Why I REJECTED a CELEBRITY’S ART COMMISSION REQUEST
Back when I was a newly graduated student from art school, I was approached to by a manager of a notable music / hip hop artist who wanted to see if I was available for freelance. At first, they weren’t full transparent with what the needs were. On top of that, on my first few phone calls with them, while I understand everyone is busy in life, they just sounded totally unprofessional as they were speaking to me while they were driving in their car. I could hear them focusing more on the road (as they should), but also not being able to fully listen to my questions or tell me what I need to know as the artist working on this project.
A few weeks later, I finally manage to get on a phone call with the actual artist himself, only to find out they wanted me to animate a WHOLE FRIGGIN ANIMATED SERIES for a kids show about music in CG!!! While I highly respect people capable of CG animation - it was definitely not my jam 😂. First off, did these people even look at my portfolio and see that I mainly storyboarded and 2D animated? Second - how do you expect a newly graduated student to fully animate a whole series alone? Usually that is the work of a team!
They were never really transparent with the pay. I turned down the project mainly because the skillset was not of my capabilities / interest, but also who knows how much they would have lowballed me. I doubt they would have been able to pay one person multiple salaries of what would have been a team of people.
Anyway the lesson learned is to never undersell yourself or take on projects that don’t align with you. If I said yes to something like this, I definitely would have burned myself out over learning CG all over again while working, and overpromised for something I couldn’t deliver. That time would have been better off spent working on my own projects / things I am actually interested in and could take me somewhere I want to be.