It wasn’t an overnight thing, I can tell you that much.

I worked as an art director for about 3 years.  During that time, I also (slowly) plugged away on my own comic and other projects.  I made sure to keep my blog up to date (I was better at it back then!)… posting artwork on a nearly daily basis.

Tijuana Flats, a restaurant company based out of Orlando, found my artwork online, contacted me, and asked if I would be interested in painting murals for them.

Over the next 6 months, I was able to slowly pull back from my day job (art directing & graphic design) and do the murals full time, which was actually more like working one week out of every five!

That gave me the ample time to get to work full time on my graphic novel and do other things… like watch daytime TV.

I guess the best advice I can give is this: don’t give up. It’s hard to work a day job and go home to work on your own personal art and projects. But you’ve gotta ask yourself this…

“If not now, when?”

I asked myself that question for a long time.  Push came to shove, and it was either get off my ass and get my comic done or just go back to work at a company doing some art for someone else.   I think it’s better to struggle, doing what you exactly what to do, then to just be stuck doing something you hate.

Good luck!