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~ForgottenScales
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Recent Journal
Something's got to give [Update]
15 hours ago
Hello there. It's been a bit since I made an update or discussed how things have been going openly. Thinking I could take it all on myself & just push through to come about like a victory parade & tell all the ways I'd made things better with hopes & dreams & determination... & all that. The only things that's changing is time keeps on going. Sure I've gotten a bit better at making furry art, but that's really it. Obviously if you're just here for the pretty pictures as they roll out, you can skip this journal. It'll be yet another yappy one.
It's been a long road since leaving Arizona. I've been all over the place trying to find someplace to settle down, & I did! I've been living where I have for just about 4 years now. The longest I'd ever stayed in one place. It's been a nice time for just about everything in the home, sharing it with people who can communicate & do so without the high dramas & catastrophes that made up everywhere else I'd lived. I'd even made some of the most amazing friends of my life who would come to see me from all over, out of state, hours away, even out of the country. I felt confident that I could host them in an environment that was clean, safe, & accommodating. These have been the best days of my life, really. Though those Big Deal out of trip visits had to slow to a stop as people moved away & took up so much extra work to set their life on better paths for themselves! That's not a complaint at all! Getting to see friends from afar has always been extra, a real lovely treat for sure, but something that can never be a replacement for community or connection here in the ordinary, everyday life. Something that's been... real empty, for a long time.
For the first time I get to actually discuss moving in a way that isn't just jettisoning everything I knew & own away. I get to plan for moving in unity & address all the needs that a household has. That has been a really nice change of pace. Even as lucky as I am to get that chance, it definitely has been a massive source of worry for me. Transference isn't fair to the here & now, & I do my best to be mindful of it. It's just hard to shake a lifetime of needing to brace for crash landings & taking only what I could carry with me. There's no getting around how the shock of that has affected the way I live even when things are going well. I don't allow much room in my mind for things that would fall under "setting down roots." I don't even consider "gosh I want a dresser" or "maybe I could get another pair of shoes that are comfier, or more my style"- heh actually, I bought coat hangers only once & though I've needed more I've had this feeling like "well my clothes are just going to get ruined or thrown out before long so I might as well just settle for folding them on the racks in my closet." Never had a WALK IN CLOSET in my life, I still don't know if I'm doing that right....
The domestication process has been going well, really. Having access to resources whenever I need without fighting for them like showers, laundry, & taking better care of my skin & hair has been a huge win for me! I wont get into a full breakdown on that topic. Things as a whole have been going well for me. Truth is, this is the best place I've ever lived. It's really hard to imagine it could get anything but worse from here, for reasons I can't forsee so obviously as an open house might reveal... Though as pleasant as living in-the-house has been, it's the world outside of this house, in the here & now, that's really been a massive disappointment for me. Which is why I believe so strongly that moving somewhere else will be for the best.
I live in an area that's kinda pathetic. There's plenty of work all around me, & even a college culture & vastly more city to the north- but it's completely cut off from me by massive freeways & no chance in hell to make it across without rolling the dice at pedestrian frogger for miles every time. I'm brave enough to do this once in a while, or if in a serious pinch, but trying to do it for work is really not an option. As for the jobs around me, I've only been able to get two jobs & both ended up being just temporary in my case. Becoming a "talk to your coworkers to try to pick up shifts they don't want" in frustrating & pointless struggles. My last job I tried to keep up for months doing just that & only got a handful of shifts, while they gave me absolutely no hours on my own schedule, I'm talking 0. Since then, I've gone in for interviews at the same places so many times, I genuinely could not tell you what the issue is. That I'm too old? That my hair is too long? That I apparently have an accent? That normies are checking my phone number & seeing furry icon on my telegram (this is something I do want to solve with a work-burner phone literally as soon as I can.) Is it just the fatigue of "well I didnt hire you last time & you didnt get a job anywhere else, so I wont" ? Is it that I'm not part of their churches? I literally couldn't tell you. Being a transplant in the bible belt in a rather low economic area & no specialized experience or education has left me really limping here.
Which makes the move all the more exciting. Because I'm moving to a neighborhood where I have lived before. I know for a fact there's a tonne of jobs there. As much as I want furry art to be my life's work, truly, I need more. I need things I can put on proof of incomes to do things like get a credit card, get a car, yknow... Live. The other huge difference of where I'm going to is - the people. Maybe this isn't such a big deal to others, but I have been drowning in isolation. In the YEARS I have lived here I've met locals who are some combination of nerd, furry, or queer... Three times. ~.~ That's THREE times. I've seen my friends from out of state more often than I've seen anyone who LIVES here. Bumble, barq, meetup, I can't get a goddamn paw in the door to do anything with anyone local. I got coffee, did a mall trip, & got sushi. That has been the extent of my socializing through my entire time living here. I met more people when I lived in a goddamn cabin in the woods, 40 miles away from civilization. It's laughable, it's ridiculous!! Though not that I can say I blame anyone. There's a lot of hateful shit out all over here. People on college campuses or fucking Lowe's parking lots just waving Christian Evangelical flags & doing take overs & threatening people. I've been shouted at & barked more in this "small town" suburb than I ever have in cities. My absolute favorite was a cluster of five big white pick up trucks at the Walmart as I was walking home trying to stop me from leaving & shouting they'd kick my ass for absolutely no reason, trying to walk home with two bags of groceries. I completely ignored them & walked in between their trucks & they just kept cussing at me until they sped off through another parking lot & malded for all I know. It's wild & whacky world & I don't blame others for cloistering up & not trying to socialize anymore. Fuck it, I have too!! But that's definitely more out of exhaustion trying to make plans or get people to come out & do things, even just get coffee, only to get blown off & flaked on over & over & over again & I'm just so over it.
Meanwhile, the neighborhood I'm moving? I could bark at someone, get in their car, & walk their dog at the park all in the span of a day & oops now I have one of the best friends of my entire life. 🧡 Not everyone can be Him, but there's a LOT LOT LOT more want to meet & hang out in this area & I've seen it happen right before my eyes. A night of hanging out with one friend had become friends & friends of friends over to watch All Gas No Brakes or Movies or going for walks or dinners all together. That's the kind of living that I need!! That's the kind of socializing that makes me want to bust my ass off & keep everything together so I can guilt-free meet the weekend or whenever our plans are to just go climb a rock or grab inflatables & roll around in the river & chase butterflies & smell the hyacinths. Hell just being able to fucking make plans to do like board games or magic the gathering or movies every other week, art jams-- ANYTHING is better than endless loops of sleep, eat, wash, repeat as I grope for any sort of companionship replacement in my friends online, often at great cost to our relationships. @_@ Thankfully these days I've not nearly had the same desperation as used to plague my life, but even doing better wont hold up forever against real lonesome straits.
All in all, the move is gonna be really good for me... I'm really looking forward to going there, for a bunch of reasons. I've been beating my head against the wall here, but the wall isn't a wall. It's people, & a community that's made clear time & time again they don't want me, & there's nothing here for me. All that I've had to hold onto has been my own art work. That has been nice, in a kind of way. The stability to get to focus, & learn, & grow my craft has been a big, big deal to me.
I know that it's not as apparent to everyone else as it is to me, but my art has exploded the last few years. Even just looking at my by-year folders, by thumbnails alone I can see all the areas I took bigger risks, or where I refined my understanding of tools, or where I tried to take things like composition more seriously-- FUCK people don't even know I was scared shitless of using colors for most of my life because nowadays I take on full rendered pieces back to back to back so much I almost can't stomach the thought of just tossing a sketch alone at people anymore!! It's been big!! Really, really big for me !! Yet somehow instead of getting to celebrate these things & continue talking about how to progress with my art, a lot of my friends just decided coincidentally on their own to put my up on a pedestal??? The last time I made any comment critiquing my own work, I got dogpiled & bullied by friends about how bad & shameful a thing it was for me to "self flagellate" & how it just makes everyone else feel bad like-- slow your roll there, buddy. All I said was that this piece looks "blurry" because I'm still early in figuring out how to use airbrushing & blending tools 9_6 Some of my other friends confessed to me not that long ago that they feel intimidated by me, & not for personality for a change. They're afraid of being annoying or trying to "steal my art skills" & I just... what??? I have never in my life put out ANY feelings like I am possessive or worried about other people copying my art or anything like that. I frequently embarrass myself by talking about my technique or art flow with a piece I'm working on & breaking down how I got where I was when I join voice calls, only to later be told "dude, they were just being polite & you went off on them, they're not even an artist, they don't understand." @_@ So, even recognizing it's projection & anxiety & inferences in others, I find myself untangling feelings I never thought I'd have before. NEVER in my life was I prepared to deal with someone saying "you're my favorite artist & I'm scared of upsetting you or embarassing myself cos I think you're so cool." WH... h-huh??? Can't we just celebrate how good my art's been growing & I can tell you everything I know & continue supporting your art too?! I don't get it... It's such an isolating & scary & UNFAIR feeling!! I put all this work into learning art... Why isn't anyone happy with me? Why doesn't anyone realize their friendship & support & encouragement toward me has been a huge part of what's allowed me to grow? I didn't do this all by myself, in some kinda vacuum. I learned from my friends & shared resources & tips & opinions & grew from that love. I don't know... It still is scary to think at some point I've gone from being just "some pet artist who would give worship art to one person" to "holy shit a popufur i better not say anything wrong or ill catastrophize ><; " in some of my friend's eyes & there's nothing I can do about it except try to dispute or soothe the feelings when they appear & with no clear distinction WHEN it began...
I mean I really don't think I'm all that & a bag of crisps. I have been more confident as a whole, & like the art I make a lot lot lot more frequently. I just keep seeing all the things I did wrong, all the things I want to hone, or refine, or keep tinkering on. So much so it already makes my slow as sin art process drag on even longer. I have a hard time shipping off a piece that is at any standard less than "my absolute best." At first I had apprehensions about my equipment changing back to back at the turn of 2023. Now I find myself really struggling (but not unable) to deliver anything that isn't the full extent of what I know & apply it all. Partly because I'm worried every piece I do will be the last I ever do. Sometimes it's for a friend whose supported me for so long I wanna give them something that's actually WORTH the risk of showing off- I know a lot of my friends don't want to post or link to me in any way because then they get harassed or weird looks. Sometimes it's a matter of focus on my part, or a moment of losing my confidence so instead of recognizing "this rough sketch is done I should move on to another step" I just get so hyperfixated on doing what I have to to make the rough stuff look so suuuper uniform & "bend just right" & consider the angles & oops this isn't squishy enough, this area is looking a little too jagged, better spruce it up-- cos I haven't done enough line work to be confident it would look alright, or maybe I could fix it early enough & avoid future headaches. Just so anxious & scared & perfectionist for no reason a lot of times. I have had a lot of success & support in breaking through that habit a lot more to make a better process, thanks to friends too! Better than it's ever been !! I'm still just ridiculously slow, & I'll spend entire days just sketching or putting on the colors, or rendering the stuff that comes after shadows & then my friends will say "I havent seen you in ages, you need to come out of that hole & exist" & then I pick up a lot of anxious feelings & I spend a few days alone trying to find my peace of mind to work from again. It's a pretty hard process that's seen a lot of dysfunction in me lately as I've been so serious about pushing myself lately, as much as I can. I keep hopping from one "Flash" commission to the next, just trying to keep something in my bank account as I make chips away at my older & owed art, & also working out the pieces I can learn from, or express my feelings through.
Truth is I haven't been able to make much dent in the older stuff yet... It hasn't been nothing, but it's been close enough to nothing to make me really ashamed & guilty. A couple refunds have already been worked out, & that's been what started the "Flash" commissions in the first place. I keep thinking "once I get through my old queue, then I can think about raising my prices or charging more". I spend so much time on art I'm often working for under a dollar an hour. So I think "good! Then hurry up! Get used to shipping out less-perfect products then so you can hurry up!" I ... haven't had AS much success in that department. 💦 I'm still just charging 50 dollars, same as my ironman queue was, & still trying to 'make up for it.' Always trying to make up for it. Always weighed down by some burden of guilt & shame that I should be infinitely grateful anyone would want my art in the first place too so I better make it count. For all the hassle of associating with me, for knowing me, for putting up with me, for waiting for me- for SO long in so many people's cases. I keep on going this way thinking "i'll get a job soon, & I can just start refunding everyone for everything I've ever been given, bit by bit. Then I'll be free. I can charge anything I want to & it'll be great!" Except, the job has never come for very long... I can't keep going on like this forever & I've known that. Trying to wriggle where I can, & push back against the challenges I've had. I still don't feel right charging anything more than the 50 dollars at a time. It doesn't feel right. Even when I KNOW if I tried to charge more I'd be able to make up for the old art & "refund more of them at a time" I just can't do it. I put a lot of hopes & wishes into those pieces. I remember them all. Every person who wanted to get art from me & made MFF 22 one of the best times of my life. I keep my trello open, it's the first page I look at every day, & the first thing I migrated onto Obsidian. I want to fulfill those wishes not just throw money at someone, often a friend, & say "thanks for the loan way back, forget your art lmao" that doesn't sit right with me one bit. Yet clearly "just staying afloat" doesn't make much difference when my simple existence is a huge weight of debt that I constantly have bailing out "just a little longer! I'm sure things will turn around! Work's gotta be right around the corner." No matter what I do, it isn't enough. I am a colossal failure. That doesn't mean I'm content to stay one, I just don't know what I can do to change things from here.
So I've just been tossing & turning, anxious about the move, anxious about existing again- when I am this. When I feel so used up & withered & rattled. I am still growing, & more than I ever have!! But it just doesn't feel like enough. I'm always coming up short somehow. I don't have any one person to talk about these things with. So I hope you'll at least forgive me barking out into the void like this to at least tell it like it is. That's all. For now, I'll just keep looking to my star. I think a little peace & quiet for the night without trying to keep the paws busy... sounds nice.
It's been a long road since leaving Arizona. I've been all over the place trying to find someplace to settle down, & I did! I've been living where I have for just about 4 years now. The longest I'd ever stayed in one place. It's been a nice time for just about everything in the home, sharing it with people who can communicate & do so without the high dramas & catastrophes that made up everywhere else I'd lived. I'd even made some of the most amazing friends of my life who would come to see me from all over, out of state, hours away, even out of the country. I felt confident that I could host them in an environment that was clean, safe, & accommodating. These have been the best days of my life, really. Though those Big Deal out of trip visits had to slow to a stop as people moved away & took up so much extra work to set their life on better paths for themselves! That's not a complaint at all! Getting to see friends from afar has always been extra, a real lovely treat for sure, but something that can never be a replacement for community or connection here in the ordinary, everyday life. Something that's been... real empty, for a long time.
For the first time I get to actually discuss moving in a way that isn't just jettisoning everything I knew & own away. I get to plan for moving in unity & address all the needs that a household has. That has been a really nice change of pace. Even as lucky as I am to get that chance, it definitely has been a massive source of worry for me. Transference isn't fair to the here & now, & I do my best to be mindful of it. It's just hard to shake a lifetime of needing to brace for crash landings & taking only what I could carry with me. There's no getting around how the shock of that has affected the way I live even when things are going well. I don't allow much room in my mind for things that would fall under "setting down roots." I don't even consider "gosh I want a dresser" or "maybe I could get another pair of shoes that are comfier, or more my style"- heh actually, I bought coat hangers only once & though I've needed more I've had this feeling like "well my clothes are just going to get ruined or thrown out before long so I might as well just settle for folding them on the racks in my closet." Never had a WALK IN CLOSET in my life, I still don't know if I'm doing that right....
The domestication process has been going well, really. Having access to resources whenever I need without fighting for them like showers, laundry, & taking better care of my skin & hair has been a huge win for me! I wont get into a full breakdown on that topic. Things as a whole have been going well for me. Truth is, this is the best place I've ever lived. It's really hard to imagine it could get anything but worse from here, for reasons I can't forsee so obviously as an open house might reveal... Though as pleasant as living in-the-house has been, it's the world outside of this house, in the here & now, that's really been a massive disappointment for me. Which is why I believe so strongly that moving somewhere else will be for the best.
I live in an area that's kinda pathetic. There's plenty of work all around me, & even a college culture & vastly more city to the north- but it's completely cut off from me by massive freeways & no chance in hell to make it across without rolling the dice at pedestrian frogger for miles every time. I'm brave enough to do this once in a while, or if in a serious pinch, but trying to do it for work is really not an option. As for the jobs around me, I've only been able to get two jobs & both ended up being just temporary in my case. Becoming a "talk to your coworkers to try to pick up shifts they don't want" in frustrating & pointless struggles. My last job I tried to keep up for months doing just that & only got a handful of shifts, while they gave me absolutely no hours on my own schedule, I'm talking 0. Since then, I've gone in for interviews at the same places so many times, I genuinely could not tell you what the issue is. That I'm too old? That my hair is too long? That I apparently have an accent? That normies are checking my phone number & seeing furry icon on my telegram (this is something I do want to solve with a work-burner phone literally as soon as I can.) Is it just the fatigue of "well I didnt hire you last time & you didnt get a job anywhere else, so I wont" ? Is it that I'm not part of their churches? I literally couldn't tell you. Being a transplant in the bible belt in a rather low economic area & no specialized experience or education has left me really limping here.
Which makes the move all the more exciting. Because I'm moving to a neighborhood where I have lived before. I know for a fact there's a tonne of jobs there. As much as I want furry art to be my life's work, truly, I need more. I need things I can put on proof of incomes to do things like get a credit card, get a car, yknow... Live. The other huge difference of where I'm going to is - the people. Maybe this isn't such a big deal to others, but I have been drowning in isolation. In the YEARS I have lived here I've met locals who are some combination of nerd, furry, or queer... Three times. ~.~ That's THREE times. I've seen my friends from out of state more often than I've seen anyone who LIVES here. Bumble, barq, meetup, I can't get a goddamn paw in the door to do anything with anyone local. I got coffee, did a mall trip, & got sushi. That has been the extent of my socializing through my entire time living here. I met more people when I lived in a goddamn cabin in the woods, 40 miles away from civilization. It's laughable, it's ridiculous!! Though not that I can say I blame anyone. There's a lot of hateful shit out all over here. People on college campuses or fucking Lowe's parking lots just waving Christian Evangelical flags & doing take overs & threatening people. I've been shouted at & barked more in this "small town" suburb than I ever have in cities. My absolute favorite was a cluster of five big white pick up trucks at the Walmart as I was walking home trying to stop me from leaving & shouting they'd kick my ass for absolutely no reason, trying to walk home with two bags of groceries. I completely ignored them & walked in between their trucks & they just kept cussing at me until they sped off through another parking lot & malded for all I know. It's wild & whacky world & I don't blame others for cloistering up & not trying to socialize anymore. Fuck it, I have too!! But that's definitely more out of exhaustion trying to make plans or get people to come out & do things, even just get coffee, only to get blown off & flaked on over & over & over again & I'm just so over it.
Meanwhile, the neighborhood I'm moving? I could bark at someone, get in their car, & walk their dog at the park all in the span of a day & oops now I have one of the best friends of my entire life. 🧡 Not everyone can be Him, but there's a LOT LOT LOT more want to meet & hang out in this area & I've seen it happen right before my eyes. A night of hanging out with one friend had become friends & friends of friends over to watch All Gas No Brakes or Movies or going for walks or dinners all together. That's the kind of living that I need!! That's the kind of socializing that makes me want to bust my ass off & keep everything together so I can guilt-free meet the weekend or whenever our plans are to just go climb a rock or grab inflatables & roll around in the river & chase butterflies & smell the hyacinths. Hell just being able to fucking make plans to do like board games or magic the gathering or movies every other week, art jams-- ANYTHING is better than endless loops of sleep, eat, wash, repeat as I grope for any sort of companionship replacement in my friends online, often at great cost to our relationships. @_@ Thankfully these days I've not nearly had the same desperation as used to plague my life, but even doing better wont hold up forever against real lonesome straits.
All in all, the move is gonna be really good for me... I'm really looking forward to going there, for a bunch of reasons. I've been beating my head against the wall here, but the wall isn't a wall. It's people, & a community that's made clear time & time again they don't want me, & there's nothing here for me. All that I've had to hold onto has been my own art work. That has been nice, in a kind of way. The stability to get to focus, & learn, & grow my craft has been a big, big deal to me.
I know that it's not as apparent to everyone else as it is to me, but my art has exploded the last few years. Even just looking at my by-year folders, by thumbnails alone I can see all the areas I took bigger risks, or where I refined my understanding of tools, or where I tried to take things like composition more seriously-- FUCK people don't even know I was scared shitless of using colors for most of my life because nowadays I take on full rendered pieces back to back to back so much I almost can't stomach the thought of just tossing a sketch alone at people anymore!! It's been big!! Really, really big for me !! Yet somehow instead of getting to celebrate these things & continue talking about how to progress with my art, a lot of my friends just decided coincidentally on their own to put my up on a pedestal??? The last time I made any comment critiquing my own work, I got dogpiled & bullied by friends about how bad & shameful a thing it was for me to "self flagellate" & how it just makes everyone else feel bad like-- slow your roll there, buddy. All I said was that this piece looks "blurry" because I'm still early in figuring out how to use airbrushing & blending tools 9_6 Some of my other friends confessed to me not that long ago that they feel intimidated by me, & not for personality for a change. They're afraid of being annoying or trying to "steal my art skills" & I just... what??? I have never in my life put out ANY feelings like I am possessive or worried about other people copying my art or anything like that. I frequently embarrass myself by talking about my technique or art flow with a piece I'm working on & breaking down how I got where I was when I join voice calls, only to later be told "dude, they were just being polite & you went off on them, they're not even an artist, they don't understand." @_@ So, even recognizing it's projection & anxiety & inferences in others, I find myself untangling feelings I never thought I'd have before. NEVER in my life was I prepared to deal with someone saying "you're my favorite artist & I'm scared of upsetting you or embarassing myself cos I think you're so cool." WH... h-huh??? Can't we just celebrate how good my art's been growing & I can tell you everything I know & continue supporting your art too?! I don't get it... It's such an isolating & scary & UNFAIR feeling!! I put all this work into learning art... Why isn't anyone happy with me? Why doesn't anyone realize their friendship & support & encouragement toward me has been a huge part of what's allowed me to grow? I didn't do this all by myself, in some kinda vacuum. I learned from my friends & shared resources & tips & opinions & grew from that love. I don't know... It still is scary to think at some point I've gone from being just "some pet artist who would give worship art to one person" to "holy shit a popufur i better not say anything wrong or ill catastrophize ><; " in some of my friend's eyes & there's nothing I can do about it except try to dispute or soothe the feelings when they appear & with no clear distinction WHEN it began...
I mean I really don't think I'm all that & a bag of crisps. I have been more confident as a whole, & like the art I make a lot lot lot more frequently. I just keep seeing all the things I did wrong, all the things I want to hone, or refine, or keep tinkering on. So much so it already makes my slow as sin art process drag on even longer. I have a hard time shipping off a piece that is at any standard less than "my absolute best." At first I had apprehensions about my equipment changing back to back at the turn of 2023. Now I find myself really struggling (but not unable) to deliver anything that isn't the full extent of what I know & apply it all. Partly because I'm worried every piece I do will be the last I ever do. Sometimes it's for a friend whose supported me for so long I wanna give them something that's actually WORTH the risk of showing off- I know a lot of my friends don't want to post or link to me in any way because then they get harassed or weird looks. Sometimes it's a matter of focus on my part, or a moment of losing my confidence so instead of recognizing "this rough sketch is done I should move on to another step" I just get so hyperfixated on doing what I have to to make the rough stuff look so suuuper uniform & "bend just right" & consider the angles & oops this isn't squishy enough, this area is looking a little too jagged, better spruce it up-- cos I haven't done enough line work to be confident it would look alright, or maybe I could fix it early enough & avoid future headaches. Just so anxious & scared & perfectionist for no reason a lot of times. I have had a lot of success & support in breaking through that habit a lot more to make a better process, thanks to friends too! Better than it's ever been !! I'm still just ridiculously slow, & I'll spend entire days just sketching or putting on the colors, or rendering the stuff that comes after shadows & then my friends will say "I havent seen you in ages, you need to come out of that hole & exist" & then I pick up a lot of anxious feelings & I spend a few days alone trying to find my peace of mind to work from again. It's a pretty hard process that's seen a lot of dysfunction in me lately as I've been so serious about pushing myself lately, as much as I can. I keep hopping from one "Flash" commission to the next, just trying to keep something in my bank account as I make chips away at my older & owed art, & also working out the pieces I can learn from, or express my feelings through.
Truth is I haven't been able to make much dent in the older stuff yet... It hasn't been nothing, but it's been close enough to nothing to make me really ashamed & guilty. A couple refunds have already been worked out, & that's been what started the "Flash" commissions in the first place. I keep thinking "once I get through my old queue, then I can think about raising my prices or charging more". I spend so much time on art I'm often working for under a dollar an hour. So I think "good! Then hurry up! Get used to shipping out less-perfect products then so you can hurry up!" I ... haven't had AS much success in that department. 💦 I'm still just charging 50 dollars, same as my ironman queue was, & still trying to 'make up for it.' Always trying to make up for it. Always weighed down by some burden of guilt & shame that I should be infinitely grateful anyone would want my art in the first place too so I better make it count. For all the hassle of associating with me, for knowing me, for putting up with me, for waiting for me- for SO long in so many people's cases. I keep on going this way thinking "i'll get a job soon, & I can just start refunding everyone for everything I've ever been given, bit by bit. Then I'll be free. I can charge anything I want to & it'll be great!" Except, the job has never come for very long... I can't keep going on like this forever & I've known that. Trying to wriggle where I can, & push back against the challenges I've had. I still don't feel right charging anything more than the 50 dollars at a time. It doesn't feel right. Even when I KNOW if I tried to charge more I'd be able to make up for the old art & "refund more of them at a time" I just can't do it. I put a lot of hopes & wishes into those pieces. I remember them all. Every person who wanted to get art from me & made MFF 22 one of the best times of my life. I keep my trello open, it's the first page I look at every day, & the first thing I migrated onto Obsidian. I want to fulfill those wishes not just throw money at someone, often a friend, & say "thanks for the loan way back, forget your art lmao" that doesn't sit right with me one bit. Yet clearly "just staying afloat" doesn't make much difference when my simple existence is a huge weight of debt that I constantly have bailing out "just a little longer! I'm sure things will turn around! Work's gotta be right around the corner." No matter what I do, it isn't enough. I am a colossal failure. That doesn't mean I'm content to stay one, I just don't know what I can do to change things from here.
So I've just been tossing & turning, anxious about the move, anxious about existing again- when I am this. When I feel so used up & withered & rattled. I am still growing, & more than I ever have!! But it just doesn't feel like enough. I'm always coming up short somehow. I don't have any one person to talk about these things with. So I hope you'll at least forgive me barking out into the void like this to at least tell it like it is. That's all. For now, I'll just keep looking to my star. I think a little peace & quiet for the night without trying to keep the paws busy... sounds nice.
Kerrija