Kicking Your Own Ass

Hello, Generous Donors, Followers, and New Folks!

Minor NSFW: This is a public post that briefly includes artistic nudity.

In a snap of unusual circumstances mixed with some long-term healthy choices, I recently cleared out my commission queue! This is something so radical to me that I had to check that I wasn’t lying by writing that. I normally have time freshly paid for that I can roll immediately into, but currently I have at least 4 prospective clients, all wonderful people, in the ideation stages of our commission dialogue. While they’re completing their emotional homework, I’m required to focus on my next big picture. I chose an assignment that I’d been putting off for a couple of years, one that required revisiting my older artwork with a discriminating eye.

Taking a look into your past is an invaluable resource for all people, regardless of creativity. Creatives are constantly documenting their positions but rarely initiating or sharing the fruits of a retrospective. This month’s post will be about loving your past self, destroying your old limits, and celebrating how far you’ve come rather than damning yourself to repeating past mistakes.

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A rule I acquired from a friend a couple of years ago:

Share your creative progress with caution, as the thrill of positive feedback on a concept can undermine your energy to see a project to completion.

I’m not even 1/5 of the way through this undertaking, but due to the nature of this assignment, I’m not too concerned about failing anymore.

Before work begins editor-side on a print version of BEOKAY, I will be formatting an Oracle Deck of all my images of Resin, my black hare fursona. Long time followers should be well-acquainted, but for the rest of you, let’s just say he’s an illustrated prayer that I’ve been meditating on for over six years. In that span of six years, I’ve created over 35 images of him. Since their purpose was for me and no one else, they range in varying degrees of completion and concept. Some are photo studies driven by a loud background energy. Some come from brutal journaling sessions. Some are stream of consciousness. Some are lighthearted and even cheeky. Now, every image is united by a fresh coat of paint—six more years of technical ability, confidence in the concept, a clearer artistic voice, and a desire to save completed images at print resolution instead of 1000px on the largest side. (Damn you, past Jonathan!)

Most of these revisions—save for some detail work on the genitalia—have been streamed on Twitch accompanied with some colorful discussion with viewers. Friends often join me in a voice call during morning streams, while evening streams are just between stream viewers and myself.

Seeing the improvements next to the originals can be... humbling.

Cooler Daniel meme courtesy of @RaffiTheOwl 

Our brilliant and also stupid brains are optimized for our survival. Past that, we prioritize stability and then pleasure. This is great for keeping us alive, and not so great for, say, comparing our general mood to last month’s, this year’s handling of seasonal depression to last year’s, etc…. Our only chances of marking our progress are through insights from others and through documenting any of our own experiences to reference later.

This is one of the many well-deserved perks of being an artist, though I imagine many creatives forget that they can look to their past and use it to see how far they’ve come. While I’ve heard plenty of testaments to creatives that never look back, I neither understand it nor do I wish to implement it. So much of my journey into being a healthier person and more effective artist has come through seeing my past from as many angles as possible. This is why BEOKAY exists at all, and why it helped so many people. Imagery served as a map through a traumatic past that would have otherwise faded into oblivion. To create something in the face of that emotional burden proves my strength to myself, and rebelliously bucks the burden from my shoulders. I refuse to let my past self deny healing to my present self, and the only way to do that in my life is to beat the shit out of those shadows until they make the most beautiful and intricate of splatters.

Let’s steer from the heavier stuff for a bit and now consider technical ability in art. I created a hashtag on Twitter called #kickmyownass, intended to illustrate a past and present self. My favourite result is when something is equally inspiring and hilarious.

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#kickmyownass

Self Portrait, 2005 vs. 2013.

What the fuck is that 2005 self portrait. I look like I’m surfing on the internet. Recalling that drawing brings to mind the smell of fresh Prismacolor pencils, a steep investment for a high school student. Rendering the colours in denim excited me. Rendering my skin tone and shirt, not so much. 2013's portrait was for Ash Wednesday, and coming during a time where I was still navigating my lack of self-esteem and purpose.

Dragon, 2005. vs. Raphael, 2019

Dragon was my first-ever digital painting. I want the record to state that the initial character design here is supposed to be a dragon, for a deviantArt dragon collage. It seems I was more interested in gargoyles at the time, and probably more interested in that Halberd they’re holding than the character themself. I had used a stock photo for the weapon, and for the body a promo image of a videogame character. Raphael is supposed to convey something bittersweet and complex. You can tell Dragon is supposed to have some subtlety behind him in the expression and elsewhere (are those feathers tied to his arm?!), but it's definitely baby's first digital art. 

That first-ever digital painting comes with a bonus note, from the upload on deviantArt:

A precedent that would apply to me the rest of my career, I've learned.

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Pazuzu, 2012 vs. 2016

This one is more subtle, but I love it because the revised character is really leaning into their role. Not only are the tangents corrected, but the character holds more depth in expression and posture. It’s better acting, an attribute often overlooked in discussions on what makes better character art. It looks like 2016 is looking back at 2012 as if to say, "Wouldn't you rather look like this?"

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We can get caught up on the details, but I’m more interested in the general difference in personality and attention that brought these improvements. A Jonathan from 2005 is not the same person as a Jonathan from 2020. I’m still curious, still trying to love others, still competitive within my own priorities… so what changed? For that, let’s look at a commission from the same client, one commissioned in 2010 and one commissioned in 2020.

The client and I met online through that 2010 commission, and have been talking on-and-off ever since. His initial design was part of his head canon for years prior to our meeting, but the second character was a design he created with me after an in-depth and organic process in 2015. By the time he wanted another commission, I was already intimately familiar with what the character meant to him.

2010:

Terra is a god. As a shapeshifter, he can be seen with any attributes that serve the tastes of the client. Omnipotent but often bespectacled. Sometimes draconic, sometimes leonine. His essence and power, ribbons of blue Pluralisma, flow outward in contrast to his blond hair. That led to a gallery of eclectic references and subjects, and my commission was no different. Because of the deeply personal nature of this character, it was best to treat it like a figure from some sort of mythology that I could dabble in but not truly understand.

Despite my lack of understanding, and thanks to the flexibility of the client, I was able to direct some of the themes towards my own interests. Taking inspiration from Jon Foster, I had become excited with the prospect of visualizing unseen elements (like a battlecry, in this case). I wanted to see if I could use abstract mark-making to express something concrete. This is not laugh or a telekinetic blast, but a battlecry.

The artists of Guild Wars 2 also inspired how heavily I leaned into larger abstract marks, which is why you see such big shapes with the edges emphasized rather than hidden. It appears the hand isn’t finished, nor is the weapon in said hand visible. I leaned so far into subtlety that you miss those details, and more. The other arm has a buckler shield, not easily seen despite breaching the silhouette.

I was resolved to not overwork my image, but in an attempt to keep things fresh, there is a lack of balance.

2020:

Kiel is not a god, though he is strong. A character born from the ashes of Terra, he was designed with the intention of documenting and celebrating progress on behalf of the client. The scales on his hands, arms, and shoulders are qualities the character owner has to earn in real life before adding them to the character sheet. I was proud of him for taking this character and structuring a relationship to it that demanded more closeness. With a god character comes emotional distance, while an Avatar fursona directs the character owner towards self-actualization.

Not only the technique but the correspondence with the client is more succinct. He’s commissioned many more images since ten years ago, and I’ve taken on many more commissions for myself.

The purpose of this image is to show a process of discipline, illustrated here by a bicep curl and a tricep lift. The fullest extension of the motions include the greatest muscular definition, yet they are not as concrete as the initial slender arm postures. You may have noticed the reference to Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. The client suggested this knowing my strengths as an artist.

I toyed around with the idea of abstract marks that represented the microscopic damage and healing of muscle fibres, but it didn’t make it into the final composition. Still, it was a nice try, and it proves that I’m still thinking about conveying concrete experiences in abstraction. Rather than undershooting detail, I’m now willing to introduce details a client or the general public may never notice.

The snarling face of Terra appears to be an uncanny composite of my own profile and references from the character gallery. In contrast to Kiel here, I did use my own face to generalize angle and proportion, but it was references from a wildlife photographer friend that paved my way toward visual confidence in this commission. His excellent resources are available for sale. (If you are a professional anthro or animal artist, please consider blessing him with a purchase.) 

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So what else changed in ten years?

On the surrounding context of these two commissions, I’m confronted with some huge differences beyond the previous art descriptions. Since this art from ten or fifteen years ago, I’ve had thousands of conversations about who people are, and why they choose the fursonas they do. I’ve accepted hundreds of commissions since opening in 2007. I’ve spent tens of thousands of hours in digital art programs. I’ve become inspired, grown bored of, and then become inspired again by other art. I’ve made many mistakes, and most importantly, I’ve kept in mind who I want to be if I could be anyone.

After an intense and varied life in barely three decades, I now accept far less commission work than I used to and believe more in the importance of my personal work than ever before. My time on this earth is precious and must be treated as such, and unless commission proposals spark joy in me, I can’t really accept the commission. 

Kicking my own ass is, in part, about trimming the fat. My life needs to be intentional in as many ways as possible. Interactions that don’t serve my big picture need to fall by the wayside. A home that doesn’t encourage health and creation must be sculpted into such an accommodating shape. If need to interact with people that do not enrich my life, I must assess if I can help them or not. If I can, I help them as much and as efficiently as possible. Otherwise I am in danger of absorbing a poison that will cause me to forget who I am. For more info on how to do this for yourself, check out these Patreon posts on setting precedents in your day-to-day interactions.

Kicking my own ass is, in part, about being fully present in my time off. When I take a day off, I need to dedicate to taking that day the fuck off. For one day a week (realistically, one part of one day a week) I am freed from any obligations beyond enjoying my time on this earth. This gives me more energy to fulfill my obligations later, but it also leads to learning more about the what and the why behind my own tastes in art, language, sex, etc….

Kicking my own ass is, in part, about killing your darlings. Stick with any discipline for long enough, and you’ll find you have so much content you’ve built up that you couldn’t possibly publish it all. Your creations from 5,10,15 years ago don’t need to just gather dust. If they still excite you, and no one’s seen it, you can revisit the images. You can chop up, trace, combine, remix, and no one can stop you. In fact, even if you’ve published artwork before, you can still remix that content without people caring. Aside from your most faithful followers, most of your public won’t necessarily remember what you did in the past. Remember that your relationship to your work is not the same as everyone else’s. Most of your fans are just happy to get updates about something you like.

Kicking my own ass is, finally, about doing what comes naturally. In a previous Patreon post, I talk about the two modes of creativity, and the importance of working smarter instead of working harder. I spent the last couple of years leaning into what I like, feeling things that satisfy me to a deeper extent than before. With less inhibitions and more trust, I’m growing deeper. Related to the first point, in an environment focused on being happy and healthy, with friends and family that inspire me, creating has never been easier. I don’t regret spending last year on an art series that cost me a lot of emotional energy, and with that behind me, I was ready to start doing some happy, celebratory, and sometimes [happy] horny art. 

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If I could inspire anything in this writing, it would be this:

Revisit your past journal entries, art, writing, studies, and experiments. See if you forgot anything from your past that you really enjoyed. If you find yourself thinking, “I wish I was still doing _____,” take this as your opportunity to do just that. Decide that an hour sometime this week will be spent reconnecting to old parts of you. Scheduling this as a precious space, even once a week, will make a difference. 

Please use the comments to let me know what joys you’ve rediscovered. And if you’re an artist on Twitter, please feel free to use the #kickmyownass hashtag to show how far you’ve come in your artistic journey. I’m rooting for you!

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If you liked this content,  my Black Hare tier of my Patreon is where I publish my more private and sexual pieces first (and sometimes exclusively), all paired with artist statements. It's less than one latte a week, so you'll definitely get more than you paid for. The lowest donation tier is only 6¢ pennies a day. But any donation on my Patreon helps me do more work like this, so please offer what you can afford if these themes are important to you. If you can't afford but still want to follow posts like the one you just read, that's completely free.  The next free post to look forward to is about how I accidentally became a professional Kid Pix artist during the ongoing COVID-19 isolation. I think you'll really enjoy it!

You can also download BEOKAY: The Dark Art of Self Therapy for examples of my trauma repurposed into writing and artwork making a positive difference in the world. And if you can't afford the price tag but could use the support, you're morally obligated to message me for a free download code.  Thanks for reading, my friends.


Love,

-J