Thread by @vexastrae

Hi there!
Let's talk about #Nodevember, burnout, and making things for yourself.

🧵 🔽

A little context for what @NodevemberIO is, for new followers or readers outside the #b3d community:

It's a monthly challange much like Inktober, where 3D artists use node trees (similar to visual coding) to take simple objects and transform them to create unique artworks.

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There's an emphasis on math, logic, and an intense amount of thinking involved with node trees, a different caliber of effort compared to 2D artist workflows (we'll get back to this later).

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This year's Nodevember prompt list only includes 15 prompts instead of the usual 30 prompts of the past two years. This decision isn't unfounded, as it allows low energy/burnout prone artists to be able to finish the list, myself included.

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Burnout and low energy capacities aren't usually considered when making monthly challenges, but it's very common to see it happen with artists participating in them. It can be exhausting, mentally draining, and even damaging.

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To understand the severity that burning out in the middle of monthly challenges can have,

I want to share with you my experience last year with Nodevember 2020.

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At first I was excited to start the month, with me even posting a DAY 0 announcement for it. I felt like I had a pretty good understanding of procedural shaders, yet I knew there were people much better at me who I've regularly hung out with before.

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https://twitter.com/vexastrae/status/1322538989895778304?s=20

The first few days I was grinding the work out, making good use of the vector displacement methods @sai_charan_md taught me in a Discord call at the start of the month. It felt great at first, but things started to sour soon after.

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I started to compare myself with some of my peers' work, not only in skill level and execution, but also in social media attention and engagement. I kept looking at other people's like and RT counts, becoming more disappointed and envious of them.

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At the same time, I was also starting to become physically and mentally exhausted at the workflow that my daily artworks required, especially given the amount of effort and brainpower that went into creating my node trees.

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It was a tedious process of "think of doable idea for day n", "use lots of brainpower to make nodes", "render image (or in some cases, video)", and "publish" all within a 24 hour period.

There was no time for refinement, and no time for adequate rest.

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Combine that with schoolwork, a low energy threshold, and internalized feelings of inadequacy and envy, and I was in deep, deep trouble.

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I pressured myself to keep going despite my declining well-being, hoping that one of my artworks would be as successful metrics-wise as some of my peers' works have.

I derided myself for missing days because I was too tired, too uninspired, or too ambitious.

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At the end of it all, I made 22/30 artworks for Nodevember 2020; much more than the 9/30 I did in 2019, and much higher quality than the previous year. Despite the objective improvement, my efforts didn't feel gratifying or satisfying.

Instead, I felt awful.

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I had to filter notifications as much as possible, and mute entire hashtags, words, and even people in order to feel even somewhat okay about myself.

I still feel bad muting one of my closest friends at the time (let's call them K).

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It felt humiliating to have to take those precautions because I thought that I was emotionally weak and inadequate for doing so.

In hindsight, it was a much better decision than just leaving my negativity to fester without control.

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K was understanding of my actions, which was a relief; they were much more established and skilled than I was, and I didn't want my feelings to break the friendship that we had. I'm very grateful for them.

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For the next 12 months, my relationship with procedural shaders, and 3D art in general was fractured. The burnout I experienced in Nodevember 2020 didn't fade away as much and as swiftly as I would've liked it to.

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Sure, the art that I made the past year was beautiful and worthy of showcase, but I didn't feel the same enthusiasm making them as I did before Nodevember. Not only did I have less self-esteem as an artist, I felt disappointed that my art didn't have enough likes and RTs.

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It seems ridiculous to care about those numbers, but when your work and effort is shown to nearly 800 followers and only 20 likes and 5 RTs show up, you can't help but feel discouraged about it.

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Things became better with time, fortunately.

I started to have different, unique interests outside the Blender 3D scene. I discovered my favorite music artists, met a new video game community, and started to work in new mediums of art.

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I joined some artist groups, and was able to improve my artistic skills in different ways. Strawberry Jam revitalized my pixel art skills, and Eighth Plane helped me expand my horizons both in audio and visual mediums.

Yet, I still feel distanced from my enthusiasm for 3D.

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It's bittersweet, refocusing my interests artistically. Even though I did 3D art for SJ very recently, I can still feel a tiny sense of that looming fear that I might burn out once again.

This could be better, but at least it's something.

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https://twitter.com/vexastrae/status/1452737785392209928??s=20

What can we learn from the last 20 tweets about the artistic process? For one, it's about prioritizing yourself above your work.

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My experience with Nodevember 2020 can be seen as a cautionary tale of insecurity, misplaced priorities, and losing your artistic drive.

If you're doing Nodevember 2021 this year, do it for yourself, and not for anybody else.

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Could I do Nodevember this year and gain more followers in a single month than I did for the entire year? Yes.

Should I do it for those reasons? Absolutely not.

My mental and emotional well-being is more important than gaining followers quickly.

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I would like to have a larger following, yes, but I'm not going to sacrifice my health and safety in order to do it.

Grinding yourself to the metal will not do you well in the long run, especially if you have a low energy threshold like I do.

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I decided not to do Nodevember this year because I have other things that I'm more interested in, like producing music, or working with SJ.

There's skills that I wanted to learn this month, but I'm still opting out in order to learn them outside of a stressful environment.

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If you still want to do Nodevember this year, by all means do it! I'm not going to stop you.

In fact, I encourage you to learn new skills or improve old skills. Just make sure you prioritize yourself over your work.

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If you have to skip days, or mute tags and people in order to feel better about your work, don't be ashamed to do so.

It's okay to feel insecurity and envy, but the moment it manifests as harmful actions, it becomes a problem. I trust that you can be responsible about it.

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And if it's your first time doing Nodevember, you have a lot of potential to do well!

Even though stories like mine can be common, don't let it scare you; be brave and vigilant, for this is a new adventure! Don't forget to take care of yourself as well :)

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All of this may seem obvious to some of you, but remember that I learned my lessons the hard way.

I don't want any of you to experience the same things that I did, because I want people to enjoy what I currently can't. If not me, hopefully you can make great things in 3D.

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All of this advice can apply to different monthly challenges, such as Sculpt January, Mayterials, 36 Days of Type, or Blacktober.

Also, if y'all like the 15 day format for Nodevember, make sure to have your voice heard for other monthly challenges that you like!

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I hope you have a great time doing Nodevember or any other monthly challenge! Take care of yourself, and make sure to have fun :)

With love and support, Vexastrae

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If you're still reading this, feel free to check my art out! I'll have to update my pinned tweet soon, but for now this will do :)

https://twitter.com/vexastrae/status/1335637629543608321?s=20

If you want to see my artworks from last year's Nodevember, here's a Twitter moment compiling all of them!

Looking back, I'm proud of most of them, and hopefully you'll like them as much as I do nowadays :)
twitter.com/i/events/13337…

Some acknowledgements:

Thanks to @erindale_xyz, @curtisjamesholt, and @zuggamasta for hearing my thoughts about Nodevember, keep on doing cool stuff!

Thank you also to @LucaRood and @JonasDichelle for creating and hosting Nodevember for the 3D community and procedural enthusiasts, it's an honor to participate for the past two years :)

And thank you to K for being a good friend, and being there for me during tough times ✨