Variation Venus

I started drawing and coloring again. It’s been a long time since I had a moment to work on any personal projects of my own. I took a long break. Two years where I didn’t draw much for myself, and I definitely didn’t publish anything. 

I know what kept me from drawing was, of course, impostor syndrome and AI art. The effort to get exposure or even a conversation/comment on the art that I would post was a lot. It’s a whole full-time job. 

I thought that since I wasn’t able to output the same amount of content on social media, my work wasn’t worth the effort. This feeling solidified when Midjourney art and all the other AI stuff began popping up on social media. 

Not only did I feel that my art wasn’t professional, but I also felt that what I was able to create was very devalued. I had a lot of thoughts that I had to work through, and it took me a long time.

What changed my mind was reaching a point where I realized I could no longer deny myself my favorite hobby just because the world was changing. I needed to relearn to love the process of creating for myself rather than for others. 

Yes, AI art is the future, and human-made art may be devalued, but I had this realization while re-watching the Star Trek series, like all of them. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lt. Commander Data often explored what it meant to be human by participating in the fine arts. His love was painting. 

As the series progressed, his work would change from photo-realistic to impressionistic. It would also become abstract. These changes depended on the feelings he was trying to process. Even though Data does not have emotions, I always coded him as having feelings in different ways than humans. I was introduced to the character as a very young child, and that’s how I was able to understand him. 

Anyways, as I was watching, I thought, hold up…every character on the show expressed themselves or engaged with some art form as a hobby. The stories used this as a means to explore their inner selves for character growth or some theme that challenged the crew as a whole (holodecks). 

Why would the creators and writers of Star Trek do this? It’s obvious they have technology that can make art or stories on demand.

Why are these characters engaging in art? The answer was simple: it’s about exploring the human condition, personal growth, and transformation. And that is what I want to do, even if no one but me sees it. 

But for those who are following, these are some updates on the progress I’ve made on my comic lately.