December, January, February

Oops. I. Did it again. Got lost in the sauce. Forgot to post here. Oh baby, baby... wait are those the lyrics. im old now im legally allowed to make bad "i forgot" jokes.

Once again just sharing the Hi-Res things because I forgot for so long. I apologize profusely. In order -- a village remake for Dawn of Corruption, Vivi from Final Fantasy 9, a book cover for a D&D campaign I was in called Time of Dragons (I am the small blue kobold monk), a pin-up dragonborn for Brazuldul, The Might for Dawn of Corruption, demonic loyalties for Guy9, a baseball pin-up for Iron99, and a lava dragon for Redmight/Felseek.

Things have been... Not good here. We're broke, and I'm mostly spiraling but trying to keep work moving. I'm also back in therapy, trying to assess why I'm so anxious all the time about work and streaming and such, as well as working on my own to try to rediscover some joy in art. So I've been playing with rougher brushes and trying to be more exciting with color, which I think you can see a bit of that progression here in the images in this upload. I definitely feel a little more confident with color now that I'm trying to be more fluid and less precise with it.

Goolashe also found some new sets of ink pens on sale for a ludicrously low price, so I have physical pens again. Means I might be able to do some physical media pieces once more, if I remember how to draw on paper, aha. Not sure if that'd be something anyone's interested in, but it could be fun and a way to get me away from the computer constantly. I keep telling myself to upload just rough sketches and WIPs here more, but then I get in my own head about it, and get too nervous to share them.

Mostly I know I just need to be creating more, whether it's in Patreon or just in general. The world's gotten... depressing. And outside of a few games, there's definitely not a lot for us to look forward to, it feels like. Which maybe means I just need to actually put stuff out there. Even if I'm just drawing large men. Which, aha, I know some of you are old friends from school and such, perhaps didn't expect so much adult work from me, of all people, but. Ah. I find a sort of... comfort? in it. When the world feels like it's on fire, sometimes its nice to just... make art that helps people cope, even if it's "shallow". I don't have a lot to say that's deep or meaningful, and I'm a straight-presenting white man -- there are better voices out there for anything I could want to say. So maybe it's okay if I just want to draw large men. Because fuck the world, I want to get off. If you catch my drift.

The world is why we have been pretty quiet, though. Goolashe is in both work and school, so he's swamped. I'm assaulted on one side by hatred for people like us, and AI art and technology on the other, both trying to crush my enjoyment of art out of me once and for all. I have admittedly just been spending a lot of my free hours just... replaying through the Final Fantasy series in order of release date, heh. Comfort food, and all. But that can't last forever. I'm trying to keep us afloat as best I can. The past few months have been "we are only -just- making it to our bills and that's it." Future plans have fallen through -- Goolashe's degree interests don't have overlap so he might be in for more work than expected, and my plans to get back to selling at conventions blew up in my face with rejections and emergency bills.

So here we are. Quiet, anxious, just trying to get by, painting large animal men and working for friends. I'm... very scared for the future. I've become very secluded, as my anxieties have gotten out of control, so I'm barely able to leave the house some days. So I'm trying to fuel some of that isolation and... "stuck" feeling into making more art, quicker, or at least in hopefully a slightly new, exciting way. I hope that shows in some of these.

I truly appreciate it if you've read this far in. I don't know what I'd do without ya'll's support. I'm so so sorry I'm not better for you all. I would love to just be one of those types that can crank out something every other day or so for you to look over, but. I still appreciate you being here with me as I try to keep our heads above water. Please, stay safe out there. Don't let the bastards grind you down. Keep your masks up; sounds like health isn't a big concern for people anymore. I love you guys. I hope to see you again soon, whether here or in person.

Peace. <3