General Update! (on W2H2 and me) (Patreon)

Hey guys!  I want to give you all an update on where I'm at right now, and I'm gonna try to lay out my thoughts in the most organized way possible.  (Don't laugh, haha).

Basically, I think I might have to take another industry job pretty soon here.  I'm at something of an impasse both financially and creatively with W2H2.  I don't really have the energy to figure out how to FUND my indie shit, while keeping up the energy to MAKE my indie shit.

I want to be clear, I'm not complaining about the funds I get from my patrons, you guys have always been super supportive and awesome.  But part of being a full-time indie creator is playing the social media game and figuring out how to make it work for you.  Maybe you post a Q&A on Insta, stream your answers on Twitch, and then compile that into a video for Youtube.  That's a whole job in and of itself, and I was gonna' try to do that in 2020, but to no one's surprise, COVID made that pretty hard.

I moved into a house with a bunch of my friends like, the WEEK before quarantine.  So I suddenly found myself in a house full of people all working from home, all sharing a workspace, and I didn't want to be disruptive in a space where everyone else was trying to have meetings and concentrate on their work.  I'm actually editing a Q&A video right now that I've been putting off all year... I finally filmed it in my car, haha.

I also hit a wall creatively towards the end of 2020.  I've been feeling burnout pretty hard the last few months, and I know it started around October.  Looking back at my output, I posted a whopping 21 SHOTS that month.  Previously I was averaging 6.5 every month, so it's no wonder I started feeling it around then.  I got into this flow where I'd wake up, drink my coffee, put my head down and just ANIMATE.  It was kind of a coping mechanism?  Again, I really should've been streaming around this time, leaning into the indie creator persona, promoting my shit on social media, building up an audience, but with everything going on I just... didn't feel like it. Throwing myself into animation was the only thing I had the energy to do.  And I think slowing down a little bit for the holidays is when it all caught up to me.

Another thing that's been on my mind recently is time.  Time is fake, blah blah blah, I feel like we all get that.  But on a personal level it's been feeling pretty weird.  I'm at a point now where I've seen people on twitter reminisce about W2H like it's ancient, wondering where I'm at or what I'm up to.  (I'm living in L.A. working in animation!  But not in the industry, I'm working on W2H!  But you can't see it because it's behind a paywall!  And I'm not good at playing the social media game so I've had a hard time redirecting people to the Patreon!) And so on.

It's also weird in terms of my personal/artistic growth.  Committing multiple years to a project that's already multiple years old.  I started boarding and plotting W2H2 back in 2015, and I didn't even START animating it until 2019... I've always had to jump back and forth between doing this and having an industry job, so this is really nothing new!  I think with any lengthy artistic project you see yourself grow into a different artist than when you started it, and I think that's good!  That's part of the process.  

Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is that another part of this process is just gonna' have to involve jumping back into the industry.  I've been really holding off on doing that, but I think I need the change of pace, and frankly the adult-sized paycheck would be nice too.  I'm 32, and honestly the thing I want most right now is to be able to buy a fucking nightstand.  For that matter, I think if I actually had the funds from a day job I could pay other artists to help me finish it.  It might end up getting done quicker, oddly enough!

I think separating W2H2 into "the thing I do out of passion", and not "the thing I do for a living" also takes a lot of pressure off of me.  Tying it back around to "playing the social media game", it's a hell of a lot easier to stream yourself working on the thing you do for FUN, not the thing you do for a living.  And I might be able to do stuff like that more frequently if I take that pressure off of myself, y'know?  I know everyone tuning in is just happy to hang out, chat, and see me draw... but putting my livelihood on display like that makes me feel vulnerable, I guess.  AGAIN, to be clear, none of my followers have ever made me feel that way, it's all psychological.  But I gotta do something about it, and this is what I know how to do.

So, to wind this down, I want to clarify some things; W2H2 is still in-production.  I'm still going to be actively working on it, regardless of whether or not I have an industry job.  And there's still going to be cool stuff on the Patreon!  Obviously I'll still post the animation I've done, but there will be more BEAUTIFUL backgrounds coming in soon from my buddy Claire and our rag-tag team of background artists... and there should also be some really cool special guest animation coming soon.  I'm really excited to see how it turns out and I can't WAIT to share it with you guys. 

Something else I think I'll be doing is splitting W2H2 into 3 "acts".  I forced my friends to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog for a movie night and it hit me how genius that was.  It'll make it much easier to complete if I break it into 3 chonks, AND, it'll build more HYPE for each new installment.  It should also draw more attention, meaning more followers, more funding, and more artists I can hire out to help complete it!  So I'm excited about that as well.

ANYWAY, I just wanted to give you guys an update and let you know what's been going on with me and W2H2.  Everything's good, I'm fine, the project is still happening... I just need to change some things up and I wanted to keep everyone posted.  I'm really excited for whatever the future holds and I'm excited to bring you more W2H!  As always, I appreciate your support.  You guys have always been super sweet and awesome to me, and if you ever feel like you're not getting enough bang for your buck out of my Patreon, you can pull out, no worries, no obligations!  But I'll always try to provide something exclusive for you guys to chew on while I work on W2H2.  Thanks for sticking with me!

((actual content will follow this post!  My internet was out for a day or so!  Sorry for the lateness!))