If you have read my past text pieces, you will see that I encourage art as much as possible, and will support friends who craft their art genuinely. This skill is extremely important, especially now, where whimsy is being killed in favor of immediate returns and AI.
This being said, I have a personal limitation that I ended up developing a couple years ago. I cannot bring myself to draw people of faith without feeling uncomfortable. By this, I mean people whose work is tied to real life religion. Popes, priests, nuns, shrine maidens etc.
Of course, I don't feel this way when others draw them, and I will encourage them to keep doing it. This limitation only applies to me, and while this may change in the future, for now I have been avoiding depicting them as much as possible.
The biggest reason I have become self-critical about depicting such people is when I had to deal with a Bluesky user that had an "AI-generated chain-smoking sexy nun" as their avatar. They were one of those insufferable "Vote Blue no matter what" follow-farmers who would use this nun persona to gather more followers.
This user brought me so much stress when I added them in my public "Anti-AI moderation list" that I maintain, so that my followers and I don't have to see AI-generated pictures while browsing the feed. This is one of Bluesky's default features, and its usage is completely optional and not required to browse the site.
Despite being clearly labeled as such, they took immense offense at this and demanded me to undo this action. I stood my ground and refused, but then they directed their followers to harass me. This was one of my most stressful periods at Bluesky, and while eventually the dust settled and their efforts proved to be fruitless, this experience has greatly soured my view on religious iconography being used in this way.
To use religious imagery in such an inane way, causing harm to others and rallying people to engage in this violence, is as embarrassing as it is sacrilegious. This greatly upsets me and would also upset my best friend, a steadfast and faithful Catholic, whom I admire so much.
Even though this happened over 2 years ago, this still makes me very uncomfortable, and it's why I personally avoid drawing nuns and priests, even though they're a common and very much valid subject to draw, as evidenced by many comics, movies and all other artistic media.
Perhaps I'll warm up to drawing this subject someday, but for the time being, I'd rather explore things that don't cause too much mental anguish.