Finding your place and becoming recognizable

 

Before I begin, I didn't bother about celebrating New Years because I have no reason to celebrate another soon to be shit year. Although I did watch the fireworks outside my window for awhile. As far as I can tell 2025 is going to be a very horrible year for a lot of reasons.

Anyway three years ago I wrote a blog about why it was important to have fans that fully support and back what you do. Some artists don't seem to realize just how large their fanbase have grown over the years... I believe the big name artist just see it as another day and opportunity to make some income, they'll never have to work for anyone else ever again as long as people continue to support what they do. And that's something I'd love to have too...

I once dreamed of having millions or hundreds of thousands of fans loving me for my creative mindset...But after what Pixiv did to me? I've been doing a whole lot of thinking as to where my future lies as an artist who no longer has much of a purpose anymore to create. This month I do intend to at least finish my graphic novel, Shadow Hill Escape From Echidna, so far the first book will be finished this month or the beginning of next month if I don't slack off... I'm not sure if I'll continue to move on with the second book or even do a third one. The only reason I decided to finish the first one is because I felt motivated to do so, and I told myself I wanted to at least stay committed to finishing what I had started...Hell I had already created 42 panels, and did over 142 renders total for the book. Might as well just go through with completing it. Even if there is no victory celebration waiting.

I will say this though, having recognition can help boost confidence, a serious artists cares about feedback and even though some artists are sensitive than others when it comes to criticism of their work to the point where it's easy to hurt their feelings. It helps to have an audience that at least understand your vision.  Finding your place and becoming recognizable is important in this line of work. Without the support of an audience you are likely to feel like a nobody.... Any artists is free to disagree with this belief if they want. But deep down I know that there are plenty of artists that feel unwanted, less acknowledged, or never experienced what it feels like to be praised for being who they are.

I have spent a lot of time on baraag and noticed how often some of these artist openly speak about their own content but it's like no one cares or pays them any attention. There is less social interaction between artists and followers. Of course there are artists there who started early when the platform was still quite young and fresh. As a result they were able to benefit the most from the platform so they were able to grow and expand their horizon...

As for me, well it doesn't seem to matter how great my content is I hardly get much attention these days. The only reason I haven't given up yet is because creating is a habit and I use it to battle my depression and thoughts of suicide which I have on a regular never ending basis now that I'm getting older..

 I can't stand the idea of being some tired broken down old guy living in a psychotic war driven country with no future. I fell into a deeper depressive stage once people I wanted to be close to didn't talk to me much anymore the past couple of years...

I take risk because not taking risk is boring, I'm not worried if I upset or offend someone with my ideas. I'm just trying to enjoy myself while there is still a chance to do that.. I do feel down about my status in life and it has had a negative affect on my mental stability over the years. It's not that I want a lot of people praising me 24/7 hours a day... I just want to feel like a winner for once...That's all. Someone who has accomplished something instead of feeling as though I'm wasting my time for nothing.

Lately I've been working on a lot of non-explicit artwork to build up my portfolio for artstation..I have a lot of ideas I believe would do well there if I create enough content until my name gets noticed.... I really don't see much of a future in the "NSFW" side of art anymore at least not for myself... I don't like feeling unappreciated and I'm tried of creating for smaller audiences. I understand that some of us will never become famous for what we do...

I think I can be honest about it when I say this, but I really do hate my life...I HATE IT. If I didn't have any talent to create at all, things would be much worse for me on an emotional and psychological level. Because when I do feel like I've got nothing else left, especially something good going for myself...I unwind in front of my computer and I just start to create whatever comes to mind. Sometimes my ideas can be dark and scary, other times it's tame, and calming.

I'm over the whole creating shocking material for a reaction phase. In fact I never went through that, when I started out I just wanted to do something exciting, and because disturbing themes are fun to indulge in anyway. I wanted to create what no one else was doing... In the beginning I felt so damn trapped because I didn't have a vision all those years ago. I was just creating for the sake of creating in order to kill time and make easy money without following the herd or creating what was popular. Instead I stuck to the plan and did my own thing to see where it was going to take me.