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Important End-of-Year Art Update
5 years ago
If you're reading this, CONGRATULATIONS, you made it through (almost all of) 2020! What an absolute nightmare this year has been. I know it's been harder on some of you than others; it's definitely been a serious coping challenge for me personally. I was already teetering on the verge of depression before the pandemic started, and due to my T1 Diabetes, I'm considered high-risk and haven't been able to go much of anywhere. Btween the isolation and increasing pressure to compete or change careers, depression spiraled into full-blown catatonic breakdowns at several points throughout the year. It's been a hard road (filled with lots of therapy and the loving support of my husband and roommate) to get my mental health back to a mostly-stable place. I was even able to take a small vacation finally...albiet one that ended in disaster as I discovered how deep my parents' hatred of all things gay, liberal, and non-MAGA goes. Being disowned by my family over the holidays for not being a good little Trump supporter was rough, to say the least. But it also gave me some badly-needed perspective about the importance of communication and empathy.
We don't talk much about empathy in the furry community, or mental health for that matter. Sure, we pay lip service to the idea of standing up for one another, of being welcoming and caring to all members of the fandom. But we have a bad tendency to push that aside the second we want something, and that goes for artists as well as commissioners. More often than not, fandom members treat me like a corporate hotline or a retail salesperson--someone that they can dump all of their rage and frustration on without consequence, secure in the justification that I deserve it because their product is late, or a single detail is off, or for no better reason than wanting to capitalize on an attention bandwagon to satiate some need for validation that they never got in high school. Admittedly, I haven't been much better lately, as the increasing hostility and neurotic behavior I've been subjected to by others has in turn made me more short-tempered and less amenable to hearing out people's concerns or treating them with kindness.
This toxic dynamic utterly turned me off to producing art of ANY kind. It diminished my spark, my joy, my motivation and my sanity. I spent endless long nights holding back tears as I desperately tried to produce work that never seemed good enough--countless hours fighting the voice in my head that whispers "You're not as good as your competitors. Your work is garbage. You're a piece of shit and no one would care about you if you couldn't draw porn. You should start this pic from scratch or just refund the commissioner. You are 35 and people 10 years younger than you have way more skill. You'll never be a REAL artist."
Day in, day out, I labored to produce work under the spectre of that crushing anxiety and self-hate mixed with the enormous demands of my husband's political career, the growing impatience of my customers, and the spiteful antics of rabble-rousers. They had no empathy for me...but I wasn't showing any for them, either. I kept closing off, withdrawing into myself for my own protection, breaking off art communications which only seemed to cause dread....until the trauma and isolation eventually made something in me snap. When it did, I spent a full week not talking to anyone at all, not leaving my room, barely eating. I felt a horrible, seething pain inside my chest--not the white-hot pain of suicidality, but a cold, hollow void where my passion used to be. It had been festering there for longer than I cared to admit, and it threatened to swallow everything I was, rendering me nothing more than a jaded, joyless husk unable to function or relate to anyone on an emotional level.
It became clear that I had lost my anchor. Art used to be something I loved which connected me to my own hopes and dreams, getting me through the worst of my inner turmoil when life got sucky. But the last 8 years of working in the fandom had twisted that lifeline into a noose. Now my hobby was a soul-crushing job that obligated me to manifest the hopes and dreams of others. There was never enough time for my own, anymore. There was always a new skill that had to be mastered, a new deadline to meet, a new harsh voice critiqueing my work and tearing my self-esteem apart over the smallest flaws. Every time I felt like I had made personal and professional progress, someone or something came to smash it to pieces and force me to start from scratch. I was angry. I was hurt. But more than anything, I was tired. Tired of being broke, of being yelled at, of being diabetic and sick all the time, of having no identity beyond this fandom or the shadow of my husband's philanthropy. Just very, very tired.
So I stopped. I ceased all commission work this year knowing that my continued involvement would prevent any kind of psychological healing, and instead I did the one thing I needed more than anything else--I got help. Talking with a therapist and the people close to me about what I was going through was the best decision I could have made, and gradually I found that I was starting to get a better handle on things. My depression isn't cured, exactly, but I've been learning how to cope with it in healthier ways, and how to recognize the warning signs and communicate before things get too severe.
But the one place my communication has still been sorely lacking is with you all. I'd like to believe I'm decent at initial communication--I certainly never kept it a secret from any of you when I started your commissions that the goal was to make every picture to the best of my abilities. And I hope I made it clear that such dedication would mean each pic could take a long time. Despite all the frustrations, I genuinely believe that the time I spent was worth each and every final product. As you look through my gallery, there's not a single commission that isn't painstakingly detailed all the love, effort, and obsessive perfectionism I could pour into it.
But for me to put that much time and love into art means that customers had to be willing to accept what might colloquially be referred to as a "European schedule." The kind of schedule that focuses more on the inherent value, craft, and quality of the final product rather than rapid-fire shipping. Not everyone jives with that, and for those that don't, I failed in my duties to better about ongoing communication and to inform everyone about where each piece was at. I did not treat each of you like equal partners in my artistic endeavors, and for that, I am truly sorry.
Going forward, I recognize that there need to be a number of changes, both for my own personal health and the satisfaction of you, my fans and customers. Here is my early New Years Resolution list, i.e., what you can expect from me as this year closes and a new one commences:
**Speed up by eliminating perfectionism in favor of the 80-20 rule. Obsessing over getting each piece "perfect" has made pics that could reasonably be considered finished in days take weeks or months instead. This places an undue burden on your patience, and an impossible standard on me. From now on, each pic will have a more realistic completion standard, with room of minor adjustments, and I will instead use my personal time to push forward on new techniques and strategies. I will be holding myself to a 3 month completion time for all overdue work, and a one month completion time for any new work I take on next year, with a money-back guarantee on both (barring natural disasters, acts of god, or extended hospitalizations).
**Communicate in a clear and timely manner. This means that people with overdue or ongoing commissions should expect an update from me this week and every 2 weeks until the work is finished, and future commissioners can expect a similar frequency of contact. It also means that I will be regularly posting monthly journal updates every 30 days or so on average. What it does not mean is that a client or fan has the right to harass me for not immediately responding to a flood of messages (I get an average of 20 requests and messages a day, and I'm only human). If you message me and I don't respond right away, please be patient--it may mean I missed your message, or I'm waiting a day or two to respond when I have a meaningful content update to share.
**Take time for me. I need to start doing personal work more. Both my therapist and I agree that it's the only way for me to reconnect with my passion for art, so I'm setting aside some time each week to work on my own projects. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE who gives me shit for spending 1-2 days a week working on my own stuff will find themselves the immediate recipient of a ban. I will not allow any more people to make me feel shitty for needing a balance between work and personal life. And speaking of personal work...
**Transition away from a commission business model to Patreon and mainstream work. In the last week I've produced three completed pics at high quality because I wanted to without anyone forcing me or breathing down my neck. That's a damn good feeling. And the work I'm producing is content you all enjoy--Digimon, WoW art, holiday-themed pics and more! I want to build a healthier artist-client relationship where I get to draw the things we all love without the panic-inducing demands that ironically slow me down 10x more than if I can approach art from a relaxed state of mind. I've begun working on a WoW and a GW2 themed comic that I know you'll all enjoy, and I am also pushing more into mainstream work as I hone my craft and seek new opportunities for long-term employment. It'd be nice to have an industry job on my resume again and the skills I learn there will naturally be applied to fandom work I generate as well.
**Take fewer commissions and charge more. Yeah, I know, not what everyone is hoping to hear. But I've spoken to a number of other professional artists, and they've all concluded the same thing: my low self-esteem has made me charge way less than my skills are worth. As a result, I've been forced to take on way more work than I can possibly complete just to keep up with bills, and every time I do it just digs the hole deeper and worsens my anxiety and depression because I can't finish 30+ pics in a short time frame. Now, this doesn't mean I will take NO commissions....but it does mean I will be running them through Patreon, and that I will be far more selective on which ones I take. Though I will be charging more, you will get more consistent quality and faster completion times as part of the bargain, and I get to have peace of mind knowing that I will not be constantly overwhelmed or forced to take on commissions that fail to bring me joy or align with my artistic values.
**Embrace positivity but take no shit. I owe you guys a lot, and would never have made it this far without you. I fear nothing so much as turning into the kind of rage-filled assholes my parents are, and so I vow to be more patient and friendly in the way I approach concerns over art production while working to understand your needs and extend the benefit of the doubt. With that being said, I also plan to stop rolling over and letting toxic, hateful assholes ruin my life and reputation over unresolved angst. Respect and tolerance are what you can expect from me, but I expect them to be returned in kind, and I will not hesitate to publicly drag those who take advantage of my empathy or who default to nasty tactics rather than civil, productive methods for seeking resolution. I am done being angry and equally done taking abuse.
So there you have it. New art, new approach, new committment, and a few old pics to finish. It's strange to look at my work in progress and realize that after all the heartache, struggle, and even triumphs, I am nearing the end of a queue nearly 6 years in the making. After spending so much time working and reworking these pics, their conclusion comes as a sad sort of relief. When you do art for this long, the pics become a part of you, intimate and familiar, even the parts of them you don't like. It's hard to say goodbye to them, but I know there will be new opportunities and challenges on the horizon. Having already started on the final pics, I know that a chapter of my life is closing, and I am very excited to show you what the next chapter brings.
I will be publishing all art here and update journals here on a regular schedule moving forward; if you have positive/constructive thoughts please feel free to share them!
Thank you for sticking with me so I could finally get back to doing this the right way.
See you in 30 days,
-BC
PS: I want to give a huge shoutout to Lobo, who helped me edit this post and made some excellent vocabulary recommendations. I don't always give him enough credit--although he can be a bit aggressive and overly protective, he's also the person writing rhymes, running streams, and working his ass off to donate thousands to charitable causes like wolf conservation and youth toy drives. He acknowledges and is working to correct his part in my production inefficiencies this year (he's even more of a perfectionist than me, with an uncanny knack for finding even the smallest mistake on a picture and recommending it be reworked) but he has also helped me grow tremendously as an artist and as a person. Without him my page and this community would shine a little less brightly. Love ya to pieces babe <3
We don't talk much about empathy in the furry community, or mental health for that matter. Sure, we pay lip service to the idea of standing up for one another, of being welcoming and caring to all members of the fandom. But we have a bad tendency to push that aside the second we want something, and that goes for artists as well as commissioners. More often than not, fandom members treat me like a corporate hotline or a retail salesperson--someone that they can dump all of their rage and frustration on without consequence, secure in the justification that I deserve it because their product is late, or a single detail is off, or for no better reason than wanting to capitalize on an attention bandwagon to satiate some need for validation that they never got in high school. Admittedly, I haven't been much better lately, as the increasing hostility and neurotic behavior I've been subjected to by others has in turn made me more short-tempered and less amenable to hearing out people's concerns or treating them with kindness.
This toxic dynamic utterly turned me off to producing art of ANY kind. It diminished my spark, my joy, my motivation and my sanity. I spent endless long nights holding back tears as I desperately tried to produce work that never seemed good enough--countless hours fighting the voice in my head that whispers "You're not as good as your competitors. Your work is garbage. You're a piece of shit and no one would care about you if you couldn't draw porn. You should start this pic from scratch or just refund the commissioner. You are 35 and people 10 years younger than you have way more skill. You'll never be a REAL artist."
Day in, day out, I labored to produce work under the spectre of that crushing anxiety and self-hate mixed with the enormous demands of my husband's political career, the growing impatience of my customers, and the spiteful antics of rabble-rousers. They had no empathy for me...but I wasn't showing any for them, either. I kept closing off, withdrawing into myself for my own protection, breaking off art communications which only seemed to cause dread....until the trauma and isolation eventually made something in me snap. When it did, I spent a full week not talking to anyone at all, not leaving my room, barely eating. I felt a horrible, seething pain inside my chest--not the white-hot pain of suicidality, but a cold, hollow void where my passion used to be. It had been festering there for longer than I cared to admit, and it threatened to swallow everything I was, rendering me nothing more than a jaded, joyless husk unable to function or relate to anyone on an emotional level.
It became clear that I had lost my anchor. Art used to be something I loved which connected me to my own hopes and dreams, getting me through the worst of my inner turmoil when life got sucky. But the last 8 years of working in the fandom had twisted that lifeline into a noose. Now my hobby was a soul-crushing job that obligated me to manifest the hopes and dreams of others. There was never enough time for my own, anymore. There was always a new skill that had to be mastered, a new deadline to meet, a new harsh voice critiqueing my work and tearing my self-esteem apart over the smallest flaws. Every time I felt like I had made personal and professional progress, someone or something came to smash it to pieces and force me to start from scratch. I was angry. I was hurt. But more than anything, I was tired. Tired of being broke, of being yelled at, of being diabetic and sick all the time, of having no identity beyond this fandom or the shadow of my husband's philanthropy. Just very, very tired.
So I stopped. I ceased all commission work this year knowing that my continued involvement would prevent any kind of psychological healing, and instead I did the one thing I needed more than anything else--I got help. Talking with a therapist and the people close to me about what I was going through was the best decision I could have made, and gradually I found that I was starting to get a better handle on things. My depression isn't cured, exactly, but I've been learning how to cope with it in healthier ways, and how to recognize the warning signs and communicate before things get too severe.
But the one place my communication has still been sorely lacking is with you all. I'd like to believe I'm decent at initial communication--I certainly never kept it a secret from any of you when I started your commissions that the goal was to make every picture to the best of my abilities. And I hope I made it clear that such dedication would mean each pic could take a long time. Despite all the frustrations, I genuinely believe that the time I spent was worth each and every final product. As you look through my gallery, there's not a single commission that isn't painstakingly detailed all the love, effort, and obsessive perfectionism I could pour into it.
But for me to put that much time and love into art means that customers had to be willing to accept what might colloquially be referred to as a "European schedule." The kind of schedule that focuses more on the inherent value, craft, and quality of the final product rather than rapid-fire shipping. Not everyone jives with that, and for those that don't, I failed in my duties to better about ongoing communication and to inform everyone about where each piece was at. I did not treat each of you like equal partners in my artistic endeavors, and for that, I am truly sorry.
Going forward, I recognize that there need to be a number of changes, both for my own personal health and the satisfaction of you, my fans and customers. Here is my early New Years Resolution list, i.e., what you can expect from me as this year closes and a new one commences:
**Speed up by eliminating perfectionism in favor of the 80-20 rule. Obsessing over getting each piece "perfect" has made pics that could reasonably be considered finished in days take weeks or months instead. This places an undue burden on your patience, and an impossible standard on me. From now on, each pic will have a more realistic completion standard, with room of minor adjustments, and I will instead use my personal time to push forward on new techniques and strategies. I will be holding myself to a 3 month completion time for all overdue work, and a one month completion time for any new work I take on next year, with a money-back guarantee on both (barring natural disasters, acts of god, or extended hospitalizations).
**Communicate in a clear and timely manner. This means that people with overdue or ongoing commissions should expect an update from me this week and every 2 weeks until the work is finished, and future commissioners can expect a similar frequency of contact. It also means that I will be regularly posting monthly journal updates every 30 days or so on average. What it does not mean is that a client or fan has the right to harass me for not immediately responding to a flood of messages (I get an average of 20 requests and messages a day, and I'm only human). If you message me and I don't respond right away, please be patient--it may mean I missed your message, or I'm waiting a day or two to respond when I have a meaningful content update to share.
**Take time for me. I need to start doing personal work more. Both my therapist and I agree that it's the only way for me to reconnect with my passion for art, so I'm setting aside some time each week to work on my own projects. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE who gives me shit for spending 1-2 days a week working on my own stuff will find themselves the immediate recipient of a ban. I will not allow any more people to make me feel shitty for needing a balance between work and personal life. And speaking of personal work...
**Transition away from a commission business model to Patreon and mainstream work. In the last week I've produced three completed pics at high quality because I wanted to without anyone forcing me or breathing down my neck. That's a damn good feeling. And the work I'm producing is content you all enjoy--Digimon, WoW art, holiday-themed pics and more! I want to build a healthier artist-client relationship where I get to draw the things we all love without the panic-inducing demands that ironically slow me down 10x more than if I can approach art from a relaxed state of mind. I've begun working on a WoW and a GW2 themed comic that I know you'll all enjoy, and I am also pushing more into mainstream work as I hone my craft and seek new opportunities for long-term employment. It'd be nice to have an industry job on my resume again and the skills I learn there will naturally be applied to fandom work I generate as well.
**Take fewer commissions and charge more. Yeah, I know, not what everyone is hoping to hear. But I've spoken to a number of other professional artists, and they've all concluded the same thing: my low self-esteem has made me charge way less than my skills are worth. As a result, I've been forced to take on way more work than I can possibly complete just to keep up with bills, and every time I do it just digs the hole deeper and worsens my anxiety and depression because I can't finish 30+ pics in a short time frame. Now, this doesn't mean I will take NO commissions....but it does mean I will be running them through Patreon, and that I will be far more selective on which ones I take. Though I will be charging more, you will get more consistent quality and faster completion times as part of the bargain, and I get to have peace of mind knowing that I will not be constantly overwhelmed or forced to take on commissions that fail to bring me joy or align with my artistic values.
**Embrace positivity but take no shit. I owe you guys a lot, and would never have made it this far without you. I fear nothing so much as turning into the kind of rage-filled assholes my parents are, and so I vow to be more patient and friendly in the way I approach concerns over art production while working to understand your needs and extend the benefit of the doubt. With that being said, I also plan to stop rolling over and letting toxic, hateful assholes ruin my life and reputation over unresolved angst. Respect and tolerance are what you can expect from me, but I expect them to be returned in kind, and I will not hesitate to publicly drag those who take advantage of my empathy or who default to nasty tactics rather than civil, productive methods for seeking resolution. I am done being angry and equally done taking abuse.
So there you have it. New art, new approach, new committment, and a few old pics to finish. It's strange to look at my work in progress and realize that after all the heartache, struggle, and even triumphs, I am nearing the end of a queue nearly 6 years in the making. After spending so much time working and reworking these pics, their conclusion comes as a sad sort of relief. When you do art for this long, the pics become a part of you, intimate and familiar, even the parts of them you don't like. It's hard to say goodbye to them, but I know there will be new opportunities and challenges on the horizon. Having already started on the final pics, I know that a chapter of my life is closing, and I am very excited to show you what the next chapter brings.
I will be publishing all art here and update journals here on a regular schedule moving forward; if you have positive/constructive thoughts please feel free to share them!
Thank you for sticking with me so I could finally get back to doing this the right way.
See you in 30 days,
-BC
PS: I want to give a huge shoutout to Lobo, who helped me edit this post and made some excellent vocabulary recommendations. I don't always give him enough credit--although he can be a bit aggressive and overly protective, he's also the person writing rhymes, running streams, and working his ass off to donate thousands to charitable causes like wolf conservation and youth toy drives. He acknowledges and is working to correct his part in my production inefficiencies this year (he's even more of a perfectionist than me, with an uncanny knack for finding even the smallest mistake on a picture and recommending it be reworked) but he has also helped me grow tremendously as an artist and as a person. Without him my page and this community would shine a little less brightly. Love ya to pieces babe <3
As for taking personal time, yes! Take personal time, and have personal projects! In practical terms, I work on a personal project for every commission (and sometimes more than one), which may not be practical for everyone but works for me and keeps my interest in writing going. I do worry about traffic and readership, but I worry about it less when I'm enjoying my work.
Also, you're an amazing artist. I know it's probably weird to process that from a complete stranger but I also know it's hard to extend that kindness to yourself.
That being said I intend to do what I always do.
"get by with alittle help from my friends!"
and that goes for you two as well. Started as a commissioner...then moved to fan, and now to friend. Reach out to me if and when you need someone
yo fuck the haters, we're here with you