Tag Archives: Sam talks Art

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There’s AI discourse going around again, and I know I am contributing to it venting here but just ugh.

Like I love what I have seen because every post has been slamming AI and saying it’s theft and yes 100% agree. I like that I am not alone in hating the idea. It’s ironic now but I always had such comfort that a “creative job” would always exist because there would a) always be a need for it (whether I am good enough or marketable is a whole other thing, but humans need art), and b) it wasn’t something that could be done by a machine…. boy do I feel silly now.

But that’s kinda my point a bit. I hate remembering that AI exists that can do art. Yes I know there are logical arguments for why it won’t necessarily replace human creatives but I am cynical I guess. I already have a daily battle that I don’t feel like I will ever be good enough. Now I have to battle an additional mental demon of “what’s the point?” as maybe AI can’t do everything yet but the more the machine feeds, the better it gets, and exponentially so ‘one day’ is soon-ish. No telling how soon but it feels soon.

I am a more practiced writer than I am an artist but I don’t delude myself that I’m that great at either. Chronic fatigue is a real problem for me. Not sure how physical it is, it could just be mental from the depression/anxiety, but it gets in my way regardless. I need to put in a lot of work to improve, and I am so tired. It all feels pointless and a computer is already better than me. And yes I am feeling sorry for myself.

A big part of why I attempt to write and draw is because I have stories/images in my head and I want them to be real. Like most creatives probably, reality never matches my mind and that’s disappointing. Creating is a hard gig and that’s before the AI bullshit. But I keep trying because I want to produce my ideas. So I totally get that will always be there for me. That I can keep trying to make stuff no matter what AI is doing. But I also want to share, to be seen. I also – sometimes- try to dream about a future for myself. In this world where everything is about profit margins, and nobody pays for anything if they don’t have to, if AI can make something ‘serviceable’ in an instant, who would pay a human to make something? Presuming of course I can ever get my work to a level where anyone would ever pay anyway. I realise I can share for free but I also like to pay bills.

So yeah today I am sharing the misery I guess. Because everytime I see talk about AI (even good talk slamming it), it reminds me that it exists and I go in a despairing, demoralised spiral.

I suppose at its core. I so desperately want to be good enough. For reality to come close to matching the imagination. But I am held back by my mental demons and by being so tired. I need to have more stamina. But all I see is this huge mountain of work in front of me. All the practice I need to do to even hope of getting good enough. And it really does feel like time is running out. Who will even care anymore?

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itsoverfeeling:

I feel so sad whenever I see people talk about being late to make fanart..

This isnt school + fanart doesn’t have a due date + fandom doesn’t expire + your art will have its place in the world + i love you

(via silversaurian)

#I know this feeling though it’s like the moment has passed#I think maybe it’s an audience thing#like I can make whatever I want whenever for me but if I miss the swell of a moment then people might not care as much#making art can be so lonely like I pour my heart and soul and my limited skills to do the absolute best I can and it takes hours and hours#and then quite often it’s just *crickets* or a few likes and if I am super lucky one comment#I think artists just want to be SEEN because screaming into the void is discouraging after a while#I really love the reassurance in this post though and I will repeat it to myself when I falter

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So for StarTrekFemSlash week I am contemplating:

Seven and Raffi – obviously – I mean in my heart they are kinda “the main event” hehehe.

Keyla Detmer and Joann Owosekun (Jola) – because they are so obviously canon despite not being canon and deserve all the love.

Seven and B’elanna – because I hadn’t really thought about it until I saw some people talking about it and then yeah, I liked the idea.

Kira Nerys and Jadzia Dax – just because I don’t know it’s fun and certainly better than most of their canon boyfriends that I have seen (not quite reached season 4 yet as apparently Worf joins in season 4 and I am trying to watch all of TNG first).

Not sure what I will manage (especially with my current health) but I like turning the possibilities over in my brain.

To be honest sometimes I think I like contemplating projects more than putting in the work to make them real 🤣 after all there is endless potential in the unrealised – it could be great! – rather than the sad reality of my skills or lack thereof 🙃

Anyway I watched a really amazing YouTube video recently which broke down art into various skills in a very clear and understandable way. I have always tried to make the best final product I can which means a lot of ‘cheating’ in terms of some basic foundational skills. I trace rather than properly understand form etc. So I am thinking thinky thoughts about how to move forward in my art journey and whether I can bear to produce something that looks worse, but is done without the crutches and will therefore hopefully develop my skill longterm.

I suppose as my absolute dream is to be able to pick up a pencil and just draw something. I really should work on those foundational skills or I will never be able to do that.

Considering looking back at the utter garbage drawings I posted a few years ago (I did one that took me like 30 hours but was appalling for a gift exchange!!) I am so embarrassed. But maybe as I did that perhaps I should not worry so much about moving into a more ‘natural’ drawing area and it not being so good with proportions etc. while I practice to improve. I don’t know.

Librarians prompt month list is also up and I think 18/30 prompts speak to me on some level. So that will be interesting. Again not sure what I will manage to do and the deadline for that is July posting, whereas I think the Trek is September? So I need to organise myself accordingly.

Now if I could just stop feeling so damn tired that would be helpful!

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magicmumu2 asked: 

💌

Thank you for the ask! ❤️

Share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

I’m not really writing at the moment at all. I’ve been in a bad place mentally for most of this year. I had such big plans too which is gutting. My first priority was to finish my NaNo novel from last year. I do love that story. It’s Book One of a steampunk trilogy. Inspired by Bering and Wells 😉 I’ve not got very far towards finishing it, there’s at least 30k left as it’s going to be long. I think 100k when it’s done. No idea when I will be in the mental space to get back to it.

I have been trying to do art. Though that hasn’t been going all that well either. The Year of the OTP gave me so many ideas, and I got a Leverage Bingo card (more ideas) and I already had so many. Plus with how season three of Picard went I am fairly desperate to make something Saffi related to ease my heart. Seven and Raffi deserved better dammit.

A big problem is actually picking the project. I am better with deadlines. Case in point today I did actually post for the Bering and Wells Big Bang. Unfortunately the Bingo deadline is nearly up and I have mentally written it off already 🙄

So many ideas and so few spoons. Plus I keep putting stuff off in the hope I will develop my skills, so when I do the thing, I might actually do it justice. I had a bunch of Saffi ideas last year that I never drew because I wanted to improve first. A year later (still not improved due to lack of practice as I have not done the courses I said I should do first) and yeeeeah no further forward.

Anyway I was supposed to be saying about what excited me about a WIP and this is a ramble in actually trying to work out what the hell that could be. My apologies.

I suppose what I like about the art WIPs is breaking out the supplies. I have a lot of mental resistance to starting but it is so satisfying seeing something I made on paper. It didn’t exist and then I made marks and now there’s a picture. Probably not a very good picture but it’s still making something from nothing. I get a bit of a thrill from that. It’s like magic 🙂

Year of the OTP – January Edition

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So the prompts this month are:

first kiss | mission fic | fake dating | “whenever I look at you…” | snow | historical au

Now I refuse to open my fanfic ideas list because I’m not doing that anymore. I know I had some fics that probably would have worked but NOT. DOING. IT. (maybe if I say it enough I will stop being tempted idk).

Anyway some of these prompts do just work much better for fic because they are hard to capture visually BUT some would be absolutely fine for art.

The PROBLEM is what I already have on my plate. The Bering and Wells exchange, the Leverage Bingo card, the ton of projects that have been on my list for months and I haven’t got to yet etc. Do I really need new ideas for projects that jump the queue? No. Do I have them anyway? *stares at the camera like I’m on the Office*

I have 3 potential thoughts (ok I may have found some references for all of them).

1) Historical AU
Sanctuary OT3. Not going to lie I’m taking inspiration from Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. It’s the hood and the shadow, I don’t know my brain just went “hmm?” when I was looking for possible historical eras. As obviously the issue with Sanctuary is it has as canon all of recent history. A fan favourite of Regency doesn’t feel so far removed from the late 1800’s so it’s not as cool, hence looking for something else. This is probably more mission-related in concept than overtly shippy. It’s just how my brain imagined it.

2) Historical AU
I know same prompt but I was thinking about my ships and my brain is very much “Bering and Wells” at the moment. I have the piece for the exchange (which isn’t this) and so it’s not like that ship is neglected in art but ehhh. I was feeling Ancient Egypt perhaps with Warehouse 2 vibes. Not going to lie probably going to pick up some inspiration from Assassin’s Creed: Origins. This one is also going to have a kiss.

3) Mission + Snow
Then there is a Sanctuary concept of Helen surrounded by abnomals near the mouth of a cave in a snowy mountain. My problem with this is my brain is only really seeing Helen, so it’s not very OTP. Perhaps this one won’t count for the challenge and will just go on my regular idea list (of which there are MANY) idk.

–

So that’s my thoughts. Whether I will do any of it, let alone all of it, is uknown at this time but we shall see. Maybe One Day TM haha.

2022: Fandom Year in Review

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So this year was a ride due to moving. Let’s see what I actually did 🙂

Fanfics written/posted: 4
Fanfics started: More than 4 haha
Fandoms written in: 4
Number of fanfic words written: 134,636
Fanart completed: 2
Gifsets posted: 27

Most Popular Fic = Dancing on Broken Glass (with a whopping 44 more kudos than the next closest fic)

Most Popular Gifset = – How it started vs how it’s going (Star Trek: Picard, Seven/Raffi) – 340 notes, 34 more than the next highest which was also Trek 🙂

Most Popular Fanart = Winter Advent 22 (Amanda Tapping, Stargate and Sanctuary mixed media) – 59 notes, so a 54 note difference

Links and rambling on everything under the cut 🙂

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Fandom, Creation and Me

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With it being NaNo tomorrow I am doing update posts, and planning posts, and basically sorting everything out. It’s also something I do at the end of/start of every year. It’s part cleaning house, part goal setting.

This has been a funny year with moving house dominating all of it. I was just going to update my art goals, only to discover I didn’t make my customary end of December post because that was during the madness. Then I remembered I didn’t think I updated here either. I checked the archive and I did say I’d finally moved on September 13th but as to my fandom plans not a whisper. So I’m going to talk about it now!

Mid-April I made a post in which I said:

SO! My mission, should I choose to accept it bwahaha is to write EVERY SINGLE fanfic idea on my list (that I still want to write when I get to it) before the end of the year. Deadline December 31st. After that the slate is wiped clean. 

This started to go off the rails when I stopped writing in the summer. Some people write more when they are stressed as an escape. I wish I could say I was one of them but alas I unfortunately do my best turtle impression instead and basically very little gets done.

When I moved into my house that was a fresh start in the biggest way possible. I want – no I need – to make the most of that. I had to think about what serves me, and ultimately I decided to make my clean break then. So yeah, no more fanfic from me.

I have a few WIPs on my HD but thankfully due to my policy these days of not posting until stories are complete, that doesn’t matter. I do feel… I wanted those ideas to be brought to life as I do like them, but I had to make a choice about what was best for me, and wistful thoughts about what could have been aren’t going to change my mind.

So am I quitting fandom?

No.

I’m still co-mod of Saffi Prompts and I intend to help with that if it comes out of hiatus. I’m still running Saffi Bingo, in as much as I sent out the cards months ago but nothing seems to have happened. I’m helping put together the 13th anniversary event for Bering and Wells next April.

I also just signed up for a Leverage Bingo Card because you see while my fanfic days are over, my fanart days are not.

I want to get into art in a big, big way. I feel like fanfic helped me a lot with my writing journey. Fanfic helped me see projects through from beginning to end, helped me produce on a schedule, helped me keep up the practice when my mental health wouldn’t permit me to write other things. I owe fanfic a lot. It’s my hope that fanart might fulfil the same function in terms of getting me started.

Now I know I’ve promised I would do art in the past and then haven’t done it. For years I have made it a goal to do 1 piece a month and I’ve never got close. I think the best I ever did was at the start of 2021 when I think I made it to April before I stopped.

That was before though, and the start of my writing journey was a similar tale. I went through a time when I wrote once a year – for NaNo – and didn’t write at all the rest of the time. It’s unthinkable now but that’s how it was. So just because I didn’t draw on the regular in the past, despite saying I would, doesn’t mean I will always fail at that.

TLDR

No more fanfic from me. Expect fanart – eventually. I want to work through some art courses I have first before I go back to trying to draw what I imagine. Hopefully this will mean when I attempt those imagined pieces they will be better, and not as cringeworthy when I look back later as to how I ever dared post them on the internet.

P.S. What about gifsets?

Nearly forgot about that. Fandom Friday will not be returning. I don’t have the time. However, I’m not ruling out making sets when/if I feel inspired to do so.

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I can’t remember where this line came from. It was in a story I read a decade or so ago and it was something like.

“He picked up the book and his eyes automatically started to glaze over, but the impulse to master the material was stronger.”

I don’t know, I’m just feeling that right now.

I’m battling my impatience because what I want to do takes time. I need to put in the work. I can’t just blitz through it and it’ll be done. We’re talking months rather than weeks, probably more like a year or more.

But I want to do it.

I need to think about how to manage it. Maybe I need to schedule my time a little better. Decide on how much I’m doing per day, or what I want to achieve, or maybe a little of both.

I think I also need to continue with my own personal projects as well. Like I had sort of thought to myself that there are these drawings I want to do of Seven and Raffi, I had thought that I would wait to do them until I had more skill – buuuuuut if it takes a year I don’t want to wait that long. I want to do my drawings of them NOW while I’m super passionate about it.

Time. That’s what it comes down to, finding the time and finding the balance. I don’t like to choose, I like to do everything, and I don’t like to admit that’s maybe not possible. Frustrating. But something to think about.

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The problem with having started attempting to do art again is now I want to DRAW ALL THE THINGS!! Buuuuut I don’t have the skills or the time.

I mean I’m still trying to also WRITE ALL THE THINGS!! So that’s a problem.

Thus far I’ve been trying to do an hour of art everyday, 1000+ words everyday + an hour of some kind of ‘writing improvement’ exercise. Plus sometimes throw some luddite words in there too.

For the art I’m following the Coloured Pencil course I got last summer and didn’t really start due to panic attacks. It’s important I go through the course to learn the things, and I need to do it properly and not just rush through impatiently. I need to do each exercise and not just skip to trying to apply it to my own projects. Buuuuuut I wanna draw things!

Seriously I have these ideas in my head that I want to manifest into reality but my skills aren’t good enough. Maybe in time I’ll get there but now I’m just a ball of frustration.

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I want to draw a Seven/Raffi comic scene

Are my skills up to it? No.

Do I have time? No.

Am I gonna do it anyway? Probably.

I will put some thought into composition and try and keep the number of panels to a minimum or I’ll never finish it.

Now I could try and do it another way. I could write the thing but for what it is, in my mind it needs the visual punch. I could try and do a gifset, though screen recording is not my strong suit, but then I will be limited to what scenes I can splice together. Drawing means I can produce exactly what I want… right up until the moment my skills go naaaah.

I will think on it!