I received both a voicemail and email on Thursday afternoon from a potential client telling me a caricature artist he had hired weeks earlier and payed half up front to draw his parents had totally flaked on him and was desperate to get them drawn and printed on t-shirts by Saturday for a family cruise on the Disney ship "Magic" to Spain.  I agreed to help him in his time of need, but he was at work and didn't get pictures emailed until after midnight.

 A rough drawing was sent Friday mid morning and while waiting for a response,  I decided to go to the gym for a workout, arriving back home around mid afternoon.  I had mistakenly drawn them facing the wrong direction, as he wanted to mimic a Mickey and Minnie Mouse design.  He also had few other suggestions and modifications for the final.  I flipped the drawing in Photoshop and made the decision to do the finish digitally with my Wacom tablet.  What a mistake!!!  First of all, when a drawing is reversed, it doesn't quite translate properly and changes need to be made, the most telling being the redirection of the mother's hairstyle and subtle adjustments to the facial structures.

I had such a hard time controlling what I wanted to accomplish with the digital pen, especially the line quality, direction and flow on the slick surface of the tablet while gazing at the results on the computer monitor.  The eraser tool was easiest for me to command and it was called to service A LOT!!

Since I had promised he would have a completed drawing by Saturday morning, with much aggravation and exhaustion I worked through the night drawing, erasing, redrawing, erasing ad nauseam trying to get it right, and I finally added the final touches bleary eyed around 8 am.  I was tempted to take a break before completion, but I had a gig at two Saturday afternoon, and was afraid I wouldn't have the time or energy to get it done before needing to leave, so I bit the bullet and plowed through till done.  The client said I was a lifesaver, and the final was fantastic, so at least he was happy!

After a short nap I drove to my birthday party gig and made 3 times more money in 2 hours than the approximately 14 total hours toiling on this one drawing.  "Perfectionism" (and bad decisions) can be a mighty curse sometimes.