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Long ass vent
a year ago
General
I've kept this all bottled up for a long time and was trying to get over it on my own but it's not happening. I don't even know where to start lol
So uh. I'm tired. Really tired.
If you've been keeping up with my past journals you may remember that I moved out of my little apartment early this year back into my parents' house while I'm dealing with building my own house because that was the only affordable option for me. The whole process up until now has been really fucking slow, stressful and a lot more expensive than I anticipated, and the construction only really started this week. It's a short turnaround but it still took way too long to even start, so I'm not moving in any soon. My plan was to stay with my parents for no longer than six months, now it's looking like it'll be well over a year. And while I thought staying with them would make it easier for me to keep on top of work and bills, it's actually the very opposite. I already don't have enough money to pay off the house anymore, which brings me to the next and most relevant topic. Burnout.
I'm sure the whole stress mentioned above is intensifying this feeling, but yeah, it's bad. Drawing has become increasingly difficult, I can't stay focused for longer than an hour, I'm not at all satisfied with the stuff I finish, and surprise, surprise, it's especially bad when it comes to vore art. Whenever I'm working on a commission I sketch down the base pose first, and as soon as I have to turn it into a vore thing I immediately lose interest in continuing. Reading through my commission forms is depressing, not because I don't get enough people interested, but because all the prompts look the same to me. All my art looks the same. I'm so bored of it, but vore doesn't really allow for much artistic creativity, and the more "creative" or alternative types of vore don't interest me at all. My personal preferences for vore are very limited, and I can't bring myself to draw anything too far outside that bubble just to appease my audience. Hell, if even drawing the stuff that I'm into is already causing my so much stress, imagine how bad it'd be if I was drawing something I don't even like. Some people may argue "well that's your job, you can't always do only things that you like", and that's true to some extent, but when it comes to art it feels really shitty to draw stuff I don't like just for money. Art is supposed to be made with passion, and I'm really not passionate about what I'm doing right now, and I think it shows. That doesn't mean I hate drawing, or vore. I like both, but this burnout is making it hard for me to enjoy things.
So what now? I can't just stop, or take a vacation, or whatever. Like I said before, my savings are already not enough and I need to fix that asap. Getting another job would probably only make things more difficult because nothing I'm qualified enough to do would pay half as much as what I make through art, and part-time jobs are not really a thing here. Honestly I'm kind of at a loss right now. I want to continue making art but I really don't wanna draw so much vore anymore. My gallery doens't bring me any joy or pride, I want to create something I'm proud of. I can't even explain how it feels to get compliments on my art, when the only thing I feel after finishing something is relief for getting it out of the queue. I honestly never felt like I belonged in the vore community no matter how many followers I have or how many people want to chat with me. I'm very humbled and thankful for everything you've given me, but it always felt undeserving. There's so many other artists out there who are better and more passionate than me, and who are not always getting the attention they deserve. It all feels really unfair.
Anyway. Sorry, I just don't know how to explain this without being as honest as I can be, plus I feel like you deserve to know since you're the ones paying for my art. I became a vore artist by choice, and I need to make it clear that I don't regret that choice. I'm just tired and ready to move on. I don't plan on completely abandoning my vore content, I'll keep doing it for as long as I need, and when I don't need it anymore I'll keep doing it whenever I want. I'll keep doing my best on your commissions for now, even if it doesn't give me the satisfaction I hoped for as an artist. As long as you, the customer, are happy with what you get, that's good enough for me. Also, if you're a long time follower I know I probably sound like a broken record to you right now, I've been in this position multiple times before, and I guess that just goes to show how badly I need a change. I just had nowhere to run to before, I even tried dedicating myself to making fursuits a while back but that didn't last very long and I was once again stuck with vore art as my only option for income. Sometimes I feel like I can keep doing this forever, but it's very clear to me now that if I do I'll never be truly happy.
I supppose that's all for now. I'll still be here, I'll still do vore commissions, but my hope is to slowly transition into other types of content. Maybe I'll have some YCHs up soon, maybe I'll eventually move to a fresh new account. We'll see what happens. And btw I completely understand if what I wrote here upsets you and if you want to unfollow me. That's fine. Like I said, there are many other artists who deserve the attention instead of me, go support them too. I need time to find myself again.
I just want my house. I miss my freedom. I miss being with my dogs all day. I'm so sick of being in this house.
So uh. I'm tired. Really tired.
If you've been keeping up with my past journals you may remember that I moved out of my little apartment early this year back into my parents' house while I'm dealing with building my own house because that was the only affordable option for me. The whole process up until now has been really fucking slow, stressful and a lot more expensive than I anticipated, and the construction only really started this week. It's a short turnaround but it still took way too long to even start, so I'm not moving in any soon. My plan was to stay with my parents for no longer than six months, now it's looking like it'll be well over a year. And while I thought staying with them would make it easier for me to keep on top of work and bills, it's actually the very opposite. I already don't have enough money to pay off the house anymore, which brings me to the next and most relevant topic. Burnout.
I'm sure the whole stress mentioned above is intensifying this feeling, but yeah, it's bad. Drawing has become increasingly difficult, I can't stay focused for longer than an hour, I'm not at all satisfied with the stuff I finish, and surprise, surprise, it's especially bad when it comes to vore art. Whenever I'm working on a commission I sketch down the base pose first, and as soon as I have to turn it into a vore thing I immediately lose interest in continuing. Reading through my commission forms is depressing, not because I don't get enough people interested, but because all the prompts look the same to me. All my art looks the same. I'm so bored of it, but vore doesn't really allow for much artistic creativity, and the more "creative" or alternative types of vore don't interest me at all. My personal preferences for vore are very limited, and I can't bring myself to draw anything too far outside that bubble just to appease my audience. Hell, if even drawing the stuff that I'm into is already causing my so much stress, imagine how bad it'd be if I was drawing something I don't even like. Some people may argue "well that's your job, you can't always do only things that you like", and that's true to some extent, but when it comes to art it feels really shitty to draw stuff I don't like just for money. Art is supposed to be made with passion, and I'm really not passionate about what I'm doing right now, and I think it shows. That doesn't mean I hate drawing, or vore. I like both, but this burnout is making it hard for me to enjoy things.
So what now? I can't just stop, or take a vacation, or whatever. Like I said before, my savings are already not enough and I need to fix that asap. Getting another job would probably only make things more difficult because nothing I'm qualified enough to do would pay half as much as what I make through art, and part-time jobs are not really a thing here. Honestly I'm kind of at a loss right now. I want to continue making art but I really don't wanna draw so much vore anymore. My gallery doens't bring me any joy or pride, I want to create something I'm proud of. I can't even explain how it feels to get compliments on my art, when the only thing I feel after finishing something is relief for getting it out of the queue. I honestly never felt like I belonged in the vore community no matter how many followers I have or how many people want to chat with me. I'm very humbled and thankful for everything you've given me, but it always felt undeserving. There's so many other artists out there who are better and more passionate than me, and who are not always getting the attention they deserve. It all feels really unfair.
Anyway. Sorry, I just don't know how to explain this without being as honest as I can be, plus I feel like you deserve to know since you're the ones paying for my art. I became a vore artist by choice, and I need to make it clear that I don't regret that choice. I'm just tired and ready to move on. I don't plan on completely abandoning my vore content, I'll keep doing it for as long as I need, and when I don't need it anymore I'll keep doing it whenever I want. I'll keep doing my best on your commissions for now, even if it doesn't give me the satisfaction I hoped for as an artist. As long as you, the customer, are happy with what you get, that's good enough for me. Also, if you're a long time follower I know I probably sound like a broken record to you right now, I've been in this position multiple times before, and I guess that just goes to show how badly I need a change. I just had nowhere to run to before, I even tried dedicating myself to making fursuits a while back but that didn't last very long and I was once again stuck with vore art as my only option for income. Sometimes I feel like I can keep doing this forever, but it's very clear to me now that if I do I'll never be truly happy.
I supppose that's all for now. I'll still be here, I'll still do vore commissions, but my hope is to slowly transition into other types of content. Maybe I'll have some YCHs up soon, maybe I'll eventually move to a fresh new account. We'll see what happens. And btw I completely understand if what I wrote here upsets you and if you want to unfollow me. That's fine. Like I said, there are many other artists who deserve the attention instead of me, go support them too. I need time to find myself again.
I just want my house. I miss my freedom. I miss being with my dogs all day. I'm so sick of being in this house.
1) Expand your vore silo. But you clarified you like what you like, and it's hard enough to draw stuff inside that silo. Go outside it, and you completely lose all motivation.
2) Let the vore theme rest for a while and draw other things. They can be perfectly SFW things, even. Just explore other things. Alfyn gave you some good suggestions how to go about that.
It's like a crab's claw. You're caught between what sells, which is your vore stuff, and what you want to do, which is anything but. And the tighter it squeezes your muse, the more you burn out. My past commission proposals are no help. They're outside your vore silo anyway. But there are others I could commission you for that have no vore at all. And I'd be happy to do that. I love your style.
I'm just going to be here as a supporter and lurker, same as I always was, and see what you decide.
My last suggestion is.. don't stop creating. If you need to, reserve vore only for your own personal work for a while. That way, you can always stay within your silo, pick particular situations that you like, and that way, keep a toe in it while you work on other themes for paid work.
As far as vore is concerned, I wonder if you see it as not-versatile because a lot of the things you draw are very similar. I've been doing this for 20 years, many of those years being commissioned in some manner or another, and I've found ways to keep it fresh the whole time. Mind you, I think you simply aren't AS interested in it as I am, so this may not apply, but I also don't like doing stuff by rote, so I try to change things up a lot on the art front: Do an interesting angle, zoom, position, framing, or, most importantly, scenario. Your focus seems to be on single-panel pictures or short comics, which are great and fairly easy to do, but I wonder if you might be served better working on larger sequences, clipshows, animations, etc. It's a lot more work, but if you're charging properly it's a lot more money, and it also brings that freshness you feel you're lacking. Experimenting with weird out-of-the-box stuff helps a lot. It also helps to just...draw what you want sometimes while taking a day off from obligations. That helped me a lot with burnout, and it's a meaningful investment to your business.
You are VERY good at what you do (Like, Disney or Don Bluth quality), but it sounds to me like you've kinda peaked at what you do and need to expand your scope. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/54436813/ This seems like the last time you did something significantly different than your norm, from what I can see. It's got interesting angles and framing (even if the consensual aspect ain't my bag. lol), and it looks like it flexed a muscle a bit more than your usual full-body same-size stuff. Don't know if you also hated working on this or not, but it's an example I had to look pretty far in to find of you doing something different than your norm.
And I guess your RANGE isn't Disney or Don Bluth level, but the cleanliness of your art and the expressions you pull off are, IMO. You're very practiced. :)
You are a very good artist. That people are less willing to reach into their pockets for art that isn't related to your specialty is a harsh truth, but it shouldn't make you feel like people just aren't interested in your art without it. I really liked your suits, I hate that that didn't work out and I hope you can return to it some day.
As a quick aside, I wanted to mention your feeling that you don't belong in the community. I can strongly relate to that, though in a way that may be different. I, for all my social and sexual frustration, am known to withdraw from trying to make friends or anything like that, especially where I am now in life. I feel like there's this big gulf in between everyone else and me. They're happy and unashamed, and I'm complicated at best. Some of that is in my head and some of that is kind of true. It becomes a lot harder to feel a sense of belonging when there's depression, social anxiety, exhaustion, or a perpetual bad mood in the way, or on my case, sensing I am changing but not knowing what I am becoming. All you can do is give yourself time.
The bottom line is that things are already changing for you. Whether it's a year or three years you will have a house. By the end of it you will be a somewhat different person. A lot of that will be for the worse, and you will have to feel yourself recover from it. I lived with my mom for two years with my job prospects in the absolute toilet. I did about five interviews, they all loved me, four of them told me I was hired, and I got a month total of work between two paid trainings that ended the same way. But I had hope for the opportunity I'm taking now, and that kept me going.
Is it fair? No. Will you look back and be glad it happened? Almost certainly not. Will it make you stronger or more noble? Not really. It will just make you into the you that you are becoming, warts and all. It's your story, the one thing nobody can take from you. I know you're capable of making it to an easier part of your life. You are a hard worker and it's what you deserve. Keep your eyes on the prize and hang in there. It's important.
As for not belonging in the community, from my understanding it seems you want to be part of it but have some insecurities holding you back. I don't think it's fair to assume everyone is "happy and unashamed", everyone has their own struggles, some are just better at pushing those aside and enjoy things. I'm the absolute worse when it comes to chatting and meeting new people so I'm probably not in a position to give social advice lmao but try not to be so hard on yourself. I can relate very much to what you said about changing but not knowing what you're becoming, I'm in a position right now where I've moved on from a lot of the things I used to enjoy not too long ago, and I'm finding new hobbies and interests but no one to really share those with because, again, I'm really bad at making new friends lol. It's difficult to carve out a new "self" by yourself, but it's all a matter of time.
Thank you so much for the encouragement ❤ Like you said, this is all part of life, struggles and bruises included. We just gotta keep pushing and eventually things will fall into place.
I'm loving your new explorations and I'm excited to see more of what you're cooking. ♥
I admire the clarity with which you see your art situation and how well you enunciate it. The difficulties you point out aren't imagined and don't have easy solutions, but you're clear-sighted about how you can try to tackle them. I'm glad that you've maintained boundaries around what you want to draw in the past and don't plan on changing that in the future. It's important that you take care of yourself and no one wants to see you persist in doing things that make you unhappy. If I can never get vore art from you again, I'm going to focus on being happy with the great pieces you've drawn for me already and not sad about hypothetical pieces that-could-have-been.
It was great to get some non-vore artwork from you recently too and you definitely smashed that one. You're talented with a great style and I think you can succeed outside this space. The challenge that kink art always does easier numbers than non-kink is there, but I think if you find something that interests you you'll flourish. Alfyn beat me to it, but I think YCHs and experimentation are a great idea. You'd make absolutely KILLER refsheets.
I hope you find something exciting and I look forward to seeing some of it. And I hope you find a break in general, because you also sound a bit drained.
Best wishes. <3