15 Minutes a Day
I am now 2 weeks into something I like to call "15 Minutes a Day". As a technical artist I find that I constantly have to remind myself to sit down and draw. This can be a struggle given the fact that it's too easy to say "No, I can't draw right now, I have to do something else first". The problem with this is that if I don't create something with my own 2 hands in REAL LIFE, I feel as if a lot of what I am doing is actually fake. Something about the digital realm of art makes it hard to feel accomplished after spending countless hours on something that is just viewed as pixels. Now, this doesn't mean I don't do digital artwork, it just means that the satisfaction of making something on paper is much greater to me for reasons I don't think i can quite explain.
So what am I doing exactly?
Well, everyday I am sitting down for AT LEAST 15 minutes to do something creative with a traditional media. Right now, it's these amazing Copic grayscale markers I picked up last year. Along with this, I decided I might as well hit the record button and see what happens and possibly try to actually motivate others to do the same as well as forcing myself to get better at managing video editing pipelines and posting / using different social medias. Right now I am 1 week ahead of the actual days which allows me to casually export / setup the videos each week and remain consistent without feeling the burn of the constant pressure to grind each day. This means that I am 2 weeks strong so far and 1 week released.
Here is the official playlist to follow along each day.
What have I learned so far?
Well, as always, the editing / content setup for posting online is the longest part. Essentially right now I am averaging about 3-5 hours to do the final edits which means that more time is going into editing than drawing. So my goal right now is to reduce how long stuff takes to import, edit, and export. I did just cut my render times in half with a new video card and using NVENC H.264 Exporting with a plugin called Voukoder R2 in Adobe premiere. So baby steps. As I get into a flow, then I can start to worry about things like music / more narration / whatever else I can do to add a little bit of polish on top of the videos.
The goals and overall thoughts
I love it, and I don't think I am gonna stop any time soon. The main goal is to feel that accomplishment each day and to possibly motivate others to do the same. Right now, I want to just keep moving forward and making slight improvements as I go to editing process and content creation. If you like the idea and have thoughts on how I can improve it please let me know. I am always willing to hear feedback and want to get peoples overall sense as to whether this is a good idea or not. Thanks and have a great day!