What about portraits, pin ups, and or busts as YCH's? No background or extras, just the character? You may be able to doodle some YCH ideas at random and see what happens? Regardless, I wish you the very best!

thanks to another comment; I was considering pulling fuuucking ancient art from my old galleries and using those for YCH ideas???

and thanks so, so kindly!

Nothing wrong with pulling ancient YCH's and ideas! ^^

See your first mistake was opening a business in Europoorea, the most entrepreneur-hostile region in the entire world save for, MAYBE, China.

Seriously all of Europe has been waging a war on its entrepreneurs for like twenty years and yet the chucklefuck politicians in charge are all scratching their heads going "durrrrr why our economic growth rates at practically 0% durrrrrr maybe we need moar red tape and bureaucrats getting in the way of individuals trying to market their skills hurrrr durrrrr."

hopefully you find a way out, but that's a hell of a hole to have fallen into, and I can't exactly give any great advice for getting out of holes. :<

yeahhhh- kinda really hard when I live in Sweden, hahahahaha. but I'll keep trying to figure it out and finding what works; it helps to have an inlaw who works with the tax office and can help me navigate everything too.

thanks a ton! it's been forever since we last had contact too.

Ouch. *Nods*

thanks so kindly my friend.

That sounds super stressful, I'm really hoping things work out better for you as soon as they can. :<

About your comment on perfectionism and the struggle with that: I feel this a lot, and I can relate. Just trying to accept a decently high but not perfect standard from yourself can be hard as hell. So I totally get it. Especially when you know what you wanted to achieve, and you feel like you just... missed it by a large margin.
Sometimes I've tried redoing old ideas I had that didn't match up to the original vision I had in my head, just to see if I can manage it better in the present. If nothing else it can help me feel better about the improvement in my art over time, like it's getting closer to being able to capture what I envisioned and one day I'll accumulate the skills and 'eye' for it to achieve it. It's definitely rougher for personal art too, when there's so much more investment wrapped up in it, and you want to do your own ideas, world, emotions, characters, etc. justice. It can be so stressful for no good reason.

I can totally understand that bigger and more involved illustrations can really take it out of you. And I imagine it'd be tough figuring out a balance that doesn't stress you out, especially when it comes to comms/selling stuff. But if you ever hypothetically did do some 'quick illustrative things', I at least would be interested to hear what they'd entail! Maybe I'm just one person, but I want to speak up and make it known that it's not that nobody would be interested. I don't know, maybe I read it wrong, I just read it as feeling like your art isn't worth much - but it is, and do remember that! Maybe it's premature to think people might not be willing to pay for certain stuff? :') Ugh, I just wish I had more to say, as I'm not too experienced with all this. But I really hope things improve for you soon and you can find a path through it. 🫂

(Also do you have a comm sheet anywhere or something that otherwise mentions what's available, examples, prices, etc? I couldn't find anything except your ToS, but I could be missing something.)

awwww cheers!

and yeah, it is so, so fucking hard to just. be happy and content once something is "finished", because nothing ever truly feels finished; it's just a lack of time to just keep revisiting and revisiting and revisiting and I so hear you on trying to revisit old images and stuff- it can help a bit; maybe I can use that as a basis of some YCHs or similar, hahahahaha. just going through some of my old galleries and picking out non-commissioned work for the treatment. but gawd, it's so hard to capture what you see in your mind; the disconnect between the imagination and the arm is so, so fucking real. and you'd think that getting it out would help /relieve/ stress, but nope- that there need for perfection rears it's ungly head again.

and I appreciate your words a ton! the quick illustrative stuff was basically prompt commissions where I get a character and a song/idea/theme- rather similar to what I do now with the greymissions but they were supposed to fast and loose without too much refinement aaaand then, I started putting more and more detail into things so they started taking longer. but I try to work with what I know I can do without over extending myself. but yeah.

my commissions tab on FA has my current offerings!

Oh shoot, I completely forgot FA had the Commissions tab as a thing! Thank you for pointing me there, I see it now and am embarrassed I missed it. :'D I'm stuck paying off other expenses right now but I absolutely want to grab some more art from you in the future! <3

The idea of using old art as basis for YCHs is a neat one though! A good way to repurpose old ideas and give them another shot, basically. :D Oh and I really like the idea of just giving a character and a sort of prompt, too (especially with stuff like a song or theme) as a more vague and freeing sort of guideline, rather than anything too strict. I think it can be interesting and fun to see what an artist does when you just give them a looser idea and let them run with it! Maybe some people prefer more control or certainty, but I think it'd be neat to see what comes from that sort of freedom for creativity. It's definitely worth consideration, I think (at least if you can manage to not stress too much over perfecting them, which I know is easy to fall into). :>

Good luck boss
I know it don't mean much but I wish you the best, and hope you can find a way to work things into a beter situation for yourself and the fam.
Just keep putting one foot infront of the other.

I appreciate it a ton!

and yeah, I will be doing that, always- putting one foot in front of the other.