Stuff, things and the P8TCH!

I usually roll my eyes at cliche sayings like "everything will fall into place". That kind of stuff always sounds like something that you would read on the inside of a sappy greeting card. Last week was not the greatest for me on the creative front. It was one of those weeks where it felt like all that I was doing was spinning my wheels and no matter how hard I tried to get something accomplished everything that I worked on didn't turn out. On top of it I was totally uninspired.

The problem had alot do with a part time job where I had been working for the past year. Although it was close to my house, most of the people that I worked with were nice and the hours were flexible enough so that I could pursue freelance illustration, there was a certain aspect of it that was becoming way too toxic for me. As much as I tried to remain unaffected by the chaotic nonsense that went on in the office while I was there, many times I would find myself coming home annoyed and in a terrible mood. That did not bide well for my happiness or creativity (two things that go hand in hand with me - when I'm happy, I'm creative). So after some careful discussion with B, we both decided that the best thing for me to do was to quit. It was a little scary but a lot of relief. Scary because I like to have some steady income. I've always had some sort of a gig. A relief because now I am free to aggressively pursue my career in illustration. I need to take this risk in order to get closer to what I want. I'm very thankful for my husband, family and friends supporting me in this decision.

I actually gave my 2 weeks notice 2 weeks ago and last Thursday was my final day at the job. It took more than the whole weekend for me to start feeling creative again. I think I needed to detox badly! So far, this week has been a complete opposite of last week. Suddenly good things have started to happen. Dare I say it feels "things are falling into place"? Some exciting things are happening for me and it seems like a lot all at once. Some of the stuff I am going to hold off on talking about too much here for fear of jinxing it (I'm a little superstitious!) but I can tell you about some of the other cool stuff that I've been up to:

COMPETITIONS:
I've entered a few illustration related competitions. You can never predict what the outcome will be, but it's always kind of fun to wait and see what happens. Who knows, maybe this time I'll get picked for something?

ILLUSTRATIONMUNDO:
You can now find me on IllustrationMundo, a very cool site devoted to quality illustration. Poke around and check out the awesome work from illustrators all over the world.

P8TCH & COMMANDO NERD:
P8TCH

I've been commissioned by John Young of Guerilla Drivein fame to create the mascot for one of his latest projects, the P8TCH for iPhone scanning. It's super nifty and geeky but also a totally cool thing. You can read all about the P8TCH, how to get a P8TCH of your OWN as well as how to get the QRCode application for your phone here.
I got mine, you got yours?

Getting back to the mascot, John really wanted a "commando nerd" of sorts. Think a mixture of 1980's machismo, gadgets, Ghostbusters etc. It was a ton of fun coming up with the preliminary concepts. Here is a sneak peek of the nerd that was picked. Don't worry, I have permission to post these pix, John is posting about it over on his blog too. He thought it would be fun to give the general public a sneak peek at the concept and get some feedback. So far it's a little more commmando than nerd, so we are working on nerding him up a bit via gadgets and stuff. I will wait and see what info comes in from John and then I'll go onto a revised sketch. So anyway, here's a peek at the commando nerd!
Check out that macho facial hair!
What do YOU carry in your boot pocket?