Freelance Graphic Design – Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

Insert witty banter here.

February 4, 2024greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

Sunday is here already. I feel as though I didn’t see much of Saturday. Could be the three hour long movie I chose to watch, or the six hours I spent working. I saw the sunshine though, so that’s got to count for something these days. I need to sort the kids laundry and put that away. Proof my work again, and send that off for review. Finish watching The Return of the King. Make myself some breakfast. Actually get out of bed (mm, so comfy). I could play my guitar, or crank up the tunes for a loud, long, sing along session at a decibel of my own choosing. So many options. I could continue to watch The Bear (so good), of which I am like the last person to actually watch it. Or I can scroll through YouTube watching tool restorations, engine fixes, wood working project builds, or endless shorts about anything, and nothing in particular. Not doom scrolling, but watching other people make stuff can almost, kinda, sorta scratch an itch about making things myself.

I got into the garage shop to tear down the old change table. I reclaimed the actual wood portions, and have use of the flat boards, and other bits. I feel like I want to pull all of my chisels down off the walls to put them in drawers. I want to reorganize some more. I just can’t seem to figure out where I want everything. Also we have lots of household junk in there I want to throw away, but can’t. I’ll have to take the bulk of it to the dump. Old blow moulded tool cases, very old car seats, old strollers, tote boxes of inflatable water park parts. We stole the blower unit to run our other indoor inflatable park set at the cottage. It was so big it needed a second 600CFM blower to keep it upright with children on it. More doors, an old dining room table, old light box for tube lights, and an old bed frame from my college days of using a futon. If I had a giant bin I could fill it pretty easily. Especially if it would take old paints too. This house gifted us ten to twenty mostly empty paint cans, full of old oil paint. The kind you have to pay to dispose of. Very nicely done. Hidden under the basement stairs for us to find.

I’ve been looking for an inexpensive tool cabinet to put my chisels in for a while now. I don’t honestly know if that change would be an improvement or not. Not having to reach over other items to grab them would be handy. Protection from dust would be a plus. But is that enough to warrant $200.00 on storage? I still have things to figure out in there. Like as I get older, do I want to make it a more versatile space? Do I want to try my hand at welding small things like legs for desks, and tables. Do I want to keep it as 80% wood shop? To resaw wood do I want the 1.75Hp bandsaw, or to do it via chainsaw, or with a hand saw, and several hours of labour per cut, per board. I maintain my mower in there, so I need to be able to manoeuvre & lift machinery that feels heavier every year that I touch it. The deck on my mower has a sizable hole, I’d love to patch that with a welded on bit of sheet metal. Do I upgrade the lathe, and drill presses, or let metal machining go as a fantasy dream that i have. Flights of fancy. To have either in here I’d need a shop crane to be able to move items like that around. But you have to be able to store said shop crane too. And eat the cost of buying one. All to move two specific items once or twice over the lifespan of having the machines. Wouldn’t exhaust fans, and climate control inside the shop be a better investment? Wouldn’t a flat roller friendly floor be money better spent? Wouldn’t insulated walls, and boards on the walls make it feel like a real shop? You know, or you can spend $1,500.00 on a bench top mill, and $2,500.00 on a Southbend lathe.

For now it’s just a time consuming day dream. Hunting for bits on-line while never really taking the leap towards buying any of it. I’ve been looking at/for a snowblower the same way for four years. I have a moment of pause when an item costs upwards of a thousand dollars. That’s always been a real tough threshold for me, money wise. I can’t spend that kinda money without thinking about it really hard. In the back of my mind I always think “You know these good times don’t last forever, you need to have some sort of buffer that can last you months incase all the work dries up, and you still have these bills to pay, food to buy, and responsibilities to keep”. Plus I don’t want to incur any debts. I’ve been there, under the mountain, clawing to get out from under it. That’s a horrible way to live. So once I got out from under it, I’ve stayed away from debt owing. I have monthly subscriptions for my business, but I don’t let debts languish on my credit card. If I did then I’d have to go work for someone else full time, and go back to commuting every week, and see my family far less than I am currently able. If I live modestly and within my means, then I can avoid all that. Seems very worthwhile to me to stay out of debt, and have a less constrained life because of it.

Good gracious, I’m a bloviating blatherer of platitudes today. I must be hungry. It’s ten thirty, and I still have things to do today! Thanks for reading along. Ciao Bella.

Are We Close Enough To That Holiday Limbo Period Where You’re Never Certain If People Are Still Working, Or Are Off On Vacation Time…

December 19, 2023December 19, 2023greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

But sometimes they answer emails or request work, but you’d swear you’ve had an OOO message explaining an absence for the end of the year. Do I need to finish this asap or… will you approve this now or… should I wait for a reply and any possible changes before I go round my pal’s for a drink or… do I give you until 9:00pm and then shut down for the day or… that type of thing. Get it?

Tuesday of the week before Christmas, and other such Holidays are upon us as well. Seasons greetings, Happy Holidays, Happy/Merry (?) Kwanza, Happy Chanukah, and any such others that I’ve missed.

We have a very light dusting of powdery snow this morning, masking a brittle & crunchy layer of ice beneath thanks to all of yesterday’s rain. Is it treacherous out there? I dunno. All I did was uncover both vehicles, but parts of the driveway were slick, so I’d have to imagine so. Go a hair slower towards all those four way stops, and give yourself a breather heading towards lights at intersections. That sort of thinking should help you out on a day like today. Get some of that good old glare from the sun off the road and you have yourself a recipe for smashed glass and dented bumpers. But we all hope not.

Here’s a quick health tip reminder. Drink a glass of water. If you feel bound up inside, head-achey, or a bit dry of lip, go drink a glass now. It might rush right through you in the next 10-15 minutes, but a cool glass of water will be appreciated by your body. I regularly forget to do so, and I should take better care not to forget. One small step of personal kindness. Just don’t do it if you have to go drive somewhere, or wait in a place with no bathroom access. That will not be of any immediate help to you! Ha.

In alternate news I did a good amount of clearing up down in the basement. I finally tossed several years of old fair entries, kept all of the ribbons though. Kept some of the more special entries too. Stuff that really displayed effort and/or creativity. I also condensed down our books to open up some more space for the kids things, and to provide additional playable surfaces for them both. It doesn’t look like I got rid of much because of how much is still left, but I know I sent off 70lbs worth of books, novels, and hard covers. Tried to get some old manuals out the door too, but those five were rejected. I knew they would be, but worth a try. Can’t score if you don’t shoot! Ha. In all honesty though, as happy as I am with the progress, there are an awful lot of things that still need to be sorted out, organized and gotten disposed of. The old water softener which weighs a gods be damned tonne has to go. But I haven’t been able to empty out all of the congealed salt yet. Also my wheelie cart went to the in-laws never to return. So I need one of those, my ratchet straps and a final destination planned out before I fuss with it. We have a change table & crib combo that needs to go too. If our newly pregnant cousin on my wife’s side doesn’t want it, I’ll take it to the Care & Share donation drop off site. I just want it gone, but not to a landfill. I could just as easily break it down and burn it at the cottage, but it deserves to keep doing its thing unhindered.

I also need to designate an appropriate storage spot for all of our newly acquired wheeled luggage. I don’t want to bury it someplace it’s a pain to get to, but they are big & light weight. I guess the closets I emptied recently of baby clothes is as good a spot as any. I was hoping to retain that space for later, but those new bags need a clean, dry, and out of the way place to be stored so that the kids don’t try to climb inside them, and break the wheels or zippers etc… I tell you I dream of storage space. A magical extra door in the basement that leads to a cavernous, yet dry and luke warm room with rack upon rack of easily accessible storage. An Indiana Jones style warehouse to put all of our extra stuff. These are the desires I have. Not extra wives, or girlfriends on the side. No. I dream of adequate storage space, and an upgraded shop. But I digress. I could daydream about that sort of thing all day if I let myself. That and winning the lottery. Again – I digress. Shame, that. I’d be pretty good at spending money on all sorts of fun things. Probably why most lottery winners go bankrupt or end up back where they were inside of ten years. Eyes too big for their account balances. Plus getting fleeced by banks, bad money managers, shady business partners and the like. I’m drifting here, I can feel it! Dream a little dream of meeeeeeeee!

Less than a week to go now until Christmas. And then we’ll be looking down the barrel of a looming 2024! Crazy. Anyway, take care. Ciao Bella!

Day #675: Out in the Weeds

October 20, 2023October 20, 2023greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

For the life of me I can not recall a reason as to why I kept this writing streak going, other than compulsion, and daily habit. Even so, I’m awfully close to going a whole year without writing any short stories. I have written copious amounts of nonsense, and silliness though. Funny to think I felt my numbers of views were down in the year to year review, so I tried to write every day for a few weeks before I hit New Years Eve and was going to stop. Then the next calendar year had the best showing ever, and then dropped off again. Not as low as in years I posted almost nothing, but I failed to gain enough traction to warrant making the writing streak a compulsion. So what do I do now?

Did a few other things as of late too. I finished my sixteenth book this year, by John Scalzi, called “Starter Villain”. It was a fun little jaunt in a mixed up James Bondesque world of mischief and mayhem. Finished it in just a day or two. Very pleasant read. I’m back to the Adrian Tchaikovsky novel I tried to start several weeks ago. Hopefully now I’ll have the available concentration to read five or six hundred pages of science fiction. I’m still halfway through “American Prometheus “, so I should either finish that or hang up that particular book mark, and call it a day. It’s good, and thorough to say the least. A bit like reading a textbook. Something I haven’t needed to do in close to twenty years. I feel as though I should read it at a desk with a highlighter in hand. Gives off those kinds of vibes. Still a good read. Just more dense than I care for right this minute.

I got into the shop this week to work on my pine framed bed. I have some work to do on the box joints, as I didn’t go deep enough, and I need to square off the bottom of each joint, as I left them rounded over. But on the bright side I did some bandsaw work, some hand saw work, and got the project just a little closer to finished. I’ll take it!

We have a PA Day today, so the kids are up early, of course, not that we have to shake them and roll them around their beds to wake them up on a regular school day. Where they cry and moan about wanting to sleep in, but on the days they can do so, they are up earlier than usual without a problem. I can’t tell you what a surprise it will be once either, or both start to sleep in on weekends, summer days, and holidays. I imagine they’ll be up late making a racket around the house so not much of a win there anyway.

The other day I went out and picked all of the remaining apples off of our two fruit trees to send to my friends horses. I had a fair amount of quality sized apples this year. The red ones all fell off earlier, and the wasps terrorized those for weeks. Once the temp dropped enough to drive them away I came to claim what was left. A half a grain bags worth. No where near what was on both trees, but I don’t fancy getting swarmed and stung for apples. I thought we were going to get a bunch last year with all the blooms the trees had, but then no fruit was produced. This year however, whoo boy! If I had a bee suit and a cider press I could have picked all 2-300 apples between the two trees and made some cider or fresh apple juice!

Funnily enough I recently saw that an old acquaintance of mine was coming to the end of a contract position, and i saw a job posting that i thought could be right up their alley, and they complained to me about it. So don’t be alarmed should i not do things of that nature for other people. This year has really reiterated how bad of an idea it is to do anything nice for other people. Yet i keep on doing it. Going to learn my lesson at some point. Or become a jaded prick about it. Either way – we all win!

It is currently raining. It started to rain several hours ahead of schedule so I am happy we decided not to go back to Canada’s Wonderland for another Halloween Haunt adventure. Was supposed to start between eleven and midnight, but was softly pattering on the ground by eight o’clock. We’d have been there for little more than an hour and it would totally kill the vibe. Mist is one thing, but a full on rain would end the night. Precious few available days left this season. I think we might be finished, but perhaps we can get one last visit under our belts this year. I’d very much like to ride Yukon Striker one more time. It’s such a smooth ride. I like the articulated carriages. Plus I feel as though they weren’t concerned about the footprint so they were able to make softer transitions between tricks/gimmicks, and your neck and back are all the better for it. Five stars, do reccomend! Try it at night in the dark.

Patience can be rewarded, or be used against you when it comes to accounts payables.

April 1, 2023April 1, 2023greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

Nobody likes to chase money, when I decided to go full time (or close enough to) as a freelancer the last thing on my mind was how much time I’d wind up spending thinking about, worrying about, dreaming about; money. I far prefer to do the design & production work, than to do my books. I am very fortunate in that my clientele pay me on a reasonable basis, for which I am deeply grateful. It wasn’t always this way. Back in the early days when I made $7,000-$10,000 in a year if I had a client fail when they still owed me over a thousand bucks, that was a hard blow to take. I never did see that money. I threatened to go to collections, but the company dissolved once the property they operated out of sold, and the equipment was auctioned off for parts. It still hurt me deeply. So now I will send an invoice monthly, rather than wait for a potentially months long series of projects to come to a close. You may not see every penny, but remaining afloat will relieve a bunch of stress, and leave more brain power to focus on the quality of your work, and not developing grey hairs from stress.

Do with that information what you will. If you wait too patiently to submit an invoice the AP folks may not honour it as it’s too far out of date. You really need to know a clients payment habits, and SOP when it comes to submitting an invoice. That kind of mistreatment should sour a relationship immediately. Rush to supply them artwork, but wait 90 to 120 days for a partial payment. These types of groups should be avoided. Pure aggravation. Do not reccomend.

My personal goal is to get popular enough that I can work forty hours a week, have five weeks of vacation time to be with my kids, and make enough to save for family trips, entertainment, and to cover off various peripheral living expenses with the household. I don’t think I’d ever want to get big enough to have to take on staff, and rent premises to operate out of. That’s too much stress and worry, and requires an awful lot of capital up front. Yikes. Then I’d need HR policies, training guidelines, be looking after hiring & firing. All the management style stuff I detest. I just like the work. I like designing and solving art based problems. I’m done with people and office politics, and all that additional stress. Yuck! How are you supposed to sleep at night when you now know you are responsible for the gainful employment of others. Argh! No. No thanks. Making payroll while waiting on clients to pay! I guess at that point you’d have to institute a retainer system, and then charge over top so that you always had some funds available from every client on hand to pay for fixed costs (think rent, insurance, subscriptions, payroll, heat & hydro), and then top that up, make your profit from the big ticket invoices once those actually get paid. I can only imagine how much time and energy an agency is required to put into client retention, and growth for finding more paid work, or partnerships for tasks you’d like to outsource. Boggles the mind how intricate this sort of thing can get.

Anyway. It is early Saturday morning, and my oldest is out doing Ringette lessons, coupled with power skating. Had to have new skates and a brand new helmet in order to participate. It was offered to the youngest too, but she turned her nose up. I think she regrets that choice now, after the new helmet & skates turned up for the older one. Wait listed now, so no chance she gets in to the program now. Stouffville is big on skating, and ice pad related activities.

The progression of my VF-1 Valkyrie model build.

February 2, 2023greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

The last two weeks, whilst busy with work, have included some leaps and bounds forwards with my model kit build up. I finally have all of the individual components cut off their sprues, cleaned off the nub marks, sanded where required, and built into the appropriate sub section piece, (ie.) Elbow, knee, ankle, hip, hands, cockpit etc etc… Below is a picture of all the parts laid out ready for priming soon.

All parts laid out, with thruster cones separated onto painter’s tape for ease of painting, and keeping track of the smaller bells.

I am going to use the yellow & black version of the water slide decals, image below. To change up from the red/black version I already have.

Going for yellow accents this time around.

As far as a paint scheme is concerned, I’m going to use USAF colours to make this model look a little more custom. My airbrush nozzle is too large to accurately achieve individual panel coverage, so I’ll need to tape off sections to get colour variations from the paint set I have in hand. A mixture of light greys on top side & legs, and the dark greys & black for the laser canons, major weapons attachments (darker grey plastic elements shown above) feet, vents, and other odds and sods. Plus oil washes, panel lines, decals and rust effects. I ordered the Tamiya 10mm low tack tape to help me with masking after all the priming and base coating is done. My hope is, that by leaving everything in smaller parts I can do a far better job of masking, and eliminating overspray where I desperately don’t want it. Fingers crossed! Then a high gloss coat to round out the sprayed portion of the build up.

I will need to paint the cockpit & pilot separately, as there are lots of edges and bits to pick out & high light. I’m really trying to make this one look legit, so no real time limit, but I’d like to not still be doing it in March. If you catch my drift.

Vallejo USAF colour range. Variations on grey.

I’ll finish it off with prominent decals, and the clear plastic stand. I’d like to be done by the end of February, but that will depend on workload, my kids staying healthy, and all the PA Days, & Holidays, and weekends not interfering too much on my schedule. We’ll see how that pans out.

Work has been steady throughout January, so I haven’t even had the chance to crack open my illustrated children’s book. To be totally honest I haven’t even given much thought to how I will depict my two main characters, Lemon or Smush. Which is kind of important. The story is written. I have done five or six drafts, and I’m happy with where it is. But, I do need to get those pesky illustrations done. I know I focused a great deal of my free time into reading half of this years book list up front, and meticulously picking through my VF-1 model kit build up, so I didn’t leave much time for the book. Nor did I feel as though I needed to. I haven’t sculpted yet so far this year, nor painted, nor done any wood working, so… gotta pace myself. Too many hobbies, and too little free time. Have managed to play my guitar a few times, which is really nice for a change. That is very relaxing. Loud, but relaxing. Let us not forget that both my kids do four extra curricular activities per week – each. So my evenings are spent playing chauffeur/ assistant coach/cheerleader and water boy. So evenings aren’t exactly free time for me either.

Hell, here I was thinking I’d start Book Three of collected short stories this winter, like immediately after Christmas break, but that hasn’t hit me yet either. Do I go a whole different route? Or stick with what I have developed and just find a new angle to explore? Not sure. Really need to think about it, and write up some outlines. Maybe later. I’m pooped.

What to build next…

January 14, 2023greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

I know I have a model kit on my work bench at the moment but I’m starting to think about building a small self contained terrain piece. Like a specific set of ruins for a church or temple. I have a couple of good chunks of foam board left, and a whole bunch of air dry clay that I recently recieved. I guess if I can find a brick pattern stamp I could do the flooring aswell inside the terrain piece. Then using industrial adhesive, super glue, and a hot glue gun, I could put it all together pretty quickly. Give me the chance to try properly ruined architecture.

I don’t have any more trees on hand, but I do have grasses, scrub brush, and a few shrubs and flowers. So it’s not like it’ll end up barren looking. I have sand, stone and grout too. I could do something from a desert climate. This is when I wish I had a closet full of rock moulds, plaster, trees, and static grasses & an applicator. Damn!

I don’t have a whole lot of room left to store stuff, so it’ll need to be shoe box size or smaller. My shelves aren’t that tall, so I can’t make the whole temple or church ruin. I guess it would be more of a diorama piece. Damn. Now I’m excited about it. It’s going to stay on my mind for ages now. But I already bought a new paint series of eight colours for my VF-1 Valkyrie model. I should really complete that first. I should… but.

Box of parts that need to be cut off sprues, and partially assembled before I can prime & paint them.

The other day I had an idea for a new sculpted bust too. So I’m going to need to make a bunch of new bases on the lathe. That takes a day or two as I have to glue up a bunch of Walnut pieces, or find a suitable maple log portion to be turned into fancy rounds. That’s a good way to get my wood working fix in without having to touch a hundred icy cold hand tools. If I use a long enough chunk of wood I can get at least four or five bases out of it. Plus sanding and slicing it up, more sanding and finish. That will satiate a bunch of create pangs I’ve been having.

I think I am slightly more interested in painting my model kit, than the initial (and very important) build up. I need to be more slow and methodical, so that it looks better generally than the last one I constructed a few years ago, and only recently painted. I can see several rough spot where I didn’t cut all of the tabs away. And my build was sloppy. Forgotten pieces, and glued on elements that shifted or fell over entirely. My decal application left much to be desired as well. Yikes.

Previous build up, with recent amateur paint job.

Plus a new larger paid project came in so I can’t jump on any of this stuff right away until the majority of my day job projects are well under way. Glad for the work though. So now I just have more time to day dream about my hobbies before I actually start any side projects. Not to worry. Once I’m in a comfortable spot with my open design jobs, I can pick up a brush, nippers, or a file and chip away at all of this stuff. Plus somewhere in the middle I will find the time to play guitar/bass and the keyboard songs I know. Sometimes I think I have too many hobbies, but they really do add a dash of something extra to my daily life. So not all bad then eh? Right.

RULE #361 : Never underestimate how much more people are willing to pay a big named company to do the same thing you (a small boutique company) can do for them, with higher personalized quality and more cost effectively, while trying to not pay YOU at all.

December 10, 2022greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment

Oh the joys of self employment. I ran into this all the time when I worked in-house for a few companies over the last two decades. You’d pay a half a million dollars or more for an idea, and in the end you would only be supplied with the raw pieces, and a little lone production guy (formerly me) would put those elements together while getting paid a tenth of that over a whole year, and not just for that one campaign element. If you want the creative folks to put it all together you need to cut a different, equally high Studio cheque to have it put down so it can be printed, or go live on the App/Website.

Now I get to do both, which is very creatively fulfilling. Production work is the bread and butter which funds the time it takes to create new and exciting things. Can’t spend your time contemplating new ideas if you’re dead ass broke. Have to fund that kind of time with the more straight forward stuff. Things like moving a line of products from one die line to another. Taking existing artwork and rejiggering it to fit new parameters, and tech ical specifications. Like migrating web banners of a landscape orientation, into a bus stop print ad in Portrait orientation. It takes technical skill, and compositional know how to get one to look and feel like the other. To carry over the essence while being almost entirely different. Which is challenging, and fun all at the same time.

I don’t make a habit of chasing RFP’S, and bidding on work. That all takes an awful lot of time, effort and opportunity cost to do. Whereas if I build relationships with people, you can be assured that those positive experiences can, and will carry over as Marketing people, Brand Managers and such move from product to product, and industry to industry. You don’t forget the ease at which you can work with some folks. And when the opportunity presents itself, they will seek you out to further that working relationship. It’s rather nice. Word of mouth is a real help too. But mostly if your friends, are friends with people whom are Managers, Directors, CEO’s and persons of clout. That helps a lot. Hard to pull in new clients from the very ground floor. It is doable, but good grief what a slog that is. So many hurdles and obstacle to jump. Not to mention the constant harassment about compensation vs. Exposure, or timely payments. And the endless nitpicking over your invoices, asking for by the minute break downs to account for every single penny. Makes being creative very difficult if you spend half your time fighting for yourself & reputation.

Here it becomes readily apparent just how easily they’d cut a $50,000 or a $100,000 dollar cheque without batting an eye lash, versus paying your the $3,125.75 invoice. For that they want a line item by line item audit. Meanwhile you didn’t pull from a prearranged template like those big guys likely did, and built them something custom and totally individualized. I don’t have an account manager to massage the client into accepting the first idea. I don’t wine & dine. I tailor my work to suit, and that needs to be enough. Oh, I’ll have a business dinner, or a round of drinks with my largest clients if/when it’s needed. But I don’t do that weekly, or even monthly. That can come up once a year (Covid has impeded this practice) or every other year depending on circumstances.

So as much as I hate it, Networking is important to growing your business. That and technical skills, quality products, a high degree of accuracy with the end file, and the ability to successfully juggle deadlines, and your time. I don’t wish to grow so large that I no longer do the design work and spend all day managing people, budgets & meetings. That sounds horrendous to me. No thanks. A small boutique that caters to its clientele, and puts out great work which everyone is happy with. I’ll stay there for as long as I am able.

So pay your artists! Invest in quality photographers. And most of all, take care out there. Ciao Bella!

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