So it turns out that wave of old commissions I uploaded didn’t actually upload with the descriptions I very much remember plugging into FABUI.

I’ve gone back and fixed them from memory. Sometimes this site makes me wonder why, man…

Called up my state legislators for once in my damn life about IL HB1103. [Internet ID laws; 18+ content suppression] I'm doing my part, and you ought to as well.
If you live in a state with active internet ID bills that have yet to be passed, contact your state legislature--a lot of stuff gets passed on state levels before it ever goes federal!

For more info, check this post by Dieselbrain on Bluesky.
https://bsky.app/profile/dieselbrai...../3lwzlaftpic2m

So sleepy that I might even get 8 hours because I’m about to pass out.

Funny how that happens right as I finally get the nerve to start writing again. And not just that—actually FINISH an old project.

What the hell am I going to draw though?

What is the fucking purpose of Art Fight?

I’m of the opinion that art made for someone else is a special thing, especially if uncompensated. It’s because you *like* something—not because it’s an obligation needed to complete some sort of bigger objective.
You’re putting ulterior motives into your fanart. Gamifying the entire process diminishes the value of freely giving fanart to people, or God forbid, asking for a real trade.
Even if the mission statement of Artfight is completely innocuous, I feel like it’s not a good intrinsic motivation to actually *do* art for others.

It’s also why I refuse to jump on art trends, post those “draw my OC” memes, or really anything else.
I don’t want to solicit art from others. Every non-bot who responded to this Bluesky post about my unwillingness to buy comms misunderstood my entire point by asking if they can draw stuff for me anyway.

Let’s say—HYPOTHETICALLY—I opened commissions (I won’t).

What pricing structure would you, the HYPOTHETICAL (and nonexistent) consumer find the most fair, and when I charge them at what rates?

I’m not in a good mood this evening. It’s seriously crippling my want to be creative and ability to enjoy myself doing leisure activities. Instead, I will drop some bombshell information and farm the cheap gratification off of the reactions.


I never really mentioned this before, but I bought another adopt last month shortly before my birthday. I did it as a sort of early present to myself, if I can even call it that.

She’s a big-tiddy, fat-assed goth mermaid chick. I haven’t been bothered to properly annotate a ref for her, but I think(?) I have the details for her mostly written out at this point.
I have no idea how she’ll really fit into my setting or art, is the thing. Any thoughts on this?

You might have noticed I’ve been rather quiet on here lately.

There’s a very long-winded and personal explanation for that which I’m too tired to type tonight. It’ll make sense when I get around to writing it and posting it—probably tomorrow.

NOT!

Ahahaha you fucking thought!!!

I’ve been seeing way more journals than usual saying people I follow have open comms lately. Wonder why that is?

What if I had another lady (or two) (or three) planned and maybe already designed but I have no idea how to characterize them or fit them into my dimension of hot ladies?

What do I even do maaan I can’t draw these theoretical women unless they have fully fleshed-out characters! I can’t just do ONE-OFFS

Do not acknowledge my birthday.
Do not celebrate my birthday.
I have no fondness for the day all my problems started, nor is it a fun time for me to pretend I'm enjoying it.

My birthday is like any other day; completely soul-crushing and barely tolerable.

The workflow-crippling self-loathing will continue until art ability improves.

Also, as a reminder: just because my least favorite day of the year is upcoming doesn't mean you're suddenly allowed to draw my ladies without permission to try and bribe me to stop feeling bad.

I have finally cleared my Proton Mail inbox that got imported with my old Gmail inbox, which had shit collecting in it for more than five years. My inbox is empty, relevant shit tagged, and any non-personal emails in the archive are trashed.

It probably took me three hours to sort through all of that crap. I feel so much better with a fully-empty inbox now.

You all have zero fucking idea what Pokémon I’m considering for the next new lady.

You probably couldn’t even guess it.

In case it wasn’t apparent, the commission sheet I posted yesterday was an April Fool’s hoax. I’ll be moving it to scraps shortly.

I am still not taking commissions, as I never have. I don’t feel comfortable doing so for several reasons.

I apologize to anyone who may have been seriously looking to commission me.

Woah! I’m selling out! Insane!

CLICK HERE >>> https://www.furaffinity.net/view/60419948/ <<< CLICK HERE

I’m totally not coping because nobody’s messaged me in the last hour! Not at all! Come give me money pls I need to afford silly useless shit :>

And my Bluesky’s at 180 followers.

I feel nothing.

I feel… dissatisfied with how much attention my art gets.

Even on FurAffinity, where I’ve been consistently uploading for two years, I haven’t really seen my average post interactions grow by all that much, despite my art skill growing immensely since I started. My most-favorited, most-viewed posts are ALWAYS commissions. Without fail. They get such higher margins that it’s ridiculous. On Bluesky, it’s even worse.
I know people see my stuff, but I just really crave that tiny bit of feedback that those people do, in fact, exist in a tangible and meaningful way. Not for an algorithm—just for my own fucking validation as an artist.

Uuuuuuuuugggghhhhhhhhhhhh

IDK what I'm gonna do with it, especially when I haven't written shit in over a year, but I felt it would be good to have.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A.....rageFanEnjoyer

Does anyone here notice that I can never keep a font consistent in any of my artworks?
I feel like fixing that--have for a long while.

Any advice for making my own font? I use Affinity Designer, which in theory should be fine when combined with a good font foundry, and I feel like having a font with all the features, design elements, and licensing restrictions I want would beat hunting for one myself.

I realize there's some stuff that I never posted here which I commissioned or got gifted by other people.

I should fix that. Expect a big dump of uploads soon.

Gonna keep this brief:

Going forward, I would appreciate it if anyone who wishes to draw my characters would not do so without my direct approval.
I’ve been feeling numerous anxieties about my characters and how I want them depicted lately. So much so that I’ve been silently dreading seeing someone draw my characters out of the blue.

Now, I can’t state enough how much I adore seeing my ladies drawn by others, but I’ve started taking how I characterize and depict them more seriously lately, and the last thing I want to do is have to tell someone that I dislike—or worse, hate—something they’ve drawn for me because it was too out-of-character for me to be comfortable with. Even if it means less art of my ladies gets produced overall, I’d feel much more comfortable knowing what is and isn’t being drawn of them.

Sorry if that comes as a disappointment to anyone. Hopefully this doesn’t affect the majority of you reading this journal. I’ve made similar (and more condensed) versions of this announcement on my other socials, as well.

What if… instead of releasing the Dragon Ball trilogy on Blu-Ray…

They released it on Buu-Ray?

(I have never seen a single episode of Dragon Ball.)

Foreword; or, Some Context to the Scenario I Find Myself In

So lately, some cool people—mainly artists I look up to and view as inspiration—have started following me, both on here and on my Bluesky. While I am very grateful for the attention on my work (both from them and everyone else who follows me), I haven't exactly been taking it well. Chiefly, the increased attention, especially from people of such high stature, has given me the impression that the content I currently produce at the rates I have been is inadequate. I sort of... went off the rails tonight. Posted some venty-type stuff on my Bluesky, and the replies I got on it made me really write out what was in my mind and why I feel the way I do... crudely. It's not very well-written nor is it even founded in anything other than my own insecurities, but I find I should tell you people here about it too—it's only fair I give the whole story to all of my followers no matter where they are.

---

[The following is a mirror of the long-winded, ranting thread I posted to my Bluesky, minorly reformatted to work on FurAffinity's Journal system a bit better.]

My issue is more that I'm not producing stuff. At all. The last time I uploaded anything here was three days ago, as a birthday gift. Almost everything I've drawn this month were just birthday gifts, for that matter. I don't really consider that my "core content." I don't want it to be. I don't think there's a lot of people who follow me to see art I'm making for others—I'm trying to cultivate an audience that consumes my stuff for its own sake. I wanna draw my interests first and foremost, and I don't feel like it aligns with what interests the people that have recently found me.
And perhaps more relevant to the point at hand, I don't even KNOW what to make. I'm chronically short on ideas, and the ones I do get are often too ambitious and end in me frustratedly deleting the project file.

Don't let the goofy, stylized shading fool you—I'm a very middling artist. I have no idea how to pursue my nowadays-nonexistent interests nor do I have the motivation or patience for studying the things that will improve my craft. How am I to produce stuff that'll appeal to others when I fail to appeal to myself? And I know it's not really beneficial to worry about the audience. I've been drawing primarily for myself—the attention it's given me was just a side effect. But if that's the case, then why do I post my art at all? Clearly I am not philosophically consistent here; I have ulterior motives. I'm fucking tired of ignoring this mess. Clearly I put a good deal of weight on "appeasing" the people who look at my content, and that'll only get worse the more my account grows if I don't address it. I'm far too lazy for any degree of consistent artistic output. Lazy; apathetic. Not stressed nor burnt out. I could very well spend a lot more time on art, yet I don't, and then I complain about "letting down" my audience with a lack of output. Pathetic.

I don't want to sound ungrateful to you people—I really value your attention—too much, in fact. It's why I feel so upset as a creator so much. I feel like your guys' attention is wasted on me. I don't produce anything worthwhile in any consistent fashion. You're putting forward an indicator to me that you value my work enough to see the latest and greatest, and I sit on it and do nothing. I don't wanna be that kind of guy. I want to show that I respect and value the attention I have, yet I just don't feel up to the task. But there's a lot of cool people following me and I don't want to scare them off because I'm honored they notice me in the sea of other middling artists out there...
That's a bit hard to do when I'm so fucking self-conscious when I have any amount of following to the point where I just shut down and feel worse for not working, making me shut down more, isn't it? I could be spending the time I've been writing this working on my writings. Or art. Or anything else.

I'm so lost when it comes to matters like this. I know it's mostly inconsequential—many of you will remain regardless. I thank you for that kind of commitment to someone who's far too harsh on himself, but I can't help but feel that I'm in an inescapable situation. If I do nothing, people will get bored, and I lose fans. If I write long apologies for non-issues, as I am now, I come off as a whiny, unstable person, which (rightfully) turns people off, and I lose fans. If I produce content, I'm not fixing the root issue but keep fans.
In any case, I am unhappy.

I look up at the length of what I've written here—making the mother of all mountains from a goddamn anthill—and realize just how not-okay this is.
I apologize to any follower of mine who just watched me melt down over my insecurities, and I hope you can find it in you to keep me in your watchlist.
To any non-follower who's somehow stumbled upon this, I hope this doesn't come off as trying to sympathy-bait engagement or something deranged like that. I'm just having a very bad moment right now. Make of it what you will.

I'm posting this anyway because I feel like I need this weight off of me. For now, at least. I'm gonna go to bed now and probably take a long shower in the morning. Y'all better not blow this shit out of proportion while I'm gone.

—AverageFanEnjoyer