2020 was my first full year not accepting any commissions and at this point I'm definitely never going back there. Not worth it. My dayjob takes care of me just fine and I can now confirm trying to make art my job was a H U G E (probably my biggest) mistake. I felt like a failure for a long time because art is literally everything to me, but I feel weirdly powerful after putting this together and digging through my 2020 art folder only to realize I drew a lot but exclusively for myself. I was afraid I'd never care to enough to want to improve but that simply isn't the case. 2020 was a shitty year for everyone I'm sure, but at least all the free time actually just ended up proving to me that I DO love to draw and I DO care and I am not a failure, I just shouldn't have tried to monetize my biggest passion in life.

Sucks that art school happened and that I felt kinda forced to make a living off of it because my teachers REALLY pushed the unhealthy work/life balance and that if you weren't that person you would be a huge failure and just another weeb and that shit really affected me and so many others. I felt like a baby a lot when trying to talk about my feelings towards that but now that I'm doing a lot better in that regard and that I'm little older (and maybe a little wiser) I'm fucking shocked that that's legal and seen as acceptable. The environment they cultivated was toxic and juvenile and it literally put me in therapy because I had no self esteem left from what was being taught, and the terribly unhealthy lifestyle that was being pushed. I wish I had spoken up when I was told "Oh you don't REALLY love to draw, or play video games do you? It'd not EVERYTHING to you is it?" haha why was I so afraid and put down by that until now. They were totally right, I like to work out because my wrists are fucked from this and exersize is the only thing that has helped that (and also it's generally recommended to care about your physical health??), I have a fantastic partner I value above everything, and I live comfortably thanks to my dayjob that I work a NORMAL amount of hours at. I can't believe I thought I wouldn't be able to compile a list of 12 things I was proud of if I didn't spend every second of every day fucking drawing. Ugh fuck these people and that they seriously made me question my own passions in life. Unbeleivable. Maybe all schools aren't like this, but what I attended was garbage for anyone who wants to do more than rot in some office.

AH THAT FELT GOOD TO GET OFF MY CHEST LOL, hopefully this industry changes soon.