This journal is moreso a note to myself in hopes of stopping the hair-pulling cycle I've experienced every time I've wanted to make any kind of personal work of art, perhaps since I was 15 years old.

I get an idea just as I turn off my light and pull my big fuzzy blanket over my shoulders. Those blankets get violently thrown off of me, the light gets switched back on, the idea is quickly jotted down and I finally get some sleep. The next day at work I'm imagining the image, transforming it and watching it evolve. It's brilliant! It's fun, new, unique, deep, and I can't wait to get home to make it!

At about 8 at night I'm back on my bed with my pile of computer paper clipped to a piece of thin wood, tapping the eraser end of my mechanical pencil on my lips again and again. I have just tried to draw the piece 10 times, and each time was wrong. I decide perhaps that I'm thinking too hard and just move on to the next step. The farther I get on the project, the more I hate it and wonder what's wrong with me. I've made paintings and drawings before that I've been quite happy with, what's wrong with me tonight?

I go to bed, hoping that when I see it tomorrow I'll love what I've made and wonder why I hated it so much the night before. No, the next morning it's as ugly as it was before. About a week goes by of thinking of the picture I want to make and failing a thousand times to make it how I want.

Then, suddenly, I'll remember some vital tips and lessons I've learned over the years from high school, college, artist friends, personal experience and online tutorials. I try them, and my artist block is lifted immediately and I'm cranking out artwork like a machine. Still, I can't help but scold myself for taking so long to remember those basic steps that I've relearned time and time again.

Why do I do this so often??

For whatever reason it takes me so long to remember "the basics", I need to make a list to refer to in the future:

1. The first step is the idea, composition, and/or design. Too often I'll sit down and try to make a beautiful picture on my first try. One of my art seminars taught me, and I strongly believe to be true, that we need to prepare before doing the final piece. That means sketching down ideas, variations, editing what needs to be fixed, having references, and putting it all together. When we start our final piece, we shouldn't have to do any thinking. That should be all done, sitting in a pile on the desk. The final piece is mere execution.

2. Speaking of references... use them! In my younger years I thought I'd be stealing somehow if I used a reference for anything. There's nothing illegal about it, and you can always give credit or ask permission if you feel uneasy about using a reference. It will help you see things that you can't just remember off the top of your head. You don't even have to copy them exactly how they are. They don't restrict you or make you less original or creative - use them!

3. Draw what you know looks good or correct. I'm a clone of my dad, and he validates himself by helping others to feel good. The bad thing about that is we're unintentional people-pleasers, and I hate it. It lands me in so much misery and trouble, it's such a pain! Still, I often overlook it as I start a project and ask myself "What do others want to see?" After hours of creating nothing worth anything, I finally decide, "I'll draw what I want!" and finally create something worth putting on the fridge. Sometimes I have to sacrifice my own taste because I know it's poor composition or using a different color scheme would be more effective, but for the most part I need to remember to be selfish when making art.

4. Just keep going. Simple as that. I look up art tutorials ALL THE TIME and too often assume it'll take me 5 minutes to do the same thing (there are too many good artists out there that make it look so easy!) and when it still needs work after an hour, I tend to get discouraged. What separates professionals from amateurs is the professional will keep fixing whatever isn't right until everything is right. Amateurs (takes one to know one) rationalize their failures with "That's just the way I drew it" or "It's good enough" or "I'd like to see you do better." Don't make excuses or think you suck just because this piece is taking a long time. Keep going!

5. Remember to have good posture. I might seem like a nagging mother but it's true, my posture affects my work! I don't have a desk at home so I'm just sitting on my bed hunched over my piece of paper. How a piece looks lying down, even if you're facing it straight on, looks very different than how it looks sitting up, such as if it was on your computer screen. That's why I've drawn something I thought was wonderful and then scanned it and gasped at the ugliness as soon as it came on the screen so many times. Sit up straight, hold your pencil loosely (in the middle, not at the very tip!) and mount or hold the paper upright. It'll do wonders!

I'll add more to the list as they come to me. These 5 basic things are what I forget so often though, and they make a world of difference. I hope it'll help someone else facing the same challenges.


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My little nephew has always enjoyed eating his blanket. He gets a few "fuzzies" in his mouth and tears them out. He used to just swallow them, but now he takes them out of his mouth and sticks them up his nose. It makes him sneeze a lot, and then these huge "fuzz balls" go flying.

I can't wait until he's older so I can embarrass him with these stories. :3

I posted this deviation last night as a gift for my little brother Toby after seeing him cry after a fight with my little sister Sarah. Tonight after work when Mom was picking up my sister Keli from driver's ed, I was tucking Toby in for the night. I handed him the piece of paper and said "I drew you a picture. It's a brother and sister from a show I used to watch when I was little. "

Toby, who was a drug-abused baby, doesn't show many emotions other than anger. This means he rarely (almost never) ever says "I love you" or "thank you" or gives you a big sweet smile. He's usually either totally plain or raging in anger.

As I watched him try to get the picture to somehow sit up in a visible spot, however, I thought it was better than a "thank you". Even more surprisingly, when I bent down to give him a kiss "gooodnight" he turned his head toward me and accepted the kiss right on his lips.

I love that little guy.

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For those who design, create and maintain websites: I don't know how you do it all. Where do you find the time and energy?? I will get it done, I just need to focus right now on working and earning money for my last year of college. I only have about 6 more months and I need to earn (hopefully) about $8,000-10,000.

[link]

I met the artist on plentyoffish.com and while we never met in person (sorry !) it was still so much fun to find that she had a page on DA and her own webcomic! I think it's HILARIOUS and totally out of this world, unlike any other comic ever made with characters never imagined before. A crayon and a banana who are best friends. Come on, things don't get much more original than that. I love her wacky sense of humor, give it a read!

P.S. My Democratic friends might especially love this one: [link]

P.S.S. I recently decided that my imagination never gives me anything because I never put anything into it. I sold almost every comic I had before moving to college, and so I came back to a few X-Men comics and my DBZ manga collection. If I really want to get the wheels in my head turning, I gotta get reading more material! Watch movies! Read novels! No more just sitting around WAITING for inspiration to come. Inspiration is not some butterfly that'll land on my shoulder! It's a pretty rock I find after digging in the backyard for a while. ....OK, I think that's all the cheesy analogies I have in me today.

P.S.S.S. This is another huge favorite of mine from the Americrayon comic: [link]

***YET ANOTHER UPDATE***

I stumbled upon [link] just now. It looks like a very nice place to get art-related freelance work! What happens is the buyer who needs an artist posts the project they need to get done and then the artists interested in doing that project bid on what they would charge to do that project. The testimonials all seem very positive for this site, I'm considering getting an account. It costs a tiny bit of money to join so I want to make sure I'd have time to dedicate to doing a project if I get hired. I'm still waiting to hear if I got another part-time job I interviewed for. :/

Thanks for reading and best of luck to all my struggling starving artists out there!


***ANOTHER UPDATE***

There are sites like yessy.com and etsy.com that let you sell your work online. They are both rather popular websites, it's just a matter of people being able to find you. Hence, advertise yourself everywhere you can. Have a link to your etsy or yessy stores on your facebook, gaia, myspace, blog, deviantart and more. Twitter is a great way to let your friends know that you just put your art online for sale.

Threadless.com sells t-shirts, and if they choose one of your designs you can get paid a nice amount of money. Some artists have been chosen more than once and have made a nice bundle. Submit some designs, what have you got to lose? Try cafepress.com too! Remember to advertise!

I just put up an auction on ebay to be hired for a commission. I just put up 3 examples of what I would be willing to do for the winning bidder (3 watercolor paintings) and started the bidding at $20 to make sure I'm not doing it for dirt cheap. Posting it cost me $0.25, so if no one bids then I haven't lost much. If you look at the completed listings, a lot of those commissions go for a good amount. Give it a try!

I think you guys here on DA are super talented and can make a lot of clients happy if they just found you. Show the world what you've got!



***UPDATE***

Turns out my computer looks pretty bad, it could be more than just a virus. It's pretty old, could just be the end of its road. Whatever happens, I just hope to get all my information back. A friend mentioned "backing up your files". Is that done online? With a huge jump drive? How can I do that in the future?

Thanks for the help!

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Hi friends! My daddy helps small businesses grow (works for the state), and so gets to meet a lot of people. He recently discovered through one of his clients that there are sites such as [link] which allow artists to submit artwork to them, and every time a company or business purchases the picture then the artist gets paid a commission fee. I'm not sure of how much you get paid, but if you browse around the pictures on that site you can see that some have been purchased/downloaded thousands of times. No matter what the pay, that has got to add up.

If anyone needs some extra cash (over a long period of time, of course) then give that a try. My dad said that there are tons of other websites like that too, so you have lots of options and lots of ways to have potential customers see your work!

FYI: Even though it's called istockphoto, they accept artwork of all variations of media. I personally will be submitting watercolor paintings if I decide to give it a go.

Tip: Look at which pictures get the most business or are downloaded the most by businesses to give you clues as to what people are looking for.

***PERSONAL UPDATES***

I got to hang out with my little sister Keli, and in Seattle yesterday. Loads of fun! Poor Keli was terrified of Fooray at first, I thought it was hilarious. She soon came to realize that he's a total teddy bear though. :3

On a sadder note, my laptop has been in the laptop hospital (aka someone's house until he fixes it for me) since Friday. What happened to it, you ask? I was stupid and was trying to download Pokemon games!! I got a horrible virus that was beyond my abilities to repair. From now on I'll just cop out the money to play my games legally. I miss my laptop so much!!!

Thank goodness for my family's computer. It's been slow for a long time but just today I deleted McAfee (DIE SPAWN OF SATAN!!!) and installed AVG and I can already feel a difference in it. I love AVG!! It's free and so effective. Now I'm just looking for a new firewall program that's free too.

I might lose all my information on my laptop because of the virus. The guy who's fixing it is doing all he can to save my information, but I'm trying to brace myself in case I do end up losing everything. Not only do I have tons of photos from college and scans of old drawings from close friends and such, but I have all my stories for all my future webcomics written in it. Sure, some of the parts are still in my head, but with maybe 4 or 5 stories I highly doubt I'll be able to remember all I wrote. I'm really learning a hard lesson on being prepared and backing up my work and NOT DOWNLOADING GAMES ILLEGALLY!!

Keep my laptop in your heart and prayers, guys!

Thanks bunches,

Beka

P.S.

Wait, are the Pokemon licenses expired? Are they illegal to download? *shrug* Whichever way, I'm still not doing it again!!

I just wanted to show you guys something. Have you guys watched the Japanese (English subtitled) episodes of DBZ? I greatly prefer that because then you get to know EXACTLY what was originally meant for them to say, not translated and edited to make the words fit their mouthing. I was watching this episode [link] just now and seeing how it differed from the English translated version, and I noticed some very important things:

1. First of all, the flashback of how King Vegeta died and how Planet Vegeta was destroyed is being told by Frieza, meaning how he remembered it could be false!!! He could have tweaked a few things to intimidate or bother Vegeta (because he loves to torture his little play toy). When it's over Vegeta says "That's bull!", meaning he didn't believe Frieza's version was totally accurate. He's not arguing that Frieza didn't kill them, he just thinks Frieza edited his memory a bit to his liking. I guess it's up to us individually to decide what was true and what Frieza made up. I hate how they do this to us!! I want to know!!

2. In Frieza's flashback, King Vegeta and Zorn have a little conversation. In the English translation, Zorn says "I'd rather die than hand over the prince to Frieza!" and King Vegeta replies, "Me too, but we have no choice!" Reading the subtitles in the Japanese version, however, Zorn simply asks, "Are you really going to hand your son over?" Vegeta replies "It doesn't matter to me if my son lives or dies, I just hate that Frieza!" While Frieza could have lied about what King Vegeta said, it very well could have been true since it sounds like the "Saiyan thing to say". Prince Vegeta seemed to have a lot of love and respect for his father though, so would he have feelings for his father if his father didn't give a care about him?

3. When Vegeta told Frieza "That's bull!" about his flashback, he continues "If you were really afraid of us Saiyans, simply blowing up Planet Vegeta would be a completely fruitless measure. I'm right, aren't I? I mean, you let me survive, after all!" But then he silently thinks to himself "Not to mention Kakkarot..." This stood out to me because he's acknowledging that Goku certainly is strong. The English version gave me the idea that Vegeta always believed Goku was weak, stupid and an unworthy opponent and he only threatened him with defeating him some day as a means of just getting him out of his hair, like a pesky fly. This shows a side to Vegeta that the English version cuts out, methinks.

So there you have it, the flashback that I've always relied upon as the actual end of King and Planet Vegeta could be skewed slightly or completely, King Vegeta may or may not have felt the same attachment to his son that Prince Vegeta felt (whether he admitted it or not), and Vegeta was not oblivious at all to Goku's strength and potential as I previously thought.

Thank you for putting up with me and my fangirliness.

I can't believe I used to think Trekkies were so weird when I was younger. I can't say that I'm too different from them.