My disease had a name.

Hello, everyone. Those of you who have been following my journal updates will have probably noticed that I've been experiencing a serious letdown over the last ten months. It has been a bad period for me. While my first year at university (and deviantART), though plagued by a number of unfortunate circumstances, was filled with fantastic moments I will never forget, this one seemed to want to bring me down as much as it could, almost erasing the great first year off my mind. I put the blame on exactly the aforementioned circumstances, which grew uglier and played a major part in making me want to return back to my depressed teenager days (I call them the "angst days").

A while ago, I was reading the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. I'm sure its list won't leave everyone satisfied, but it does have something for every fan of music, and contains a good deal of interesting content. Anyway, I spotted the word "sophomore" in several of its articles, and looked up my dictionaries and Wikipedia. It turns out "sophomore" is a a term to describe the second year in a uni/college. As for what the heck was this term doing in a book about music, a band's second album is also called "sophomore album".

I was delighted to learn the word "sophomore" has a Greek root, and is a combination of the word "sophos" (=wise) and "moros" (=idiot). Such a contradictory term, huh? The reason they call us second-year students "sophomores" is because we get wiser than we were the first time around, but the fact that we get increasingly "bored" and "careless" makes us want to avoid studying. Most Greek students know what I'm talking about. How many times have you skipped your Geology lesson so you can go and have some coffee with your buddies/girlfriends?

As for the records, the second album is labeled as such because while a band may take their time to write and record their first (or "debut") album, the record label only gives them one year or so to write the second one. This is a critical position for the band members, because they have to make an album that's equally good or better than their debut. If they fail to do so, their sophomore album can destroy their career. Nobody wants to listen to a band that made only one good album. As film director Eli Roth once said, "I know your second film can make or break you, because you're either a bona fide director or a one hit wonder".

Back to our main subject. I won't get into that record topic again, I promise. As a second-year student, I believe I went through the so-called "sophomore slump", the downfall students show in their efforts. It had a really bad effect on me on a psychological aspect. Most of my friend relationships went sour, causing me to shy away and stop calling them for a while. My chats with my parents had lots of tension (though I don't remember we ever had a fight), the times where I wanted to be all alone increased, I lost my faith in my abilities and thought I had lost what made me feel so well about myself. Plus, due to the breathing problems my nasal septum deviation caused, I couldn't sleep well at nights and would run out of air a lot. I had had a minor treatment on my nose when I was 16, but the doctor said I had to turn 18 before the full surgery would be done. When you're 18 and above, your skull stops growing, and it's the only time it's safe to do the operation without resulting in internal bleeding.

My parents and I finally got to schedule a surgery, which happened last April. It went great and without any problems at all. I had put all my hopes on the surgery, wishing that it would bring back the wizfrikiman I (and, hopefully, you) loved all this time. Just look at all the deviations I posted this year. They're dreadful. Insipid. Forgettable. Some of them were well-done, but where's that signature look I used to have in my deviations (which reached its zenith with one of my most successful works to date, "Masquerade")? Where is the fun and humor I put in my silly photomanips and abstract art? Where are those poems with the twisted rhymes? Where's my magic wiz-touch? What happened to me, people?

I wrote about this a few months back, and was told that it's often to lose your inspiration, and that I would eventually regain it. That wasn't the case. I didn't run out of inspiration; I ran out of faith. My ongoing failures made me lose all hope that I would eventually make a truly amazing deviation. I know, that's silly, I should care about what I do, not to get the attention of others. But I needed more feedback. I wanted to get better. Showing off thumbnails on Thumbshare, making random friends and being on clubs wasn't enough. I wanted to get better. I commented on others' works. I did my best to give my honest opinion on works that caught my eye. Then again, having a stronger portfolio and visitor base would increase my liability... sorry, I meant my abilities and confidence as an art critic. I even persuaded my father to send me that old Wacom tablet we bought a decade ago, and buy some USB adapters (it normally works with serial ports). Over the months, I came up with more techniques to make my pics better, had some great ideas, and felt my skills had been raised to a higher level.

Then, I remembered how this happened.

Back in September 2008, I was informed by a friend about an ad in a new T-shirt store that said "GRAPHIC DESIGNER NEEDED". I quickly went in contact with the store's owner and showed him my uploads to dA up to that point and a DVD where I stored my layered .psd files. He liked my stuff, but said he'd like to see what I can do under an art direction. So, he told me to design some T-shirt designs for him. He asked me to draw stuff for him. Yes, draw. And that was before I got the tablet.

Come on. Go through everything I had posted in the 2007-08 period. Yeah, nice colors, good effects, cute collages, acceptable position of pre-rigged 3D models (mostly Poser figures). But where's the DRAWING??? Forget that silly drawing of me as a fat anime-ish character and a devil-ish Mickey Mouse holding hands with an alienated alien (sic) and a Satanist-ish Ronald McDonald. And the Potternator, too. Those were university doodles. I realized how bad I was in drawing. I also have the disadvantage of being left-handed in drawing and writing, and almost all other activities except for the computer mouse. Drawing with the mouse never gave me satisfying results, and working with vector curves and lines didn't help, either. I didn't even have the strength to draw something on a piece of paper (with my left hand, of course) and then scan it and give it a digital look. Not to mention the first time I bought the ImagineFX magazine and saw all those incredible professional art. I was out of courage. I'm no pro, but I thought it was time to shake the "rookie" status off me.

I forced myself to basic drawing lessons, bought pencils, an eraser and a sharpener, some huge drawing boards, and the anatomy tutorials in my ImagineFX issues. I saw progress, but I would often catch myself in "what is the point of wasting time like this?" moments. To make matters worse, an incident (which I am NOT going to describe) ruined my relationship with several friends of mine, bringing back the depression that struck me in fall 2008.

But all of this was before the surgery, so I'll stop with the flashbacks.

I breathe better now. Every week, my nostrils feel cleaner. I still have a long way to go; my doctor said it takes a full year for the nose to fully recover. I have no worries about that. But what about the art? It's the one thing that fueled me over the years, made me feel better and more confident, helped me have fun, socialize (IMPORTANT!) and enjoy my life.

I need this back, people. You don't have to be my cheerleaders or give me new ways for inspiration. I want a motive. I've been dreaming of getting a Daily Deviation (also a silly motive). Make me dream for something else.

I'm back at my parents' place now. I had to leave the tablet behind, so I'll have to finish my latest piece with my mouse (read: right hand). It's a tribute to Slipknot. And I know it will be good. It's my last hope to breathe new life to the artist inside me.

Happy July!


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Go see eluk's profile for more information about the INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION [link]