-ing. But most of those people are also OSU fans so they can suck it.

I'm about to brave my way in it to get to the studio. Boss drives in from Rochester to teach (the huge pileup is on the Eastbound side). Gonna be a fuuuun night. Do we cancel classes and lose money? Or hold them and see what happens? Think we'll only cancel if she can't get here or they issue a travel ban. Be safe tonight if you're out!

I dunno, might just up my popularity. Dick watermark trading cards. Get the chode edition- has wide appeal! side b!tch- I hate watermarks. I get the use, absolutely. but to make it big enough that it would take a lot of time/effort to photoshop it out usually ruins the work. It's like "hey guys check out my new piece that you can't see under this giant sort of transparent logo woo admire my detail" Just gotta rely on the sometimes sour milk of human kindness.

Nah, which is why I won't do anything but gripe about it. I guess it's just, if you like it that much, kick me some money. I've had this happen before, it just always irks me a bit. I'd only bother with legal action if they were selling it themselves. Re: the breastfeeding thing- it's always a bit shocking because we're conditioned to see t!ts only sexualized or in a National Geographic setting. Breastfeeding is using the sweater pups for exactly the reason they exist. When I see it in the wild, I just go "oh" for a second and then get over it. I guess ask me in a decade when I face doing it myself. I'll probably be too tired/dealing with a fussy baby to give a sh!t what other people think about my milk engorged painful sacks of mammary glands being out in public, depending on the situation. I'd probably choose to find a quiet/semi-secluded spot just so the baby can be chilled out.

PSA. If you like an artist's work and they offer prints, especially cheap ones, just buy a f*ckin print instead of printing it out yourself. Like, I'm glad you like it, and maybe your print out on sh!tty computer paper will earn me "exposure" (yeah right) but this is my business. And I'm pretty poor. Support your local artists/businesses. It's not the end of the world, but every little sale really makes it so I can eat something besides cereal. Hell, if you're dead set on just printing it out, venmo me like... 5 or 10 bucks. I dunno. Argh.