The Recession of 2009

Well, I have been extremely busy with assignments both within the gaming and fantasy art field as well as from commercial illustration and design gigs, far too busy until now to get my hand written blog entries typed and loaded here.

Has the recession affected me?

Yes.

While I have seen the scope of assignments decrease, the number of jobs has stayed about the same, although I just completed a marathon 30 illustration job which I will post more about when the client has the images loaded into the new intro video clip for their online game. I’ve had a few jobs with Goodman Games, several maps and a city map assignment from numerous indie publishers, as well as some character design jobs and RPG fantasy logo work.

These jobs have been great, with about half being ink and the rest being strictly digital painting, however, my fantasy art career still only makes up about a quarter of the work I do. Last year I did plenty of work for Scholastics Canada Ltd. which were excellent assignments and the art director, Noel Upfield, delivered clear instructions, helpful feedback and was entirely fun to work with. The mountains of fantasy work I have produced over the years has certainly helped me to produce work in other fields, both with speed and accurate adherence to art direction.

I have also continued to produce folders full of finished ink and graphite art for Outland Arts, both for The Mutant Epoch tabletop RPG and our line of Fantasy clip inks. We’ve also commenced work on the Fantasy RPG, and I have produced some early play test maps and text illustrations.

As for the recession of 2009, it seems to be all over the news… but where I live in Kamloops, British Columbia, things seem as optimistic and energetic as ever and the construction of new roads, malls, homes and office buildings goes on without missing a beat. I have also been involved with several local companies who require graphic design, and they have kept me as busy as ever, too. Still, I am not getting large assignments out of the USA or eastern Canada right now, and haven’t for a few months. I realize that I need to start promoting myself to get the better paying color illustration jobs, such as those I received from Wizards of the Coast well over a year ago now.

When I set out to be a fantasy artist, I didn’t think RPGs would total well over half of that line of work, instead expecting to do book cover illustration. I suppose I have been so busy with the production of ink and interior color assignments that I haven’t given myself the time off to focus on promotions, experimentation, and new portfolio images.

Regularly updating this blog is just one of the things I need to do to get noticed and let people know about my work. Advertising, checking the forum postings on relevant gaming and publishing sites, getting involved in online discussions, and updating my portfolio website are also essential and have always worked well for me. Am I going to

get on twitter and tweet? What about facebook? Podcasting? These last three I am not so sure about. I wonder if I could better spend that time to create new portfolio pieces in my most recent, accepted style… digital panting.

I will continue to update this blog on the progress of my promotions.

Best regards,

Will McAusland