Hey everyone, it’s been a while.
Why I disappeared
I think what finally hit me was a slow, years-long art burnout. Mix that with, frankly, gigantic imposter syndrome, sudden financial responsibilities, and being way too hooked on games and YouTube, and eventually my brain just shut down when it came to making art. After doing this art thing for so long, I guess something had to give. And the longer I am in these “unannounced hiatuses” the more guilty I feel coming back to drawing and to Discord.
What I ended up doing while I was away
I wasn’t exactly super productive, but I did do a few things:
- Looked for work in my area and even worked at a supermarket for a bit, but it wasn’t really a fit.
- Did some content writing again, which I used to do in the past. Didn’t last long, but hey, it paid like once.
- Learned Docker and Unraid and set up a home media server for comics and videos.
- Took web development seriously for the first time. I’m still working through freeCodeCamp (currently doing JavaScript. I already know most of HTML and CSS from working on Cat Nine), doing personal projects, and preparing to apply for dev jobs later. The Random Catgirl Name Generator was one of those little projects. It’s not much, but I had a lot of fun with that.
- Upgraded the code for the Cat Nine website so it should run faster and more reliably now since Easel/Comic Easel hasn’t updated for years, so that’s less stress for me. Some weird stuff that I haven’t noticed might still happen though, sorry for that in advance.
Hmm, you know, seeing it written out like this actually makes me feel a bit better about myself. Continuing on…
Where my head is at now
I think I’m mostly mentally recovered. I won’t pretend I’ve ever been the “art is my whole soul” type, but I did spend countless hours bent over a table drawing. Maybe that counts as passion in its own way. I’ve always had fun drawing, but I tend to notice the negative side of things and my mistakes more than the positive, and that really warped my mindset through the years. I’ve got serious baggage that will still need to be unloaded overtime.
My plan moving forward
I’m easing myself back into art. Small stuff first. Simple and frequent. Eventually back to my usual skill level. Then some artwork. Then the comic. Then commissions. (sorry again for being super late, IndiSkye). Perhaps work on some other comic or project aside from Cat Nine (I got an idea for an videogame-based isekai huehue). Not looking forward to setting another site for those though haha.
What’s nice now is that coding gives me something to switch to when art burnout creeps up. And when coding gets overwhelming, I can switch back to art. I think I really do have that jack-of-all-trades mindset. I don’t like doing just one thing forever, even if it makes me less “employable.”
And on a related note about being a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to interest, maybe I should blog about non-art related stuff too, which I hope you guys don’t mind.
About money and learning
Patreon is still my only income at the moment, so I’m extremely grateful to everyone who’s stayed. Seriously, thank you.
While learning web development, I realized I might want to take an art course or two. I’m proud of being mostly self-taught, but I still feel that I’m missing fundamentals and it definitely hits my confidence. Still, I want to try my chance at becoming job-ready as a web dev, but it will still take a while so I might end up looking for “real” work again depending on how things go.
And what’s new
If you’ve read this far, I’m sure you’ve noticed the little Hibi-Hibi animation on the left sidebar is the first thing I’ve drawn in months (sorry, mobile users can’t see it). It’s still not finished, but I’m having fun and proud that I made it.
I also have some fun Cat Nine-related coding projects I want to try out for practice. Catgirl Simulator anyone? No, no, of course it’s probably not gonna end up like Yandere Simulator…
Anyway, thanks for reading all this even if it’s a bit of a jumbled mess. Thanks again for sticking with me, and thanks for worrying about me. It really means a lot.
Burnout is a —-; take care of yourself. We’ll still be here when you’re ready. Part of being my age is having too many silent voices in my RSS feed.Do not join them.
Better to be over the hill than buried under it 🙂
Oh thanks for calling out that Hibi. It was at the very bottom of the page.
She is absolutely adorable! 😍
Just glad to hear you’re doing okay!
(if it makes you feel any better im pretty sure i havent gotten anything done in that whole time either lmao)