May Report (Patreon)

Well, May was a challenging one, I won't lie. I usually don't like talking about my deficiencies because it sounds like making excuses and I don't want pity for having a difficult time (tell me what kinda emotional repression that sounds like 😂) but I can't deny that May was really difficult for mental health for me. I normally think of burnout as being about not having the energy to work, but this was just emotional exhaustion more than anything else.

This is going to be more rambling than my normal reports as a result, but I'll try to keep it concise. I feel like I should be as honest as possible with patrons, it's the least I can do considering the wonderful support you're giving me. ♥

When something like this happens I try to put the best face on it and learn a lesson so I can do better in the future. I'm a capable independent artist, but being a manager at my company of me is something I'm not as practiced at as with drawing, and I can't just pretend that I'm not my own boss. In terms of developing my skills, I think I would benefit more from learning how to be a better manager than improving  my drawing ability right now.

I'm usually pretty good at weathering emotional Storms (see, this is relevant to the picture 😛) and give myself space and time to recover, but at this point I have a bad track record of over-booking myself, so I'm seeking some new strats. (Enter: Therapist recommended reading) So I started reading "Atomic Habits" by James Clear and "Burnout" by Emily Nagoski PhD and Amelia Nagoski DMA.

I tend to beat myself up when I slacken my pace on comic projects, and I'm disappointed that Gibson Girls has taken so long, but these books are really changing my attitude in a potent way.
Particularly Atomic Habits has reframed the way I'd like to work in the future. The whole philosophy of the book is to focus on changing your identity rather than racing after goals as a way of building habits. 

This means that for me it's gonna be more important that I practice being an erotic comic artist every day, rather than meeting some particular page rate. If I live up to that identity and do the things an erotic comic artist does every day, the pages will take care of themselves, even if I only finish a single panel some days.

This month I got new thumbnails and roughs done but only like one actual finished page, and it's just because I kept waiting for perfect circumstances to work on it instead of just chipping away whenever I had time. The Gibson style is more complex so it makes me want to be "in the zone" which is anti-productive.
My new strategy is going to be to just make sure I keep the habit of working on this stuff in some tiny way every single day, because when I break that consistency it takes me much longer to get back to the work.
The good news is, this has already started helping and I had that new page to show for it at the end of the month!

My non-Gibson drawing stuff is still in the regular kinda spaces, lots of pink. 💗

I still want to make sure I keep using color or else I'll wither away so doing this office image was a nice break.

The sketchbook this month was fairly consistent, mostly just because I treat it as a de-stressing activity so I can do it for fun on the couch. I think I messed around with more different brushes than usual too!

As an antidote to the Gibson style I've also been drawing more cuter 90s manga-style proportions. I've got a bad Ranma 1/2 infection in my drawing hand ;)

The main thing that didn't make it into my regular posts was that I started learning InDesign as a way of getting the most out of printing with the new printer, which has remained criminally under-utilized.

I started with reformatting my oldest comics from the Space Express series, just to see what they might be like printed. And guess what, they're GOOD printed! I only ever printed my latest comics in inkjet because it took so much time for the inkjet to print that I really just couldn't output that many. The laserjet is WAY faster and can do ledger(11x17) sized duplex printing, which was always my dream to have. I have weird dreams.

I can't wait to get all my physical comics up for sale  in this newer, larger size 9"x6.5". The laserjet prints have a more professional feel because they have a glossy finish like you'd expect of a comic with a richer value range compared to the inkjet.

If you've made it this far, thank you for being patient as I sort through stuff, my goal is always to be a better artist, but it's clear that I need to focus on being a more consistent artist by setting reasonable outcomes for myself.

The funny thing is that I know that if I can stick to this idea, I will probably increase my output because I'll just relieve the stress and pressure that slows me down and causes the inevitable burnout cycle.

This month Gibson Girls will get a title and get finished and while I won't post every day, I will be working on it in a small way at least every day.

Thanks for all your wonderful support of my work, everyone. I'm humbled that you help me do this work and I'll do my best to improve my management skills so that I can deliver on what I know I'm capable of more consistently and with less unnecessary stress. :)

♥ Winton