In a week and a half, we'll have been here for 3 months. Adjusting has been great, largely without incident, but as I've settled in, certain stressors and responsibilities have started weighing me down again. Particularly, my Figura commissions.

But I still have people adding me on Discord, asking for comms! Despite the fact it says I'm closed on the landing page, I've had something like a dozen more potential clients DM me to ask about comms. I'm flattered. I appreciate the attention, and I'm very happy to see people seek me out, and even tell me they like what they see in the gallery. But, it's also put a lot of pressure on me. I was also frequently getting asked when I expected to open comms again, and I always had to tell them I don't know when that'll be, cause I'm going through a lot. Some of them have been waiting for a very long time. Every time I tell a potential client I don't know when I'll open, my heart sinks a little into my gut.

Anyway, today I want to share, both to my diary and to everyone reading, some of the obstacles I face when thinking about my Figura comms. I'd appreciate some replies with advice or support, if anyone has any.

Job pressure

While it hasn't been, like, disabling, all of this has had a significant impact on my mental health. Starting commissions introduced me to the world of freelancing, I guess you could say? In other words, a job.

All that is to say, we've always been scared to death of jobs and the job market. Our friends are all neurodivergent adults, most of whom have their own jobs already, and I've heard tales of how cutthroat and soul-crushing jobs and job hunting can be. On the one paw, I've never been placed in a situation where I had to get a job - we were taken care of by our biological mother before, and now by our uncle - but on the other paw, there was always this pervasive feeling that it was never going to last. For years I've been struggling to tell how much of my job avoidance is "laziness", "ADHD", or fear. In hindsight, it's the latter.

So, in 2024, when I started making money off something I'm good at - making Figura models - at first it felt nice, like a little treat. A couple of payments that were truly mine, and even if they weren't much, they were mine. That was, and still is, a good feeling. But other feelings came up, too. Performance anxiety, for one. I've worked well under pressure before, especially on coding projects. But when there's somebody watching, somebody who I have to satisfy by making something good, there's this fear in the back of my mind that I won't be good enough. I'm glad to say that's never come true, but it does make the process harder. There's also a kind of social anxiety. I've always had trouble meeting people, especially strangers. I can get defensive and avoidant when talking to people I don't know. At times, I've become very shy around my clients, and I catch myself masking a little. It doesn't feel good. Thankfully, all my clients so far have been great.

Appearing on google

Also, a pretty important note: Somehow, I became the top result for "Figura commissions" on google for some time. See this screenshot from July of 2024:

And here's a screenshot I took just now. I'm no longer the top result, and for some reason, it's only showing the prices page now, not the landing page. But, my page is still one of the first ones you'll see if you google "Figura commissions".

This contributed even further to the pressure. I don't know the first thing about search engine optimization. Many of my clients did find me from a google search, so the further down I fall, the less chance I have to get checked out, right? I think I did a great job on the styles of all my Figura pages. Everything here is self-made, just like my models. I don't know how to make my page more likely to appear in search results, or bump up its spot. Hell, I want to make it link to the home page, not the prices page! It makes me feel like I'm fumbling around in a field I barely understand.

Community

There's another layer that makes this complicated: community. The Figura mod has its own community in a Discord server. It's got a lot of active users, and a large group of regulars. For a few years now, I've

lurked

in there, peeking in from afar, never engaging. As I said earlier, I'm shy around strangers and new friends. I eventually worked up enough courage to post a few preview videos of my personal avatar, which got a little bit of attention, but didn't make me feel like I belonged just yet.

Last year, there was a change to the community guidelines. Users who do paid commissions need to "verify" themselves by filling out a short google form. That day, I had just gotten in my car after a doctor visit when I saw the announcement. I decided, "why not", and filled out the form. Later that day, they approved me! This gave me access to an exclusive channel in the discord just for moderators and verified commissioners. I tried to participate in some minor discussions there, and while I briefly felt like I fit in, it didn't last.

There's also the issue of pricing. Here is my price sheet for Figura comms. I had all of 2024 to refine them and weed out broken rules - it is my first time, after all. I do think these are fair for the amount of time and effort I put in. My clients all generally agreed too, a few even helped me adjust pricing! But when I've looked in the Figura discord commissions section, other users' commissions go for way less! It baffled me. I've seen some sample price points advertised at around $30, $24, sometimes even lower! Could you imagine if I was the first person to come in with prices this high? I fear being received poorly, and getting rejected over my prices.

NSFW avatars

There's also the issue of explicit content. As politics started forcing "age verification" on everything across the US, it seems it eventually caught up to the Figura team. The team running the Discord - and, importantly, the Figura backend - made a new rule: NSFW avatars result in a ban. Now, I can see where they're coming from. They don't want players with NSFW avatars to show sexual content in front of minors in the same server. They're trying to do their part as moderators, and that's understandable.

But the thing about these bans is they're permanent. They can't be appealed. Bans prevent users from uploading to the global backend, meaning no other players on the global backend (which, to be clear, is 99% of players) can see one's avatars, explicit or not.

I personally think this is going too far. There's a niche but real group of Figura avatar creators who do NSFW avatars, myself included. If one of our clients wears such an avatar in a public server and gets reported (which is unlikely, to be fair, but still), their purchase could be essentially wasted for online play, only usable in single-player. From what I've read, bans are issued from user reports - so someone would have to see you wearing such an avatar in a public server. It's an okay approach, but I've seen evidence that the Figura team can search through all avatars on the global backend to find explicit avatars. I don't think they are doing this yet, but it's possible, and I don't like the idea of it.

Anyway, whenever I learned about this, I wrote this page about it. I was as informative as I could be, and documented the only way I could find to 100% safely use NSFW avatars in a local friends-server sort of setting. Later, I set up an instance of The Sculptor on my server machine, and wrote this page on how to use it. The idea is, if I ever do more NSFW avatar commissions, I'll point my clients to these pages and give them the proper warnings that the Figura team hasn't made easy to learn.

The deal

I actually brought up this topic to the "verified commissioners" chat with the Figura team themselves, and thankfully it went well. I was expecting to be banned immediately, but no. As it was explained to me, they're mainly concerned about content within the discord server. We worked out a deal: I can continue doing NSFW avatar commissions outside of the discord server, through my own website. In return, I will use a second discord account for all things commissions in the Figura discord server. This account also can't link to or refer to my website, lest someone discover my NSFW comms through there.

I am glad they worked out this deal with me, I really am. The people I talked to about this did seem friendly enough, though I can't help but feel this anxiety. People have been banned over using NSFW avatars. I don't want to accidentally reveal my website from my Figura discord account. It feels like a bit of a balancing act. Doing commissions from one account was bad enough!

Pacing myself, and setting boundaries

I'm sure we've all been here with this one. I'm a workaholic at times. I can enter coding frenzies lasting hours where I'll comb over every line and optimize as much as possible. Sometimes I'll go ham on the modeling, texturing, or animations, then spend another few hours coding it to play in game. I have trouble taking breaks. These have always been true for any time I enjoy myself working on a digital project. But, in the context of Figura commissions, which are kind of a freelance job, this can be bad. When I was doing these comms in 2024, I felt obligated to do these coding streaks every day, delivering lots of progress previews and updates to my clients. None of them asked me to, and, realistically, they probably would have been fine with waiting.

That brings me to setting boundaries. This isn't exclusive to just commissions, it's an obstacle I have with my personality as a whole. In social settings, be it with friends or strangers, I have a hard time setting boundaries. I often get gut feelings telling me something is a bad idea, but I agree to it anyway, either because I'm afraid of disappointing the person I'm talking to, or because I believe logically that it should be fine.

This is where it gets complicated for me. When I did commissions for all of 2024, I had that gut feeling of discomfort practically the entire time. I felt the feeling of my boundaries being violated, even though my clients were doing nothing wrong. It was like the work itself was making me socially uncomfortable. Sometimes I found myself people-pleasing with clients I didn't know very well. I think since these people invested money in me, I felt performance anxiety, both for the work and socially. I've heard it's just something you have to get used to, and that's fair, I think.

Computer-free

Whenever we accomplished the move to New York, I think I was finally able to take a break. For a few weeks, I hadn't set up my desktop PC yet. During that time, I spent most of each day on the couch with our phone. I did a mix of hanging out on Discord, researching DMV guidelines and paperwork for the move, and doing minor, low-investment code projects (yes, on the phone). And I felt so relaxed. So much more relaxed than I'd been in a long time. Honestly, there was a while where I kind of wished I never had to set up our desktop PC, that I could stay in this relaxed state forever. Of course, eventually we did finish setting everything up, and now here I am.

You're probably thinking right now, "Why don't you just get off the PC?" It's weird. I have reason to believe I have some kind of deep mental or emotional association with our desktop PC, and various senses of obligation or expectation. It's not just one thing, it's an association built up over years. I feel myself "pulled to" the PC. I feel this expectation that I'll end up on it every day, no matter what. Once I'm on the PC, our mind and body start to change heavily. Disassociation kicks in, and lasts for a long time. It's mostly manageable if I have something to focus on on the PC. For a good while after I "disconnect" from the PC - that is, stand up and walk away - I still feel this intense disassociation, so much that I start to lose balance, lose track of my limbs, bump into walls and objects on the floor, and more so "lean" than "walk". It's been this way for a few years now, and I don't know why. I actually have reason to believe it may be an unformed alter. It's something I'll have to explore moving forward, possibly with a therapist.

Anyway, I got sidetracked. The point I was trying to make is, I felt free off the PC. Somewhere in my part of the mind, there's a faulty line of code that equates "being on the computer" with being "socially present", which extends both to discord friends and to something like Figura commissions. It's very hard to explain. This causes me an amount of stress. I find I don't know how to take a break when I'm working on a project for someone. I feel so weird asking for one, let alone saying confidently that I'll be taking a break for now. I'm still learning how to set boundaries, and that includes with clients. This mixes with my anxiety about disappointing my clients. It makes me feel like I'm obligated to be online for these clients to talk to, and that I must sacrifice my time and energy for them first and foremost. I don't make this choice consciously, that's just how it feels!

Commission queue

There's also a pretty big question that looms over my head when I think about commissions. It's about the order I process commissions in. Do I do first-come, first-served? Do I do commission "slots", and how do they work? How do I tell people I'm closed, and to come back another time? Should I do that, or should I add them to a waiting list? Which is best? Which will leave clients the most upset?

I've asked a few people for advice on this before. The general consensus is, "you're the artist, you make the rules". It was kind of surprising to hear that. What I had before was that, I'd set my status to "open" or "closed" on the website based on how I was feeling. However, people would still add me for commissions while I was closed, and during that time, I would cave and take their request anyway. I'm a pushover. I get scared of upsetting people. This is a problem, my boundaries - that is to say, the "open" and "close" status - are being sacrificed, by me, as a maladaptive social skill.

Let's say I go with what I was doing before. I tell people I'm open. They DM me on discord. Let's say a bunch of them all contact me with a commission at once - like 5 or 7 - and I'm feeling overwhelmed. Should I then close commissions on the website, and take on all of them at once? Or, let's say that I write on the website I'll take only the first 5 commissions, first-come, first-served. 8 people DM me on discord. So I immediately close comms on the website, take the first 5 in the order of who was first - which may be a bit unfair - I tell them I'm taking their commissions, then tell the other 3, who did their best, "sorry, you were too slow by 1 minute"? If I remove the "commission slots" thing from my rules, then in the same example, I'd have to accept all 8 at once, right?

I'm also thinking, what if "send me a DM on discord" isn't the best system? Anybody could DM me when I'm not open. I've heard it's common for artists to use google forms. Clients fill out a form while the artist is open for a short period, then the artist announces they're closed and disables submissions on the google form. That's fairly convenient, and I like that the technology itself enforces it (where I can't, socially). Should I make a system like this for my site? I've also had in mind for some time now the idea of adding a dedicated e-mail sign up feature on my commissions page. I had a client ask to be notified when I open commissions, so I instructed them to make an account on our main website and subscribe to only the "Figura" feed for posts. That's such a crude solution, but it works, I guess?

I'd like some feedback on this. How should I handle commission sign-ups? What should I change here on the site? Will I have to cave and use google forms (ew) for commission sign-ups in the Figura discord server specifically? Have any of you done something like this before?

There's a lot riding on this - mostly emotionally, but also on a technical level. The easy option is to just leave commissions closed forever. To be blunt, we're very good on money right now, and I don't especially need the income. But I think it would make me feel good, strong even, if I manage to keep doing commissions semi-regularly and comfortably. And just because I don't need the money urgently doesn't mean it's not welcome.

I would feel much better if I could deal with this pressure, this anxiety, this nagging reminder that I have to open comms again someday. I don't want to just give up, I want to beat this. I suppose a good chunk of this, the mental stuff, is therapy material, right? What about the rest? Is freelance work always this stressful? Hell, I think I might have spent more time stressed about Figura comms after I closed than while I was doing them, now!

I don't really know what else to say, in closing. I've had all of the above thoughts and feelings swimming around in my head for a long time now. If you read all of it, please let me know your thoughts! Thanks!