Fila Status Update (Mid-May 2023) (Patreon)

So, this is a little status update explaining my thoughts about drawing recently, and what kind of things might happen in the future with my account.

I've been thinking a lot, about drawing and my struggles with it. Something that I repeatedly struggle with is the failure to enjoy drawing for its own sake, to simply draw and not have it server some grand purpose. I love drawing, but rarely do I draw and enjoy it if its not for some 'bigger reason'. If I'm not doing a pic for my profiles, I feel like I'm wasting time. If its not a productive study, I worry about not improving. I never just draw for its own sake, and I think that's a problem. I need to be able to draw and not beat myself up about it 'not being enough' or 'not productive' or whatever.

I'm not really sure how to reach that kind of place mentally. Based on advice of friends, I simply need to draw more. Not draw to post, not draw for money, but just draw to draw. Its something that should be easy but my brain really struggles with it. Regardless, after hitting walls multiple times thinking about this stuff, I feel like I need to make a more conscious effort to achieve this, even if it feels somewhat paradoxical (put in more effort to not be spending so much effort???).

My current plan is to try to do more daily sketching. Force myself to draw stuff that isn't for posting. Figure out a way to be happy there. I'm not gonna quit doing finished art cold turkey, and I still have comms to do for people, but I need to incorporate more 'play' into my drawing. Pretty much everything right now serves some bigger purpose, and while that's good for productivity in the short term, in the long term its causing a lot of mental issues.

Also, ToTK launches tonight/tomorrow, and unsurprisingly I want to play it. I haven't played a video game in 5-6 months, I wanna indulge a bit. So I'll be focused on that for awhile. Combine that with wanting to do this more unfocused 'play' drawing, and content may slow down. I don't want it to dry up completely, but I prob won't post as much and what I post may be sketch content.

Regardless, I wanna try to stick with this, so I hope in the end it will result in a healthier and more productive Fila! hopefully one who can draw dumb sketch ideas much more easily! I appreciate you all of course, and thank you for taking the time to read this!