sfmdh
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Schedule change October onwards - an open letter to backers
🕑 Added 2024-08-23 15:28:00 +0000 UTCHello everyone.
Starting from October, I am going to change the regular update schedule of my work. The current schedule entails 2 Loops and 1 Scenario with Wallpapers landing every Wednesday, and I have come to the conclusion that this pace of work is no longer feasible in the long run, and that I am headed straight towards burnout. My work as of late has, for a lack of better words, been missing that certain "spark", something which I realize is founded in my work these days being less about creativity and more about, again for a lack of better words, "production", this informed by a steady flow of sequential poll results and subsequent improvising to make something suitable for consumption. I find that I am increasingly going into a mental state where I am making content for the sake of sticking to a schedule and the promised content delivery than I am making things because they are actually interesting or otherwise enticing to me personally, something that has translated into an avoidance behavior where I want nothing else than to be "done" with whatever I undertake at any given moment, which is a clear sign of burnout.
Suffice to say, there's more going on behind the scenes than I tend to openly discuss, with me being somewhat known for my attempts at business mindedness and some manner of "distant professionalism", and while I do not want to imply that people lack empathy in general, I am also well aware that creators who frequently discuss their own health or real life issues tend to alienate their audiences, something I do not blame anyone for. This all said, I have to divulge something I've never discussed here before for the sake of context, and that is my status as a sufferer of PTSD, and how that was one of the driving reasons for me to attempt to get out of my previous job as a prison officer. This means I have certain personality quirks, one being poor resistance to stress (which easily translates into physical illness, such as catching colds, etc), another being hypersexuality (which I have "treated" to some extent, or fueled, through my work, and explains why I have been able to keep up with my production schedule), and another being a low sense of self-esteem and value in myself, and subsequently, my work. I sleep poorly, I eat poorly, and my workout is nowhere close to what it once was, though still acting as a brief respite in my everyday business, like the gym is my moment to come up for air. Other stressors like my wife's sudden heart issues have exacerbated these matters further, and in conjunction with how my schedule is structured, I am feeling like I am headed towards a cliff's end, with no land in sight on the other side.
I had an initial plan, which I announced in this Friday's progress report, to schedule myself a single day off every week (Fridays, incidentally), in a bid to try to see if that could alleviate the issue in question, but quickly came to the conclusion that it's not sufficient to appease the growing void in my chest whenever I think of sitting down and doing this work. Now, signing off my content direction to backers has been a means of drawing interest to higher tiers and has actually allowed me to work on this stuff full time, something I will always be incredibly thankful for, but I have come to the regrettable conclusion that the tradeoff has been turning my work into something industrial in terms of its creative process, something that is done simply because it needs to be done, and for the pace of it to be so all-encompassing that I have little to no time for friends, family, or myself by all means. Worst of all, it's actively hampered both my ability and motivation to learn more about the scene I am involved in, meaning my growth as a creator has stalled, and I find myself more and more simply thinking "this is passable, fuck it" while I scramble to make things do the baseline motions that they are supposed to do so I can have it ready for X day. Each Blender update is accompanied with trepidation owing to the extra work it'll entail just to get my work up to the level of what it was previously again whenever they rework their engine, headaches brew as I try to come up with increasingly contrived writing to motivate scenes that my mind fumbles in the dark to find reason for, often for characters that only superficially interest me, and all this, ceaselessly, week after week, for years.
Simultaneously, I have heard your feedback. Folks want nothing more than, well, more, and what they want more of is more of everything - and I understand perfectly. Animations should be longer, have more angles, and have more effects, they should have more custom animation bits, they should have fluid dynamics, VR integration, 4K resolution, come in versions lacking or including male voices, they should have appropriate themes, longer written flavor texts, and they should have more character variation. I have tried to meet these requests as well as I can, and I would be so bold as to say that I have ended up reaching at least half-way to most of them, but I have realized with time that they are simply never going to materialize under my current schedule given the time constraints that I have - and now, with burnout looming on the horizon, I am staring down multiple crossroads containing several difficult choices.
So am I just pulling the plug on this venture? I'd rather not become homeless, so no, I am not. What I've tried to reconcile with is the pressure of production juxtaposed to my time of recovery, attempting to gauge where there might exist some kind of sweet-spot where I can keep making stuff, keep delivering on an update schedule and on patreon backer perks, while at the same time not ending up in some kind of depressed equilibrium that over time will threaten to start me down the road of burnout again. You know the feeling after you've finished a really good series, or a book, and you sort of just deflate and feel empty? That's what happens to me after any given animation is done and posted - except I am not afforded any recovery afterwards, and will owing to my schedule move on to immediately begin work on something else. It appears commonplace that other creators, after they've come out with some kind of animation or drawn piece by all means, simply state that they are taking a few days off - and well, I do not. They do it for good reason, and I never do.
In that sense, starting in October, I am going to remove the first Loop of the month. This will leave the Less Popular Ladies (LPL) Loop, as well as the Scenario in the schedule, but leave the first week of the month for me to pursue further technical understanding of Blender, as well as, on occasion, animate something that interests me personally, or even just use it for resting. I am also maintaining subsequent Fridays as days off, every week, though that wouldn't have impacted the usual schedule either way, but I want to mention it here for transparency's sake.
I perfectly understand that this reduction in content output will disappoint many backers, and I do not fault anyone for withdrawing their support, should they choose to do so, given the current schedule and expectations thereof. Know that I wouldn't do this unless I found it absolutely necessary to do so, and that I will forever be thankful for the backing you gave me, so no hard feelings on my part. The reason I am writing this now is to warn well ahead of time about the schedule change in October, and given that the September loop poll is already underway I find it would be difficult to adequately communicate why I would interrupt it or otherwise to backers, so I will be maintaining the current schedule for next month.
TL:DR:
DH is facing burnout.
New schedule October and onward is just the LPL loop and Scenario, so 1 loop less per month.
I'm not entirely sure how to end a text like this, given its nature, and how candid it is, but I want everyone here to know that I am incredibly thankful for your backing, and your kind words. I've tried exploring other venues to resolve this matter, but have simply come up short, so this is the closest thing I have found to a "solution" in the moment. I can't guarantee it'll solve anything, nor can I say for certain that the improvements I hope for will materialize, but I feel deep down that I really do not want to quit this venture outright, that there's more stuff in me that needs to be written and animated. I just need time, and a different approach. At least, that is the hope.
Please, do take care of yourselves out there, as well as each other. Everyone you meet has a struggle of their own.
/DH
Comments
Arc_Zero
I have to say, I'm going to miss seeing you make less loop animation as I do prefer the loops over the long animation projects. But I don't want you to feel and become stagnate with your work as the mental health of the artist is more important. So I just want to say that I will keep on supporting you and encourage any new ideas/tricks that you come up with, you are an amazing animator, and it would be a shame to see you get burn out and lost interest to the whole thing
The Ageless Ascetic
Sorry DH, missed this update and didn't know what the hubbub was about til now. As always, you've always been classy about giving us all the details in your work schedule/life/health and we'll always be grateful for that candidness. You've got to take care of your health 1st man, as a fellow gym goer, if we start missing out on workouts or don't feel the gains, it can hinder the energy/mental boost exercising is supposed to give you. I didn't want to say anything, but it's true that I've noticed your work the last couple months are starting to show habits of just going thru the motions. The DH zest is becoming less apparent, even in the Scenario animations where you have more time to be creative. Regardless, you still got my backing as I've seen you come a long way over the years. And the fact you still feel you have that urge to learn more and have more creativity is a motivating sign you're not giving up. We got you bro :)
DH
The hope is that the new schedule will open up for me to pursue project work more consistently too. I've had to squeeze it in in the past between scheduled releases, so having larger openings to work will hopefully give me the peace of mind to sit down and deal with them proper again. I haven't seen MK1 Cassie around, though I've heard rumors about some kind of leak about her maybe appearing in the next DLC or similar - I shall reserve judgement, but until then I'm MKX version all the way :)
UnprocessedCoalLump
I would trade all loops in a month, for some insight and looks into bigger projects and their WIPs. I'm just more interested in bigger movies. Also, what do you think of the MK1 Cassie? I think she's a good mix between MKX and MK11 Cassie. Future possibilities?
DH
An anvil and, hopefully, a somewhat softer place in time. At the end of the day I'm providing a service, and while there no doubt are those that support me simply because of their enjoyment of my work while expecting little in return, the relative ratio of philantropic patronage to that of regular market consumer is generally difficult to gauge - but suffice to say, it was very uncommon (prior to higher tiers existing) that anyone willingly parted with more than the core tier equivalent a month towards my work when there was no tangible benefits to doing so. Understandable, at the end of the day, if everyone gets the same benefits no matter the backing it's hard to motivate anything else. I generally don't like discussing my economic situation given how it's an infected subject for creators, and I can't speak for how things are for Umemaro et al, but I burned through my savings to make the leap into this, being in the red for quite some time initially, and what it's stabilized into is a situation where I make significantly less than the median American wage on a Scandinavian tax base, making ends meet but cutting things very close every month, and I am thus under no impression that this venture would be tenable should I remove the benefits of higher tiers entirely. I understand the perspective of letting things take their time and putting out high quality content less often, particularly if that is what is more interesting from a consumer perspective, but in my experience that was never an option - to put it bluntly, large projects and the stuff I made myself out of passion never were a big draw of support, and it was only when I created my consistent update schedule and then signed it off to polls, support increasing exponentially the more I was willing to sign away, that this started to become in any way feasible from an economic standpoint. Hence the cut into the schedule rather than its abolition entirely. I very much cross my fingers (or hold my thumbs, as we say up here) that the benefits of having more time towards my own work will materialize while the amount of scheduled content will satisfy backers as well. I reckon we'll see come October if it's the path forward, or if it's a horrible miscalculation on my part and I'll have to return to my day job, with the inevitable result of my content output here drying up quickly. Either way, something had to be done, and I saw this as the only viable option. And cheers FPM, feedback like this is always welcome, I just feel the need to give extra context where I fear there might be space for misunderstandings, and it seems a whole lot of people are under the impression that I arbitrarily included all these polls out of kindness or some random impulse, expressing (rightful, mind) frustration over why I'm simply not just "doing my thing". Hopefully this clarifies the situation in that sense.
FPM
Hello, DH, and thank you for having taken the time to provide a thorough analysis of the situation. The bottom line is that your options are narrow, thus placing you between an anvil and a very hard place. I guess this is the moral fiber of your backers which will ultimately prove decisive in your getting out of what appears to be a trap (getting enough funding means frequently delivering attractive enough contents, meaning burning yourself out, meaning eventually being unable to keep the required pace). I don't know the end results in terms of their funding, but I, as a 'consumer' of their work, think the trade-off (much more waiting-time but significantly more artistically-satisfying achievements, and, more than anything else, they have not yet been led to permanently 'throwing the towel') is extremely satisfying regarding such creators as Umemaro-3D and Amusteven, who are taking a susbtantially increased time between two consecutive works, who are not kept on the 'hot tin roof' of the social networks and their unfair criticisms and demands, and whose latest works are by far their best ones (thus to the benefit of everybody mature enough to fund them and accept that they do what they can in the time they have, which is something no one else would do better than them, even though at the small price for their backers of having to learn the virtue of patience compared to the price of never getting anything anymore because the goose that laid the golden eggs is no more), even though their prior ones were already excellent. Many guys here have expressed an opinion not very different from mine, so it probably means you can actually manage a more sustainable schedule without taking too much of a financial loss (besides do you, and do we, really have a choice if things are becoming so unbearable for you ?). That's all I hope for you and for us as a community, as you deserve our gratitude. Have a nice Sunday as well, DH, and please don't bother answering this message (time-consuming for you), as I guess there is not really here any food for thought that you had not already taken into account.
DH
Thank you, in turn. Certainly, people are not inherently rational actors and cannot be aware of every consequence to any given action they take, though my point is not that the function of polling is inherently bad owing to the results of the popular vote not consistently coinciding with whatever I might feel inclined to work on at any given moment, but that it has become so all-encompassing in terms of the time I spend working on its outcomes that it grants me little to no space to pursue my own creative vision. This is what I dubbed the "industrial" section, where I am in effect starting to feel distant from my own work - alienated, some would say - even while I fully recognize that I, in a vacuum, don't feel much in the way of resistance towards creating works from polling results as such. When it is all I do, however, it becomes suffocating, and the root of what is driving me towards burnout. Simultaneously, there's my basic material conditions to consider, wherein my household has become utterly dependent on the funding of the tiers that are specifically a draw owing to their nature as having polling access - hence why my approach ahead is something of a middle-point. The hope is that retaining part (let's be honest, most) of the schedule will not see the funding I am dependent on dwindle to an unsustainable point, while still granting me some respite to find that "spark" once more. Statistically, the by far most common Welcome Survey response as to why people choose to back me pertains to exclusive content access, particularly for higher tiers, and anecdotally I can say that there's no time that is as active in both the discord and my private messages, nothing creates quite the excitement, as when it is polling time. In other words, I cannot emphasize enough how important the polling tiers are for me to be able to put the amount of hours that I do towards this venture in the first place. Should I lose this backing, I will have to return to working a regular day job to make ends meet, and I would simply find myself back at the juncture where I have little time to work on my content at all. The schedule change in that sense is an attempt at maneuvering where there is, fundamentally, very little space to do so. Enjoy your Sunday as well, and thank you for your kind words and advice!
FPM
Thank you for your message, DH. However, IMHO, people not always know what would be best for them. As Herbert Simon would put it, people tend to prefer repeating the same patterns instead of exploring terrae incognitae (not sure of my Latin, but you'll get the gist of it anyway), and there is a common bias in favor of something gotten fast compared to something better but coming later. Besides, I personally tend to achieve bad results when performing something in a way I have not chosen myself, whereas results tend generally to be more satisfying for everybody when I act according to my own design. Of course, except in political speeches, 'faster' rarely means 'better' when it comes to performing something... the more so when it's a work of art. Sorry for what may appear to be 'common places', and enjoy your Sunday as much as can be, considering.
Iceman
Take all the time you need to recover DH - and thank you very much the open letter, taking us into consideration. I will keep on backing you!
Crawdaddy
I absolutely understand where you're coming from. This is a creative profession, and doing everything to spec like it's on a assembly lines kills the joy of creating. Acting against "popular demand" is sometimes vital for artists. It just is. I respect your choice, and wanna say I'm in this for the long haul.
DH
Cheers FPM - I should perhaps have made clear in the text that the reason behind introducing this extensive polling was, to put it bluntly, because they are what make this venture economically feasible in the first place as I have nothing to offer higher tiers other than control over the direction of my work. It's a bit of a catch-22 in that sense, where to be able to pursue my creative endeavors I need funding, and to get funding I need to surrender creative control over it. The hope with the new schedule is thus that I can claw back some of my own time, all the while supplying the content that pays the bills, even if there will be somewhat less of it. A hiatus alone would sadly thus not have accomplished much other than postponed this crisis onto the future, should I then have returned to the old schedule.
boronium
Health>work plus I would rather have 5 well done animations than 8 middling animations. Feel free to come up for air
FPM
I praise your courage for being both lucid and honest regarding the way things are going, DH, and I'm sorry for the moral and physical grievance you're currently suffering from. It's the more sad because I'm sincerely grateful for all the great contents you've shared so far as well as to the unfailing gentleness in your behaviour. At the same time, I think you may indeed have 'lost your way' lately (in fact, I've chosen not to download anything from your Patreon for several months now, even though I maintained my subscription for 'good old time sake' : I miss the glamour of so many of your past works and models), for trying too much to please your backers, meaning you tried doing what you thought would please the majority of them, instead of doing what you personally thought was good. In that respect, I believe the polls were a mistake, even if I think I understand why you provided them in the first place. Not everything I agree with in 'Fountainhead' (only watched the Gary Cooper movie, didn't read the novel), but I think the author made her point quite convincingly regarding the inner value (or lack of value) of the taste of the mass and the vox populi. As DB|Spencer suggested it (and others here hinted at), I believe as well that a full and long-enough pause in your Patreon would be to the benefit both of you, your family, your friends and us all backers in the long-run, if you can recover and eventually restart, afresh. I apologize if I seem to be rude and unfeeling : that was not my intent. You have my deepest respect for your talent and for your endearing personality, DH : just rest, take some distance from it all, and please find yourself back for the sake of us all or for yours, at least. Just my two clumsy cents.
Crusader
That's cool, not a problem
MaxwilDG
It's very improtant to do the art you want to do, don't let the consumer decide (all of) what you decide to create
Frankh of Fethdor
Do what you gotta do man, don't wanna get burned by that burnout!
DB|SPENCER
As a fellow artist, I'd like to make a suggestion to help with the burnout: If you can afford it (and really, even if you can't), I'd suggest putting your Patreon on pause for the entire month of September. Your Patrons would not be charged for the month, and you could use the month to step away from your creation schedule. Take a breather. Unwind and relax. Just have some fun and/or chill time. Drop the creation schedule from your table of worries for a month. You'd be amazed how much this will help toward curbing burnout. You don't have to step away from creating altogether. You could spend the time learning in Blender, experimenting with new things, and just letting your creativity have some whimsical fun for a little bit, without worrying about us. Your Patrons will understand. Many creators do this once a year or so. Any Patrons who don't understand... Well, who needs them! ♥ You and your health are the first priority, always! We'll be here when you come back. ♥
Snaggle
Do whatever you need to do. I have seen too many creators burnout and leave completely. None of us want that, so take whatever time you need to get yourself in a better mind.
TAG
Been very fond of your work for many years now. That ain’t stopping today. Understandable course of action. Hope it can improve your health. Get some rest 👍
RegularJard
Damn DH I had no idea you were dealing with all of this man, take all the time you need to recover ❤️
Vicilo91
Totally understand. Your health (mental or otherwise) should take priority. There's also probably nothing worse for a creator to have your work becoming a chore, so if you figure you need to adapt your schedule to get your creativity and the love for your work back, I say do it. We will probably all be better for it. Personnaly, I won't change my support, you always had a incredibly steady and great amount of stuff uploaded every weeks (something I'm guilty of not applauding you for each time) plus your work is worth it. So take care and don't worry about feeling guilty of anything really.
Kiasyon
Thank you for sharing! Me personally the thing I enjoy of yours the most is the compilation loops that cycle through the angles. As a creator myself I feel it's important to always enjoy what you make amd while it's good to have patrons and fans, you should be your target audience. When you let other people's expectations get in your head to apply pressure it can suck the fun out of the endeavor. I hope this change does help you avoid burnout and that you are able to deal with the PTSD and that your wife's heart issues get solved as well. ❤️
Fleet Sparrow
I rarely comment directly, but I just want to say that I totally understand the need to rest and recover before burnout hits, and I'll be here no matter the schedule. Take care, pal.
