Every day at 3pm I was hit with back pain and fatigue.  Coffee didn’t help.  Lots of stretching didn’t help.

I consulted the ergonomics department at Disney about creating a sit/ stand workstation and I’ve been in love with it since the day we set it up.  I used to sit all day, hunched over my Cintiq and now I stand pretty much all day, every day.

My back pain has been alleviated and I stay more focused throughout the entire day.  It keeps me energized throughout the day AND I’m burning calories the entire time!

Since I recorded an episode of Chris Oatley’s ArtCast mentioning this, many people have expressed interest in seeing exactly what my streamlined setup looks like…

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I choose to be really accessible for a lot of reasons. One result of that accessibility is the inundation of critique requests.

Unfortunately, there’s just no way I can critique the portfolios or websites of everyone who asks.

The best advice I can give for getting professional and/ or experienced eyes on your work is to build relationship and add value.

Join Twitter, the blogs and the other communities where these professionals hover. Respond and comment. Be helpful and answer questions, provide recommendations, encouragement and never pester them. That’s how you get on the radar.

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People are always asking me how to pitch their ideas for animated TV shows.

I usually refer them to my  ArtCast episodes about pitching (find those here, here, here and here) and the book recommendations contained therein.

Pitching – as a concept is both complex and vague and my own opinions about pitching have dramatically changed over the last two years (listen to the episodes linked above).

That said, I just listened to the BEST advice about pitching that I have ever heard.

Heather Kenyon’s presentation How To Create A Pitch Bible is great in many ways: It’s concise (only about 40 minutes long), it’s informed (she’s an experienced, credible source) and it’s current.

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The site and home of my new podcast launches THIS FRIDAY!

Paper Wings is the apprenticeship program that I started last year to provide an intensive, personalized art and/or story education that is paid for with the skills and talents that the students already possess.

This method allows the apprentice/student to earn their education through the kind of creative work in which they are already interested and they avoid the crippling student loan debt that takes most art students years to pay off.

Now Paper Wings has taken another evolutionary step in the form of a podcast hosted by yours truly and my long-time friend Lora Innes.