Work is, as you may have guessed, the main reason for the stress and the main reason I've missed over a month of blog time. The repercussions of this may last a while as I get back up to speed, scan in sketches, finish paintings I started but didn't complete and so forth. You may wonder why work would be such a disruption, so I'll get on and explain.
I work in the video game industry, and, if you've been paying attention over the past few years you'll know that games are big business, and they're also a little complicated to make. I'm a vehicle artist, and had been exclusively for about 6 years when something happed to change it. Someone mistook something that wasn't a vehicle for a vehicle - a number of somethings as it happens, and I had to work on that instead.
Vehicles are defined more by how they're built and how they act than how they appear, and what I now had to build looked like a vehicle (hence the confusion), but needed building and had to act nothing like one. After 6 years I suddenly had no-idea what I was doing. I also had far more work on my plate than I could possibly do in the time frame I had by working normal hours.
There's (unfortunately) nothing unusual about this in the industry I work in; I don't think I've ever worked on a game where I didn't have to work a fairly high number of additional hours at least a few times during it's development. At no point in this article will I be moaning greatly about this because it comes with the territory. I've worked on 15+ games in the last 10 years, and as I've said I had to work extra hours on all of them. I'm used to this by now (though I have to admit it's tougher going as I get older), it's a fact of my life, so there's no reason to complain about it - there is however reason to explain the effect this can have...
At first this new workload was manageable. Stressful yes, since I was re-learning everything I thought I knew in order to make what needed making, but the hours, while longer than usual, weren't soul crushing. This was back in January, and as you know I posted plenty in January - I still had enough time to work on side projects and I didn't need to regularly work the weekends. At least I thought I didn't - turns out I was wrong. But for the time being I was managing, and still fitting in time for profile pics, sketching, speedpaints, and a level of Little Big Planet 2. Oh, and updating the blog of course.
Then, disaster! Due to being a complete numpty I had misread a vital piece of information, and massively overestimated the time I had to complete the work I had left to do. I thought I had about two and a half months, what I actually had was six weeks. Bugger! Around the same time it became apparent that I also had more work to do than originally thought. I can't explain exactly why without releasing company secrets, but suffuse to say that what I had built wasn't going to be sufficient due to technical constraints, so I had more to do. Double bugger! Suddenly I had about three months worth of work to do in 6 weeks. This is where the stress comes in.
This happened prior to my last blog post, but the enormity of the situation didn't sink in until right after I'd written it. Suddenly the stress I was already managing shot through the roof - I had to work far longer hours,and kiss the weekends goodbye (though I didn't work as long on the weekends as I was during the week). The time I had to produce personal art dropped to a minimum, and with it any time to update the blog.
Just for reference, here's the last speed paint I did before everything hit the fan:
I still managed to get some stuff done though, 5 minute sketches here and there mostly. I wanted to do speedpaints, but usually by the time I was in front of a computer that wasn't at work I just had no energy to bother (don't forget, my artistic output at work during this time was through the roof - I don't think I've ever cranked out as much stuff in so short a time before, and hopefully I'll never have to again; it was knackering).
One day, a few weeks ago, I walked outside and realized every tree was green. I'd been so focused on work I'd completely missed the change. The last time I'd paid any attention during daylight they were just getting blossoms! How does that happen? Well, it did. Time loses a lot of it's meaning during crunch - the only number that matters is that representing what you have left to do.
At one point I did find enough energy to have a go at painting though, and this was the result:
Time Taken: 30 Minutes
Utterly dreadful. The likenesses are fairly good, but the general tone of the piece, and the proportions of the people... well, it's ghastly isn't it?. My friend (one of the subjects in fact) said I'd made him look like a Punch and Judy puppet. He's not far off the mark, if it was a Punch and Judy show put on by Tim Burton perhaps...
I put it down to stress. In fact over this time I noticed a trend even in the little sketching I managed to do. Firstly it was predominantly heads and faces, since I'm more comfortable doing those, and secondly the quality varied greatly depending on how stressed I was at the time. A morning sketch might be quite good, but a technical problem around lunch would increase my stress level and I would draw dreadfully in the afternoon. Then something happened that would pretty much prove my theory to myself; We had a power cut (or outage as they say around here).
We all had to go home - we couldn't work at all with no power. I should have been more stressed than ever - still loads to do and one day less to do it in! But I wasn't. The fact that I physically couldn't work that day was oddly freeing. It wasn't my fault that I couldn't work, so why worry? At the same time I caught up on facebook for the first time in a while and noticed that a very nice friend had injured herself badly in a fall. Not just a friend, but an admirer of my work (clearly she's mad as a spoon too, but nobody's perfect). I decided to paint her a profile pic to cheer her up. I figured it would be dreadful again, but no, no stress equates to this:
It's not perfect, but it only took 90 minutes or so, and is far better than that last speedpaint. Clearly the lack of stress helped a lot.
Not enough evidence perhaps? Well, I did manage to squeeze in one more speed paint between then and my finishing on the workload. I think you'll agree it has quite a lot in common with the "Punch and Judy" one from earlier:
Time Taken: 35 Minutes
Dismal isn't it? You'll note the same dark scratchy look as the previous one, but this time there's even less colour. I'd think it was OK for a 10 minute sketch, but 35? Oh dear, not good at all.
Anyway, I got the work done, finished it on the very morning of the last day of the deadline. I was quite pleased with that. Weight off my mind! Time to paint again. Well, apparently I can't de-stress over night, so the next piece wasn't completely brilliant, and it's clear I've backslid somewhat - but at least it doesn't look like the artistic equivalent of a suicide pact:
Time Taken: 35 Minutes
After that I did a self portrait for my own facebook profile pic. A little narcissistic sure, but I hadn't updated it since January - some more important things got in the way.
Time Taken - 45 Minutes
I'll leave it on that then. I have a few updates now queued up I guess, what with all the quick sketches over the last month and the fact that I have a game due for release any minute (not the one this work was for, the previous one - I tend to move on long before a game is finished), and I may be able to post some images if I'm allowed. Plus theres all the stuff I'd started but not finished - maybe I'll have a chance to now. I was going to start painting for real once I'd finished all this work, but I've backslid too far, so I'm going to try to get back to a comfortable speed in the next month or so. Fingers crossed I actually manage to give it a go...
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