By Ife J. Ibitayo
If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, I was clinically diagnosable by March 1st of 2023. Out of options and out of time, I decided to give Upwork one final chance to help me find an illustrator before I went back to the drawing board. I created a new job listing, paid to have my post featured, and waited.
Within days, even more job applications began to flood in—dozens of them. I spent hours scrolling through portfolios and setting up Zoom interviews until an Upwork “Talent Specialist” connected me with one particular artist named Milo.
The Sample
From the first time I laid eyes on his portfolio, I knew there was something promising there. We jumped on a phone call together and quickly hit it off. As I discussed my vision for telling “meaning-filled” stories, he said he’d especially resonated with that line because as an LGBTQ+ creator, diversity of representation was very important to him.
And so we hammered out a timeline, and I anxiously waited for the sample that would determine our future together, or apart.
We started working together early in the week and set the first milestone for Friday. But Friday came and went without an update. As I stewed over the weekend, I began to have second thoughts. Would this initial communication snafu be indicative of the rest of our relationship?
And secondly, I’d been hoping to work with someone who shared the same faith as I did on The Biballical Chronicles because of…well, the subject matter. But Milo possessed a wildly different way of looking at the world than I did.
When the following week rolled around, I was about ready to throw in the towel. But then I saw the preliminary colored sketch Milo had drawn, and I was blown away. I viscerally felt like I was seeing the visible manifestation of my idea even at that stage of development. To put it simply, he got it.
The “Break”
Conflicted, I called Milo up and told him that I’d need a couple of weeks to think about it. A few days later, I flew home for Spring Break from my graduate school program. Though, to call it a “break” might be a bit of a stretch. I spent many afternoons deep in prayer, wrestling with this decision. I phoned friends and family members as I weighed the pros and cons. Months, even years, of my future were contingent on this partnership and so were thousands of dollars in my bank account.
As endless doubts wrapped around me like choking tendrils, the drawing Milo had sent me was like a north star—a lighthouse in the middle of a sea of uncertainty. Somehow we’d bridged the chasm between our vastly different worldviews, and I saw the potential to make something beautiful together.
The Call
As my Spring “Break” wound down, I gave Milo a call. Hopeful yet tentative, I asked him if he was still willing and available to work on my project. And so, on March 27th, 2023, I finally found my illustrator for The Biballical Chronicles.
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