Weekly Update - 106 (Patreon)

Firstly I'd like to thank Michael for upgrading from Scavenger to Trader tier! Thank you so much!

The Imposter Syndrome always kicks in any time someone subscribes or upgrades or says something nice to me, but there's really no purer or more genuine reply that I can give than "thank you." Actually, maybe that's a good topic to ramble about today!

On the topic of Patreon rewards, I know I've been slacking still on delivering character sheets.  I've just been overwhelmed, really, and the list of character sheets seems daunting and every week that goes by where I haven't delivered on those promises I feel really crappy about it.  I'm working on a solution, a slight rekajigger of the reward tiers that will hopefully lessen just how daunting it all seems to me right now.  All current patrons will be grandfathered in, I'm not taking away anything I've already promised from anyone, that just seems like it would be shitty to do that.  It just... might take me awhile, because I'm a slow artist at the best of times and I've got a lot of extra art on my plate atm in addition to the weekly comic pages that take up most of my week.  Hopefully my art has been improving in the meantime so when I do finally deliver your character sheets they'll be even better than they would have been four months ago.

Comic This Week:  Yes!  Not sure if I've sown the seeds well enough, but we're leading up to a sorta major reveal and I don't want to let that beat drop!

Drawing: Page 136, World Map of the planet Kuserra sits on (little cross-section preview above), Rework of to-be-published pages for the book, and SOMEONE'S character sheet is getting worked on this Friday.

Playing: Universim, oddly enough.  Been on kind of a world-buildery kick lately.

Volume 1: As some of you know, we're still working on compiling the first 120 pages of God Slayers into a book that's gonna be sold by Fenris Publishing.  Got about half the pages ready to go, the remaining half require a little touchup for readability, and I'll be hammering out a few of those.  I'm hoping to get it ready and put together by the end of this year.  Fenris is going to handle all the distribution and selling and ordering and marketing and all that awful stuff, because that's what publishers are for!

Ramble:

Imposter Syndrome!  More importantly, how I've started to overcome it!

It really never fails.  Like, someone tells me my art is good or that they really like it and my brain is like, "okay but why tho."  I feel like this is a problem for a lot of creative people, people in many fields, really.  We don't feel like we deserve the praise because we know we can do better given infinite time and effort.  We may be meeting the expectations of others, but not our own (often unreasonable) expectations.

It took me a long time to learn that the CORRECT answer to receiving a compliment is a simple "thank you" and I'll often include a "that means a lot to me" because it does.  It seems like it should be an obvious reply, but as I matured I learned there was a lot of value in humility, so someone telling me that I'm great was often met with a response like, "ehhh, I'm not so great.  Other people are better."  Not untrue statements by any stretch, but in the wake of receiving a compliment, they can seem outwardly very negative. Furthermore, it's really dismissive of the person paying you the compliment.  Especially if it's someone you don't know or have never talked to before, sometimes they have to overcome a lot of anxiety to do something as simple as reach out and strike up a conversation.

It was only a few years ago that I stopped replying to compliments with "eh, I'm not so great."  Because when someone pays me a compliment it's not about me or what I think.  It's about someone reaching out to say something nice to me.  It's perhaps the purest and most positive gesture of humanity, and if I sit there and throw it back at them, tell them they are wrong -- how does that make any sense?

Of course, I know this now, but I didn't realize there was even a problem with my standard humble reply until I had the tables turned on me.  I was the one offering compliments to some of my friends, and they often responded in a similar way as I would.  I would tell them I thought their creative project was really good, and they would tell me that no, it sucks, because X, Y, and Z.  I was the source of positivity and I was being hit with negativity in return.  What ultimately happened was I stopped being the source of positivity towards them, I stopped giving them compliments, because I knew I didn't want to hear their response as they tore down this thing I liked.

Of course, there IS a lot of value in humility.  It's good to be humble.  It's good to not think of yourself as better than any others by any measurement.  By knowing that I'm not great, I know there are few limits to how or on what dimension I can improve because there's higher heights to reach than the place I'm at now.  If I keep working really hard at it, if I keep practicing, my art will continue improving and eventually I'll look back one day at how far I've come and allow myself to feel a little proud of it.

And so when people give me compliments, I still can't turn off the part of my brain that tells me "no, it sucks, because X, Y, and Z."  I can't turn off my inner critic, they are a useful part of my creative process, and they are helping me to tell the best story I can by pointing out to me all the ways it sucks and all the mistakes and helping me to avoid repeating those mistakes.  However, I don't need to repeat what my inner critic says every single time someone tells me they think this thing I'm making is good.  Instead, I simply say "thank you," and I hope that I meet their positivity with more positivity.  I want people to feel good and rewarded for having reached out to say something nice. And you know what? I think it's been having a positive impact on me as well.  It's such a simple change, but I feel like it's so important for mood and productivity.  Someone, somewhere out there in the world likes what I'm making, and that's just awesomely huge.  I can't dismiss that. It's a motivator, for sure.  I may have started this comic for me, but you all telling me that you like it throws fuel onto my fire and makes me want to try even harder, to get even better for you.  For all of you.

So I can't ignore the part of my brain that tells me I suck, because I know that with time, and effort, and hard work, I can do better than I'm doing today, and that one day I will feel proud of all that I've done.  But I also can't ignore or dismiss all the people who tell me what I'm doing is really good, right now.  That they really like it or that it means a lot to them.  I can't disagree with you, because it's your opinion, and your opinion carries just as much weight as my own.  I just have to keep working to make it even better.