Eli, my fluffy dragon boy, helped me to heal my creative soul. ❤️‍🩹

Incoming text wall:

It's fair to say I've been struggling creatively for the past several months. Late last year I got very sick, to the point where I had to miss out on a convention I'd been looking forward to. It was a blow that left me emotionally vulnerable, and around the same time I started dealing with some intense feelings of doubt about my art, comics, and creative projects in general. The two may not seem very related, but the combined emotional toll very nearly broke my motivation to keep on creating.

As I was struggling, I kept feeling drawn to my character Eli. I've always imagined him as soft, childlike, sensitive, and earnest. I returned to him again and again. Drawing him felt like a joy rather than a chore, and after filling my emotional tank a little, I felt more motivated to work on something else. Eventually I had the thought, could I do more than draw Eli? Could I become him, even for a little while?

I had the idea for Eli's twitch channel, with an emphasis on relaxing vibes, cozy games, and bedtime stories. But if I was going to do it, I was going to remove any pressure to hit some arbitrary metric for success. I never intended to get caught up in the numbers game with my other projects, chasing likes and views. But I have to be honest with myself and say that working on something so meaningful to me and seeing flat growth for so many years was starting to get really frustrating and definitely influenced my depressed state of creativity. I didn't want that to happen to Eli.

I created Eli's Cozy Corner and decided I would focus on what made my heart happy. I certainly hoped others would enjoy it too, but I've been very deliberate about not letting that be my focus. I gave myself permission to do it purely because it brought me joy. And letting that be my motivation has started to fix what was broken.

As I enter my third month of running Eli's channel, I finally feel ready to start thinking about my other projects, how they fit into my future plans, and most importantly how to avoid the burnout that was caused by too much concern with external factors. The way forward isn't totally clear yet, but I feel confident it will be in time.

What I can say in the short term is I'm going to continue doing Eli's channel, and once again invite anyone to take a look and see if it's something you enjoy. Yes, it's ABDL-friendly, but not ABDL-exclusive. If you don't crinkle, but you can be kind to those who do, you're welcome at the next storytime.

I will also be taking a break from commissions after finishing what's in my queue. They've been fun, and I'm super appreciative of everyone who's paid me the high compliment of entrusting me with their own characters and ideas. But there are other things that have been on my backlog for quite a while that I'm ready to start paying attention to. I don't know when I'll be ready to do commissions again, but when I am I'll be sure to announce it.

For Aww, Feathers! I'll continue to post pages from the archive while deciding what comes next, both literally and figuratively. Whatever the future holds, it will always mean a lot to me, and whatever flaws it may have in the art or writing, I'm still proud of it and care too much about it to forget about it completely.

Thanks to those who took the time to read. Thank you to everyone who's supported and encouraged me over the years.

I love you all. 💙🥰