Massive pressure on me lately to launch my damn career already coming at me from multiple angles. There's the fact that my current job has reached new heights of unbearable and insecure (as I've ranted about plenty already). Now my wife is graduating in a month and will have to start making student loan payments soon. So she's going to have to get a job, because my income alone won't cover that. Once she has a job, she's not going to want to quit and start over again if I find employment that requires us to move, which it probably will since there's almost zero opportunity in Indiana. Plus, it would be best to move over the summer while the kids aren't in school, which requires us knowing by mid-June at the latest so we can give our landlord two month's notice. So it's all coming down to "find a job doing 3d in the next two months or your prospects are likely forfeit for unknown years to come."
And I'm so not ready. I mean... I am... but not in the ways that count. I had drifted away from art for a couple years because of life issues and despair. Then
Rapture came along and gave me a glimmer of hope. In the past year I've produced a bunch of work and feel like I'm at a professional level now. I've made stuff that looks like it would fit right into a AAA game title. But it's all under NDA. I can't showcase any of it in an online portfolio. I haven't made a portfolio piece since 2008. And Rapture isn't likely to turn into a paying gig anytime soon. There's going to be a Kickstarter soon and we recently learned the state is offering grant money to media start-ups, but I don't have much faith in either of those things. I feel horrible for leaving them after they pulled me out of my slump and made me an indispensable member of their team, but I don't really have a choice right now.
So I have about two months to make at least two killer pieces and catch an employer's interest with them. I've been so wound up over this lately that I can't sleep... except when I'm at work... ugh.