November | 2024 | deeintrigue

I was afraid of my art. And the fear was beyond unreasonable.

There is only a medium to canvas. Lines upon lines. Graphite, markers, paint and inks to board paper. The only loss to drawing is time, yet the finished illustration COULD replace its value.

My repel from drawing matches the reaction of someone’s life being threatened. I’m not a surgeon in an operating room. There is no real battlefield that my art will defend or destroy. And I’m not developing infrastructure to support millions of people.

Like clockwork, I sit on my desk unable to produce anything. There are many days I don’t make it that far. I try talking myself over this barrier. The encouragement lasts only as long as the conversation.

I thought my habits were the main issue. I can fill a stadium wall of tally marks to the moments I’ve missed art, even only counting the last sixteen years. More failures than strides creates a pattern too overbearing to course correct. There was a time I though my fear was from outgrowing the life I admired. I would have to give up most of my social and family life to put in the hours needing to be a successful illustrator. I was not ready for that. Even if possible, the earn income wouldn’t justify the time commitment in the earlier years. I didn’t want to overwork myself while struggling to afford a living.

My excuses were multiple-choices!

Researching gave me the answers to many of them. The time I wasn’t drawing was still used to find answers. The internet is full of interviews, books, and courses where anything can be understood if you know what you’re looking for and come across reputable sources.

My horrible habits were the only “reasonable” excuse. Someone who doesn’t draw long enough would completely stop drawing. Routines turns to habits. Habits into character. Character into identity and destiny. The only answers I found to altering that destiny I carve for myself is to dread a path long enough to get away from it. The same efforts made to remove the identity of an artist out of my life, would be the same efforts to add it back. And it’s not a quick fix. Changing something you done for years takes time and concentration. The quicker you want that change the higher the concentration must be. And time is the biggest factor. There is no seven-day fix. You don’t complete a 30- to 90-day program and magically have that new routine ingrained in you. The problem I created took nearly two decades to create.

Life change. Not working on my art didn’t prevent change. It’s true that I would lose a lot of socializing time, yet that doesn’t mean I won’t have any time with my love ones. There are a list of professional artists I follow that manage a lucrative creative career AND a family. Enough of them took their time through books and YouTube channels to share how they’ve done it.

And finally, if the art is treated as a business, the money will follow in time. I didn’t know that lesson for the longest. There were more stories I’d read of good artist who fail to find a large enough audience, than the ones that do. When so much entertainment is available for free online, legal or otherwise, less people buy art. I had friends who follow manga stories throughout its course and not purchased a single item from its creators. That’s discouraging. But not all art made is meant for money. And the artist can grow to a popularity that he can afford to give something away to fans. It requires a lot of work to get there, but it’s possible. Far worse artists have made a wonderful living with their art.

I witness my art’s potential at the first comic convention I attended several years ago, Gump City Con 2017. I had money to artists’ wares, and I brought a small portfolio of my art to present. I asked every vendor I met about their profession after I bought from them. And with little back story of myself, I just shared my art ask asked the same type of question:

“What must I work on to be professionally ready?”

I was expecting to hear fundamental issues in my proportions and line work. I didn’t think my visual storytelling was consistent enough. And dabbing in art so infrequent made the execution of my work mediocre. Yet their reply was…

“No! You’re professionally ready now.”

This answer came from several people who knew extremely little of me. I asked that question much after I bought one of their wares. So they weren’t being nice in order to make a sale.

I have my doubts and uncertainties even to this day. There are things I need to practice to improve my art. There’s a lot of work to be done to gain the fanbase to support my craft. Those doubts and uncertainties were no reason to stop drawing; to a common man it would only encourage him to rise to the challenge.

I was a coward for something I’m extremely good at doing. I had uncertainty when all the questions I had were answered several times over in a dozen ways. Fear replaced love.

Citations:

“Courage Over Confidence.” YouTube, uploaded by Order of Men, 16 February 2024, https://youtu.be/wlqv38Iseg8?si=9nCTXuRQ0IRwuU71.

Clear, James. Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results : An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. New York, New York, Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2018.

“CIA’s Proven Strategy for Taking Massive Action.” YouTube, uploaded by Andrew Bustamante, 16 November 2024, https://youtu.be/q6gkbdx_uws?si=0SHL0Ij3r1PG-17O

I got into Junji Ito while trying to find comic book stories outside The Hero’s Journey archetype. This was the same time I came across this YouTube video critique of his work. My interest grew from watching panel-to-panel videos of his most popular stories to buying every book I came across at the nearest Books-a-Million.

My strongest attraction to Junji Ito’s work is the mood—the dread felt from the hopeless protagonist and the unescapable nightmares of the world Ito created. The uncomfortable feeling while reading them, and after I was done. They had definite ends but without full understandings or explanations.

It was an immediate hook!

This is the first time I tried to make a self-portrait of myself inspired by Junji Ito’s work. Scanning this somehow cropped the edges. But most of the drawing is there. As much as I draw myself, it can still take me several tries to get my face shape right. I sure weight fluctuation is the problem

This illustration is based on the short story, Painter, a part of his collection of stories under Tomie. The Tomie series is not my favorite, but it’s his most known work. Painter tells a story of a famous painter, Mitsuo Mori, and his encounter with Tomie.

This next illustration is based on Ito’s short story, The Scar. It’s within the collection of stories in his book, Uzumaki.

Choosing the right posture took time. I was going for the exact pose of the original image. I ended up disliking how close the shot was to the face. I redrew the camera angle further to show shoulders, but accidently warped the illustration. Unintendedly slanted. I’m sure it was from bad sitting posture.

I sat on this illustration for several weeks months until I got the courage to simply finish. I draw less details than intended on this drawing since I wanted the busy spiral background.

I love what I came up with, yet it wasn’t as well received online as the first.

The similarities in both stories are of madness that comes with an unhealthy obsession. Azami becomes hellbent on making Shuichi fall for her the same way every other man in her life has. And the obsession sucks the life out of her as much as the scar on her face does visually. All it took for Mitsuo obsession to crack was doubt of his talent from a random woman with mesmerizing beauty. Even when he changed his entire style and muse to capture her beauty on canvas, it didn’t please Tomie. Not receiving her approval drove Mitsuo to so much anger he killed and mutilated her. But her death didn’t sober him. He hallucinated Tomie’s body parts re-growing to more versions of herself. He drove himself to a slow death watching them.

PLEASE DON’T READ JUNJI ITO STORIES IF THAT DESCRIPTION BOTHERS YOU! Believe me when I say the stories are more disturbing when you read it in comic book form. It gets worse most of the time.

Obsessions can go too far. The length we’ll go to obtain that desire determines the rationale of the obsession. Are we disregarding morality and livelihood to obtain it? Are we willing to do the work necessary to get it? And what level of satisfaction are you expecting when pursing it? Obsession can all start with good intentions, but not all are good.

I’m trying to obsess over my art. A little. There are stories I want to create and share. I want to use social media to archive my efforts and to grow a fanbase who would appreciate it. But I have limits. And I have backup plans in case things go south. Yet I’m willing to give it my best efforts. I can’t afford sleepless nights, but I can commit all my available time during lunch hours and outside work. I can disregard socializing for a few years until the habit is ingrained into a consistent routine.

deeintrigue

Notes and Drawings of a Formal Stick Figure Illustrator.

Monthly Archives: November 2024

Dispatch x007: Cowardice and Uncertainty