SamSuka
Sundowner
Sundowner

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Yay! Long time no see!!!

Long time no see!!! How have you been?!
I’m honestly starting to doubt my own memory, because I’m pretty sure I officially announced a hiatus about a year ago, and then again three months ago… and yet the number of supporters hasn’t gone down!?!!?
(It really helps me, thank you so much!)

Anyway, lately I’ve been feeling the sudden urge to take on some illustration work again, so I’ve decided to open one commission slot, exclusively for supporters.

Back when I was working as a commission illustrator, I often felt a vague sense of misalignment in my direction, and since I couldn’t put it into words, only the “unease” grew larger until I stepped away. After leaving, I realized I was overthinking, so I stopped dwelling on it and instead just played around, doodled, practiced, and avoided finishing full illustrations—basically, I let myself prioritize the simple feeling of “I want to draw.”

The other day, I had a chance to revisit some old sketches I did on paper—scribbles in the margins of class notes, or tiny sketches in the corner of big blank sheets. When I put it into words, they were really just “draw without thinking” moments. I’ve been recreating that feeling recently, and thanks to that, I feel more satisfied. It’s not about money anymore, but simply the genuine desire to do illustration work.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been drawing for myself, with no need to be on guard, no pressure to meet expectations, no need to care about evaluation—just enjoying art as a hobby. That relaxed my nerves, and strangely enough, now I actually miss professional illustration work.
It’s ironic—maybe if I had allowed myself more breaks back then, I could’ve kept going. But at the same time, I only realized this after quitting, so in a way I’m grateful. Life is full of contradictions like that.

I’m the type to pour my emotions even into writing blog posts like this, so naturally the same goes for my art. Looking back, I basically spent three straight years only drawing for work. No wonder I was exhausted. I should’ve built in more breaks. It’s important to regularly reflect on your own thoughts and actions—I’ve learned a lot from that.

By the way, I don’t remember if I mentioned this before, but back in fall 2022, I actually developed an anxiety disorder. Just opening a canvas would trigger panic—hyperventilating, vomiting, shaking. I never went to the hospital or took medication, but instead I tried writing down my emotions and actions in bullet points on paper to find the causes. That helped me realize I had frustrations (like wanting to change illustration software, or raise my commission rates), but in the end, the episodes themselves were just “attacks.”

Every time an attack happened, I would calm down and try to write out exactly what the fear was, but I could never find anything concrete. And eventually, just doing this process made the panic attacks stop. 😂
By reasoning with my own brain, I managed to overcome my anxiety, and I learned how to handle it. So I’ll be okay now—I feel like I leveled up.

Even when I visited a large psychiatric hospital out of curiosity, the doctors always told me: “You’re calm, able to talk things through, already doing the strategies we’d recommend, and you’ve resolved the issues yourself. You don’t need medication, or even to come here—just drop by if you ever want to check on something technical.” So I guess that means I found the right answer in my case.
Anyway, that was just me oversharing my thought process.

Oh right—the main reason I came here was to announce the commission slot!
If you’re interested, please feel free to reach out.
The art style will be my most recent one.


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