I find myself between a rock and a hard place. Last night, I was painting a pin-up for Kakashi Hatake (yes, I know ... finally). And in the process of painting it, I noticed a few things were wrong with it. In my mind (because I actually talk to myself with an inner voice) I thought, "That looks off ... f-it. I don't care." And before my stylus touched the screen, I froze and immediately thought, "Oh no."
Drawing Naruto fanart isn't fun for me anymore.
I noticed it a few weeks ago when I was working on building my portfolio and putting together my customized profile page here at DA. I was scouring my computer for anything that wasn't Naruto related so I can have it featured as a thumbnail and it occurred to me, outside a few pictures for Bleach, I don't have any finished pieces that isn't Naruto-based. And when I fully realized that, I felt ashamed.
I often describe my muse as being an entity who "humps my leg". She's always pummeling me with ideas and inspiration to the point I feel smothered and frustrated because a lot of the ideas are truly epic; however, I lack the skill to bring them to life. Even now, I can think of all the different Naruto fanart ideas that I could draw; but a not-so-quiet voice in my head keeps saying, "Why bother?"
Why bother when 90% of the people who look at your artwork are only doing it because they are a fan of Naruto and not you?
Why bother spending hours upon hours drawing artwork; when other (non-fanart) artists won't even recognized you as an artist?
Why bother drawing fanart when your friends and family don't have a clue what Naruto is, nor watch anime/manga for that matter?
Why bother creating a doujin when you have to disable comments because of trolls, get little-to-no feedback on it and when you do finally hear something, it's usually just people harassing you because they, "ZOMG, WANT THEIR OCS IN THE DOUJINZ TOO!"?
Why bother drawing fanart when it is almost guaranteed it's going to be stolen?
Why bother drawing when you're too ashamed to join places like conceptart.org because all you have to post is fanart?
Why bother drawing fanart when it just attracts trolls who remind you that, "You're only popular because you draw Naruto fanart
"?I don't have AceroTiburon's hilarous sense of humor. Or jennymstead's creative depth and amazing drive and I certainly don't have Roggles's skill.
I've come to the realization that my artwork skills are not good enough to support original work ... B1nd1 dazzles people with her original creations; Wen-M his amazing details; Endling his expressive and clever characters; reiq with his sexy creations ... Outside of fanart, what do I offer to the artistic world?
I really can't answer that question.
I think one of the reasons I've put off submitting original artwork here at DA is because I know it will get very little attention. There will be a few comments from good friends of mine here at DA and a few, "Nice!" comments; but it will be forgotten quickly and/or overlooked. I feel ridiculous in saying this, but I'm afraid to submit original work because I know I will ultimately be reminded that the majority of the people who watch me, only watch me because they are a fan of Naruto. They watch me in the hopes that they will see me draw their favorite character or pairing. And the whole, "Draw <insert character here> next!" comments reminds me of this.
I can't help but ask myself, "Did I really have fans in the first place -- or is it all because of Naruto?" And why continue to draw fanart for a manga that every new chapter you read only results in you face-palming and sighing in irritation? Because you're afraid you'll lose most of your watchers? Is that the right reason to draw art? THAT is the only question I can answer -- and it's with an emphatic NO.
I've started and abandoned this journal multiple times in the past week. I've got a pretty good idea what people are going to say in response to this journal: "What about <insert doujin/project here>?" And I will say this:
Konoha's Legacy -- I'm on the fence. I may do a few more pages, but it's a struggle to get the motivation for it.
Bee-uty & the Beast & Mature Cake Doujin -- I'm going to continue both of these because it's the closest thing I have to anything "original" right now. Even though I don't like Naruto anymore, I still like Hani and Gai (my interpretation of Maito Gai, that is).
Konoha High -- Same as above. As long as it has Hani in it, I'm still okay with working on it.
Koko-wa-ShikaTema -- Definitely going to submit work for this. I'm actually looking forward to it.
Commissions -- Of course I will still do Naruto-based commissions and still put 110% of my effort into it. Please don't think I won't want to do your commission because I don't want to do Naruto fanart on my own anymore.
I know some of you will probably roll your eyes at the fact that I enjoy Hani -- but she's like my Pepper Project. I don't know -- maybe she is a personification of my muse? I just enjoy her as a character.
So yeah ... don't really know what to say next. I'm going to try to finish this Kakashi pin-up and the above projects.
Someday soon I'll upload some original art and just except the fact that it won't be as popular. I guess I'll just start over. I suspect I'll lose a lot of watchers; but they were probably only watching me because of Naruto anyway. It's just going to be disheartening to wake up after submitting some original artwork to find only a few dozen messages in my message center for activity; whereas Naruto fanart, I can wake up the next morning and find over 1k activity (still not as much as some fanartists, but I don't usually draw the popular characters). It is kind of frustrating when I can spend 12+ hours working on artwork and it won't even make the top 200 deviations for the last 24 hours, but a sloppy sketch of Sasuke in ANBU garb is in the top 40. The Naruto fandom is a fickle mistress.
I hope you all have a good weekend. I'll probably spend it raiding with my Draenei Shaman in World of Warcraft; trying to drop bitch-tits Arthas.
skin by LeMex
