Animation Struggles and burn-out · 1:01am January 17th
5 months later, I have to admit that I do feel as though I backtracked on the progress I made as an animator.
I had set up a Patreon a year ago, and as of today there are 40 people involved which is quite good, and on top of that I'm at about 500 followers on twitter. Genuinely I'm doing rather good, but despite that I ended up feeling like things should be moving faster. Working 6 days a week on a graveyard shift was absolutely killing me and on top of that I was grinding animation on the daily, so I started to get the idea that I have to do better if I ever want to quit that job. I've ended up pushing out more promises on Patreon to try and get more people to tune in and I've failed to follow through last month.
Looking back at the last blog I had written here, I'm reminded that I only started doing better when I wasn't trying to force it. It's funny that after coming to that conclusion it only took 2-3 months later to forget that.
It's really easy to promise more, but it's pretty hard to take it back. I know I should so people can have more realistic expectations of what I'm able to do, but I'm also a bit afraid that I'm gonna get kicked to the curb right after getting my foot in the door. Albeit a part of me knows that it is a bit of an unfounded fear. That sort of thing is definitely more likely if I don't take it back, so I need to make sure the problem doesn't build up to become truly major.
Anyhow-
Throughout all this I have been talking with a friend about an RPG. We've finished designing all the Classes, Skills, and leveling systems for it as well as some bosses. I'm pretty proud of it so far and have even gotten to the stage of actually writing the story. Haven't really shared it with anyone beyond a small friend group, so for all I know it might not actually be very good.
Part of me wishes I had more time to actually learn how to code it. I'm trying to ask myself what my priorities are when it comes to this whole project. Is the game just a side hobby to theorycraft about or is it something I should actually make? I can't do Patreon Animations and Game Dev at the same time while working 6 days a week. I'm already falling behind on animation deadlines, so it kind of feels like something I genuinely can't do.
Honestly it feels like there's a lot that I can't do.
