NIGHT OF THE WERE-RABBIT IS OFFICIALLY DONE!
I'm really excited. I finally complete my first full 24 page comic. Its not that i haven't drawn comics before and completed them. I just have never finished a personal project 100% that i am super excited about and feel proud of the final look.
To tell the truth the comic has been 10 years in the making. I started the story back in 2010 and life just kept getting in the way. I moved a lot, worked a lot, dealt with family emergencies and personal emergencies and lets not forget battling personal demons through all that time.
The reason I chose go through with completing this comic was I wanted to prove to myself that I was capable of seeing something through to the end. Despite the idea being so old, it always lingered in the back of my head, that here was this project i had not completed past the sketch phase. I thought it was a fun strip and i finished the first 8 pages and thought it was funny and silly but I never invested in myself enough to take my own ideas seriously and see them be DONE!
The completion of this project has honestly been a experiment in personal care. About 2.5 years ago i realized i just was not taking care of myself as a artist and as a human being. Not eating well, getting sicked and more low energy and more depressed and unhappy and I reached a point where I just couldn't accept always doing for and helping others, but not valuing myself enough to invest in my own health and my own interests and personal work. My life was about taking care of my mom and working and trying to work really really hard to make other people happy. I was a 100% people pleaser that always was worrying about what others thought and how to make them happy.
The problem with that is its an unending cycle of frustration. You make one person happy in one way and they find something else to be miserable about or complain about. You just cant please anyone but you can make yourself happy cause you know yourself better than any other person and you know what you like or dislike more than any other person ever will.
I had someone tell me, back in 2010, something that really, i think, helped me to start evaluating that way of life. They told me, "You cant stop someone from thinking what they think about you." Those words lead to me starting to work through so many things over the years. The saying,"what you think of me is none of my business." is so true. Whether its positive or negative. If I don't think highly of what I do it doesn't matter in the end. I found over the years, I needed to feel like someone liked me or cared about me in order for me to do virtually anything, because i based my personal self worth on other peoples irrational and often emotional ups and downs.
A person will like you and want you around, many times, only if what you are doing serves a purpose in their life that is pleasurable to them. Many times once they feel like you don't serve that purpose anymore they stop valuing the relationship as much, or they may even turn on you or chastise you for not being what they want.
I was always trying to solve someones problem and I couldn't even solve my own. Then I'd be left feeling depressed and unhappy about it cause they weren't happy and neither was I and i believed because I wasn't what they wanted they hated me or disliked me for it. Thinking this way will lead you to doing things for approval that you honestly don't want to even do.
Fast forward to now, i think I am finally finding my own voice in life and starting to see that it doesn't matter as long as I am being creative and creating joy in my life. You cant have joy if you are always sick and you are measure your self worth by what others think of you. I good friend of mine told me to speak my own truth, but its not just about speaking it, its about also living it. So i decided to set aside every insecurity about my work and just create something regardless of if it was acceptable to others. Now, my next step is to get the book to physical print form. It will be my next big accomplishment and I am not worried about if it makes money or if people like it. I just want to hold the final printed copy in my hand. The book will be black and white and will also have some work in progress illustration in the back. I will make it also available as a digital download on my web store once i get the physical copies made. I am very excited about what I feel like is a new chapter in my life. Though bad things are still going to come because that is just the way life is, i really want to move forward in a positive manner toward things I am passionate about.
