"2020" or "How To Identify As An Imposter".

First and foremost, happy new year! This is something I've been sort of mulling about in my mind for a bit, and something new I want to try to offer. I'm a very train of thought writer, even in NaNoWriMo or story-telling, so bear with me as I shake off some rust. This is going to be long. And a bit personal. I hope this won't be embarrassing. But perhaps it'll offer some insight into me and what I want from this year, if I can get my thoughts out straight.

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Then to Now

It's crazy to think that a third of my life ago, in 2010, I decided to ship off to Canada to pursue some sort of art degree. I think I was about a year into it, and still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, telling myself that art was about making people happy and it was the least corporate or demanding job I could have done (compared to accounting!) that would bring a midwestern white kid closer to entertainment short of living in Hollywood or something... Yes--I, too, know how silly a thought that was now.

College destroyed me in part in 2012. I won't go into specifics as they are sensitive and personal, as well as potentially triggering for those with their own mental health issues. I also learned near the end of that year that conveniently, the degree I thought I had been heading towards for three years had not been properly guided to me, and I realized I would need to settle on something slightly-but-not-too-different. In 2013, I tried to pick up the pieces with SketchDaily via Reddit. Opened for commissions around 2015 after becoming fed up with my data entry job and with the guidance of Jonathan Vair Duncan ( www.patreon.com/jonathanvair ). Moved to Iowa in 2016, moved to North Carolina in 2017. Illustration became my full time job, and its how I make my living, how I scrape by.

I summarize not to brag or show off, but to frame my next thought:

I spend a lot of my days thinking I'm not good enough and that the clique in 2012 was right about me, to the point of executive dysfunction, mental breakdown, and self-hatred.

For a time I thought I had defeated it, until I visited Illuxcon around 2016 when I realized I had simply been (poorly) bottling a lot of it. I haven't been back since. The feeling in the air there, coupled with how I would feel perceived both online and in person afterwards, was compounded by a monopoly's tentacles spreading further into movies and media, my favorite-at-the-time game companies revealing shady practices, cultures of abuse and peddling gambling addictions to children, aggression towards unionization, and more. Not to mention communities I thought were pleasant were turning toxic and aggressive.

I was left at the end of 2019 with 2018's depression wave resurfacing in a more questioning form. "How can this be my job if I don't go further?" "Where do I go if not into the professional sphere?" "Am I really just 'a furry artist' and that's it?"

"It's Called a Hustle, Sweetheart."

I saw Zootopia in theatres in the first two weeks four times, it struck that much of a nerve in me. I don't think I've ever seen a movie more than twice within one year of release. Silly a line as it was, that and its world stuck with me. For those that haven't seen it -- and yes, I know what audience will likely read this, but bear with me and pretend others don't know somehow -- Zootopia is a buddy cop movie by Disney of a fox and a rabbit who solved a mystery and ends up being a story about chasing dreams, finding yourself in territory you aren't familiar in, and moving past your struggles to find peace and perhaps a new route in life. Really wholesome, family movie, despite some narrative flaws.

... Anyways, I don't publicly create adult artwork and I draw animal people for a living in a fandom that some parts of the internet think is all about sex and kink, while making a bit of money from it. It's called a hustle, I'm told?

I've had friends ask me when I would "get out of the furry thing" to do something like nice landscapes for hotels, or oil paintings for art galleries. "Real art", I'm told it's called, instead of this "side project". But the idea of animal characters has always appealed to me. From D&D dragons and dragonborn to Aesop's Fables, anthropomorphism has so much fantasy and love to it that I find that when the right project comes across my desk, it's like an angel comes down and kisses my cheek. The angel just happens to be, I don't know, a bare-chested muscular dragon man sometimes. 

And sometimes that angel is in real life, through conventions. (There is an elaborate Dutch Angel Dragon joke here, I'm sure.) I sold a few times at Anthrocon and Midwest Furfest, and despite my nerves, they were some of my favorite moments on the "business" side of things. You don't know how much joy it would bring me to have someone just physically come flip through a book of artwork, and then leave a moment later without uttering a word, because it was tangible. It was what I wanted during college, to know that even in silence, someone was enjoying what I was doing enough to stop by. That some would want prints on their walls. The people I do commissions for, the people I share artwork with, they are real.

... And some of them are -real-ly- lewd.

Bigger

I hear that word a lot. Let me first say, I agree.

Let me secondly say, man, you have no idea how often that word sometimes brings me back to 2012 and to Illuxcon, to Twitter interactions, to conversations with friends who no longer wish to converse with me.

In a lot of these instances, I feel like sometimes what I did was bad, disappointing, wrong for the other person. "Oh no, I got the character wrong," sort of thought. In others, I'm reminded that the best critique I was given at Illuxcon was from a former D&D/Wizards art director who pointed to a muscle growth image I had painted and said, "You know, the industry needs more LGBTQ and anthropomorphic imagery. This is your strongest piece. Lean into this." I've also been told that a lot of my work, even the most tame, harmless piece, has a lot of "built in sexual energy". (Hi again, Jonathan.)

"Make it bigger." The groups I find myself in nowadays have characters that often want to be taller, buffer, fatter, mass-ier. Gentle giants, strong men, warlords, glutton demons, masculine. Roughly one third to half of all my commissions and requests are, if I had to guess, related to masculinity and the human form. Again, I don't mind this -- I wouldn't accept them if I did! But when my experience in other art communities are that the "professionals" all paint humans, that they paint clothed figures, that they involve intricate textures and realistic lighting, religious themes, depth, story, emotion... Sometimes I wonder if bigger really is better. I've been told the content of my work is why someone doesn't wish to know me, or that they don't follow me. I've been told the muscular or fat imagery is the only reason some follow me. 

I've been told that what I do is, essentially, softcore porn. The antithesis to corporate work, to "professional" work, to networking, I've heard. But when it's your biggest sell, and the only reason you ARE making this job work... How do you come to grips with that view of your work? How do you stay happy with your work, with yourself, when your peers are succeeding and you feel they are "leaving you behind" (a selfish thought, to be sure!!) to submit to art projects, running Kickstarters, networking and making it into galleries, and so on? When, in 2015, you said you "never wanted to do adult work", how do you look back and tell yourself "You sort of did in some instances"?

I'm not sure I have an answer. But I do have a thought.

Real ID

You'll note that I've talked a lot about commissions and what others think about me and my galleries, and not a lot about -me-. Almost all my work is client-based -- I so rarely finish something personal, and instead opt to delete whole projects and empty the recycle bin before I can second guess myself. When your entire body of work is based on what others want and their characters, when your entire body of work is using others' references and ideas, how do you show your own interests beyond "He must like it, he took the work"? Heck, I have a few characters for myself in the fandom, and I draw them at best once a year.

I spent a lot of the last three months worrying why others wouldn't talk to me, how I must look bad to them, how I'm not as good as someone else, and so on. A lot of time, and I mean a LOT of time thinking about how I must be perceived by others, closest friends or unknown strangers. It was in the last week or two that I wondered how I look to myself as I stumbled back across an unfinished image of Bruce I have left at two-thirds complete. I had a lot of negatives to give, including "imposter" and "sellout". I've spent a lot of time, from the beginning of my college studies even, trying to appease others and saddled guilt onto myself when I did personal work, or when others told me they didn't find me worth engaging with.

For this year, and this decade really, I want to try to fix that. I can paint things I love, that I'm interested in, and still give entertainment to others, through Twitch or through simply sharing online. I can draw furries and anthropomorphism and not have it be a "hustle" to some -- this community has been the most kind thing on the Internet to me, and starting in the Alley in my first ever convention set me up for failure, to be blinded by how loving this community is. I can paint a half-naked dragon man flexing and have it be "real art" because dangit, I might pretend to be an iguana or bug, but I'm also human, and sometimes I have a need. And even if it's a kink or someone thinks its softcore porn, that just means I need to wow them even more by how kickass I paint it. Bigger IS better, not just in size but in goals.

"You're wasting our time, and you're wasting this space." I still remember a lot of that critique in 2012, and I won't lie, I think I always will. It's part of me now. I have been fighting for time and space in industries that reveal themselves as shady almost every month now, in circles that I'm not yet ready to have a spot in, and in realms that are foreign to me. I've been trying to fight for an ideal like an animated movie provides rather than a concept I want to create.

To that end, this year, I want to push myself. If it's in painting, then it's in painting. If it's in anatomy, then it's anatomy. And if it's in personal work, dangit, I get to be a little selfish and do some personal work. If others join me on it, then that's great. Otherwise, I'm done fighting for space where I don't yet or don't quite fit. I can fill niches I've fallen out of in other ways thanks to the wonders of the Internet -- online shops, streaming, Twitter, and so on. And if I want to draw the most ludicrously strong-looking barbarian ever in my free time, then dangit, I'm going to do it. I'm a freelancer, and that means I get to make my own rules and expectations.

It's called a hustle, sweetheart. And I'm leaning into it. I have no idea what it'll involve or where it'll go. I'm entering 2020 running on a bit of instinct, but if you'll join me, I'd love to have you.

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I hope this ramble makes sense. I don't share a lot about myself openly, and I don't plan my writings much beyond rough outlines, of which I usually scrap a lot because I'm "wordy and romantic", I'm told. But it'd be nice to do some sort of check-in or writing every month-ish this year, see if I can do it.

I'm going to be tweaking my Patreon tiers in a few days once I balance things to try to share more personal work here, as well as perhaps private Patron streams over on Picarto or something? Still mulling some rewards over, or what more I can do.

Thank you guys for reading this far. I hope ya'll enjoyed the New Year celebrations. Let's paint some awesome stuff together. 

Much love.