wolfmorphine

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Do you still visit your account?

Yes, I still visit my account -- maybe every two or three days. I also read all of my comments and messages. I just don't interact very much on here anymore. I rarely answer comments on my deviations or front page. I will try to respond to direct questions though (unless I just think they're retarded) and I almost always answer messages in my note box.

When are you going to make some new art?

I don't know when I'll next be uploading new art. When I get around to making something that is just for me and not for a client, I guess, and to be totally honest I really couldn't tell you when that might be. I haven't been feeling all that creative lately and although I still have lots of great ideas for new pieces, I just don't feel inspired enough to actually sit down and do anything with them.

Anything your fans and supporters can do to help with that?

Probably nothing they'd actually be willing to do. Most of the reasons behind my not wanting to bother these days are money-related. My primary reason for sharing my art here was/is to make some decent money and hopefully get more paying opportunities from exposure and whatnot. That's all been pretty disappointing to say the least. I make some money selling prints and I've gotten a number of very small, paying projects because of my presence on this site, but nothing even close to making it worth spending as much time and energy on my artwork as I used to.

People would have to suddenly either start buying a lot more prints than they currently do or they'd have to be willing to help support my art in the form of donations or something. Most people on this site seem to think that booty pats, favs, and empty cheerleading should be more than sufficient as far as motivation to create and upload tons of new things, so it would seem my fans and I are at cross purposes. Sorry, but I just get really tired of hearing from people who want credit for being my biggest supporter despite never having purchased a single print or donated even a few dollars to help me cover the expenses associated with keeping all this art coming on a regular basis.

Where else are you on the web besides DeviantART?

Lots of places. I'm a social networking and blogging whore, so I'm not that difficult to find if you're looking. My website link here goes out to Blogger where I keep a bunch of blogs. Y'all can see from looking at my page and my plug-ins that I have Twitter. There are some links to other places here and there. I just don't keep running lists of all my accounts anymore is all.

What do you do professionally as far as your artwork?

Nothing that glamorous. Mostly I wind up doing boring things like web graphics or headers. Sometimes people hire me because they really want the specific look my personal artwork has for their book cover, website, or whatever and I wind up doing some sort of original art for that purpose. My stuff isn't hanging in any galleries or appearing anywhere super cool for the most part... although there are some projects I enjoy a lot more than others.

How do I get into doing that, too?

Quit asking me this. I'm not your career counselor.

Will you at least teach me how to draw and make art like yours then?

No. I don't know what people are thinking asking this question, because I see it tons... especially in people's comments. Even if it were possible to "teach" you how to draw by leaving you instructions in a DeviantART comment, why would I want to? I don't want other people copying me and churning out the exact same things I make. Teach yourself. I did! Either that or take an art class like normal people, Jesus.

Will you make me something for my group, my website, my book cover, or to give to my friend for their birthday?

If you're willing to pay for it. You know... like with actual money. I've noticed most people on here don't want to though. They think I should be willing to do an art trade instead or maybe even just do it for free. Yeah, how about no. I don't do art for other people for free and if I want some specific piece of art for my own home or something, I prefer to make it myself, so an art trade really isn't offering me anything I want. Please don't ask me to make you stuff unless you're willing to pay me to do so.

Why don't you post any pictures of yourself in your gallery?

Because this is an art site, not MySpace. I'm pretty sure it's not Facebook or Flickr either. I don't want to be ogled all day and I don't care about being paid a bunch of empty compliments on my appearance. That's just not how I roll. Maybe if I were a photographer or something, but I'm not, so... no. I see no other earthly reason why people should care so much about seeing tons of photographs of me on a site like this.

Don't you write, too? What do you write?

For work? Boring stuff mostly. A lot of ad copy, web content, articles, newsletters, resumes, etc. When it comes to my personal work, I do poetry, short stories, and sometimes longer stuff. I lean toward incoherent, pseudo-literary fiction mostly. Oh, yeah. And I blog a lot about subjects I like such as food, astrology, and freelancing.

I actually meant to pop in here and mention this a lot sooner, but I thought I'd let everyone here know that I finally got around to creating a couple of "like" pages for people interested in following my artwork and writing on Facebook. I do have a personal account as well, but I really use that more for talking to friends and family or playing games, so I doubt it would be of too much interest to people from here that mostly just care about art or creative writing.

Both pages are relatively new, so there's not a whole lot to see yet, but I'm hoping they'll become fun places for people to follow me, as well as have a few interesting discussions on fun subjects. Yes, there are clickable links behind each of the names below. My current skin just doesn't make them as visible as I'd have hoped.

Shannon Hilson: This is the page for my personal stuff. That would be anything like what I post on DeviantART -- visual art, poetry and writing. I also have that page set up to receive cross-posts from my personal blogs on Blogger. I have a creativity and freelancing one, a food one, and an astrology one, so anyone who's interested in any of that as well, this is a good place to check it out. I'm also thinking about seeing if people are up for discussing art, creativity, or anything else along those lines as well in the discussion section. I guess we'll see how that goes.

Shannon Hilson Creative: This one is geared more toward my professional stuff and freelancing in general. I post some stuff about what I'm up to professionally and it's certainly the page I use to represent my company. However, I also intend to post resources and articles for freelancers (especially people who are freelance writers and artists... or who want to be) and other things along those lines. If you freelance yourself or want to know more about what I do for a living these days, this would be a good one for you to add.

As for some of my other accounts, I'm sort of revamping the way I do things a bit. I've been having some problems with clients and professional contacts who don't really respect my boundaries to the degree I'd like them to. As a result, I've had people who shouldn't be there lurking on my Tumblr, my LiveJournal, and a couple of other places. It isn't that there was anything there that I don't want people to see necessarily. I've just decided it's time to create some separation between my personal life and everything else. It really needs to be done. That was part of the reason I created these pages -- so I wouldn't have to tell clients a flat "no" when they ask me if they can add me on Facebook -- but I see no reason why other people can't enjoy them as well.