Oh there's nothing to lose...

... And there's nothing to prove and I'll be blogging with myself... blogging with myse-e-elf !

No pics today -or tonight, cuz' it's 5:30 a.m over here-, sorry folks. Just need to sit down and talk about my problems to the big Internet psychologist.

Well, we've been together for 5 years and a half (I mean with my boy), and I've never been more active with my art, I've never worked on my art so hard, like every day, doing stuff, trying to create, trying to do things I'm going to sell in conventions. Sure I'm not pro yet but all I'm doing is trying to get better and better, and preparing projects that could be shown to editors. And even if I'm not as popular as some artists are on Y!Gallery, there are people who love what I'm doing. I have friends who support me, I have good feedbacks in conventions, people saying that they like it. It really means a lot to me and I try to remember it when I'm down. I gotta remember the people who are ready to give me a few euros because they like my stuff, people who bought my anthro illustrations last time. Not that I'm doing it for the money, because I'm not living with what I sell in conventions, I just think that it's the best proof that they love it if people are ready to sacrifice a little money just for a piece of art.

The problem now is that my boy doesn't respect what I'm doing. It's driving me insane. He doesn't respect art and I don't manage to know if it's all the art, or only mine. I try to tell him it hurts me but he just doesn't seem to really understand. I know he barely likes what I'm doing -and no, it's not a clash with gay porn, it's about everything I do- but sometimes I wonder if he thinks it's useless, pointless and totally not worthy and that I should give up or if it's just his "I don't give a fuck about anything" way to think. But it pisses me off. He just doesn't realize what my creations are to me.

Example 1. A few times ago, I was sorting my drawings, and I found the original line art of the Butterat. It's a really cute picture that I'm fond of, and I know a few people who love it, lots of people said it was cute in conventions, well. On the sheet, on the drawing, there was a big footprint. Don't know if it's his or mine and I don't care, it wasn't made on purpose. But it had me sighing to see this special picture dirty. And what does he say ? "Oh, it's not important, you won't do anything with the line art anyway, you're selling prints of the Photoshop version." Seriously, what the hell ? How can't he understand how important are original pieces ?! If originals weren't important to me I would be working on the computer all the time. Doesn't he know yet that I'm traditional, that I'm sticking to the good old paper and pencils because it gives you a solid result, an object that is unique and can't be really copied ? Yes, that's the problem, the original butterat is unique and when it's dirty, it's dirty. And when last Christmas I messed up all of the original drawings in my bag with yellow ink, it was just a lot of unique things that were gone. That's all.

Example 2. For my booth in conventions, I'm preparing my first "real" fanzine. First, there were goodies, then a coloring book, then an "artbook" and now I'm ready to go to the next level. I'm working a lot on it, all the time. See, I'm going to do it black and white so it's less expensive. But I want to have fun anyways so I'm doing some of the illustrations in watercolor : my new watercolor box rooocks and the black and white effects I'm doing with it are my new crack. I think that since I'm forced for commercial reasons to make a black and white fanzine, I'm not forced to stick to the damn manga screentones and do the black and white my way. Am I the only one to think that selling quality b&w illustrations is kind of a great deal ?
Well, yesterday I was painting two of these pics, in watercolor. He takes a look and says : "Ha, you like that effect, the border thing with your watercolor, hm ?" So I nod with a "Yes" and he says : "Yeah and you spend less time on it, it's faster than Photoshop". Dude, I'm not doing it in fuckin' watercolor to 'save time' ! That's just not the purpose of watercolor ! At all ! Won't you say next time that I'm doing it in watercolor because I'm lazy or so ?
With all my respect for digital art, on one side you have a drawing where you can erase every single step with a ctrl+Z, on the other side you have a real painting that is risky to do and that you can mess up forever in one second if you're not focused enough. I don't know, when I'm doing this I think "People, see, I'm not messing around with you, I'm giving you black and white but it's hand painted." and the fact that he doesn't see how watercolor is UNIQUE, once again, is getting on my nerves.

I don't know why it's buggin' me now, right now. Is he worse than he used to be, or is it me ? As the dear baby girl Aaliyah said :
"Am I supposed to change? Are you supposed to change?
Who should be hurt? Who should be blamed? "

I just don't know. I know that the fact my best friend is dating a guy who's got a fanzine and who loves art even though he doesn't draw himself is frustrating ; is it normal that your best friend's guy respects your art more than your own boy does ? But well, better than nothing, hm ?
On the other side, my boy recently printed a chibi version of him I did (with the damn' black and white watercolor XD) and stick it next to his desk at his office, and he took one of my "artbooks" to show it to his colleagues which is totally weird and illogical since he's not really enthusiastic about it. I don't get it.

Well, I just need to focus on good things now, remember good things are coming up, that May will be a fuckin' great month and that I have a lot of stuff to do before... yay !