Facing the Horror of Being Perceived

A behind-the-scenes look at creating an online course

My Domestika course finally launched two weeks ago, and after feeling like I’ve been shouting into the void, I’m retreating here to quietly write about it. Every now and then, an exciting opportunity presents itself that terrifies me. Over the years I’ve learned to put on a brave face, say yes and open myself up to learning something new from the experience. This was 1000% one of those moments!

Domestika reached out to me at the end of 2021, and I started the process of creating my course at the beginning of 2022. For the next couple of months, I wrote my first-ever class, created an original illustration to guide my prospective students through my process, and then went on to set to film the whole thing.

Both my parents are educators, and they’ve encouraged the idea of me going into teaching at some point (having summer breaks again would be a great bonus). I’ve only had the experience of giving guest lectures and portfolio reviews, but the little experience I have in education has been really rewarding. Taking a step as big as becoming even a part-time educator feels far away for now, but creating this Domestika course felt like a good middle ground to dip my toes into the experience. One of the biggest reasons I said yes was because I know a higher education in art isn’t accessible to everyone (nor is it always helpful). Having this opportunity to condense what I know into a course that’ll be available for whoever might need it was something I was really looking forward to creating, even if it would be taking a huge leap outside of my comfort zone.

I put a lot of work into making this course, and finally seeing it come out has been a relief and also pretty overwhelming. What a weird and surreal thing it is to see and hear yourself outside of your own existence!

✦ Writing ✦

I was given a lot of freedom in terms of what I wanted to create a course on. I knew I wanted to write a course on my approach to conceptual illustration, but where do you begin? Thankfully Domestika has a general framework for all of its classes, so I didn’t have to sit there staring at a blank page. But how to fill in the detail was still up to me. Writing a long and winding document detailing each unit felt super overwhelming for me, so I started in a more visual and tangible way by taking to pen and paper.

With this rough layout done, I felt a lot more comfortable expanding on each point in the Google Doc created for my course content. For each unit I decided what I wanted to cover, and I compiled additional resources for students to use, including helpful websites and tutorials, and document templates and program shortcut cheatsheets that I put together.

I’ve never had to talk or think this thoroughly about my career, my influences and my process before. Creating a course for others turned out to be an incredibly introspective task, and I’m grateful to have a record of that for myself.

✦ Pre-production ✦

With writing the course complete, we moved on to pre-production. I was really surprised to learn that they wanted my input in terms of set decor. In retrospect, it does make sense because every Domestika course that I’ve watched looks and feels like the creator whose work is featured, to a certain degree. I was asked to make a general moodboard of interior design, objects, plants and colors that I liked for the set designer to take inspiration from. I was a bit worried because what I like in terms of interior design looks really different to my work as an illustrator, but I had a lot of fun scouring the interwebs for inspiration.

I didn’t get to see the set until the first day of shooting so it was a surprise! I loved seeing the final set come together, based on what I had given them. I felt really comfortable in the space, and wanted to copy and paste parts of it into my own living room! The set designer also chose pieces from my portfolio to put in the background that fit into the intersection between my interior design sense and my aesthetic choices as an illustrator, which really brought it all together.

✦ Filming ✦

Filming was the part of this process I was most afraid of and unfamiliar with. I’ve never filmed anything on a set before, so everything at this point was brand new to me.

For four days, I commuted to the Domestika studio in Manhattan to film on set. I knew going in that I would be on set with just three other people, the producer, the director and the director’s assistant. The reasoning behind this is that they want to create a comfortable and intimate environment for the creator coming in to shoot without it being super crowded behind camera. I definitely felt that this was the case during my time there, and it was so nice to get to know them all as people too because we had a team lunch together every day.

The days spent filming on set ended up being a pretty varied experience! Looking back, it felt like we worked down our checklist in order of the most challenging to the easiest tasks and I really appreciated that. Filming consisted of:

Talking to camera: For the shots in which I would be speaking to prospective students through the camera, I had the course structure I wrote as a guide and I was asked to communicate those points in a natural and conversational way without reading word for word. We went through the course section by section this way. It definitely took some getting used to, but it helped that the crew was super supportive and I could redo takes if I didn’t feel good about it. 

Overhead/working shots: The easiest and most straightforward shots to film! 

B-roll footage: This was where we got to do some more fun and stylized shots that would be included in the trailer. The director Daniel came prepared with ideas that would work well with my body of work and the content of my course. My favorite was the setup of a shot inspired by one of my illustrations. This shot would then be overlaid with the illustration in the trailer. It felt like living in one of my pieces for a moment, and it was so magical! 

Trailer: Shooting the trailer was a bit different than the rest of the more instructional talking-to-camera shots for the rest of the course. For the trailer, I had answered questions that Domestika prepared, about myself and my work. In pre-production, this was then condensed into a script for the trailer. On the day, I got to read off of a teleprompter. I definitely preferred this form of talking into camera, and it went by really quickly!

Photoshoot: Once we were done filming, I worked with the photographer to take photos on set for promotion. I really loved that afterwards, I got to pick and choose which photos I liked the most, which meant I wouldn’t be surprised later on to see a very unflattering photo of me as the face of my course.

Screencasting: Production wrapped up with a day and a half of screencasting, where I walked through my process of bringing a sketch to final in Photoshop. I was set up in a recording booth with a mic and worked on my demo on the computer while making sure to have the screen recording as I went. Much like a cooking demo on TV, I only walked through steps as much as was needed to explain the process. The piece was in actuality already completely finished. With editing, it only looks like I’m creating it on the spot! I was definitely most comfortable here, just getting through the work and talking into the mic like I was hosting my own podcast. 

✦ Post-production ✦

After four days of learning new things every day on set and in the studio, it was over! I went back to life in my home studio while the team at Domestika worked their editing magic to put my course together and push it towards the eventual launch. The wait between filming and launch was much longer than expected, unfortunately. My anxiety had time to cool and settle, and then come back in waves whenever I remembered what I was waiting for. 

✦ Launch ✦

I finally got notice in June that my course was going to go live at the end of July. Before I knew it, it was the day before the launch and everything was finally happening! In my head I didn’t feel like I was nervous about it, but I guess my body was, because I couldn’t get to sleep at all. Being up early meant that I was still awake when my course launched in the morning, Central European Time (Domestika is headquartered in Spain). I got to peek into the videos of the finished course for the first time. This definitely did nothing to calm my anxiety about launch day, but I was so curious to know how it had turned out! 

I can say that overall I am happy with it, but it’s really easy to be critical of all the tiny things that pop up when watching a recorded version of yourself. I still haven’t made it all the way through, but I will… eventually. I had to tell myself to stop stressing about how others might perceive me (much easier said than done) and went on to launch it as planned on social media.

The reception from friends, family and complete strangers has been so wonderful. It’s easy to be your own harshest critic, so I’m really grateful for the support system that I have to help quiet my inner demons. At the end of the day, I took on this experience to try to be of help to others, and to prove to myself that I could do it. And I did it!

If you’re reading this and second-guessing yourself in the face of an opportunity you’re afraid to say yes to, let this be a sign! There’s so many things that you can achieve if you just get out of your own way.

When my anxiety subsides, what I’m left with is gratitude. Thank you to everyone who supported me through this experience, thank you to my new students and thank you for reading! 

✦ Current obsessions ✦

• I finally read On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden. It definitely takes its place as one of my favorite graphic novels ever. The world-building, the color palettes, the blending of different timelines and the balancing of a cast of characters that I really cared about. The relationship at the center of the story! When reading up on Tillie Walden’s work and bio afterwards, I learned about The Center for Cartoon Studies and briefly considered pursuing graduate studies for the first time ever? I think I’ll stick to being self-taught in comics for now, but that happened!

• Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn’s exhibition at the New Museum, Radiant Remembrance is a must see if you’re in New York, before it closes September 17th. The exhibit centers around the intergenerational traumas of colonialism, war, and displacement and the intertwined histories of Vietnam, Senegal and Morocco. It was so transportive, and I was so emotional and in awe throughout the entire experience.

• At a party recently my friend mentioned MapleStory, and I admitted I completely missed out on playing it as a kid. Fast forward to now, I’ve been playing with our small crew for almost two weeks! It’s funny to be a first-timer playing with people who are reliving childhood nostalgia.