{"id":5439,"date":"2013-03-30T15:23:25","date_gmt":"2013-03-30T20:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/?p=5439"},"modified":"2018-12-12T19:32:10","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T00:32:10","slug":"2012-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/?p=5439","title":{"rendered":"2012 in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\nBefore 2012 ended I sat down and assessed my job.  For those of you that do not regularly visit this site, my job is essentially working on illustrated commissions for various clients.  Sometimes it\u2019s extra icon work for an android or iPhone app and sometimes it\u2019s as simple as a caricature.\r\n<br\/><br\/>\r\n<span style=\"color:#0066CC \"><strong>What I\u2019ve realized is\u2026<\/strong> <small>I\u2019m going broke.<\/small> <\/span> <br\/><br\/>I put a great deal of time and effort into what I do and I\u2019m making significantly less than someone would working part-time at a minimum wage job in <span title=\"$5.15\" style=\"background-color:#E8E8E8\">Wyoming<\/span> <small>(no disrespect intended Wyoming)<\/small>.  If I was only putting 20 hours a week in that would be great but that isn&#8217;t the case.\r\n<br\/><br\/>Other than that 2012 was <strong>great<\/strong> <small>(excluding the the <a href=\"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/?p=4841\">hospital bits<\/a> and various other non work related disasters)<\/small>. <br\/>I worked on tons of commissions and even managed to get a little paid acting work <small>(sort of)<\/small>. I really love doing what I do and I enjoy the freedom that this job allows me. \r\n<br\/><br\/>\r\n<span style=\"color:#cc6666\"><strong>What does the assessment mean?<\/strong><\/span><br\/>\r\n\r\nI have to work extra hard, give up speculative work, charge more, or get another job.\r\n<br\/><br\/>\r\nYou might be thinking, <span style=\"background-color:#E8E8E8\">\u201cHey, shut up and get a real job already.  Nobody cares\u201d<\/span>. The problem is that every college student, high school student, recent college graduate and I are all apply for the same jobs.<br\/><br\/>\r\nSo, it\u2019s easier said than done. This maddening job search engendered my foray into commissioned art to begin with.\r\nI\u2019ve never truly given up searching for employment.  It\u2019s the sort of thing that is always occurring in the background. It\u2019s just happening with more fervor now. \r\n<br\/><br\/>\r\n<span style=\"color:#cc6666\"><strong>Are commissions closing?<\/strong><\/span><br\/>\r\nNo, commissions are not closed but the pricing is slightly more realistic. I cannot do speculative work (free drawings or samples); however, I do offer affordable sketches. You can view samples of my work in my <a href=\"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/?page_id=299\">gallery <\/a>:).\r\n<br\/><br\/>\r\n<span style=\"color:#cc6666\"><strong>Wait, so what does this all mean anyways? Why is there so much text in this post? Where are the images?<\/strong><\/span><br\/>\r\nI don&#8217;t know? I&#8217;m not trying to be confusing. I&#8217;m just trying to sort everything out and let people know what is going on. Thank you for putting up with all the text. <br\/>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/shinyb.gif\" alt=\"shiny\"\/> <\/div>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before 2012 ended I sat down and assessed my job. For those of you that do not regularly visit this site, my job is essentially working on illustrated commissions for various clients. Sometimes it\u2019s extra icon work for an android or iPhone app and sometimes it\u2019s as simple as a caricature. What I\u2019ve realized is\u2026 [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[392,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5439"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5490,"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439\/revisions\/5490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moon-gem.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}