What 20 Days of Daily Vlogging Taught Me About Creativity

The Real Question

How do you create the space for creativity? Actually sit down and make something, create something—both mentally, physically, having an area to do it in, financially, the time? These are all things I want to talk about today.

The Mistake I Used to Make

I used to make the mistake of thinking I wasn’t creative enough to make art every day or wasn’t creative enough to make the kind of art I wanted to make. It really wasn’t until I read Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art that I realized I needed to show up every day for that creativity to come.

It wasn’t about motivation or inspiration. It’s just about showing up every day and creating that space—both mentally, physically, financially—for the creativity to show up.

Mental Space

I have a lot going on myself. For a while, it’s hard to disengage my brain to get it to that point where I can have a blank slate to think about things creatively, to pull in inspiration and actually make something.

Doing this vlog has really helped me have that moment where I can stop everything else and freeze and actually make something cool every day. Today is day 20 of doing the daily vlog, which is crazy to think about. It’s gone by so fast and now it’s already become such a part of me and who I am.

Physical Space

Yesterday I cleaned up my little closet office and set up the space, which really gave me the idea for this whole video—creating a physical space where you can sit down and create.

It doesn’t have to be a room or a closet or a table or some crazy setup. For a while, my creative space was a large sketchbook, a small cutting mat, and a wet palette. I’d been on the couch holding a baby sometimes. Just having a designated area that you can go to be creative is key. And going there every day, showing up every day.

Turning Your Brain Off

Part of having that physical and mental space is something that can turn your brain off from the worries and stressors. What I do, as ridiculous as it sounds, is when I’m really ready to dig in, I’ll light a candle or my olive oil lamp.

Then I use a singing bowl because just 30 seconds of focusing to get the nice tone out of it—without it rattling or ruining the buildup—just takes those 30 seconds to not think about anything else. That repetitive motion helps me clear my head and opens me up for that creativity to flow. That’s my clarion call to the creativity, to the muse.

The Financial Trap

Another big mistake I always made was thinking about art from a financial aspect. For a lot of my life I thought that if I wasn’t making money from doing it, it wasn’t worth doing. Which is a terrible attitude to have.

For a while I was trying to make money from art, from creative avenues. I stopped trying to make money from art. I stopped trying to do things that other people might like and might want to buy. I stopped thinking about it from that aspect and just made whatever I wanted to make.

At that point my art became something for me. Obviously I want to share and instill feelings and emotions in other people. But the art came back to me as this thing that I did for joy and happiness and expression.

The Real Lesson

By changing my mentality from “I have to figure out how to make money from my art” to “I have to figure out how I can make enough money in as little time as possible so I can have both the time and the money to do this thing I care about and keep this thing I love pure”—that took years and years of figuring out.

The lesson is: if you’re an artist, don’t make what you do for money all that you are. Making money is very difficult. Having a job sucks. But if you can figure out a way to not have making art suck, that would be pretty cool.

Inspired vs. Inspiring

When you’re starting out as an artist, you see something and think “I love that, I want to see if I can make that myself.” There’s that emulation, that “is this theft versus emulation or homage?” question.

In my personal journey, I wanted to see if I could make the exact thing that people winning Golden Demons or great kit bashers make. Then it became: can I make this exact thing that inspires me, but tweak it to make it my own?

The next step in my creative journey is: how do I go from feeling inspired and making something I’m inspired by to inspiring other people and making something totally new? How can I pull something out of the ether that doesn’t exist, into my brain, and out into the real world in a way I haven’t seen somewhere else before?

Spellcrow Orcs

One thing hobby-related I want to talk about is how awesome these Spellcrow orcs are. They’re still multipart, still very poseable and interchangeable. I’ve painted hundreds of orcs in my life and didn’t want to paint the same orcs over again. So I got these new guys, got the Forge World dudes. These are all going to be black orcs and I’m very excited to paint them.

Transcript

How do you create the space for creativity? Like actually sit down and and make something, create something both like mentally, physically, like physically having an area to do it in. Uh financially, how do you really like the time? How do you have the money to support the time to get things done? Uh these are all things that I want to talk about today.

I used to make the mistake of thinking like I wasn’t creative enough to make art every day or I wasn’t creative enough to make the kind of art that I wanted to make. And it really wasn’t until I read Steven Presfield’s book uh The War of Art that I realized I needed to show up every day for that creativity to come. And it wasn’t about motivation or inspiration. It’s it’s just about showing up every day and creating that space both mentally, physically, financially for the creativity to show up. And that’s what I’m going to talk about today.

Uh the first kind of of space you need is that mental space, right? Like I I have a lot going on myself. So, for a while, it’s hard to kind of disengage my brain to get it to that point where I can have a blank slate to think about things creatively and to to pull in inspiration and actually make something. And doing this vlog has really helped me have that moment of where I can stop everything else and freeze and actually make something cool every day. And for me, um, I’m today is the 20th day of doing the daily vlog, which is crazy to think about.

It’s gone by so fast and now it’s already become like such a part of my of me and who I am. And I I still don’t totally have like my space reclaimed just because it’s so I wasn’t taking care of myself or my space. So, I’m I’m still reclaiming that. But yesterday, um, I cleaned up my little closet office and set up the space, which really gave me the idea for this whole video is just is creating like a physical space where you can sit down and create. And it doesn’t have to be like a room or a closet or a table or some full crazy setup you can have.

Like for for a while, my creative space was like a large sketchbook, a small cutting mat, and a wet palette. And I had been on the couch holding a baby sometimes even. And just having like a designated area to that you can go to to be creative is key. And going there every day and showing up every day. Then I think a part of having that physical and mental space is something that can turn your brain off.

Turn your brain off of the worries and the stressors and the other things that you have going on. And what I do for that, as ridiculous as it sounds, is when I’m really ready to kind of dig in, um, I’ll light a candle or I’ll light my my olive oil lamp. And then from there, I use a singing bowl because just it’s only like 30 seconds or so of of focusing to get the the nice tone out of it without it rattling or without it like starting over and kind of ruining the buildup. Just taking that 30 seconds to not think about anything else and that repetitive motion helps me clear my head and just opens me up uh for that creativity to flow. That’s my my clarion call to the creativity to the muse.

And then also me personally, another big mistake that I always made was thinking about art from a financial aspect. like for a lot of my life I thought that if I wasn’t making money from doing it uh it wasn’t worth doing which is a terrible terrible attitude to have. So then uh for a while I was trying to make money from art from being creative from creative avenues and even still like um what I do do for money is still very creative still very much in the realm of like creative problem solving but I stopped trying to make money from art. I stopped trying to do things that other people might like and other people might want to buy. I stopped thinking about it from that aspect and I just made whatever I wanted to make.

So at that point my art became something for me and obviously I want to share like you want to instill feelings and emotions in other people. But the art kind of came back to me as this thing that I did for joy and happiness and for expression and to maybe not feel like, you know, and and by changing my mentality from I have to figure out how to make money from my art to I have to figure out how I can make enough money and as little time as possible so I can have both the time and the money to do these this other thing that I care out and keep this other thing that I love pure and so it doesn’t burn me out. That took like years and years of figuring out and I feel like I’m finally at a place where I have done that and I can do these daily uploads. Uh, so I don’t know. The lesson there is like don’t if you’re an artist if you’re younger.

Um, and I don’t mean that in like a dreamkilling way. Like don’t try to make you’re not what you do to make money, right? Like making money is a thing you have to do in most societies, but don’t make that like all that you are. Um, and it’s very easy to say that like I’m in a position now where I can say that making money is very difficult. Making money kind of sucks.

Having a job sucks, but there’s a lot of things that we have to do that suck. And if you can figure out a way to not have to make making art suck, that would be pretty cool. Um, so I don’t know. This one, I don’t really know where the channel’s going, you know? I kind of I like rambling.

I like creating cool things. I like the hobby. I don’t think the world needs more hobby tutorials. I think if I like do something cool, I can obviously and obviously I want to show you what I’m making, but I don’t really think I want to make the same tutorials over and over again that everybody else has made. So, in the background here, you see me working on this orc army.

I got all the actual orcs built and ready for rebasing. Uh made a couple of cool conversions, which uh that actually brings me to the next thing I wanted to talk about is like that feeling of being inspired verse inspiring. And I think when you’re starting out as an artist, you’ll see something and you’ll be like, “Oh, I love that. I want to see if I can make that myself.” And there’s that like emulation and like all artist theft feeling or like when is this theft verse emulation or an homage?

And really just in my personal journey, uh I wanted to see if I like these people who are winning golden demons or like great kit bashers and great converters can can I make that exact thing myself? And then after that it was like, can I make this exact thing that it inspires me, but let me tweak it like that conversion I just did earlier this week. Like I pretty much directly copy that dude’s idea, but just made a couple of tweaks on it to make it my own. Uh, and give credit of course, like it’s never good to just actually steal something. How do I, which is what I feel is like the next step for me in my creative journey is how do I go from feeling inspired and making something that I’m inspired by and then getting into the realm of now inspiring other people and making something totally new in as much as any idea can actually be new, but how can I pull something out of the ether that doesn’t exist into my brain and then out into the real world in a way that like I haven’t seen somewhere else before?

Uh, and that’s kind of what my goal moving forward is going to be is like trying to open myself up to being able to do that. One thing uh that’s actually hobby related I do want to talk about is how awesome these spell crow orcs are. Uh they’re still multiart. They’re still very poseable and interchangeable. I absolutely love these dudes.

Um I’ve painted hundreds and hundreds of orcs in my life. I didn’t want to paint a bunch of the same orcs over again. So I got these new guys. I got the forge world dudes. These are all going to be black orcs.

Even though they might not all necessarily be official black orcs, I think they’re all pretty close to count as that. And all of these orcs I’m very excited to paint, which is the whole point of this project. So, uh I’ll see you