You Know, This is Kinda Hard Right Now...

Not in an apocalyptic way. I'm not saying that my life is hell like some months ago. On the contrary, as much as I have my ups and downs, my situation has been getting better, mostly when it comes to my mental health and anxiety. My husband, as amazing as he always is, helps me give a smile and go through my darkest thoughts. And for the friends who are still with me even in my worst moments and my anxiety crisis, I cannot be more grateful to have friends like you! <3

Does it mean I will be back posting on this FA page and my Qinter page? Eh, it's complicated, mostly since I have to think about small stories for each of them, and my commission backlog is intimidating... though this is a conversation for another time!

But now, this is about another subject, and this journal is going to be long. I will make a TL;DR at the end of it if you don't want to go through this novel haha

Context

This is a subject I began to talk with some friends some days ago, even if I got this feeling for months now. In an outsider point of view, it will probably sound foolish and trivial, but as a major part of my life, I consider it important to face this situation once and for all and be honest with myself.

What should I do with Jackrow, my dragon who represents myself in this fandom for as long as 12 years now?

To give you all some context, I created him in 2013 at the age of 13 years old. His general design came from elements I loved and represented myself at the time, which included characters in the fandom I loved, my favorite color, my horoscope sign, my favorite animal, and more. No character design considered in his look, only the "cool factor". Nevertheless, I grew pretty close to this design because it represents myself. in fact, he was me!

So when I noticed recently that people I met shrug in front of this design. Even some said that the design was straight up bad. I couldn't help but feel hurt about it. I've often heard that Jackrow is cute, which this is great, but never interesting, cool, hot. I don't know if it's because of these reactions or just my own personal taste (probably both to be honest), but the more I look at him, the more I notice some details that bothers me. When I look at artworks I get with Jackrow, sometimes I wondered if making his whiskers longer would be better, if desaturating his blue fur would look more natural, if his horns should be longer... In general, I feel like his design is too kidish, too innocent for what I am now.

Okay, but if these are minors details, why not just make the changes and make a 2.0 Jackrow?

This is a fair question, but it comes with way more complications because, well, these are not just minors details. I would change him to be only an eastern dragon with a heavier focus on tea and magic books. There would be a lot of changes when it comes to his anatomy (SFW and NSFW wise), his color palette (more interesting and natural), his features that will make him look less like a chimera and more aesthetic. You got the point.

So you want to redesign him, gotcha. Why are you hesitating?

My main doubts come in 4 parts, and I will elaborate my thought process for each of them here.

1. Throwing Money In The Trash
As you know, I use this character as my main fursona for a long time now, which mean that I got a lot of commissions with him... okay, way less than all the copyrighted characters artwork I commissioned in the past years, but you got the point. Ha ha! I feel that if I do these changes, I have the impression of throwing these artwork in the trash, that they are not worth it anymore because these are the old version of Jackrow, not the current one. And some of them are very precious to my heart, including those with my husband's characters and those of artists who never or close to never do commission anymore. Someone told me to see this as another character, which as much as this is a good idea to get around this feeling, I don't want to supervise another character in the long list I already have.

2. Oops, a plush is coming my way!!!
One of my long await project is a HUGE plush of Jackrow. The problem? It's his current design, and I got the quote according to his current design. Since she will begin to work on it only next month, I can negotiate with her to do it in some months with a better design, and pay the new price, but asking her to change the plan seem so intimidating and disrespectful... Plus, I will have to quickly find someone to make a reference sheet of the new design so she has a visual of what I want now. I can try, but I don't know if I should.

3. Killing the character
I understand that this part is more an emotional and personal reason that defied any logic reasoning. I would lie if I said I hate the current design. In fact, I really love how cute he is! So silly and pettable, I want to hug him all day! This dragon is still very close to my heart, he is my precious baby boy. The problem is I feel like I'm killing my own creation, that I'm admitting that he's not good anymore. In a way it hurt me to know he has to change, it's scary. And what if it didn't work, that this new design is just not good enough for me? It's like making a jump in a hole without knowing its depth, it's intimidating.

4. Wait... who are you?
This one is a quick one since I never intended to be a popufur nor do I need this recognition for a business or something similar. Mostly I was thinking about the fact that people who know me before would be weird out if I change Jackrow's design so abruptly. Maybe those people will think he's uglier, that "it was better before". I guess this one is more related to my anxiety.

From all that, I'm faced with a very though choice, which it's the reason why I'm making this journal in the first place. I want to know what you think about it. Should I redesign Jackrow? How should I proceed to do it? Did you go through this problem in the past and what did you do? Any design tip to share?

Sorry for the loooooooooooog journal today! Thank you so much for reading it all and giving me your opinion, it means a lot to me!
Have a nice day!

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TL;DR

- I'm hesitating to change Jackrow's design entirely, a part due to other people's perception on him and many details that weird me out these days.
- The actual design of Jackrow was made 12 years ago when I was young, immature and unaware of design rules in general
- Jackrow's redesign is not just some minor details to change. It includes a new color palette, a new species, removed/added features and more. I love the current design, but I feel like he needs a lot of changes to be better, more handsome, more masculine, but still cute.
- Four reasons why I'm hesitating to do the redesign:
1. I will have to throw the old commissions in the trash since it doesn't represent his design anymore, including very important pieces for me or commissions from people not making them anymore.
2. A plush maker is going to make a HUGE plush of Jackrow (in his current design) and I feel bad to tell her to change the plan because of that (even if she has not touched my project yet)
3. Doing this change feel like I'm killing a character that I loved so much and grew up with.
4. Fear of people not recognizing me and thinking my old design was better

What should I do? Do the change or keep my design anyway? Talk to the plush maker or let it go with the old design? Design tips? What's your opinion on this situation?