New Year, New Career, New Website

Happy New Year, Everybody!

I hope that 2020 brings you all many blessings and much joy, coz – let’s face it – it would be wrong to start a new year holding on to any negativity caused by the year just gone.

The start of 2020 heralds in a large change for me. At the end of 2019, (and I mean the very end), I made the decision to quite my full-time, permanent position to pursue Freelance work. This effectively meant that I dropped any form of job security to do the 2 weeks worth of work that I had lined up for January.

Oz has gone full FREELANCE!

Needless to say, this has proven to be quite a worrying decision. Not only for myself, but for my wife. That being said, it has been something that I have wanted to do for a long time, an idea that has been burrowing away in my head for what feels like ages, but I had never had the confidence to do anything about it. I kept telling myself that I just didn’t know what was involved, how to do taxes, how to seek out new work, how to promote myself. All of those concerns battled with the longing to go freelance, and proved a significant stumbling block.

So then the question would be: What’s Changed?

First off, I want to say that I love the guys at my old studio. NSC Creative are a really talented group of artists, and friends. I have known some of them for around ten years, and when I re-took my job with them at the start of 2019, I knew that it would mean a step back from continuous animation and into more generalist lines of work. This was a situation I was happy to place myself in, I had my reasons, and I feel like my time there served me well.

However, whilst I was doing some non-animation work (that is, experience design, narrative ideation and other cool stuffs), I found that I kept getting approached by companies asking if I was available for work in, like, two weeks. These quick and urgent jobs seemed to come at me quite regularly, but the urgency meant I had to turn them all down – two weeks? No! I have a four week notice period, and no matter how much I would love to work with you, I simply cant!

So with all of this stuff running around my head, the fact that freelance work seemed to find me rather than me seeking out work, I started to persuade myself that dropping everything and becoming a freelance animator was a good idea. And the more people I spoke to about it, the more encouraged I got. It seemed that people thought that now was the best time to do it (not too sure about that – thanks Brexit), that I would kick myself silly if I didn’t do it (yeah, probably… maybe?… I dunno), and that I had nothing to lose (wasn’t too convinced by this last one, either).

Nevertheless, it all appealed to me, and after I signed my first remote contract for two weeks worth of work at the start of 2020, I wrote up my resignation letter and handed it to my boss at NSCC.

Needless to say, this was a step in bravery for me, but the fact was this – I wasn’t planning on moving away from Leicester. I was going to be around,the corner, so if they needed me, I would be there. Personally, however, I needed to allow myself space to pursue other job options. My boss was understanding – swore at me under his breath a couple of time (which proved a source of amusement for myself) – and, recognising the value I had been on the projects that year, struck up an understanding that, should the need arise (as well as my own availability), they could get my on board for a couple of weeks or months.

On Friday the 20th December, 2019, I silently slid through the doors of the National Space Centre, ending my time there.

Do I now know how to do Taxes? Do I now know how to seek out work or promote myself? Do I know what I am doing when it comes to the business side of my work? Well, no. Not yet anyway. But if I didn’t try, I wasn’t going to learn. I knew that with ten years experience, finding work was going to be easier than when I first left uni, but there are no certainties in that.

Nevertheless, I have my home office all set up, and we will see how it all works out. After all, this is only my first week of doing this stuff!

Work Finding Me

Now I don’t want to sound naive or big headed when I said that the freelance work was finding me – more that I wanted to state that, at that time, I had a few opportunities open themselves up to me, and it was this that really persuaded me to change my career.

At the same time, somebody at my church prayed for me and – though they knew nothing about what I did or what I was planning – told me that I was going to have a career change and that I was worried about it, but that I should not be. Instead stand firm knowing that God has planted in me an entrepreneurial heart that He will bless. Take that as you will, but as a believer it was a sign that God was with me in this – as excited for me as I was.

But the truth of the matter is that I know that I cannot rely 100% on work finding me. I recognise that this is going to be hard at times, and that I must push myself to get the work I want or the work I need. I have already been speaking with recruitment agencies, contacting companies who are advertising on Artstation and similar sites, and I have also poured a bit of time changing up my website.

A New Website

With a New Year and a new career, I needed a new look. My website had gotten a bit tired, and so I whipped it up. Great news: I now know how to use WordPress better!

The new look works better for me and my purposes and though I am sure that I will be adding and tweaking bits for the months to come, it is feeling a lot better. I have been able to un-clutter a lot of things, make it all a bit more streamlined, and focus on the purpose of the website – to promote myself as a freelance animator.

In Other News

I have got together with a few local animation professionals and started a regular meetup. The Leicester Animation Meetup is a small group of like-minded individuals who want to sit around and talk key frames for the night. We have our second meetup at the end of the month, where I will be giving a short talk about the importance of effective poses, but this is all a story for another time!

For now, thanks for reading!
God bless
Oz