Hi guys,
I just wnat to take the time to publicly thank everyone at Statue forum, Danny, the mods, the sculptors, Jesse, Keith, and Troy, for their support, for this section, and helping me see that I can do more than just work 100% for the industry. I mean I love what I do, but the time has come to spice things up.
Guys I am 35 now, and while I still feel young, truth is I am getting older, I have 3 little girls, and 1 baby on his/her way. I love doing what I do, but i do not see myself working for this industry by the time I turn 40, by then I will own my company.
I just want to share something that happened to me last year I went almost 4 months without being able to work for more than a few hours a day most day not at all, due to a neck injury. Due to me working extremely insane hours ( 15- 20 hours a day , non stop 6 days a week at times)just before Comic Con, something snapped in my neck, and while at Comic Con I woke up without being able to move my neck.
Aside from the excruciating pain in my neck, and upper and lower back, and a completely frozen neck I started loosing the feeling in my hands and fingers.
That experience helped me realize I needed to change my whole lifestyle, and if I ever recovered I had to work smarter.
To be honest when you are engaged in doing anything, even if it is something you love, if you do it full time, and non stop you are bound to burn out.
You see this whole sculpting thing to me has always been a fun ride, but last year, the ride almost came to an end, or so I feared.
After seeing different doctors, and getting different types of treatment which included, extremely painful acupuncture, and the possibility of surgery, I finally overcame my neck/back problem.
Luckily my clients were kind enough to support me through this and gave me enough time to recoup.
I feel great now, I am eating healthy, running 3-4 miles every day 5 days a week on my treadmill while playing xbox ( gears of War 3) buahahah!( I do this every day from 8:30am to 9:30am)
Anyway, I have completely recovered!
But my plans have changed, please hear me out.
I started doing this whole sculpting thing for fun.
I remember when was 4 when I sculpted my first clay T-Rex at school. It blew up in the oven ( kiln), but I had a nice ceramics teacher and it broke her heart to see this little 4 year old staring at a bunch of shattered remains of what used to be his first sculpture.
So she gave me the chance of trying again.... this time I sculpted a great white in homage to that crazy movie Jaws....
I keep this little "airplane" looking shark in front of my desk as to keep me grounded, and to remind me how far I've come, but more than anything to remind me why I do this.... because I enjoy sculpting! So I am going back to that, going back to the time when I sculpted for me, not just for others.... I am not leaving the industry... not for a few years more.
So thanks to the advent of CG sculpting Industry work won't take up most of my time as it currently does.
I am keeping 3 big clients from this point on...either that or my wife will castrate me.... so no more super long work days
My goal is to eventually stop depending on this Industry, it may take a few years but I will get there, my goal is set to 5 years from now.
All the other clients like McFarlane, Funko, Hasbro, Mattel, which have been cool to me, I will no longer work with.... I even turned down DC Direct work a few weeks back DC has always been the coolest to me, but they understood how I felt, that was bittersweet as I'd love to sculpt more DC stuff, but their deadlines are very tough.
I had never ever done that before... to say no to a great client....but my mind is set....it sucks, but I cannot go crazy doing too much industry stuff anymore.
I have been lucky enough to help other sculptors and painters, that I have collaborated with in the past get in with most of my clients, and take my place providing the same services.
Again I realize I can't do so much work, and my body and mind keep telling me so, plus I need to spend more time with my wife and kids, friends, and myself. The industry is shifting, and that is my cue!
I am glad I was able to help other people get into those companies, all I hear is praises from my clients in regards to said people, and that makes me very happy.
As of this week, my entire operation has gone 100% digital. I have a great team to help me, and the models will be 100% mine, with tweaks/accessories done by others, but always with my supervision. So you will still get a Sosa piece.
I have also hired a new painter by the name of Silent Surfer, and he will be helping me with all things paint, the guy is amazing, he just painted Koto's new Spidey I sculpted.
https://www.facebook.com/people/Nath...00000440233124
This new change in my workflow will become extremely helpful.
I will still do traditional work full time, however it will mainly be focused in doing stuff that I choose to do, like limited commission work, but mainly stuff for PROTOTYPEZ STUDIOS.
So to reiterate... from this day on,
all Industry projects will be done digitally, and revised by me in wax once printed, as to keep the integrity of my style intact. plus there's always a need for tweaking, cleaning 3-D prints, unless they are more stylized character designs, and if they are printed by Ownage (those guys clean the build up lines quite well) like animated characters which Digital is great for.
My studio will now be able to do a line of say 10 characters in a matter of weeks rather than months. I am sure companies will love that, took me a while to set up the whole thing, and find the right creative/responsible people but now things have been going smoothly, and I love it.
I have yet to finish a few outstanding hand sculpted pieces for Koto and yamato, but after that everything will be 100% digital with tweaks by hand.
I must confess I am not so good at digital yet, I can currently finish an organic digital character in 1-2 days ( used to take me 3 weeks lol) depending on complexity, always with the aid of my friends, specially for accessories.... I am still mastering CG... I am waaaayyy behind others, but I can do some cool tricks due to my traditional background
So now, like I mentioned before I will be able to focus on helping Glenn and Fenix ( Jorge) to make PROTOTYPEZ STUDIOS take off.
We are currently acquiring new licenses, we have been in talks with Fran Cho for a while, and doing stuff with him is almost a certainty. We are also in talks with WB to see if we can get Thundercats in order to do limited model kits in my style...but that has yet to be determined by them.
This will definitely be the beginning of a new stage in my career where I will basically choose what I do, I love doing stuff for the companies I work for, but 90% of time will be dedicated to what I choose to do, without sacrificing the quality of my services to my remaining clients.
Like I said , I will be available for limited commission work, for either full size of either of the following scales: 1/6th, 1/5th, 1/4th, and life size busts, and half scale busts on occasion.... be it, from Comics, Film, Animation, Anime, realistic portraits.
However, I hope you will understand I will be very adamant about choosing what characters I take on, and I will gladly take on commissions where I am allowed to design, and come up with ideas, where I am given freedom to create, and bring a fresh perspective to our beloved characters from, comics, films, animation etc.
If this is something you'd like to work with then I am all ears.
My email:
ericksosa@mac.com
Thank you all for reading my rant!
-Erick Sosa