Side Note: Kai, Artgerm, Hoon, and Arcipello - I was serious about what I wrote you to you all. Let me know either way via note, if it's doable or not.

It's been quite awhile since I've updated here... over a month. It's been more than 6 months since my last deviation submission. I guess this journal entry is to explore why.

Over the course of my stay here at deviantART, i've met a few good friends that I keep in regular contact with even now. From random deviants: I got good feedback from art, bad feedback on art, a few boos and hisses. All in the name of self-improvement.

After awhile, I realized that I was leaning towards ART for sole intention of receiving feedback (i.e. not for myself)... I lost the lust of art and it's true purpose---self reflection of inner thoughts and creativity. I have a feeling I'm not alone on this... just by looking at a few pages of new submissions. People seem to be creating art for the public reaction... does that seem like the original purpose of art? Not to me.

So in short, I haven't done anything remotely artistic (aside from messing with website layouts) in the past few many months. I've felt creatively stagnant... not so much a creativity block... but because of the above reasons I'm a little hesistant to try anything creative. I'm afraid that sub-conciously I'll be working on it just for reactive reasons from ANYONE... not just to let it out of my mind.

I'm working on a fix for this.

Like I said earlier, I haven't been on deviantART for more than 5-10 minutes at a given time, sometimes going days... if not weeks without seeing the familiar, nay---very ugly, green/grey tones. For my entire stay here I was so involved with the community, even before I was staff... I loved everything about this site---there were a few shitballs here and there... but overall it was good. The downfall of that was getting hooked into a site that in the grand scheme of things which in turn created a lacking "real world" social life, I had less than 1 fist full of friends (that's 5 for you slow people). I never left my house/apartment/dwelling, I always had photoshop, deviantART, notepad, and some 3d program open and running on my computer... which isn't necessarily a bad thing... but it wasted soooo much time---especially considering who I was making the art for (read above). You know, that's how you can find the great artists... the ones that don't look for feedback, they know they're good, they do art for themselves, and don't really give a crap if you don't like it.

I was continually putting off going out with any of my "fistful friends" just to create a deviation, to get feedback + faves, just to feel "loved" by a few people in the name of "art". Therein lied my dilemma, do I forfeit my social life and become the emo-est of artists and do it for all the wrong reasons... do I forfeit deviantART and create a more lively existence for myself... or do I find a balance.

If you've read this far, you realize that I've gone the forfeit deviantART route. I bet you're thinking... what about creating a balance between deviantART AND a social life? Well, what's the point if all the art I create here isn't for my own purposes originally? Besides, I tried... it didnt work out... the whole time I was out with my "fistful friends" I was wondering how many comments, faves and notes I received... it was really quite pathetic... and you know you've done the same.