What 20 Weeks of Studying Has Done For Me

Issue #21

A Brief Look Back

This is issue #21 of my newsletter. That means, at the rate of a newsletter a week, I’ve been writing into the void for nearly five months now.

It feels like forever ago since I was in the daily grind of making chapters of The Chosen One’s Mentor to post every seven to twelve days, and yet it also feels like I’ve blinked and five months have flown by.

In that time, I’ve dove headfirst into studying comics from researching page sizes and panel choices, to working on designs for the remake, to refining my skills as an artist with studies of landscapes and the elements. And let’s not forget all the painting I’ve done over the weeks.

All of this has been in service of getting the remake of The Chosen One’s Mentor ready to start off with a bang. And I think I’m well on my way to making that happen.

My art style has significantly improved in this time. I’m really happy with where my skills are going.

But, more than my art style, my skills as a writer and comic maker have leveled up so much I’m genuinely irritated with myself that I didn’t study comics more thoroughly sooner. For now, you’ll just have to trust me when I say my writing and storytelling has improved, but, I promise you, when you read the first chapter of the remake and compare it to the first few chapters of the original, you’ll be as shocked as I am that the same person made both in the span of less than two years.

Funny enough, I feel like I’ve learned so much more about comics by studying them for five months than I ever did making them for a year. Hands-on experience is, of course, valuable, but wow I cannot overstate how important good old fashioned studying is, too.

Again, I’m mad at myself that I did not do this sooner.

Which is probably going to make what I have to say next a bit of a mixed message, but bear with me. I’ll make my point.

The Present

You see, I have a bit of a conundrum. I want to do everything and anything I can creatively. I want to make comics. I want to draw pretty things. I want to make videos where I teach people how they can draw pretty things. I want to write. I want to consume media that inspires me. And I’d love it if I could do all these things and they also pay my bills.

But, unfortunately, I have three problems.

The first is that there are simply not enough hours in the day for me to do everything I want within my deadlines. Believe me, if I could forego sleep and not be an absolute wreck for it, I would. But unfortunately mine is a body that will get very pissy with me if I don’t get at least 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night.

The second is that, for all my passion, my brain is absolute dogshit at juggling multiple priorities at once. Case and point: the fact that for many of these 20 weeks of newsletters I’ve spent most of my time just working on newsletter stuff and not working on TCOM stuff. Since the newsletter has a closer and tighter deadline, my brain prioritizes getting this done over anything regarding TCOM, which means my brain won’t let me work on TCOM unless I’m inspired or have the energy after a long day of writing and video making. I wish I had the mental energy to juggle a million projects at once, but I just don’t.

And third, and sadly most importantly, what I’m doing here does not pay the bills. Like, at all. Contributions on my Ko-fi page help, but I’m still far, far away from paying the bills with it. I’d like to get to a point where I can offer products for people to buy, but I’ll refer back to point number two on why that hasn’t happened yet.

Which leads me to the unfortunate reality that my gamble at quitting my job to focus on art and hopefully make enough profit off it to make ends meet has not paid off. I eventually came to the bitter realization that I needed to get a normal job before my bank account empties. So I did. But that also means I no longer get to spend every day sitting at my desk being a little art goblin. I now have to go do work for someone else a few hours a day several times a week and hope I still have the mental energy to work on art when I get home.

That isn’t to say the dream is dead. Far from it. TCOM is my passion project. And nothing is going to stop me from making it. Nothing is going to stop me from working with laser focus on getting the first chapter out by New Years.

But it does mean I have to drop a few other things to make that happen.

A Look Forward

Starting with videos. I mean, let’s be honest, I’ve seen my view stats. Two people watch my videos every week. And I know who you both are. I’m not going to lose any fans by not posting videos anymore.

Plus, as sad as I am to say it, making these newsletters into videos has been the most tedious part of every week. I’ve not really been enjoying the process as much as I had hoped I would. I’ve certainly learned a lot about audio and video editing over these weeks, and that’s valuable, but making videos just doesn’t spark joy in me the way other creative endeavors do. I wish it did. I know YouTube is a valid pathway to growing my audience, but it’s just not that fun for me.

That said, I still would like to make educational art content. I’m brainstorming ideas for making really short videos on subjects so I don’t get burned out by 10+ minute length videos. Of course, posting these videos will be very haphazard. I can’t guarantee when, or if, these videos will ever see the light of day. We’ll see.

Regardless, I’m going to stop making the audio version of my newsletter. It will instantly free up a ton of time I used to spend recording and editing those videos.

The next is that I’m going to reduce my newsletters from weekly updates to updates every two weeks. I don’t want to stop doing this. After all, I can’t deny that if I didn’t have this newsletter keeping me accountable, I would have given up painting way sooner, and that would have been a shame.

This newsletter will still exist as a means of keeping myself accountable for my progress. And, if you’re so inclined, you can keep reading for updates on the remake and anything else I feel like sharing.

I’ll probably cool it on the educational content for a bit, though. Research-heavy newsletters were also pretty draining on my resources. Unless I feel like talking about something I’m doing from an educational standpoint. We’ll see.

A couple weeks ago I reported that I’ve struck painting from my weekly routine, and that’s still the case. However, I’ll share with you all that in lieu of painting every week, I’ll be challenging myself to complete a project at least once every month.

These projects are meant to serve the goal of creating sellable content. It’s something I’ve wanted to do from the beginning to, you know, make money, pay bills, but I lacked the confidence in my skills to create anything with the explicit intent to market it for sale. But now, after 20 weeks of working on my skills, I think I’m ready, and I’ll be making progress on that front in the background.

I’ve got some ideas rattling around my head for some prints I’d love to sell and market, but first I’ve got to make them. So, with that in mind, hopefully every other newsletter will see me announcing that I’ve completed a project and, hey, if I get this off the ground, you or someone you know could buy a print!

So that’s the plan. No more videos, half as many newsletters, a project a month, and, of course, a laser-focused goal of working on getting TCOM out of my brain and into the world now that I have significantly fewer balls to juggle. Oh, yeah, and hoping that having a job again won’t fry my brain. Wish me luck.

I’m glad for the 20 weeks I had to do this. It has, genuinely, been transformative for me as an artist. Here’s to another 20 weeks. Maybe 31. Probably makes more sense to do a new retrospective one year after starting the newsletter. But, hey, it’s my newsletter, I’ll do whatever arbitrary thing I want.

Thank you, as always, for sticking around. I know as of the time of writing this I personally know just about every person who reads this, because I guess random people on the internet aren’t interested in what some random no-name artist is up to on a weekly basis, but I still really appreciate your support. It keeps me going.

Project of the Week

With that, I’ll be leaving you all with some more looks at the progress on the remake of The Chosen One’s Mentor. I’m so excited to see this thing when it’s done, and, like I said, no matter what happens, this project will never die. I want to make it. It’s the one thing I’ve been working on all this time that still manages to bring me so much joy, and I hope in a few years when I’ve published a lot more of the story that I’ll have a big pool of fans who think the same of it.

So, enjoy the preview, and I’ll be back with more in two weeks. Thanks for reading.