Sunday Mailbag- Motivation?

Q: Are there elements of illustrations that you don’t find fun or enjoyable, that you routinely have to motivate yourself to labor through? For example, I find substantially less pleasure in drawing backgrounds and would much rather focus on drawing the subjects. If there is something you find less fun, what do you do to combat that? Do you draw the boring stuff first to get it out of the way? Curious about your process!

A: I can find interest in any aspect of a job, but you do need to get in a different mindsets for different parts of a project:

Conceptual Stage- This is where you come up with ideas to meet the narrative of whatever job you are working on. This can be fun, but it’s a struggle not to just go with the first thing that comes to mind. I have to force myself not to do that. I have a rule with the conceptual stage: I have to come up with THREE ideas for each job. I try and come at it from different angles and rethink things a few times to come up with three fresh approaches. It’s pure laziness to just latch on to the first concept and go with that. It’s surprising how often art directors end up going with one of the other ideas as opposed to the first one.

To answer your question, of all the different stages this is the one I hate the most. It’s not because it’s boring or tedious… it’s anything but that. It’s because it is the BEGINNING. I’ve always had a problem with getting started on anything. I think it’s because the first few steps are the furthest from the end of the job, which is often a lot of hours and work. Procrastination kicks in. It’s not being lazy, I just have trouble generating creative juices at the beginning of a job because of the sheer intimidation of the long process. As a result I need deadlines to push me. That’s the main motivation.

Pencil Stage- This is where you draw everything out. I love this part. It’s pure drawing. No thoughts to finished quality or anything but you, the pencil, the paper, the visual. For me this is far more interesting than the conceptual work. The rough idea is the guide, but this is the storytelling. There is nothing about this I do not enjoy, from the central figures/focus to the background elements. It’s like bringing something that was just a vague concept to life. Fun and engaging. It’s not too hard to get motivated to work this stage.

Finishes- This might involve inking and color or painting or whatever. To me this is more on the mechanical end of things. It could be tedious but I enjoy losing myself in the inking or the color or whatever. I put on headphones and an audiobook and the next thing I know the day has gone by. I do find I need to move myself along as I can get lost in some meaningless details that don’t really add anything to the final result. Otherwise it’s relaxing to ink, render and paint. The audiobooks help keep me on task, because I get engaged with the story and I want to continue to listen, rather than get up and get distracted. However, I have to listen to books I’ve already read because my attention will go in and out as I am concentrating on things on the drawing board, and I don’t want to have to pay close attention to what I am listening to.

In the end I have one final trick to get me motivated in any aspect of a project… I remind myself I love my career and that I am sitting at a drawing board making a living instead of selling insurance or digging ditches.

Thanks to Zach Morris for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!