The Anaether

Hoping to finish page 27 tonight or tomorrow. Uy. a 1-month release cycle is a bit much for me. I think I’ll try cutting that in half again and do 2-week release cycles instead.

I think I’m finding it a bit challenging to find an audience for Vas and Semeon as a sexual pairing. Maybe it’s because I haven’t shown the true substance of their relationship yet. Perhaps people are uncomfortable with it coming off as rapey. Which shouldn’t bother people that much considering rape fantasy is quite common and acceptable (but of course not at all acceptable in real life). Maybe people aren’t into dudes fucking hermaphrodites that appear male. Whatever, I’m gonna double down on what I want to do anyway.

Based off the comic pages so far, what I’m finding interesting about people’s feedback is that they seem to like the dynamic between Semeon and Syf, or at least it’s been remarked on more. No one has really brought up the interactions between Vas and Syf, but perhaps it’s because there isn’t much there yet. In my opinion, of the scenes I’ve written/thumbnailed so far in the canon storyline, the best ones are between Vas and Syf. Well, nothing serious has happened yet in the released comic pages. It’s only been a few months, not that many pages and this is still a prototype chapter.

This is just what it’s going to be like. Slow and steady. Because I’m insistent on a certain quality and style to the comic pages, even if it takes like an eternity to complete each one. I’m eager to work on each page and continue on to the next and the next, even though sometimes I feel like I’m dragging my feet. But at the end of the day, I’m really happy that I put in the work.

In case you haven’t noticed, I think I’ve figured out how to quickly grow an audience on Twitter. I thought my work just sucked, or there was something I was doing wrong. Or I just really had to wait a few years before even getting more than 100 followers or something. But for 6 months, I had less than 30 followers. I started getting on #artshare threads, following people and tagging them just over a week ago, and now I have over 300 followers.

If you’re an artist and you want to grow an audience on Twitter, that’s exactly what you do. Share your artwork on #artshare threads, tag other people to help promote them and interact with people. There’s a bunch of other stuff you can do as an artist, like DTIYS (draw this in your style), follow trains, art raffles and so on. Hosting your own artshare thread is probably a good idea too. I’ll probably do that eventually.

What I also noticed is the ridiculous amount of insecurity and self doubt in artists on Twitter. As I’d written my own expressions of insecurity and self doubt right here on this blog before, this isn’t actually a huge surprise to me. I’ve also definitely met plenty of self-doubting artists in my life. But upon seeing that on Twitter and how rampant it is, it really makes me want to stop projecting negativity and instead put a more supportive attitude out there. People act like the last tweet of their latest artwork is the piece that’s going to be like, the final judgment of them. Like, if it flops, then it must mean they suck.

I’d really like to stop my self-defeatist and self-abusive attitude, and keep remembering that when I put more time into my work, which I’ve been doing, it will get better, and it has been. That’s been the constant in my life, and it should be no different for anyone else.

I wish people would stop being so self-deprecating and just keep making more artwork. I’d been drawing Vas for so many years with no intention of an audience at all and I loved drawing them, and I enjoy illustrating my comic pages right now even though I don’t publish them immediately. I’d just like to monetize this project so that some day, I can work on it full time.