Reckless Life 8 : End of First Week

Well I've always been wanting to become a fulltime-freelancer so I can't get over this excitement. I'm planning on sharing more to a freelancer and illustrator life online (Patreon, blog & Youtube), so here's my outtake on compiling a video + simple animation for my weekly activity. Thanks my Patrons, you'll be getting the latest news every-time, don't you worry !

On video compilation :
I'm usually very-very-very lazty to learn another new software because I want to focus on illustration alone, but Af said it is better if I can explore another skill along the way. So he taught me the basic on Adobe Premier (at first the UI seemed a bit hectic compared to Ai + Psd) but he makes it look less scary - that's why people take classes guys :F Plus I'm also very impatient because I rather do illustrations than spending hours on video editing, so this only took 3 hours of basic learning from him and the simple animation (I figured this out!) were done using Psd. Now I can compile my own video without disturbing him :D - and I bet you did not noticed the "azreechan" by the end of the video? Well, that's a typo I'll change in the future videos guys, I noticed I spelled my own name wrong. Hah.

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Other than that, this week :

• Other than my freelance works,
• I posted all parcels,
• had a nice ice-cream day,
• I went to Bagan Lalang for a sunset hunting with Af,
• we went to Tasy's engagement partayay,
• celebrated Mom's day with both Af's and my family

Hope you guys had a great week.

Note : I hope I'll make more video compilation and tutorials soon. 

I'll try to be super productive and share inspiring things that help me get on with my never-ending mini projects. 

Plus, congratulation to Tasy + Ashraf for their engagement ! 

Reckless Life 7 : Week 1 All over Again

On being a full-time freelancer :

I've finally decided to become a full-time freelancer again !

This is actually my third time of becoming one (You can read about my previous stories here). After 9 months of working with a start-ups in Cyberjaya, creating and making things - I've decided that being in a boring-comfort-zone-life (even with high salary - normal day job) is no longer suitable for me. I've tried! I just can't work with corporates and day-to-day repetitive life anymore. Free spirits need to be free.

I kept on asking myself almost every day, and I've been asking Af so many time : "why I'm helping people reaching their dreams if I know I can work on reaching my own dreams?". So I've finally decided, this time even without the backup plan : THAT I SHOULD MAKE THIS WORK. I know the struggle, I know the tough decisions and the frugal life that I'll be having, but I was born to make and create things that I want to make and draw every day. I'm super excited with my little plans and I want to make every single day memorable for me. Ma isn't excited with my decision (of course), but I like told her : I'll never know if I really can make it work or not IF I don't try - again).

So I sent my resignation letter from the company's directorship + chief designer. 

2-weeks notice, flat, decided and sticked with the plan. 

On working studio :

We already have our own studio office now, we took the master bedroom and turned it into one. I don't want to use the big space only to sleep, so I suggested to Af, that we should really make use of the large master bedroom and turn it into our office instead. Our office needs new paint, and a lot of recovery but we'll manage by time :)  

On clients :

And thankfully, right after I sent the resignation letter - I received a freelance project for this month (will due by the end of this month). It's a very tight schedule, but quite a big exposure and nice pay-check for the upcoming Eid season. So I'm super thankful because I got to live for another 3-4 months after this and will be focusing on the book project that I've been delaying. This is a sign telling me that maybe I made the right choice on becoming a full-time freelancer again.

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On the 9-months startups projects (Aug 2016 - May 2017) : 

Check out 3 of my latest projects, those are some of my works for that duration of time.

On my online shops for local :

Check out my easystore shop, looking goooood.

All packs bought from the shop will receive several postcards for free - from my wrinkled artprints and postcards mini flood incident.

On Patreon :

And yesss, Patreon! If you want to help/support me in my freelance journey and also get snippets, knowledge sharings, personal updates, random free gifts, you can pledge as low as 1$ on my Patreon :

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Work Related : First 30 days in Reckless Life 2.0 as a Freelancer

I started as a doodler several years ago in 2010.

I worked myself up to be a self-learned graphic designer and a freelance illustrator since I was still in the university - majoring in IT. I love the fact that I learned so many things along the way, and I explored paths in the creative world as much as I could possibly take while working permanently with companies. 

So it's time for an experimental phase again.

Here I'm sharing with you, what it's like to be a noob full-time freelance illustrator. What the days, nights and sometimes weekends look like since I left the 'office' work. I used to get around RM 5k per month as a senior designer + freelancer before this. I left that stable life for a flexible working environment just so I can find meaning to my working life again.

This is a long post that I've been updating everyday for the month of March ;

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First week :

Tuesday (1/3) :

• Illustration - Brownies Packaging + Mockup. The client wants something cheeky and cute in my stroke. So I did something like my personal project - Macaron, and added more items like : brownies, vanilla, almonds, butter, and those little things.
• Colouring - Brownies Packaging x 4 options 
• Behance - Bfab Branding posted on Behance

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Wednesday (2/3) :

• Photo Editing - Wedding Izah. She got married early this year but Af has been procrastinating, so I took the job for the full editing + touch-ups.
• Test Printing - Brownies Packaging (Failed - refer Pantone colour code for printing). It didn't came out as planned. I realized that everything on Mac looks way nicer than on desktop pc/printed, so the printing result usually goes different that what I see on my screen. I need to re-do the colour and do several more test-print :

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Thursday (3/3) :

• Packing - Etsy stuffs + Tokyo Guide - not much of buyers this month as before. And I also posted the Tokyo Guide book to the next borrower :)
• Packing - ESKP car stickers. I custom made the envelope from our hundreds left-over wedding card envelopes. 
• Illustration - 2 templates (15 x Washi Tapes and 15 x Paper Crafts projects ). :

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Friday (4/3) :

• Photo Editing - Wedding Izah
• Colouring - 2 templates
• Illustration - Didikan Sakura - redo old illustration :

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Second week :

Monday (7/3) :

• FA Printing - Stickers for Aja's birthday
• Mockup - 3 templates illustrations fro Didikan Sakura
• Illustration - 1 template (Reading projects - 15 items) :

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Illustrations added into my Dribbble :

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Tuesday (8/3) :

• Cutting - Stickers for Aja + ESKP mini :

• Illustration - Japan travelogue Map (4 items)

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Wednesday (9/3) :

• Illustration - Japan travelogue Map (5 items) - PTSOne
• Potential client : Cakenis

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Thursday (10/3) :

• Illustration - Japan travelogue Map (5 items) + Detailing - PTSOne
• Colouring - Japan Travelogue Map started - PTSOne
• Freepik - First exam (due 15th March)

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Friday (11/3) :

• A meeting with new potential client : CelebrateTV
• A meeting with the old lawyer
• Colouring - Japan Travelogue Map - PTSOne

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Saturday (12/3) :

• Finalize - Japan Travelogue Map - first draft - PTSOne :

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Sunday (13/3) :

• Video Shoot - assist Af at the wedding :D But I only recorded the voice while they were giving out their speeches. Ha.
• Illustration : Cakenis's first draft for illustrated tutorial. She sent me this ! But I don't really wear shawls, so I haven't wear it out yet. It is supposed to be the easiest shawl to wear. Here it it :

• Example of this week's schedule & to-do list :

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Third week :

Monday (14/3) :

• Illustration - 4 designs for Freepik's first test (spring, love, anniversary, shop). I managed to complete all first drafts in 1 day, submitted at 3 am the next morning, while having the dateline that 7 am :F 

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Tuesday (15/3) :

• Compiling : Travelogue Japan, sent the first draft to PTSOne
• Compiling : Cakenis's Tutorial - Illustration
• Freepik - I'm finally in !! :D

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Wednesday (16/3) :

• CelebrateTV : Wushaf's Illustration (1/18)

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Thursday (17/3) :

• CelebrateTV : Wushaf's Illustration (4/18) - submitted drafts and timeline visual. Comment from them : make the stroke thicker and cuter (?)
• This is the initial ideation and solid stroke illustration that I sent to them :

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Friday (18/3) :

• CelebrateTV : Wushaf's Montage draft (x3 options) - Very odd random options that I did. I personally like the third one, but after a while it feels very amateur, even though they did specifically requested something cheeky and cute :

• Update : They really like the second one. They asked me to something like that and meet them up for a meeting on Sunday, at Chawan.

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Weekends (19+20/3)

• Sketch for the latest Freepik tasks
• Help Kadok (KL > Semenyih > Shah Alam > Home)
• Freepik - Task 1 can be downloaded for public in Freepik ! :

• Meeting with CelebrateTV team, brainstorm from the sketches and drafts at Chawan, Bangsar. They want more test illustrations :

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Fourth Week :

Monday (21/3) :

• CelebrateTV : They opted for the sketchy illustrations. So I had to re-do the whole things and additional character as well. Another draft & tester sent :

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Tuesday (22/3) :

• Freepik Task 2 - in progress (5/10)- I was so packed with the #wushaf project last week, I didn't have time to do this task. Today I tried cramming these illustrations task. I promised not to take too much time to start on tasks after this T^T

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Wednesday (23/3) :

• Freepik Task 2 - in progress (10/10) + amendments. I managed to submit that night, but only 6 of my assigned task were approved before my Art Director went on a 1 week holiday =.= The other 4 remained on-hold until he comes back.  I worked from 10 am - 1 am for 2 days straight, my shoulders are in uncomfortable strain.
• One of my favorite illustration came from task 2. I used this style before finalizing to much more modern clean 1-stroke style. This looks like Af :

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Thursday (24/3) :

• Freepik Task 2 - All of those 6 illustrations were submitted and compiled. My assigned art director is currently on leave until the 30th.
• CelebrateTV - Wushaf updated content. Discussion with the assistant director through Whatsapp, I was too busy with other things and can't afford to meet up.
• Freepik Task 3 - Assigned (0/10).
• Update PTSOne : Travelogue Japan, put on hold. They need to wait for the writer to keep up. April project : Travelogue Turkey. 

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Friday (25/3) :

• CelebrateTv - Illustrations for the first few scenes. 
• Cakenis - I think I'm failing this. I submitted the updates illustration to Keknis. But I don't think I'm reaching her expectation. She responded with more improvements to be made on the illustration, especially about the style. 

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Sunday (27/3) :

• Product photography : Shooting at BeadsNBorders - Assisted AF. We took the whole day for around 130 little items. Our back, and thigh were both in pain by the time we got back. It was such a tough little thing, we definitely weren't expecting that. 

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Fifth Week

Monday (28/3) :

• Aisy Abaya - Photo editing to add size measurement in IG picture.
• BeadsnBorder - Minimal editing for scarfs lighting. Needed to share the raw files to the client by tonight
• CelebrateTv - Wushaf illustrations to be submitted by the end of the day. I submitted half of the scenes in the afternoon and another half at night. I worked from 7am until 10pm, almost straight the whole day. It was such an exhausting day. My back was still in pain because of the photo shooting the day before. This is what they sent me from the production team afterwards :D Exciting ! :

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Tuesday (29/3) :

• CelebrateTv - Tiny amendments for the submitted illustrations and another extra additions.
• Zanubah - Amend the logo to fit the new label structure.
• Freepik 02 - (1/10)

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Wednesday (30/3) :

• Freepik 02 (6/10) - I sat in front of the iMac for the whole day, from 5 am - until 7 pm. I actually woke up around 3.30am, when Af was about to go to sleep after he did his freelance works *because now we shared the same iMac - until I send my MBP to the doctor =.= 
• CelebrateTv - There were some new illustrations they needed me to do while shooting. New addition, I had to cancel my working out session and finished it up in an hour. 
• Today was the shooting day. I couldn't join because I was too busy finishing up my Freepik task. So they sent me this :F Too bad I can't watch the whole process :

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Thursday (31/3) :

• Freepik 02 (10/10) - All freepik tasks finally ready and submitted to be reviewed by my Art Director. Wuhuu ! I am so relieved ! :D

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Summary :

• I did several types of projects in this month. Some of my clients/bosses were : Brownies Packaging, PTSOne, Didikan Sakura, Cakenis, CelebrateTV, Aisy Abaya, my Mom and Freepik. 
• Scope of works : Mostly illustration, some minor designing, photo editing/retouching, and product photography. 
• The thing I hate the most is meeting with clients, because I am forever awkward. The second thing are preparing for invoice and ask for payment.

Work Related : Reckless Life Version 2.0

Written in mid Feb :

At this point, I could even say that I don't care about not coming back. Every day was a struggle and I keep on telling myself that I can actually do it.  Of course I can, it was just a set of mind, the way we taught our mind to believe in what we want to believe in. 

I tried, I really did. But the thing is for the whole couple of months, I was depressed, my mind wasn't at peace with myself and I keep on asking why I'm doing this to myself? Is it for the money? Or experience? Or just to prove myself that I can actually do it? So I'm letting myself feel awful most of the time - that I was even dragging Af in my small drama every day.

I knew that I had to do something, I needed to find solutions, a way to solve the problem instead of bitching about it and letting it eat myself from the inside. So I used the most professional way possible; by discussing about it with my supervisor. I gave 2 choices : 1. Give me an intern/fresh grads to help me with stuffs, because from what I can see, I'm not capable to entertain the group of more than 20 people, or, 2. Let me go and please hire 2 more junior designers to replace my position. I didn't heard from them back until the later week.

In weeks ahead after the discussion, I was still struggling with work and the state of my emotion. I wasn't in the same page with some of my supervisors. We just didn't get along and we kept on arguing, he kept on blaming me for little things and telling me that what I do is 'not enough'. I went back home with the deepest pain everyday - you can't imagine. This is the worst working environment I've ever been in. 

Two weeks ago, they called me in for a discussion regarding things that I mentioned. This time, they gave me 2 options to choose from : 1. Still work with them, with another designer, but cut half of my salary because they don't have the budget, or, 2. Leave by choice.

I didn't even reconsider to get my salary cut by half, and I told them that I chose option 2. I wanted to leave in 2 weeks, as soon as possible. I had it enough. I didn't want to see their faces. They bring out the worst in me and I don't feel comfortable with feeling awful every day. 

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Today :

By now, I've been staying at home since the early March. I resigned by choice, I completed my proud baby : branding before my last day at the startup. We've come to a mutual understanding that they choose to hire junior designer, save the budget and I can go my way after passing it down to the next designer. I really want them to succeed.  

It was a really great experience for me, in creating such a huge project by myself in mere 4 months. I succeeded but I was in whole worst emotional state - which thought me a thing or two about working under-pressure. I haven't told my family yet - *especially Ma. | My brother might read this if he got the patience to read the whole page and learn that I'm now a full-time freelance designer + illustrator - but please don't tell Ma yet, I'm going to do that myself tomorrow night during our makan2 session. |

I have backup money for another 2-3 months before I start to work full time with a stable company again. For now, I'm finishing up all my freelance works and personal independent projects that I've been wanting to work on. 

Note : The stress level balanced, I go out for a jogging 3-5 times a week, I'm cooking for my husband every day, and I'm doing all the illustration works I want to do all day long. The main disadvantage is I no longer have a stable monthly income. But, hurraaah !

Reckless Life 6 : 3rd Month

Third month :

There were days I spent exploring new areas and paths, and there were days I spent at home working in front of my Mac. It's either the nature or the work to sustain my living financially. The experiences I had in these few months will be forever imprinted in my mind. 

I wish I can tell everyone how living a simple life will change your life. How needing basic things in life and worrying only for today and tomorrow will give you happiness. How not comparing and trying to be the best in everything will satisfy your need. How caring for yourself and only to those matter to you will calm you down. How doing things that you want and pursuing your dreams will make your days much meaningful.

Everyone is constantly running, it is exhausting.

Slow down, shut your ears to the society and listen to little things you can't hear anymore.

Especially if you are working in the creative field, go outside.

Because there's nothing more inspiring than what God offers to you out there.

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PS : I've been sharing a lot of outdoor pictures recently, I decided to make my Instagram public for awhile, I hope you get inspired and find your solace :

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Reckless Life 5 : After 31 days

We will be forever in debt with everyone and everything around us. For those beautiful inspirations, for ideas and indirect lessons, for new thoughts and opinions, for never-ending fire that burns in our soul. We can't say thank you enough.

These past few weeks had been very entertaining for my little-imaginative-part-in-my-brain.

My little projects in this past 4 weeks :

• laser cut on wood
• wedding guest books designs
• test print for poster & postcards
• 2D super short animation
• threadless contest
• doodle researches & sketches
• tribal-themed illustration on wooden mirrors
• restocking my sticker packs for upcoming events
• diy personal signage on wood plate
• updating my Behance & Linkedin
• designing works for my mom's exhibition

Many times I worked for hours, distracting myself from little things that have been holding me down. I filled my time with what I've said I would do if I had the time, but it is never enough. Too many things to do, too little time and energy.

2 more months to go.
Another week before the upcoming Eid.

It's the end of month, bills are piling up and I am beginning to feel the anxiousness :F

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Reckless Life 4 : Rambling Session after 4 weeks.

1) It's been 4 weeks at home. 

Four weeks , as in 26 days = 17 fasting days = 17 mornings without caffeine in my system while working and I did fine. A bit dreary but acceptably fine. Some cold rainy mornings were a bit challenging, and some were just like ordinary days. Several hours of works, + wandering off on Behance and Tumblr, + several minutes of lying back staring at the bunk bed, + several more minutes of hugging and kissing Awan, and some tiny minuscule minutes on doing sits-up and stretching up because I told myself that I can't be sitting so many hours in front of the Mac, *not a way to a healthy life - and I thought I need to do such 'activities' to keep my body lean and healthy. Mehh.

So what I'm having are super awesome days because I do what I like to do, every single day : researching, sketching, illustrating, doodling, doing some commission works. Repeatedly. It doesn't feels like work,  it feels more like freedom.

No-fun stuffs : tight budget on everything because I no longer have monthly salary like I used to. So I don't go out much - or almost none, I don't buy stuffs, and thank God it's Ramadhan, I can't no longer watch movies while eating heavily caramelled-popcorn.  

Tight budget = staying at home making money / I make myself believe that I am 'making money' - a bit slower than expected but, we'll get there. 

I've stopped blogging because I don't feel like telling the whole world about how excited I am in having my daily life working myself out. I do this repeatedly, so who would actually want to read about me, working ? That sounded excruciatingly boring. *but I promised myself that I'll record things on my reckless months here. Phew. 

2) Eid in 2 weeks, and who am I kidding.

3) And the Sleepyheads are still up on Threadless to be scored by you. Another 4 days to go. Go and hit the number 5 and I promise you, no matter what people tell you, you should know that you are such an awesome person. 

4) I still hate the fact that Society6 refused to do shipping to Malaysia. They are currently having a free shipping days, 'worldwide', until this Sunday. Phhhbt, 'worldwide'. + I complained to them twice since last year and they said they will update their shipping list once every few months. 

Now this reminds me, I need to go and check my postbox down at the creepy parking lot because the book I ordered has not arrived yet and it has been more than a month - *how I love complaining to the online customer service.

5) Go to my Etsy and buy stuffs, so I can watch movie and eat caramelled-popcorn.

6) I can't no longer stand Facebook, it shoves all the sweets and dirts in one go. I'm bloated. But the emojis are very cute indeed, same goes to Line's downloadable emojis. I remember in the previous event I went to several months back - the director of Line, Korea came and explained about their alarming popular instant messaging app. He was surprisingly very chatty and funny, nothing like what I imagined a director should look like or act. The download rate of Line was around 100 million in 19 months. So yes, the emoji played a big role in making the app hits the market super fast.

7) I feel like I am throwing up words in a brain-storming session. 

So I should rest from my rambling now.

It's 7.30am in the morning. 

Who would sleep early in the morning? Phhbt. 

Happy working, everyone !

Reckless Life 2 : It Continues

It's been 12 days and I spent it all on creating more doodles, making plans for little projects, distracting myself with the net, updating my behance, experimenting and as many mini escapism as I can get. Additional work scope : cooking and managing the house, *phew.

It was a bless in disguise. I had a hard time managing time to work and time to waste around doing nothing much - as my friend said, "the first few months are the hardest to focus, because we'll get easily distracted", *true, true.  

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On Mini Escapism : 

I had a fun time wandering in the city. I don't think I've ever walked that much before. It took almost half of my day. I walked from KLCC to Matic, to area around UniKL, to Maju Junction and Pasar Seni. Later I walked around Setiawangsa and Wangsa Maju to look around the area. It was definitely a lot of new sights for me. By 6.30pm, my feet felt so tired and I was having my usual headache - * a way for my body to tell me that I am already exhausted. 

A great thing about this whole walking experience is how much I can update my data on places in my brain, because I am quite good in remembering routes. I love how I can visually imagine all the routes I took on the previous walking day. It feels like rewinding moments.

Another great thing is a chance to explore new places, even though it is as close as anyone could ever get. But I am not much of a city-girl, so exploring the city of tall buildings and traffic jams were still considered as a nice new experience for me.

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On Behance & Imitations :

Here in the link to my behance. I am finally updating my previous overloaded works and it took me so much time than I expected. There are still so much to update, so stay tuned and follow my behance to stalk almost all my works.

Oh yes, now that we touch the topic, I realized that there are several more doodlers obsessed with imitating my works. Bare in mind that by keep on imitating other people's work, you won't know how far your imagination might goes, and the possibilities of expanding will be stuck by what you are seeing at that time. It is okay to imitate certain styles and strokes that you like while mixing it with your own style, but if you imitate everything, might as well call it copy-pasting instead. 

Bunyi macam poyo je kan, tapi when I people mentioned it to me, and I saw it myself, well it creeps me out a little. But if you feel that you are learning so much by imitating my works, well, if it works for you, then I guess I can't stop you - wish for the best in finding your styles and create super-awesome doodles ! Wihu !

Reckless Life 1 : The Beginning

I've always wished for a reckless life, because I played safe most of my time. I hid behind so-called-life that the society created to define who I am. For 26 years, I stayed in the typical life - as long as I have a routined days that gives me money for my family and as long as I do everything that other people do. But I craved for something more than that. I thought, "there must be more than this, because I don't want to spend my days repeating yesterday".

I am not getting younger, and my days are leaving me. It is now, or never. It is a perfect timing, I am not married, I have no kids, I have 'some' savings, and I am, sheesh, 26 - *if I live up to 50, that means I just reach half of my life.

So I chose now.

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There are three big things that I wanted to do last month :

1. Mini escapism

2. Quit the job

3. Personal matter

The first one : mini escapism. It happened as planned, wonderfully. I could never imagine better stories on that particular day. Even though it was not as far and as challenging as other people would do, but it was a great turning point for me nonetheless. 

The second one : quit the job. I finally sent my resignation letter after 927 days ( 2 years 6 months ) working with the lab. I worked for a month before my final day and ended my short chapter there 5 days ago. What I had with the lab and the Secret family were a great experience that I'll cherish forever. Some might ask why I did such thing when I haven't found any jobs yet and it may sounded a bit reckless. But, I really wanted to know how far I can reach when the possibilities are beyond my working environment. 

It was hard to explain to my mom about my decision, knowing I do have a lot of financial responsibilities. But the excitement is too much, I just had to follow my gut and risk my comfort zone. This, is for my 26 years of living. For the first time, I wanted to do so much for myself and I wanted to know how far can I go. 

I have 3 months to experiment with my freedom from a routined life before my mom can nag me about considering to have a safer typical life as others.

The third one : this is a little dream of mine, I'll keep this for later.

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I promised to myself, that I'll document everything here. 

For my own record and as a reminder for any lessons I'll learn along the way.