After a year of no funding, the company I work for finally found good, decent investors- you know, the kind of investor who’s not actually out to destroy the company so he can get a tax write-off. I’ve only gotten paid for six months of this year. I’d give you the whole story, but:
a) It’d take a long time,
and
b) You wouldn’t believe it, anyway.
Anyway, we’ve been bought by a new company, and they’re treating us right. We’re getting new computers, advertising support (we’re a game company, with a small garage-game-turned-pro MMORPG), and, steady paychecks.
There’s one problem… me and my fellow artists need to get organized. Our best artist is arguably the best, most well-known artist in the computer game field… but he hates being management (and he’s so good, it’d be a shame for him to be spending time not doing art. The other artist is about my level of ability and experience, but isn’t, well, very organized. We don’t want the new company to appoint us an outside AD, since we know we all work well together, and we don’t want to resent anyone they installed over our heads, since he wouldn’t have gone through the hard knocks we have this past year.
So it’s down to me. Yeah- I’m now Art Director.
Sure, this’ll look great on my resume. Sure, I can ensure that the game will look its best- and if it doesn’t, it’s my own damn fault.
But, dammit… I’m an artist!
I’ve always wanted to be an artist. I can easily see myself fifty years from now, doing what I’ve been doing for the past eight years- I simply love doing it. The problem is all the organization and scheduling I’ve got to do… all the phone calls I’ve got to make… all the meetings I’ve got to attend… I never have time, anymore, to actually do art. I was warned that this would happen when I took the position, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be true.
It’s very depressing. But the thing is, I’ve realized I’m probably about as good as I’ll ever be- and (this is a very difficult thing for me to say), there are a lot of artists out there that are better than I could ever be. I interviewed a kid yesterday who just blows me away- I only thought I was a good artist.
Oh, and I didn’t even get a raise. (Yet- I’m going to go for a few months at this rate, and then I’ll hit 'em up for a bigger paycheck, since it looks like I’m only making about 2/3rds of what I should be making, in this position.)
Dammit… I’m a suit.