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We need to talk
2 months ago
General
Hi everyone! I think it’s finally time to make this post and explain what’s been going on — where I disappeared to, why I deleted my gallery, and why I only show up from time to time just to take a commission, lol.
I don’t even know where to start, but I guess I’ll begin by saying that all of this has been building up like a snowball. For the past 2, or maybe even 3 years, my mental state hasn’t been great. I felt like I was stuck and not moving forward in my craft. My desire to grow as an artist has always been more important to me than social media management and numbers. But at some point, the second desire took over, and I ended up sacrificing my skill development — which heavily affected both the quality of my art and my mental health.
I started getting the reach I wanted, but it very quickly stopped bringing me any joy. At the same time, my mental state kept getting worse because I was sacrificing my main goal — improving my skills. The constant chase for numbers forced me to draw things I didn’t like. On top of that, there was constant anxiety about basic survival — about needing money to eat — so I kept taking commissions that, to be completely honest, I can’t really handle.
Speaking of commissions — they also became one of my anchors. Constantly drawing things I don’t enjoy pushed me even deeper into art block and a complete lack of desire to even touch my tablet. And if I didn’t have the energy for commissions, there was no way I had any energy left for studying and practicing to actually improve. You can make progress through commissions, sure — but not the kind of progress I want, and it’s very slow.
The final breaking point was Twitter completely stopping the promotion of 18+ posts in places where such content became restricted. Eventually, I made a very radical decision — to delete my social media, remove my old works, and move on. I no longer want to draw furry or porn content, because I’m burned out from it. And honestly, over these last 4(?) months I’ve even forgotten how to draw animal faces, lol. On top of that, NSFW content is very limiting. I’ve always struggled a lot with coming up with ideas and compositions for 18+ pieces — sometimes it took me several days just to come up with something. Meanwhile, I have tons of inspiration for harmless SFW illustrations that I simply don’t have time to realize. Do I regret it? Yes and no. I spent the entire fall focusing on my skills — drawing almost every day whatever came to mind, watching a lot of tutorials, getting advice — and it gave me more results than the past two years combined.
However, this also led to financial problems. Of course, I have a husband who works, but it’s not enough for us. What hurts me the most is my parents’ situation — they’re struggling financially, and right now I can’t help them. At the moment, I barely take commissions (and honestly, people don’t really commission me anyway). On one hand, it’s easier because I don’t feel constant pressure and debt. On the other hand, it’s financially hard. Still, I’m managing for now. After such a long break, I’m finally returning to my old commissions (praise the gods for my clients), and once again, I want to honestly say — I’m deeply ashamed in front of my clients and I fully take responsibility for this.
Another important thing — I’m a very introverted person, probably even a hikikomori. I stay at home 24/7, rarely go outside, my sleep schedule is constantly messed up, which makes me lose track of time and days of the week. If 4 days pass, it feels like only 1.5 days to me. This applies to social media as well. It’s always been very hard for me to manage it (and I’ve been thinking about hiring someone to do it for me for a long time T_T — which is also one of the reasons why I take so long with commissions). So when I abandoned most of my pages, it actually became easier for me. Even opening Twitter after such a long break gives me anxiety and disgust — mostly because of the AI slop, but that’s another topic… Anyway, I hope this explains things more or less. At the moment, I’m slowly returning to commission work. I also have a lot of ideas for large illustrations with characters from Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero that I really want to bring to life (finally, I’m drawing what I want). Additionally, I’ve started working on my own comic and lore. The project is very large-scale, and right now I’m only at the very beginning — developing the world, the story, and the characters — so the release definitely won’t happen this year. But I might share some of the process on my Patreon.
So yeah, that’s pretty much it. Have a nice day, everyone! :)
I don’t even know where to start, but I guess I’ll begin by saying that all of this has been building up like a snowball. For the past 2, or maybe even 3 years, my mental state hasn’t been great. I felt like I was stuck and not moving forward in my craft. My desire to grow as an artist has always been more important to me than social media management and numbers. But at some point, the second desire took over, and I ended up sacrificing my skill development — which heavily affected both the quality of my art and my mental health.
I started getting the reach I wanted, but it very quickly stopped bringing me any joy. At the same time, my mental state kept getting worse because I was sacrificing my main goal — improving my skills. The constant chase for numbers forced me to draw things I didn’t like. On top of that, there was constant anxiety about basic survival — about needing money to eat — so I kept taking commissions that, to be completely honest, I can’t really handle.
Speaking of commissions — they also became one of my anchors. Constantly drawing things I don’t enjoy pushed me even deeper into art block and a complete lack of desire to even touch my tablet. And if I didn’t have the energy for commissions, there was no way I had any energy left for studying and practicing to actually improve. You can make progress through commissions, sure — but not the kind of progress I want, and it’s very slow.
The final breaking point was Twitter completely stopping the promotion of 18+ posts in places where such content became restricted. Eventually, I made a very radical decision — to delete my social media, remove my old works, and move on. I no longer want to draw furry or porn content, because I’m burned out from it. And honestly, over these last 4(?) months I’ve even forgotten how to draw animal faces, lol. On top of that, NSFW content is very limiting. I’ve always struggled a lot with coming up with ideas and compositions for 18+ pieces — sometimes it took me several days just to come up with something. Meanwhile, I have tons of inspiration for harmless SFW illustrations that I simply don’t have time to realize. Do I regret it? Yes and no. I spent the entire fall focusing on my skills — drawing almost every day whatever came to mind, watching a lot of tutorials, getting advice — and it gave me more results than the past two years combined.
However, this also led to financial problems. Of course, I have a husband who works, but it’s not enough for us. What hurts me the most is my parents’ situation — they’re struggling financially, and right now I can’t help them. At the moment, I barely take commissions (and honestly, people don’t really commission me anyway). On one hand, it’s easier because I don’t feel constant pressure and debt. On the other hand, it’s financially hard. Still, I’m managing for now. After such a long break, I’m finally returning to my old commissions (praise the gods for my clients), and once again, I want to honestly say — I’m deeply ashamed in front of my clients and I fully take responsibility for this.
Another important thing — I’m a very introverted person, probably even a hikikomori. I stay at home 24/7, rarely go outside, my sleep schedule is constantly messed up, which makes me lose track of time and days of the week. If 4 days pass, it feels like only 1.5 days to me. This applies to social media as well. It’s always been very hard for me to manage it (and I’ve been thinking about hiring someone to do it for me for a long time T_T — which is also one of the reasons why I take so long with commissions). So when I abandoned most of my pages, it actually became easier for me. Even opening Twitter after such a long break gives me anxiety and disgust — mostly because of the AI slop, but that’s another topic… Anyway, I hope this explains things more or less. At the moment, I’m slowly returning to commission work. I also have a lot of ideas for large illustrations with characters from Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero that I really want to bring to life (finally, I’m drawing what I want). Additionally, I’ve started working on my own comic and lore. The project is very large-scale, and right now I’m only at the very beginning — developing the world, the story, and the characters — so the release definitely won’t happen this year. But I might share some of the process on my Patreon.
So yeah, that’s pretty much it. Have a nice day, everyone! :)
I do hope things have been improving :3
I read your journal title and thought I was in trouble about knocking over a house plant or something