Color of Life

Color
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

I am procrastinating on much needed study time - at work - by writing this so you better enjoy it. I don't care if the content is nigh meaningless, you WILL enjoy this or so help me...

Much of the free world knows by now about the biggest event in the house since Ralph Furley took over the apartments. Ms. A and Miss LA broke up. It's only just resolved and Miss LA is now living in her own place. There was a lot of moving and crying and she said/she said, but as of now it's done, as least property wise. The two mixed a lot of pots and pans and pennies and while Miss LA and her dog are gone, there are remnants.

For my part I'll miss her. We'll still hang out when she has time but her presence was seldom a problem for me. I say seldom because that first little while after they started dating was still awkward for me. But over time we grew to like each other. I have a hard time hearing the stories from both sides about who did what and I feel bad not being more involved, but it's my nature to avoid causing people harm and through my inaction I feel I'm causing the most people the least amount of grief.

Aside from that, I'll let them tell their own stories on their own blogs.

Tiger Lily and I are doing just great. We've been assembling larger quantities of Lego, studying together, seeing movies, playing video games, watching sci-fi shows, just generally being very geeky. I think it's starting to make people a little sick of us. But I for one don't care, I'm very happy.

But other events are conspiring to make my life hellacious. Work is ramping up and as I commented to someone earlier, I'm barely competent enough to keep up. I feel at times overwhelmed, as though if I pause in the major workloads, I'll succumb to the pressure and beg to be terminated just to get relief. My work ethic is combating with my procrastination. There will either be triumph or epic failure. (Dad, don't read too much into that, I'm being poetic. My job is fine.)

I have some geeky news to report as well.

A couple weeks ago I moved my drawing table from my bedroom to the garage. I was getting no Robot Portrait requests and the few drawings I was doing didn't require an entire setup. I could do them on the kitchen table just as easily. This made room for some much needed Lego storage. Now, I have a fantastic amount of space in my small room and I'm in no danger of standing on any plastic bricks. I've pretty much abandoned my drawing in favor of building. I consider both artistic, one is just nerdier and more expensive.

So the other day I was submitting a link to Neatorama, a site I frequent, and I noticed a typo. So I emailed and asked if that could be changed before being published. The reply was that it couldn't, but the post would be checked and changed on their side so no worries. Then the replier, Alex, said he loved my Robot Portrait drawings and asked if I'd like to do a collaboration with him. After looking him up, I realized it was the founder of Neatorama, Alex Santoso.

Now, it may not seem like much, but being recognized on teh intarwebz is a huge deal. There's the rule of 1000 that states you work your ass off to be noticed and hope that your craft or talent is enough to sustain you, but once you reach 1000 fans, your notoriety will sustain itself and you don't have to work so hard to reach people.

My example would be internet favorite Adam Koford, or ApeLad.

Before the 700 Hoboes, before Areas of My Expertise, Adam likely did very well as a cartoonist, getting commissioned work regularly and with a steady client base. But the 700 Hoboes and his sudden association with Boing Boing and John Hodgman put more eyes on his already fantastic work. Then he created the spectacle that is the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats and now he's a household name...among savvy internet users.

The point being, his work is well known now and he likely doesn't wait long in between requests for work. He's likely backlogged and maybe even has to refuse requests if they don't fit his workload. He hit that tipping point where by more than 1000 fans are able to, by linking and talking and posting about him, sustain his freelance independence. He likely doesn't have to work very hard to maintain a client list now.

(In all honesty, this is all assumption. I know very little about Adam. He works for Disney in Utah doing character design for games so I doubt he actually has to do a lot of commission work. What I know of him I've extracted from posts online. Please don't think we're roommates. Mr. Furley can't find out.)

The irony is, I'd put all my art supplies away because I wasn't using them. In an errant post about Lego (my rekindled passion du jour) I stumble upon something that might require me to draw more than ever.

Of course it could amount to nothing. Alex himself even said that it would probably not amount to more than a couple a month, so we'll have to see. But in the mean time, keep an eye on the Neatoshop and hopefully you'll see my work there very soon.

Carry on.