100 Little Robots

I’ve had this odd little idea floating in my head for several years to take a pack of 100 4" by 6" blank note cards, and illustrate something on each of them. The theme always seemed to be just out of reach, or the timing was never right… there were a dozen reasons I never got the idea off the ground.

However, when you know the time is right, you have to seize the moment before it slips away.

Carpe diem.

At some point, realizations were made that tipped this note card idea into a higher gear, to begin moving it forward into something more tangible. The two most important of which were:

1. There are hundreds of themes all around us, all the time. Pick one and stick with it. Robots, zombies, ninjas, pirates, aliens, plants, animals, children, old people, homeless people, future themes, historical figures, vehicles, characters, movies, heroes, villains.. the list goes on. Just pick something and commit yourself to it.
2. Waiting on time to work in your favor is waste of energy, because time does not have you in her best interest. If you really want something to happen, you have to make the time for it to happen.

Theme chosen.

I began by choosing to draw robots. 100 of them, One for each card. I feel focused. Determined. Creating these is an excellent exercise in time management, technique, and creativity.

At the time of this writing, I am barely a tenth of the way into my set, and I can honestly admit that this isn’t an easy quest to tackle. Ideas start to run out when it comes to variety, the long-term goal looms ahead like a distant beacon. I persevere though, because above all, I am enjoying the hell out of this little adventure.

Process and ownership.

One of the most enjoyable things about creating the robots so far has been in the support that I am seeing from communities on Dribbble, Twitter, and Facebook. People are excited about seeing these come to life as I post them, and in turn, that fuels me even further in wanting to create more of them. Here is a peek at some that I have created so far:

In addition to drawing this robots, I thought it would be novel to allow people the opportunity of owning one of these original works of art. A robot they can call their own. Unique, signed, and numbered in silver ink. Here’s a link to the store I have set up, should you want one for yourself:
http://anton.bigcartel.com/product/note-card-robots

I decided to call this process “Adopt a Robot”, just to be cute. The cost is very minimal (a mere $25), which breaks down to a roughly minimum-wage job (or less) when you consider how much time I am investing in each one. If I sold no more robots than I have today, I would still continue to finish the entire set.

100 Robots.

When it comes down to it, I’m doing what I love: which is being creative. I have a very specific goal in mind and I will reach it. When that’s done, I shall find something else to move on to. Being creative and drawing things is a far cry better than hoping my art will improve by stagnation (spoiler alert: it won’t).

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