Creative Process: Creative Impotence

i cant fantasize the way i used to

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Saying that i’m losing my creative touch is a bit overdramatic , but honestly it’s something that has been running through my mind since summer 2024.

i started getting back into traditional media just because the thought of using physical supplies like Caran d’ache and Posca markers appealed to me at the time!

so whenever i cracked open my sketch on a cool summer evening with my nice cup of coffee. I reach for my supplies and then…

i’m stumped?

i tried to create a nice little story in my head but nothing comes from my pen. how unusual for me because i don’t ever recall ever going through this struggle when i was 11-17.

i could whip out a character design, maybe some lore, and a page comic out within the same day. i could even draw 5 pages a day!

but now? i only have the energy for just one page and the most i do is preplan a thumbnail idea for this blog or draw whats around me.

as time passes, i come to this idea that i can no longer play.

i’m surrounded by people who make playlists for their character’s stories or even for the characters themselves- and they daydream about them?

i could never!

my art from 16/17 to my art as a 24 year old

sorry that the photos are side ways lol

maybe a part of me is that im not writing characters that i want to daydream about or i don’t actually care for them enough outside whatever medium i’m creating them in.

it sounds fun to listen to music and repeatedly imagine epic fight scene or edgy shit- but it doesn’t appeal to me.

when i daydream i think of myself, it’s my time to imagine myself as a cool singer and dancer or whatever.

sometimes i’m insecure about this since of course i’m pursuing animation as a career and as a result i’m listening to my friends gush about their idea for their oc’s ( original characters) and i can only relate to them on the level of tween nostalgia.

the most i can do is maybe think of a new story for said character that could be turned into a comic or storyboard but nothing beyond that.

Plain Jane is the only group of characters where i can put them in multitude of scenarios and not get bored.

and maybe the thing that has changed with me is that i could never get myself invested in high fantasy or superheroes. i could not relate to the hero on screen.

what i related to the most was just everyday kids and adults so naturally work slowly became around that.

but i still feel like i’m losing a creative playfulness that everyone seems to have but me?

i’m currently still facing some turmoil on this and honestly i have no answer for this besides saying that i’m not the same artist i used to be.

even then i had to acknowledge even when i was creating OC’s during the height of high fantasy , trauma porn, queer tragedy- i still really didn’t care for those characters i created, i got bored of them and their stories so quickly.

maybe because everyone was regurgitating the same tired old concepts and i was no different.

but i cannot say that i don’t miss the ability to just…daydream with my characters. it was fun

but making room for the art i create now, i can write completed stories about a group of characters.

if i’m vaguely interested about the story idea i have, i just write a little paragraph about it, give it time to sit, and if i’m still hooked by the idea then i write a rough outline and then draw it out.

drawing has no longer become the first source of realizing an idea, writing has.

so no i haven’t lost my creative touch, it has transformed into a different medium.

BOOK TALK

Books mentioned:

Banned book Club by kim hyun Sook

Kristy And The Walking Disaster by Ann M. Martin

Pixie Snippet: Plain Jane and the slumber party disaster

ahhh im getting so close to being done with this comic! how exciting is that? once im done sketching ill be taking a 2-week break from working on it and do some smaller projects in between! hehe hope you all enjoy these pages!

MUSIC TIME