So I went on and thumbnailed the next chapter and then... and nothing happened then. I guess this is the point where I downright face the harsh reality of hitting my annual late autumn - early spring slump of productivity. As in, I can't exactly recall any point in my life when I would produce anything artistic in those specific months. I just don't know what it is. I open my sketchbook/art programme and... nothing. Just nothing. I can sit like that for hours, but I guess my creativity, however little there is, is simply annihilated by the cold weather, completely grey outside interior and the lack of sun. I am planning to figure out a way to work around this, but right now I am at a complete loss.
No new chapter this week because... well I don't have a particularly good excuse except for 'My usual productivity level is about ten to fifteen half finished sketches a year and trying to do a whole coloured and shaded comic chapter with actual backgrounds each week for about a month has drained all of the energy I've had stored for doing projects I get no monetary gain from for the decades to come' Seriously, I wanted to, but I've stared at my canvas for hours each day and have the absolute zero things done, because I've somehow lost the point of it somewhere. It's a journey of self discovery in a way. I knew was perfectly aware of the complete disparity between the amount of effort and the amount of response first-time-posting-on-the-internet artists usually get and I was fully prepared for it. So I wouldn't say I have any problems with having small amount of readers. That part I'm okay with. I've started this comic as a personal 'passion project', but it turns out I'm not that passionate and 'myself' is perfectly fine with this story being just in my head or something like that. It's different when I do art for someone else though. If there is a commissioner/requester then there is a 'need' for the thing to exist and I've never had any problems with finding inspiration and will to draw in that case. If it's just for me then I eventually ask myself 'What do I want more, have this thing to be done or stare at the wall and do nothing' and 'nothing' usually wins. I'm just... either lazy and unmotivated or don't like doing art (or anything for that matter) all that much unless there is a clear purpose and reward (monetary or not). Both options I resent and want to improve in that regard, so starting the comic was my way of challenging my own behaviour. I've lasted a month. But I'll continue with it and hopefully there will be a chapter next week, which I'll go and at least thumbnail right now.
For all the years I've been boasting about not wasting time on social media I've never could have guessed it would come and bite me in the... you know where. According to all the sources pretty much the only way to promote your comic is by promoting it on your social media. I don't have any social media. I don't even know how to properly use any of it. So to promote my comic I would have to first create and promote some social media accounts. And there's pretty much little other option of promoting art accounts than drawing fan-art of what's popular at the moment. Mostly of popular games and series. Which I know nothing of as well. Sooooo.... If I want to gain some followers on my comics I should first spend days upon days catching up with pop-culture, then create fan-works for the most popular IPs , then create social media accounts to post the fan-works. Which would be quite disingenuous of me, since I don't get invested enough into anything to create fan-art these days, so anything I would create would be 'a generic picture of character X from the show/game XYZ' with the sole purpose of getting followers. I think people would catch up on that very quickly............ Nah, okay, there is that other way where you just have to have really good art and storytelling skills, but that's clearly not my case. The bottom line is, I guess, I'm well aware that I'll pretty much get nowhere without promoting my comic but the steps I have to take to do that make me be rather okay with obscurity. I also just might be too lazy to do it.