EDIT 11/17: Little update, been feeling motivated lately, so I'm postponing the billing pause while I'm still putting out content, its looking like the break will start sometime near the end of November and be paused through December. Thank you all for the love and support too, you guys are awesome <3
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Been a while since I've done a newsletter type thing so here goes.
TLDR mental health sucks, I'm overwhelmed, I need a break. Pausing billing sometime in November, possibly through December to take care of myself, take time to study, and plan out what I want to do moving forward.
I'm sure you've noticed posts have been kinda slow lately. Well... Maybe not this month since I've been trying to post stuff more often but I just feel like I'm just overburdening myself again. I haven't really been keeping up with doodle pages, animations have been kinda small or limited or taking way longer than they used to. So what's up with that?
The truth is I haven't been doing terribly well mentally lately (as is tradition this time of year) and with changes to all sorts of things going on in my life right now, its been hard to dedicate time to work like I used to. I've barely been able to manage a half day of work most days the past couple months and its just making everything feel like its taking so much longer and hurting the drive to finish out projects. I work best when I'm able to get momentum, once I get going its easy for me to keep up the speed and knock things out quickly, but if I can't get moving or need to keep stopping and starting again it just takes like 3x as long to get anything done. On top of that, its been even harder to find the motivation to create in the first place. Maybe its just seasonal depression? Its just been hard finding inspiration lately and I feel like everything I've been making just feels hollow even if it doesn't seem like it from the outside. I think part of it is just pushing myself to hard to meet stupid deadlines and overburdening myself with additional like I always do and I need a break. Not necessarily from drawing or anything, I love making art and animating, but I guess from the obligation of it all. I feel so drained and chained to my desk lately. I feel like my work, social, and personal life are constantly fighting each other for what little time it feels like I have in a day. That I just don't have time to study or learn or work on the things I love. There are so many things I want to make, so many things I want to share with the world and it just feels like I have time for none of it. So what now?
I'm going to finish out the Melissa animation, draw up the November and December wallpapers, then I'm probably just gonna pause billing for the rest of the year, especially with holidays coming up the next couple months. If you are an annual or monthly subscription, you membership will automatically be extended for however long the billing is paused for. I'm still not sure if I'll end up pausing through December too but I guess we'll see how things are looking closer to then. I'll still throw the things I do up over here anyways but don't expect any animations or my usual content. I want to do some much needed site maintenance over here, Patreon's had a lot of updates lately and I want to at least check those out and see what's up. I've also been contemplating some price adjustments, mainly to the IB tier but that's something I'll contemplate more over the break. So what's next?
Not just over the break, but through next year I've been thinking about some goals and the things I want to work on and achieve.
I want to do some animation production study. I want to break down some episodes of my favorite shows and see what goes into an episode length animation. I don't plan on making anything that long yet XD but at least getting a feel for the pacing and planning that goes into studio work and production. I also need to actually sit my butt down and learn some proper editing and post processing. I've just been winging it and doing nearly everything in CSP and that means I'm missing out on a lot of things that would save my ass so much time down the line, keep things consistent, and just overall make longer stuff feel more cohesive. I keeping putting it off and I need to just do it.
I want to do more storyboarding and writing. Even if its not feature length I want to try working towards some longer projects that require a little more plot and worldbuilding. I love my characters and feel like only really animating sex stuff has been kinda doing them a disservice. All people really know about calico is that she fucks a lot XD I'd love to showcase more of her relationship with Pandora and give those two idiots some more life. I guess that kinda leads into my next goal.
I want show off more of the characters. I think part of why I've been feeling my work suffer lately is because I haven't been able to properly showcase the things that's makes those characters truly who they are. Not just in dialog but in character acting and how they move and behave, I want to show people the way that I see them in my head. The beauty, the flaws, the personality, the pain. I feel like I've just been stuck doing what I've always been doing and while there are ways to showcase personality in the sexy stuff, it feels like it'll keep ending up the same in my own eyes. That's one of the things I think I want to start shifting with the doodles too. Its easy to do random freeform doodles here and there, but I think the thing that's driving me right now is the desire to do more story telling. I think it would be fun to start shifting those more into weekly sketch comic pages they just take a little more planning to actually get sorted out.
I want to animate some action. I have been craving action shots lately. I think this goes hand in hand with the storyboarding and production goals. Part of what's been slowing me down so much lately is all the low and slow kind of animations, things that require a much higher degree of consistency and nearly identical frames take so goddamn long. Action and quick or distant and varied motions let you be a little more free while flexing some muscles you don't always get to practice.
I want to make merch. CALICO PLUSHIE <---- THIS. TREVO YOU IDIOT! FINISH THE THINGS YOU NEED TO DO TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN!!! I've been putting it off and getting distracted, but I'm so hyped to make her real. I want to make other stuff too, I've been talking with merch people forever and it always feels like I never have the time to actually sit down and make some dope ass products. They've got like acrylic standees and bodypillows and stickers and boob/butt mousepads and more. I have so many ideas I just want to make things, there's something so satisfying about having some real tangible objects that you've made out there in the world. Maybe I'll start doing product drops instead of wallpapers next year. I would be awesome to get some stylized posters and shirts going too if I can find a good contact for that too.
Man I really gotta put these "I want" statements up on my wall, it gets me so hyped talking about my ambitions. I just gotta keep reminding myself why I love making art and animating, I guess XD and make sure to actually allocate time to making progress towards those goals.
Anyways, this post is long enough as is, if you have any questions regarding the upcoming pause and stuff or suggestions or ideas for the types of things you'd like to see in the future, feel free to drop a comment. I this post started a little heavy but I'm already feeling a bit better just writing stuff out.