This is mostly going to be me complaining again so if you don't care you can stop reading here. I don't like sharing my emotions with other people and putting my problems on them but I'm not in a great mental state right now and I feel like writing some of this stuff out will help me to process it.

Commissions

I've surprisingly had a couple of people express interest in commissioning artwork from me. If you saw my last post you know I said yes to one of them. I don't want to say this was entirely a mistake because it meant I got to meet them and talk and everything, but from an art standpoint it was a mistake. To put it bluntly it was a shitshow on my end. It took an entire month to make that, and personally I really don't like it. It should have taken 2 weeks tops and it should have turned out way better than it did. I was completely unprepared and I feel like I made every beginner mistake I know of. I feel like an asshole having given that to them and saying it was done, it wasn't and I should have thrown it in the trash and started over. They deserved better and I should have done better, but having spent so much time and energy on it I just felt so worn out working on it. Seeing the other great artwork they commissioned of that character get finished really doesn't help either. I know everybody says not to compare your art to others', but its hard for me not to. It takes me so much effort and time and scrapped sketches and reworking to get something that to me even looks presentable. It's one of the reasons I don't share WIPs or sketches, they look awful and often don't look anything like the finished piece. It makes me feel like a fraud.

I used to be really into the idea of getting good enough to do commissions for people. I've since learned that I was mistaken, and I was just using the idea of commissions as an excuse to hopefully meet and talk with people and maybe make friends and such. I might try again in the future if somebody really expresses interest again, but I don't really feel comfortable with the idea of taking a month to produce a hot mess with the presumption of getting paid for it. It's a different beast than just doing whatever I want and being able to just change whatever, whenever in the piece, and just go with the flow so to speak.


Characters

If you haven't noticed I don't really have any. I basically just make them up as I go along when I make stuff. I really would like to get a 'sona or a mascot character or something though. Something I could commission artwork of or use for the odd YCH or to have show up in a collab or with a friends character or something. I've tried making one myself but it didn't go well, and I don't think I actually know what I want enough to pay somebody else to do it for me. I'm quite jealous of the people who seem to have made an account 10 years ago, plopped their character ref sheet down and have been using that same character for years. I feel left out not having a character to call my own. I want something that clicks with me like that. I haven't found it yet and don't think I ever really will, and I don't want to rush it and hastily buy or make something that I don't really like, but I also don't want to wait forever for perfection to show up at my door, because I know that's not going to happen. Maybe if I make enough different characters I'll be able to frankenstein bits of them together into something I really like.


Self-Expression, Other Things and Closing

I really have a hard time expressing anything about myself beyond surface things to people. I feel like anything I share beyond surface level stuff is just going to be thrown back at me later as ammunition in an argument or to put me down (which I've learned from experience from my family who do this constantly) or that I'm going to be shamed, judged or thought of differently because of what I enjoy or feel. Its one of the reasons I haven't given up on drawing yet even though I want to all the time. Beyond the obvious sexual content of the stuff I make its a way for me to express certain ideas, emotions, events or fantasies. I'm still afraid to post even the most vanilla of stuff though, and constantly have to fight with the idea of just deleting 70% of the stuff on my account because I'm embarrassed by it or see it as cringeworthy. I still don't know if posting my stuff publicly was a good idea or not. I want to get better and get critique, and maybe use it as a way to meet people but I feel like I'm just setting myself up to have it thrown back in my face or making a fool of myself. I wish I was one of those people who just have a "fuck it" attitude and don't care what other people think and do whatever they want. I used to think I was one of those people but I realized a while ago that I'm not.

Sorry for the wall of text. If you read this, I don't know why you would but thank you. I hope this doesn't sound like I'm fishing for compliments or crying for somebody to fix all my problems or begging for pity, that's not my intention but I guess those things are always implicit in a post like this on the internet. I'm sure I'll regret posting this in like 20 minutes.