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Writer's pictureDurgin

It's (all) about time.



As you may have noticed, lately I've been a bit quiet, concerning my social activities. Not that I've nothing to say, on the contrary, but the last months have been so busy and tough that when I finally had some spare time, I've been too exhausted to interact here or on my socials, and that brought to me many deep reflections, that I would like to share with you.

Since my daughter was born, in September, I saw my daily routine almost destroyed: I think that any parent out there who's reading these lines, know what I mean.

I was prepared, or at least I tried to prepare myself at my best, but I discovered that no matter how many books you can read, how many videos you can watch or advice you can treasure in your brain, when you bring a real baby at home, things just go mostly out of control.

And I'm not talking about only stressful things like sleep deprivation, anxiety and night cry (mostly made by the baby...): I realized that often I just stopped my life, for example, because I simply wanted to look at her while she was sleeping, or just I wanted to physically be at her side. It's pure joy. But still, a time-consuming one.

With this "normal" situation, we had to face some unexpected hiccups, let's call them this way, when we found that Medea was born with some "uniqueness" of her brain that required many scans, exams and hospital visits: again, everything now seems fine and good, but to arrive at this good news we had to (and we will have to) endure a lot of stress, bad thoughts, anxiety and...wasted time.

The Kickstarter fulfilment started with great enthusiasm and punctuality, suddenly slowed down due to a couple of minor setbacks that forced me to stop everything for months, a situation that, if you know me a bit, really destroyed my morale and still fills me with a bitter taste in my soul.

This unexpected delay slows down, in turn, my current projects and I won't be able to open my next KS campaign as I scheduled, which makes me struggle a lot because it really complicates my financial resources.

Despite what you may be thinking, this is not a post made to complain, on the contrary: all these issues, all this stress, once again made me think about how lucky I am as a creator because I can count on a community that, despite an annoying situation, still supports me.

For this, I'm extremely thankful, and I would like to repeat it again: thank you!

Moreover, as I said before, this situation made me think about time: I realize that I'm struggling to balance the times required by the modern age of social, with my job.

It's easy to fix a delays on production: it's just a matter of waiting for the stocks to finally arrive and putting the correct amount of goodies in the right boxes.

But when we talk about socials, well, sometimes I feel like I'm running a race that I won't have the stamina to finish.

I noticed that I'm kinda torn between the will to create contents and give shape to my ideas, and the anxiety of not being fast enough to publish contents at a constant rate.

My job, which consists mostly of painting and modeling, requires a long time, patience and...inspiration.

A proper social strategy, instead, requires publishing something every day, or at least every week. Or at least something at all! If I don't post something every day or every week, the algorithm immediately put my socials at the bottom of your feed, and this is not good for my projects. However, putting out content for the sake of creating content is not what I want to do, nor what I use to do, I prefer to give you something worthy instead of simply...something. It's a self fulfilling circle that recently put on me a lot of pressure.

I'm writing this post as a kind of therapy because I noticed how this "hurry" is affecting the quality of my projects: for example, I'm stuck in a kind of creative limbo and when I found some rare time to dedicate to some hobby tutorial to publish on my website, I just made a mess one after the other.

I tried to paint one of my dwarves, but the result was terrible.

I tried to sculpt a scenic base for a tutorial, but the result was terrible.

My brain can't stop thinking about all the wasted, precious, time resulting in a horrible ending.

I know I sound silly, but it's frustrating to have many ideas in mind, sitting in front of the desk full of enthusiasm and then...nothing good happens.

Then I start to think about my social pages that look abandoned and I feel guilt.

At the moment, I'm still struggling to reschedule my daily life, I feel like there are some huge concerns that prevent me from enjoying the creative side of my job, but I think that it's only a matter of taking a big breath and slowly reclaiming my daily routine.

I think that as soon as I'll manage to send out all the KS rewards, a big part of me feel free to embrace new projects, at the moment I confess that I feel guilty every time I dedicate any spare time to something that is not strictly preparing rewards for shipments: again, it's only a matter of time, I suppose.





Well, after a long pars destruens, that I hope didn't bother you too much, let's jump into the pars costruens and let's talk also about positive things and good vibes because ok: maybe many things are not getting exactly the way I expected them to be, but there's still plenty of room for some positivity, in this post.

First of all, the last character designed for our range of big scale figures is ready!

What I'm talking about? Well, soon you will see, I won't spoiler you our first Orc..oops!

I'm pretty HYPED, concerning this range: I think Valerio and I did a solid work on these characters, realizing some of our very best creations (I'm in love with "Lunchtime"!).

Despite it will be slightly delayed, I can't wait to start another journey on Kickstarter and I already can feel the mix between pure terror and excitement that only an upcoming campaign is able to give to a creator!

This campaign will see not only our brand new sculptures, designed specifically and uniquely for this scale, but I plan to offer a very limited edition of some of our existing characters, scaled up in 75mm scale!

I already have in mind which kit would gain the most from an enlargement, but I'm open to your suggestions and requests.

I designed this range to try something different from my usual pipeline, and to make a product more interesting for painters out there: it will be fun to see how the community will react to these new sculpts!

Initially I planned to open the new campaign in February, but I think I have to delay it in March, or at least I want to ship at first all the Elves' rewards: a new KS campaign requires A LOT of energy and enthusiasm, and I honestly don't want to have some skeletons in the closet that might affect the result of a project that I invested a lot of passion and money on.

And you? How do you recover your mojo, when you get through a stressful time?



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TenNoBushi
TenNoBushi
Jan 14, 2022

"And you? How do you recover your mojo, when you get through a stressful time?"


I take a step back and I slow down the machine.

Like Elsa, you need to let it go ;)

I know, time is one of the few things you'll never be able to recover, but taking time to refocus is important in order to not divide yourself between the multitude of things you "think" you need to do.

That allows you to define your priorities at the time and be effective at fullfiling them.

Taking a step back can also allow you to consider other options than doing everything yourself.


You need a presence in the social media but don't currently have the time…


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Moises Irizarry
Moises Irizarry
Jan 14, 2022
Replying to

And that’s why part of the planning of the forum should include stuff such as “stories of Innearth”, a dedicated portion for those of us who love to write that you can use for inspiration, or to keep the mojo going as your world becomes one more believable with each tale.

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Moises Irizarry
Moises Irizarry
Jan 14, 2022

As someone who sits at dinner table (or restaurant) and looks at the ever-increasing number of people who, instead of spending time with the person in front of them, are consumed by their own addictive attention to social media I say: “I won’t feed it”


I won’t feed that social media monster that “needs” us to feed it every day just to get bigger, hungrier.


Yes, surely, I have my own social media pages to which I contribute when I want, when I feel something is worthy of being contributed (Most of the time because I believe it will help someone else), but I have chosen to live, laugh and love, not “pretend” that I do.


I have also learned…

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Moises Irizarry
Moises Irizarry
Jan 14, 2022
Replying to

Exactly, for business it is a good help to increase visibility. It’s a blessing and a curse.

but so, you can always count on many of us who are willing to help every so often when we can.


Youre doing a great job. Know that we believe in you (And if you need help with the game rules, I’ll say it again, hehehe, just ask).


:)


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hans joerg brehm
hans joerg brehm
Jan 14, 2022

I feel your pain, matteo!

As an Illustrator i reaally just want to dive into my work and not be pressured into feeding the hungry socmedia-channels.

I´ve taken to urban sketching and posting those doodles, because it clears my mind and keeps my muscle-memory in shape; but i´m more likely to follow someone who´s posting interesting stuff once in a blue moon instead of sharing their last meal or whatever. Those get unfollowed fast!


So - take your time and share stuff with us you deem shareworthy. I´m always looking forward to your endeavours

Cheers Hans

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Durgin
Durgin
Jan 14, 2022
Replying to

I have mixed feelings about posting failures, I fear that it can disappoint the visitors who maybe would prefer to see the very best I can do on my own minis!

But maybe it would be interesting for you to see how I need to feel the pain many and many times, before achieving a good result XDXD

Thank you for your kind words and support <3

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Jean Eudes
Jean Eudes
Jan 14, 2022

I think I have passed by this kind of strange feeling between the joy of a healthy, cute and energy-consumer child, and the stress of my job not beeing fulfilled as I wanted (I own myself a company too). My boy is 14 months now, and it was a few months ago. As you say, I guess the new routine has to be in place, and after that, the work pace returns. Don't worry about that, your mojo will be back soon ! You are completely right to give some time to your girls, I guess that is what will remain in your old days.

Concerning your social media obligations, and the need of financial ressources, you could impose to…

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Durgin
Durgin
Jan 14, 2022
Replying to

The fulfillment % is a great idea, Jean!!

Indeed, I think it's only a matter of finding a new "recipe" to create a better daily routine, I realize that many of my struggles come from an attempt to maintain my old routine, with all the new daughter's needs!

thank you for taking some time to share with me your thoughts, Jean, it helped a lot! ^-^


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