Some thoughts
Other things in life have gotten way too all encompassing to work on much art at all for the past several months. But in some ways this has been good. It's given me a chance to reflect on, I guess, what I would do if given the chance to really get back into this.
I've been lurking on other artists' material, especially long running comics, and I feel like it's given me a different perspective on what I'll expect of myself when I get back into creating stuff. While there have definitely been a few gems out there related to recent weight gain fetish content, I have to say a lot of my thoughts have been pretty critical and cynical of a lot of material out there.
I gotta be self aware when it comes to those thoughts, though, maybe a good deal of my critiques come from a context of jealous feelings. These are artists who actually have the opportunity to engage in creating stuff regularly, and many of them are quite popular, and achieving a lot of things that I would love to do myself. I also understand that these artists are putting in a good effort to work toward their individual goals in the way that makes the most sense for them, and I can hardly fault them for that. So, I'll do my best to provide just my own reaction to a lot of the works I've been reading lately, and hopefully avoid directly accusatory language or personal attacks. I'll definitely not mention any names.
I've really, really been missing the content that I discovered years and years ago. Maybe it's just that some of the novelty is wearing off, but I don't think that's completely it. There's something that was very genuine about the level of effort that those artists, many of whom are retired or gone now, seemed to put into their work. They really built the anticipation in every panel, page, and chapter. Even stuff that was more episodic in nature I would look forward to. Like I couldn't wait to see how the situation they were presenting would cause the character to absolutely give in to their depraved gluttony, how huge the character's gut would become after getting stuffed with food, how every other character would react with either fascination or dismay.
Nowadays I don't really feel that so much when I look at current ongoing works. It sort of feels like going through the motions? Like now the stories just seem meandering, or just forced to continue by any means necessary so more and more content can be churned out. The art itself in many cases is clearly not the artist's best effort. It makes me wonder whether these artists are burning out, or if they are even really into the fetish they're writing or drawing about.
A tad more disturbing trend is how some stories seem to get really close to actual abuse or actual mental disorders by accident. I actually don't know if it's by accident or if it's on purpose actually, or which case would be worse. I guess if I'm going to read about a character with bulimia or who is in an abusive relationship, I prefer it to be handled in a certain way, maybe given a bit of gravity, and not treated like a joke? That's just my reaction to it, though, and I recognize that the handling of certain topics in fiction are really subjective. I wouldn't expect everyone to treat these topics as I do, and I understand that the way I have written about certain things might be too much for others as well.
I guess as I'm wondering about what the point of these thoughts is, I'm realizing that I'll be taking all these things to heart when I do return to creating more things. I realize that I'll definitely not be doing certain things that I've tried in the past, like putting huge ads at the bottom of my pics for my patreon for example. I also feel like I need to stand my ground on my own creative vision when I bring a story to a close, and not just immediately jump to it when people are demanding that a story continue. I feel like there's plenty of artists out there who seem to have the ultimate goal of trying to make a living off this stuff who have ultimately lost the passion that brought them to get into fetish material in the first place. I feel like there's others who seem to have a goal of setting themselves up as kingpins or gatekeepers for commissioning popular artists, which also feels extremely lackluster to me, and seems like it would create an overall atmosphere where there's less of a focus on creating great fetish material. I'd love to see more works of the type that actually got me into doing fetish art in the first place. There are definitely some gems out there, and I want more gems! If you have any good recs for me please let me know.
Sketch/Old Art Revamp
Hey, if there is one old pic you would like to see me re-do, what would it be?
Reply with what you think in the comments, and stuff!
Anyone who says "Re-do the whole Yuffie comic" will receive the promptest of head bonks.