End of Year thoughts and updates

Hey guys! The end of 2023 is neigh! Time for some reflection on my artistic life and progress! Meaning this post will be more about my personal journey and thoughts on where I am compared to where I was before and on my growing community as well. So sit back, relax, grab a tea or coffee, put on some relaxing music and walk down Enny's memory lane. ... Which is more of a brain dump if I am being honest haha! Let's go!
(For a project update scroll down to the bottom after the dotted line.)

 

I feel like every year I have so many cool things I want to do and I get super excited and I start working on them too and learn a lot and have a lot of fun and all of that - but every year I also feel the need to apologize to you guys since I rarely manage to get stuff finished in the time I want to ha ha! I work on too many things at the same time (I already try to dial it down but let's face it - it's just how I work. I can't focus on only one thing for a longer period of time) and in some cases I simply don't have the experience to know how to deal with certain blockers or problems and so I just postpone them until at some point I finally have an idea or find someone I can ask about it or stumble upon a helpful article or video online.

 

But! You guys are still here and please know that I am very grateful for that. I know I can be a bit of a chaotic and it can be frustrating as a follower when I announce something for date X and then I keep pushing it out until you might feel I won't be doing it at all. I am trying to improve there. Whenever I have an idea I try to really consider if I have time to go through with it, if it will be fun long enough, if I can learn enough from it to keep my motivation up, how long it will take at all and I also try to really consider when I should announce it to not get your hopes up too soon. The same goes for things I will not do. When I don't work on something for a longer time then there comes that point where I sit down and I ask myself: Will I still do this? So I can better manage your expectations as well and be clear with myself and my community as to what I will really work on and what is frozen for the time being or even dropped. When I was younger I rarely finished anything at all and didn't stick with an idea for very long. So compared to that I've made quite some leaps haha! Still I want to keep working on myself in regards to that. I will never get to that point of being able to keep all of my announced deadlined, or posting regularly - if we're speaking about expectations.... It's just not how I work as a creative person. However I will continue to do my best and consider your feelings too. I can promise that much at least.

 

Another thing that I have been thinking on a lot lately is how my community has been growing and how I received a lot more attention. To me... this is a two-edged sword. On the one hand of course I am happy about this. I love getting feedback from you guys! The thought that there are over a thousand people out there who enjoy my art is... INSANE! I love talking with you, getting in touch, discussing things... I love... being able to offer my fellow WITCH fans something nice and exciting or nostalgic once in a while, that I can help keep the franchise alive. In the end, after all, I'm just another fan like you! That is what motivates all of my actions as an artist. I draw the comic because I myself want to read it and have been longing for a continuation of the comic. I draw pieces of art, because I myself would love to see this or that character in this or that way. I create a giveaway or offer something up for sale because I myself would love to have something like this in my WITCH collection. I don't claim to be amazing or the one and only person continuing WITCH. There are a lot of more skilled and great and passionate artists out there and a lot of cool WITCH related projects and I love so much to hear about them and watch them grow!  I am still no professional. I am a hobby artist, and a self taught one at that. There are many skills and techniques in regards to drawing I am not even aware of or unable to apply and I still have many weaknesses and imperfections and I take each piece of art, each comic page I set out to draw as a challenge to better myself, to learn something new, to improve just a little in choosing the right colours, or make the poses just a tad more dynamic. All the while with the terribly perfectionist (and probably unnecessary) aspiration to make it look and feel as much as the original WITCH comic as possible. I still struggle a lot with sequential art and often don't quite know which exact moment or movement to show in a panel, how to properly make a facial expression work the way I want it to, etc. I guess that's the basic knowledge missing right there, ehem! That means I use many, many references of the original comic for expressions, for panels, for poses, but also other comics, sometimes photographs for lighting, tons of pictures of clothes to get an idea of how folds and physics work with different fabrics, and again lots of references and sometimes even 3D models for poses and backgrounds and... pretty much all of it. There is a lot of research and working on and re-editing the concept involved for each comic page. It's the only way I know how to do draw for comics and how I can create something I am remotely satisfied with. But here I am getting better too. I noticed that I have a clearer understanding of the human body and how it works while moving and have developed my own "preferred body type" that I like to draw for my characters. I still struggle with certain angles or simply making a character who appears in each panel like Will recently, look like our Will in every single one. You may think: Huh? But that's easy! Well... it's so not. It's super tricky. Mostly because I'm lacking skill I think. While I improved with proportions and the human body, I still have a loooong way to go and so whenever I decide on a pose that's slightly from below, or above or somewhat angled and stuff, I struggle A! LOT! Then again, that's the whole idea of this thing. Improving as an artist. Learning, studying.

So this is where the edge of our little sword comes in: With attention and a growing community often comes more pressure, more expectations, more view points and opinions, more criticism too. The internet can be a horrible place and I've heard and seen many cruel and simply unnecessary hate driven comments and discussions and bullying (luckily very rarely directed at me) and whatnot that simply go without punishment because: Well, it is the internet and anyone can do whatever the hell they want. Quite frankly: I am not used to that. I've been drawing for so long under the radar with a fairly small follower-ship that I am really happy if I get even one comment or reaction on my art. Getting critique can be great! It can help you discover flaws, get new insights, etc. But it can also hurt. I received a rather harsh critique not too long ago or at least it felt harsh to me. And the problem I mostly had with it that it wasn't directed directly towards me. It was in form of a comment under a re-post by another account on instagram (I specifically allowed this by the way). While I do understand where that person is coming from - and I really do, since they don't know me yet, probably just quickly looked over my art and noticed strong likeness in some of my panels with panels from the original comic, saw that I have a ko-fi account and just assumed I was milking people for money while bluntly copying faces and panels off of the original comic, leading an easy life. So yeah, I guess I would get mad about that too. I still think that some parts of that critique were too harsh though and not properly researched and so I felt the need to justify myself. After reading the critique I was super frustrated. I sat here crying and felt utterly misunderstood. Then I opened Clip Studio and continued drawing. Forcing myself to say "I don't care! I like drawing. I am doing it for learning purposes. I'm only charging money in small sums and only for specific items. I'm doing the best I can and this is a lot of effort. I'm not doing anything wrong and it is okay to offer up the possibility of financial compensation as long as it is not required to for example read the comic." I am proud of the immense progress I have made over the years. I am getting better and since I am constantly emphasizing how this whole thing is fan work, how the comic is available for free and even should I make a print round at some point the only thing you will have to pay is shipping... I have nothing to be ashamed of. I don't claim any rights on W.i.t.c.h. as a franchise. I try to give proper credit wherever I can. I look at what other artists do who produce fan art, then dial that down by a big margin and that's what I go with for my own "shop". I always consider "would this be something cool for a W.i.t.c.h. fan? Would I like to have this and would I be okay with this price?" instead of going with whatever I think earns me the most money. However once I offer something up for sale, I also feel obligated to offer it for a marketable price. Not because I need the money or am greedy but because I don't want to "destroy" the market price in general. Artists get paid so few already, hobby or professional. It just doesn't feel right to go too low with prices just because I have the luxury of another job who pays for my rent, with the consequence that proper artists, professional artists, will have a hard time justifying their well deserved higher prices since there are so many who offer the same for a far smaller sum.

Haaaah~ this turned into a mix of a rant sprinkled with justification, a bit of whining and a pinch of nostalgia. What I really want is be transparent so you guys better know what is what and probably just get this all off of my chest. And in the end, if you have doubts about my work you can always talk to me, or stop following my work all together. Of course I like the attention! Did I secretly feel high and mighty about the success of my Sovereign comic and art? About receiving an occasional financial tip via Ko-fi? About numbers constantly rising on my instagram account? Yes, absolutely! But it has never been my goal to make proper money with this and it never will be. I have a job. I want to keep that as my job and drawing as a hobby. Because once the comic becomes work I will lose the fun in it and eventually stop doing it. But the thought of someone having a WITCH book physically standing in their collection that I wrote... of someone cheerfully putting on a T-shirt with my design on it... of someone getting one of my art pieces imprinted into their skin as a tattoo,...I just feel so honoured and appreciated and it's such a special thing! It's incredible and... surreal and... yes, I would really like to have that. Just a little now and then. And I also think there's nothing wrong with wanting that. Okay! But enough of the gloomy and brooding stuff! Let's have a quick look at where we're at with... everything!

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PROJECT STATUS

First things first: The comic. The next page is done in concept and I tweaked the texts here and there but haven't started cleaning sketches or lines and stuff. I wanted to focus on the giveaway of the YCH page and will do so until I have delivered the finished artwork there. After that I will probably draw something for Christmas or New Year and THEN I will get back to the comic page.

 

Several of you have been asking about the Halloween story print run as well. I have to admit I made no progress. There's only three graphics left, then I have to adjust the cover and get in touch with the printing service I was considering to use and hope things will go smoothly after that. The whole "preparing everything for print" wasn't as fun as I had imagined and I had to grind through most of it, forcing myself to get it done. I will have to do just that for this last stretch too... but for now I allowed myself a break from it and do some more fun things in-between. Plus with Christmas around, there was less time again for drawing. Family wanting attention (how dare they?! Wanting hugs and cosy time with tea and cookies. The audacity!), having to organize presents... you know the drill.

 

Then we have the Meridian Renaissance novel. That one's also on a break. I worked a little on the main plot, solving some problems with the story and characters. Smaller things like that. I will most likely post another reading excerpt (available for free) via my ko-fi over the holidays that I already have prepared.

 

Apart from that I don't have many things planned. I had tons of ideas of course but try not to get too distracted. See?! I'm trying to stay focused! I do want to finish Phobos' Christmas ornament though. I will most likely not make it till Christmas so I'll be posting it whenever I am done, sometime around the holidays or at the start of 2024.

 

That's it for 2023!

HAPPY HOLDAYS EVERYONE!

I hope you have a most lovely, relaxing and cosy Christmas time or just a nice end of the year. I'll hear you all in 2024.