Hi Everybody !

Ever wandered how frustrating and hard can the concept artist's (or concept designer) work can get?

The answer is MUCHO.

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(All the images are my own creation and so I own the rights of them)

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For this project I had to do several different concept designs of the same character and few over-rendered artworks of these creatures. They had to be so polished that they would look 3D. Because my client didn't have time enough for asking for his 3D artists to model this character before the deadline.

-What do we do this? We have no time! (I bet they said).

-We need a superhero! Let's call Nic Morales! (which is me).

Actually I think it was more like "let's call the only artist that didn't f#çk up screw it up until now so far with the deadlines". (Which was also me).

And so they called me with a very tight deadline...

...but since this was a client that I really like and we know each other for years, I accepted it (and also because I knew that saying no would kill the chances for the upcoming work that I knew they had for me).

Let's stop the bulls%!t fancy talking and let's go to the point.

Five of the almost 15 artworks made just to find the style

See, I want to give you an idea (or at least half of it in this first post) of how frustrating the work of a concept artist can get.

So I don't want to say for what brand this artwork was made or giving too much information about it but just saying to you that this should be a very nasty spider. I know it doesn't look like one, but for this artwork I didn't have the freedom to propose the shapes and play with it. I received the rough line-art sketch. Then I had to clean it up, and paint over it with a veeeeery specific technique and look.

See, this particular brand has its own style. Therefore I couldn't really modify it or upgrade it that much (actually I couldn't at all).

They contracted me just for finishing the pieces that they had in their sketches

Frustrating, I know. But this is job and sometimes you just have to sacrifice a little bit of what you think that is nice and fun for something that is needed or that will open new possibilities in the future. This is the key for being constant with work and upcoming earnings and don't be in lack of any of them.

The story went like this...

...They asked me to make three different concepts from their line-art sketches and polish them and to make them completely beautiful and presentable to win the project from the client (because there is something like a showoff where each studio show their ideas and how to execute them and only one is chosen).

And I did! All along with another set of images that had to look like if they were 3D... but I will show you them in the second part =)

-All this meant to do 6 artworks in less than 3 days.-

...which was a challenge, but it wasn't that hard since they were only characters with no background.

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Everything went just fine... I delivered the work and I was ready to go to the gym. BUT! E-mail Received.

-"Hey Nic, we really like the concepts you sent us. But we gotta change a little bit the design.

-"Sure (I said) how much do we have to change it?

-"Ohh, just the body, the legs and the head"

My face was like this-> d(o_o)b (because I was wearing headphones).

-"And I forgot to tell you, we need it for tonight!" (my client saying this from Argentina... it was night already in Poland)

Well... why not? It's always nice to challenge yourself sometimes... even if that means to create for sixth time (counting the artworks from the next post) a concept just... because. In three hours.

"Yey! Let's try to keep positive! (said the monkeys eating bananas inside my head).

And so I did. I gave the artwork with two minor iterations that they gave me right away and at the next day (because it was really late for me already and my bed was missing me too much) they wrote me super early even for them:

"Hey Nic! How are you! (at least they asked me how I was. Even tho' they didn't wait for me to answer) We really liked this last one but we will need to make another because the client didn't accept it neither."

"Sure, when do you need it?

"Well, we have this presentation in TWO HOURS. It would be awesome if you could do it BEFORE IT STARTS..."

Needless to say how my face was. But if you are curious search for "Jean-Luc Picard Facepalm" images in Google.

But I was thinking beyond of the frustration of re-doing once and over and over again the same thing, I was decided to do all this times for the love to money art.

And so I did, the ninth version of the same concept. The ninth artwork from the same exactly idea. One important note for you, my fellow freelance colleagues: I've been paid for every single artwork that i did for them.

Of course, after the fifth or the seventh I decided to make some strategic discounts such as -33% or -25%. Because if you want to keep the client giving you work, it doesn't really matter that you make the difference in their budget, but it matters that you show them that you at least are trying to think about their needs. Mostly if these clients are not multinationals and super rich companies.

In the end, after not more than 25 hours of work and almost fifteen art-works (many of them you will see in the next post) I've been paid 1550USD (I am still waiting that payment tho').

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And as it is already a tradition for us, a gif with the process of our... spider, yeah, why not?. As you may already know (because I describe it in every post) the process is very simple: A base with the alphas for working on the right surface, value base with shadows and lights, colors and rendering (yes! my favorite part)!

But the work didn't finish there, oh no...
...actually it took six or seven more artworks (I don't even remember the number) to achieve what they wanted. And since I know that you are at least a little bit curious about the final result (even tho' I should save it for the next post) I will show you the resulting style.

And this is actually funny, because the final result was asked directly to be made as a final illustration without any previous research of this style.

This means that all the previous concepts (14 artworks) ended up in the trash bin. Without any usage more than the one of showing you how frustrating the life of a concept artist can get some times. But also well paid (at least for me, living in Poland!).

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And that s all my folks !

Once again, thanks a lot for being part of my posts and I hope this was helpful somehow. Maybe you got a friend that is an artist and sometimes you can't understand why he/she is going through... I hope to give you an idea, even tho' this is one case in hundreds that I had.

Soon I will be realizing a competition with sweet prices ! Because you deserve it guys !

Last but not least, tomorrow I will be posting (hopefully) the second part of this post. Said that... have a great day!

Bye!