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Life update
7 years ago
General
Heyo,
So a very small update on the state of things. This is something of a continuation of my previous life update post where I went over trying to pair down my (not paid for) waiting list.
So first thing's first; My backlog is almost entirely clear. I know I had been saying this since like....august I think? Life happened, life happened a lot. But this time it's true. I should have everything paired down entirely by tomorrow and then after that I'll be entirely free again for the first time in roughly four or so years. So what does this mean exactly?
I'll be honest and say my creative enthusiasm has taken a bit of a hit in recent years. I find unless I'm intensely invested in something for one reason or another I usually just want to get a piece done in a relatively quick manner short of it looking rushed. Which has become a bad habit and its hurt my creative development as a result. The answer here was to take things at a more healthy pace and trying to focus on things I'm more invested in on a moment-to-moment basis.
The issue is that now-a-days I have a lot of people coming to me through DMs asking if I'm available or if I can do something specific for them. Though normally one might say to pay attention to when commission availability is officially announced but I tend to not like doing that. I recognize and deeply appreciate that my audience wants to work with me that much and I try my best to accommodate since most of them aren't pushy about it.
But the problem lies in their frequency. One or two every now and then is fine but I've gotten to the point where I get approached about commissions almost every other day and sometimes even more. One promised commission can quickly turn into three and then into five and so on until I've suddenly booked the next two weeks worth of work for myself. This results in me never really being able to catch my breath or pace myself properly. Not to mention it gets in the way of me wanting to pursue different projects or even taking a break to do other adulting things that I've put on the backburner for too long.
So what I'm trying to get at here is I need to pace myself more. As much as I truly want to not disappoint anybody I need to change how I do things further than I already have in recent months. Though this mostly just means me asking people to pay attention to when commission availability is officially announced with only the occasional exception. Which I do admit may be a little erratic since I've been doing well with YCHs and limited subject comms. I know this may come as a disappointment to some but you have to understand that I've had a bloated commission log that I've made it my mission to finish for about four years now and I desperately need a break from being five steps behind at all times.
SO ANYWAY. That's all I really wanted to say. I know this is common knowledge for a lot of artists but I guess it's been harder for me since I grew up always wanting to make everyone happy even to the detriment of my own mental health. I've made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of lessons trying to get to where I am now and I suspect this won't be the last either. Which is why I do still want people to be open about things that I might be doing wrong so I can continue to get better.
I do also want to mention that I might be using this extra time/mental space to start looking into a backup skill set to compliment this job in the event that it might become less viable through either my life situation or the extremely unpredictable state of the various tools and websites I need to do this job. But we'll have to see where life goes from here first. Again, I want to thank everyone for their understanding and monumental patience throughout the past few long and extremely eventful years and I do hope I can continue to please long into the distant future.
So a very small update on the state of things. This is something of a continuation of my previous life update post where I went over trying to pair down my (not paid for) waiting list.
So first thing's first; My backlog is almost entirely clear. I know I had been saying this since like....august I think? Life happened, life happened a lot. But this time it's true. I should have everything paired down entirely by tomorrow and then after that I'll be entirely free again for the first time in roughly four or so years. So what does this mean exactly?
I'll be honest and say my creative enthusiasm has taken a bit of a hit in recent years. I find unless I'm intensely invested in something for one reason or another I usually just want to get a piece done in a relatively quick manner short of it looking rushed. Which has become a bad habit and its hurt my creative development as a result. The answer here was to take things at a more healthy pace and trying to focus on things I'm more invested in on a moment-to-moment basis.
The issue is that now-a-days I have a lot of people coming to me through DMs asking if I'm available or if I can do something specific for them. Though normally one might say to pay attention to when commission availability is officially announced but I tend to not like doing that. I recognize and deeply appreciate that my audience wants to work with me that much and I try my best to accommodate since most of them aren't pushy about it.
But the problem lies in their frequency. One or two every now and then is fine but I've gotten to the point where I get approached about commissions almost every other day and sometimes even more. One promised commission can quickly turn into three and then into five and so on until I've suddenly booked the next two weeks worth of work for myself. This results in me never really being able to catch my breath or pace myself properly. Not to mention it gets in the way of me wanting to pursue different projects or even taking a break to do other adulting things that I've put on the backburner for too long.
So what I'm trying to get at here is I need to pace myself more. As much as I truly want to not disappoint anybody I need to change how I do things further than I already have in recent months. Though this mostly just means me asking people to pay attention to when commission availability is officially announced with only the occasional exception. Which I do admit may be a little erratic since I've been doing well with YCHs and limited subject comms. I know this may come as a disappointment to some but you have to understand that I've had a bloated commission log that I've made it my mission to finish for about four years now and I desperately need a break from being five steps behind at all times.
SO ANYWAY. That's all I really wanted to say. I know this is common knowledge for a lot of artists but I guess it's been harder for me since I grew up always wanting to make everyone happy even to the detriment of my own mental health. I've made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of lessons trying to get to where I am now and I suspect this won't be the last either. Which is why I do still want people to be open about things that I might be doing wrong so I can continue to get better.
I do also want to mention that I might be using this extra time/mental space to start looking into a backup skill set to compliment this job in the event that it might become less viable through either my life situation or the extremely unpredictable state of the various tools and websites I need to do this job. But we'll have to see where life goes from here first. Again, I want to thank everyone for their understanding and monumental patience throughout the past few long and extremely eventful years and I do hope I can continue to please long into the distant future.
Not that your current method isn't good, but an active list that tells everyone what is up with some mild level of decent accessibility would be best. And of course, making this knowledge easy to find without having to directly ask you.
Regardless though, good for setting boundaries! Most people never do that and end up paying for that. It’s good to see you thinking ahead.
Hope I haven't cause ya much trouble seeing how you've been getting asked about commissions and such. Never my intent (and best not be others too) I hope things pan out for you better now as you finish up the last of this backlog of yours.
do hope though when you open up coms again, I can happily get more pics from you XP
But I did love discussing ideas with you, you always had something awesome to add ^_^
But if you're looking for more creative outlets to look into, feel free to poke me, I do a lot of knitting and crochet, and even got a friend hooked on cross stitch! Pretty much a month after I showed her she went online and bought a really complex peacock cross stitch kit, and she's flying along with it! If you want to take up something like that I could give you some tips and show you to some tutorials that I found really helpful.