October Update - Sneaky Iguana Skeletons

oh heck

I've re-written this a few times. Every time, it ends up really wordy, so I'm going to try to be concise. I write in a very "stream of thought" manner, though--apologies in advance if we start to meander a bit. That said, I want to do a text update on what's been going on, as well as answer a few questions that people have been sending me lately that I want to try to help answer. I'm going to start with questions related to work and commissions, then move into more personal stuff, so if that doesn't interest you, you don't have to read past the first section. With that said, away we gooo!

Work and Commissions?

"When will you be opening for commissions?" "Did I miss an opening?" "What happened to the X date for opening?"

Firstly, no, you did not miss an opening, nor a journal/tweet that was deleted or anything! Secondly, commissions are in a weird state at the moment. I've lost a lot of my confidence for form-based, public commissions. A lot of the commissions I've posted lately have been for friends or repeat clients that come to me in private and ask what my queue looks like. It's been a lot less stressful, enough so that I want to change to a model similarly for all people.

Rather than creating a document or form for people to fill out, I'd like to create an active queue of sorts. I would have a certain amount of slots available, and as one clears out, the spot at bottom will open for whomever contacts me and would like it. (I'd also like to have a spot or two on the side for friends whom you've probably seen a few times in my gallery -- so they don't "clog up" the system.)

There's a lot of in the air stuff currently. I am trying to re-open! I'm not one hundred percent sure on when, but I will make a journal and tweet when I have it more sorted. Apologies to those who have been waiting.

"What will your prices be?"

I have a sheet that has some new prices set. You can find it here - https://bit.ly/DeriazPRICE072021 . These aren't set in stone, as they were intended from July when I also had other stuff on my mind. If I were to open today, the detail and painting categories might be a smidge higher. But this whole thing needs a bit of a re-do, so don't take it as gospel. But as a rough guideline, I hope it helps with someone planning for the future if they want work...! (I've also considered just dropping the "painting" as a whole and focusing down. We'll see.)

"Streams?" "Your sketch stream price was different than that sheet?"

I want to do streams, including sketch streams, again. I meant to get back to them sooner, but some issues in real life stalled them out for a bit. Given they don't really seem to be letting up (including quite literally as I'm typing this as an assessment is done in the room next to me), I'm going to try to make do with the setup I'm currently existing in. Please forgive any audio or quality issues when I start them up again at first. Twitch will be for more general audience work, while Picarto will be for NSFW.

"What content are you wanting to paint?" "Wait, do you do NSFW now?" "Are you no longer a fantasy artist/do you only want to do muscle work now?"

No to that last one! As for what I want to paint? I really want to get back into fantasy and D&D-esque work again. That includes things like monsters, orcs and other humanoids, etcetc.. Stuff you might find in handbooks and things, very character driven pieces. I still struggle with my understanding of environments, so I'd like to play to my strengths for a bit. Narrow things down so I can work on how I refine images. But I do also like things like bodybuilding, fashion, construction themes, etc., as well as LGBTQ and healthy masculinity, so I'd like to do a mix.

On the subject of erotic content: Over the past few years of chaos, I slipped in a way that was initially destructive but was healthy in the long run, and I've come out of it with a more introspective understanding of NSFW content. I would like to experiment with it, but only with repeat clients and close friends. I prefer a skew of more intimate moments or solo displays, so things like pin-ups and artistic nudity rather than outright "adult content". I will likely need to discuss this on a 1:1 basis to make sure I gel with the idea presented.

What's Been Happening?

So. According to FA, my latest big post about what's been going on was back in February of 2021. I have been a little more descriptive on Patreon on higher tiers, but I'll lay it out here. There's no way to write this out well that wouldn't take forever; believe me, I've tried four times today and it keeps making this word document three pages longer, so let's just start listing.

Goolashe's and my mental health has taken a big nosedive. His work has been having lots of mandatory overtime, as well as putting his job back in limbo again, to be determined in a few months from now. Discovered mold in our rooms due to previous owners not piping things properly, which lead to dismantling an entire room and tearing out parts of the ceiling of a bedroom and bathroom, only to discover more problems like things not done to code. Mice. New puppy chaos. Friend (Cad) visited, but only for a couple days and then things went downhill again. Grandmother's health is declining, so I travelled home for a bit to have an existential crisis at home, bracing myself with the knowledge that the next time I see her may be within a year at a funeral. Windows blew itself up, lost an SSD, had to format another one, re-install everything, lost my brush settings and shortcuts. Bills, student loans, insurance premiums, credit cards. The news, the political climate, the understanding that my parents were wildly more successful than I am at the same age they were when I was born. The crash and slow burn of the industries I used to be interested in. The eye-opening to sexual harassment, gambling, predatory development of games and studios I once respected. A pandemic that seems like it will never end because a sizable chunk of our population is stubborn and determined to stay ignorant to basic things like health and critical thinking. Twitch hate raids. Watching an incompetant fascist try to hold onto power through sheer lies and attempted insurrection. Harassment. Social media. Socializing and degradation of that as well.

And the worst of all, a gnat flew into my fresh cup of coffee literally as I removed it from the machine, and then I poured too much creamer into another one. :(

Okay, no, but seriously, that's a lot. I know it is. I have been overwhelmed since March 2020, as I think at least a couple people have been? Huh, wonder why that is... Anyways. It's been hard to stay optimistic since about... 2016, really, if I had to pinpoint it, when I started waking the heck up to things I was blind and ignorant to before, as I watched people and places I respected fall apart, and dreams and aspirations I had slowly degraded. I started, especially after 2020, to learn that a lot of the optimism that I had feels nice, but on a grander scale, feels misplaced, that as a whole things feel like they're on a decline that I, personally, cannot help to fix. A recent thought a lot lately has been, "Well, it's fucked. We could have tried, those in charge didn't, still won't, and I guess that's it. I'll deal with it when it hits me. Shame I'm born in this timeline, during this time period. I could always quit the business if I knew what caliber bullet my retirement plan should use." (Seriously, if you're having suicidal thoughts, please reach out to someone. Someone cares about you, even if it feels like there's no one, because depression is wild and cruel and doesn't want you to think of them. And there are people who will listen: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ )

Uhh…

I know that's a lot. Like... "Wow, Deriaz, for someone who tries to stay positive, that's kind of heavy." It is. It's true. I'm okay now. But to quote and slightly re-word a man who made a special I adore: "So today I'm gonna try just... Getting up, sitting down, going back to work. Might not help, but still--it couldn't hurt. I'm sitting down, writing posts, drawing men with dongs. I'm sorry I was gone. But look, I made you some content!"

I know I can't fix anything that feels shitty in the world. I guess I was optimistic on a grand scale, but I know I can be optimistic on the personal. In the past few months, I got very sucked into pornography and video games as a way to escape all of this. During a trip home, I got to reconnect with some old high school friends, too, and hearing that things were a bit shitty for them too, whether in health or in work, was... Oddly comforting? It reminded me that I'm not alone in this shit. I'm not the only one looking for escapes in things that might be unhealthy in large doses.

While looking through old boxes my parents wanted me to sort, to decide what to keep and what to throw away... I found my old sketchbooks. Like, from when I first started drawing. Stuff I thought I burned back in 2012, 2013. Little stick figures, LEGO-man like proportions of Warforged, of dragon men being buff, of knights and dragons, another dragon man being buff, owlbears and monsters and castles, wow another animal man being buff how thirsty were--

Ahem. Anyways. I used to do art because it was to make someone happy. Some of my first drawings were because my friend, Jaggie, wanted me to draw for them rather than them drawing for me all the time. They posed it as a challenge, but just seeing how happy they were made -me- happy. In college, the same thing stayed true -- seeing anyone enjoying what I did made me happy. Some time after college, trying to turn this into "serious job grr gonna work for X some day", I've lost that.

I used to want to work for Blizzard. I used to want to work for RIOT, for Disney, for indie companies, for so many places. I used to want to be one of the big shots, one of the renaissance-like painters. I think at a base level I still do, I can't deny that part of me, because I know I can be a competitive person. But when I look around, watching the lawsuits with Blizzard unfurl, seeing Epic and Amazon just trying to brute force their way cynically into a field filled with gambling and predation, reeling as streaming services all nickle and dime you as Disney eats up yet another company, and even art tools and platforms trying to suck money out of things through NFT and Bitcoin (read: pyramid schemes)...

Drawing animal people makes me happy. Painting D&D adventures and things makes me happy. Big helmeted buff knights, or regal dragons flying through clouds. Big devils lounging around during pride month that I am thirsty for, or giant anthros resting against a mountainside. Paladins, rogues, archery, fashion, suits and noir, cars, wagons, magic, flowy effects, wings and feathers, big tails... It all makes me happy. More importantly, it makes others happy, too.

How Does This All Fit Together, Again?

Glad you asked!

I have kind of come to grips with that feeling that I can't fix things on a grander scale. I think the pandemic finally drilled that into me, when the past five years were like the hole you pre-drill before the actual job is done. I am just one small, white, cis dude. I do art for a living and don't have a huge income, so my impact is minimal compared to some. And yet, I keep worrying about the grand scale of things. I realize that what I'm about to say comes from a position of privilidge, but... I think I need to stop doing that as much.

Obviously I'm not saying that current events aren't important or that fights shouldn't be fought. I'm not that daft! But I can only try to amplify the voices that matter, the people who are more capable of fighting, and I have to focus on a fight that's more personal in scale, if only for my own mental health. I feel selfish typing that, but I think I need to come to grips with it before my anxiety and constant worry eats me alive.

I still want to be professional. I would like to paint fantasy, to make grand dragons, cool knights, fancy cars, fashionable dudes. But if every so often someone wants a pin-up with artistic nudity? I need to get off my high horse about hoping to appear 100% clean and presentable on the off-chance of getting an "OK" from a superior at a company wanting to hire me. I've spent years of my life worrying about it. And if a fool and a con man can hold one of the highest offices in the land, if a company can hide harassment and sexism for years while trying to look inclusive, if a landscape can try to force a pyramid scheme and grift onto people and actually gain support, then what's the problem with drawing a dick or two?

Visiting home to see an ailing family member, to catch up with friends my age struggling through their own things, to see how life has changed and yet stayed the same, to get reminders of what I used to do, games I used to love, imagery I used to thirst for and engaged with in a healthy way before I really understood who I was? I think it helped. I think I'm done trying to aim for some lofty company position and I'm just going to do what makes me happy to paint. And if it makes others happy too, all the better. And if it makes others "happy" too, all the better.

I'm still trying to claw my way back to a normal schedule. I'm still trying to find out to what extent I should balance what I thirst for versus what I love painting. And I'm sorry I've been so slow over this past year. Trying to be better is tough. I hope all of this makes sense, that it sort of fits together in the end. I've re-written this a few times, and I'm still not sure it all gels and connects. But I hope it helps y'all understand where I'm coming from, and what I'm hoping to do. I want to get back to streams, to interacting more, to being better.

Thank you to those who have been so patient with me, either in work or in waiting for a commission opening, or just in general. More thanks to those who have even gone so far as to send a tip or donation to me, or just stuck around on Patreon when things have been slow. Even more thanks to just... Everyone, really. It's been a rough year and a half. Please go get vaccinated if you can, to help us get out of this. I'm going to try and get back to work, now that Spooky Season is on the horizon, my computer is finally back up and running again, and there's stuff in the distance that needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Apologies for any bumps as I try to settle things, to get wheels spinning again amidst all this muck. I will be back with info regarding commissions or pricing and all that soon, I hope. Thank you for being patient with me. I don't deserve such kindness. And if you've read this far, bonus thanks to you specifically, because I know this is a lot. Stay safe out there, get vaxxed, wash your hands, wear a mask, and don't stop being wonderful people. Don't stop being you. I'll try to do the same.

Much love.