i've been crying on and off for the entire evening because i think i've finally admitted to myself that i didn't stop drawing at 17 because i lost interest or because i thought i wasn't good enough, but because of trauma. specifically, being judged by my family on what and how i drew. i drew for my entire childhood, in middle school i drew any time i had an occasion and this was the reason i went through so many pencils every year. then for my birthday at 16 i asked for a graphic tablet which i... barely used - i still have a few of the original pen nibs that came with it.
today i finally realized that i didn't do shit with it cause my parents were extremely interested in what i drew with it, and subconsciously i always knew it wasn't the good kind of interest. having zero privacy cause my pc was in the living room didn't help either. but they knew i wanted to work in the artistic side of video game development so constant judgement was there no matter what.
that's when i threw myself into making car liveries instead. because, several times, i was asked how tf i was able to see what i was doing when my drawing board looks like this:
essentially signalling i could do this mostly judgement free because 1) it looked complicated therefore it gave the appearance of the prodigal daughter they desired 2) looked even more related to gamedev than just drawing.
i think i want to try drawing again. i don't know when, if i actually will give it another shot or if i'm even in a good enough mental space to not get discouraged because the artists i follow have vastly superior experience over me; but i think i do want to give it a go, if only eventually.
