Things are developing here in the creative factory, though it's been a bit difficult because of the pandemic, and the ongoing main income source search. We are reaching the 6-month point since getting COVID furloughed, and understandably, this has raised the anxiety levels a bit. In spite of this, however, the plans for the art and pollaments evolution are still in motion.
One part of the art plan that has developed is the acquisition of new tools. I did an inventory of my older tech items and realized that by selling them I could afford to upgrade to the iPad/Pencil/Procreate setup that I wanted. This was accomplished in the past month and now I'm putting the new setup to the test!
It's amazing how much sketching on the iPad (with a matte screen protector) feels almost like graphite on paper. This will go a long way in getting me back into the creative process, being able to maintain a catalog of the work in progress, and hopefully, maintaining the flow of work over time. With all this, I can start to build a new body of work, the direction for which has already been conceptualized.
In the pollaments world, things have been steady using the Polls for Pages setup. Facebook has totally removed the thumbnail images feature from their polls, which makes for a major disadvantage during the qualifiers stage. People aren't able to visualize what they are voting for. I can't think of any reason why Facebook is doing this, except perhaps wanting their site to load faster. Whatever the reason, it's bad for visual comparisons.
The search is on now to find a mechanism that allows for visual comparisons within Facebook (and/or beyond). The current setup with Polls for Pages only allows links. I'm having to create the polls, take pictures of the upcoming matches and applying those pics to the corresponding links. So when the user clicks, they are outside of FB and the results are not in real-time. We've been getting many people complaining that they would click on their choice, and the other choice is shown as having been chosen. This is usually due to someone else clicking at the same time, and the response page only posting the one that clicked a millisecond before.
Here I am dealing with UX issues on a regular basis, and yet I can't get hired as a UX designer to save my life (Gotta have "real work history" and the right certificates). Anyway...
I'm hoping to come up with a better solution soon, especially with upcoming pollaments like Flowers, Produce, and Superheroes, which will be very dependent on image comparison from the getgo.
Finally, a new website is going to get built at willfelix.com to showcase the most popular art pieces of the past, link the sites where the art is being sold, have a bio, and provide a way for contact. There will also be a design section which will serve as a portfolio, a link to the Pollaments evolution, and this forum here.
Thanks again to all of you for contributing to the cause, and serving as a sounding board.