Film Annex is a blessing to me.  It enables me to earn money for my cartoons, which is what I want.  At the same time, I'm also looking for other ways to make money with animation.  In fact, I'm starting with the "pro-bono" corporate video I'm doing for Carolyn Fears-Williams and her nonprofit Devoted 2 Healing.

The video is coming together well; I just have to gently push myself to keep working.  I'm animating Part One tonight and working to finish it by Sunday night.  As I said in a previous blog, I can use this as an example of my work to show prospective customers.

Speaking of which, a local psychiatrist approached me wanting to do an animated video about dealing with autistic children.  We had a short talk and she gave me an idea of what she wanted, but I told her she had to prepare a script for it--she's the doctor, after all.  I offered her my email address but she said she preferred in-person meetings.  But she did offer to pay me!

This is going to be an exercise in customer relations.  The doctor is a very busy woman, and I want to hold her to her word without putting her off.  I also need to have patience with her--I had to tell her that we could not use Donald Duck, someone else's character, in the video.

I'm also interested in graphic facilitation--taking picture notes of a person's speech or lecture on a big sheet of paper to be used by that company as an illustration of their plans or corporate message.  I did a "pro-bono" graphic facilitation job at my church--actually, I did a graphic version of my pastor's sermon one Sunday.  I drew it in pencil, then inked and colored it and gave it to my pastor as a gift on Pastor Appreciation Month last October.  So that shows I can do it!

A new dimension of cartooning jobs is opening up for me:  Corporate cartooning  seems to be the way to go now in my hometown of East Chicago.  Since I know people in charge from my jobs for the schools, the public library, the hospital and the local health center, I may be able to get more jobs besides doing caricatures at local events.  Time to brush up on my business image!