Bi-Weekly Report #33: The Bad One

It's time to rip off the band-aid.

A few weeks ago, I announced a funding campaign with my ultimate hail mary of bringing back Lonely Hooves. It's the biggest gun I have. So, how has it fired?

Uh... bad. Pretty bad. I've gone back and forth on embedding the chart showing my last couple years on here, but regardless the last couple months have seen me dipping down to less than a third what I was a year ago. You can look at the main page and see the number yourself. I ain't hiding it.

I've been applying to all sorts of places but am not hearing much back yet. I feel a bit pressed for what I'm even capable of doing, especially when my physical and mental state seems to be "distract me or let me sleep." Getting comm work done is like pulling teeth, because depression makes it really hard to be excited about things I guess, but that's fine because my intake on those has largely slowed down too.

Life sorta feels like a disaster right now. Nothing is working out, things just keep getting harder, and our resources keep going pretty much just to surviving as best one can on a shite budget and minimal will to stand in a kitchen and relate a little too much to the meat sizzling in the pan.

Maybe it's not just me. I totally spaced the last backer drawpile and nobody said a word. I think we're all just coasting through this trainwreck at this point, but all the same I'm desperately unsure of how I'm meant to survive it at this rate.

Let's... see what I even have to offer at this point, I guess.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The next Backer Drawpile will be at some random time I haven't decided on yet. Probably not a Friday. Maybe without warning? I don't know. I feel like there's no time where most of the people that want to make it broadly even can. I'll poke around.

Beyond that, ATLYSS updated, so I went ahead and released the Vivian animation publicly. Go feast, my children. I don't know if the update added any more eye candy that would appeal to me personally, but part of me is tempted to try and do something with the slime queen. It seems on-brand, if nothing else.

Oh, and I pushed the entire Ketirz.com site onto Wordpress and did a bunch of work on that. It's looking pretty solid now, I think. Does mean I've basically had to discard the redesign work I was doing, but this does all the same things with markedly less fuss, and at the moment I really need to be focusing on assembling a presentable portfolio.

GAMEDEV

On the note of portfolio work, I put together a page for Slime Forest to show my efforts on the project. Give it a gander and tell me what you think. There's a couple new things on there, but the most notable is probably this little goober.

The site work was really my focus this time around, but I did get the new art piece onto the game over screen, replacing the very placeholder stretched-out piece of cheese that was there before. Every little bit.

I'm also up to some shit, but don't want to announce anything until I have something to show for myself besides a lark and a notion. There's something I've wanted to try for a while now, and at this point I'm too broken down to not have the excuse to pivot what I'm doing. Stay tuned.

COMMISSIONS

Completed:

• Surprise Box x 3

• Sketch-A-Thon piece x 1

In Progress:

• Rabbit With A Hammer (very overdue)

• Haunted House YCH (part of me wants to marathon on this for a bit. that part of me is in direct competition with the part of me that just wants to stare at the ceiling and wait for my demise. Healthy!)

• Rarity Paizuri for Rowlet (has not moved this time or it would probably be done. I stared at it tonight. Just... gave it the eye. I'm trying. It needs so little.)

Upcoming:

• Thing for Aist (overdue)

• Vale Trading Card

• Surprise Box x 3

• Sketch-A-Thon x 3

Commission Me Here | Check the Queue

Not being able to stream because the internet keeps stuttering is driving me right up the wall. It's lonely. It kills one of my big motivators. It gets in the way of my stupid voice donation incentives. I want to find and kill John Comcast.

AND THAT ABOUT DOES IT

I feel very scattershot lately. Grasping at straws, perhaps. Trying to find my place and purpose in a world that has no need for me. I am nearly 40. I felt this way at 16. Some shit never changes I guess. Hurts more when there's bills to pay, though.

Did you know most freelance work expects you to pay to even apply for it? How the fuck is that legal? Vile.

On the gaming front, I kinda got back into Bloodstained after abandoning a near-complete run years ago. Started from the beginning. Just finished it tonight. 100% mapped out. Oh yeah, my depression's been feasting. It's been nice though. Finally got through the main campaign, now that there's two others and a classic mode and a bunch of extra stuff and apparently a whole other thing as DLC and an announced prequel. That's a lot of Bloodstained. I am playing too much Bloodstained. It helps me ignore my problems a bit and feel in control of, like, tasks and accomplishments and efforts and such. Games are good for that. Sometimes too good, if you're in this sort of headspace. Guh.

I should get Thralls 14 up and out for y'all. Dunno if anyone read the last chapter, but it's better than sitting on my ass being sad for days on end.

Hang in there, everypony.

• Sera