2022 Art Summary, and Year In Review (Patreon)

Hey there Patrons! Hope your New Years celebrations were fun, memorable, and/or relaxing, depending on whichever one you were going for!

I meant to get this out yesterday, but I was distracted, so we're getting it out on the closing hours of the first of the year instead. Just a heads up that this post will probably be a bit wordy as I go through everything, so if you want to skip all the fluff, I'll summarize real quick by saying that I'm proud I was able to get as much done this year and have a pic done each month (albeit with some finessing) with the severity of the lows that I experienced in that time, though I know there's a lot I could've done better. That said, I'm looking forward to this year being an improvement, with bigger art and better times overall, and I wish you a wonderful New Year as well!

Alright, onto the big part of the post.

I've alluded to it on the summary posts elsewhere, but this year had, unquestionably, some of the worst times I've experienced, notably in July of this year when my friend and roommate passed away suddenly, only to be followed by everyone else in the house getting Covid right after, as if to kick us when we were down. To say the weeks (and arguably months) after were rough would be an understatement, and the reason I had images completed that month and the month after was simply due to the amount of work done prior to his passing. Like I said, there was some finessing. 

But while that was certainly the lowest I've felt, there were other (thankfully lesser) lows this year as well. The Macro March series, while overall a success, led to a pretty severe burnout, simply because I had overestimated the scope I was capable of sustaining. The drop in productivity afterwards has always been something that bugged me, and with the summer low hitting essentially right as I was climbing out of it, I wound up feeling like I lost a ton of this year's possibility, as it would take me several more months after to really get back into making art with consistency.

Though I suppose that's how life goes isn't it? We do the best we can with what we have, and sometimes we get blindsided by something we couldn't prepare for. But you always have to keep moving forward and pick yourself up, even if it takes more time than you thought it would. At the end of the day the important thing is to remember to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And I was able to at least stay somewhat consistent with everything, or I guess maybe I was able to give the illusion of it, if nothing else? I dunno, there was art throughout the year, I'll chalk that up as a win.

So that leads me to the Patreon retrospective bit of the post. I'm going to be blunt with it, I feel I didn't meet the goals I set for myself, and I don't feel like I met the expectations I gave to you as Patrons. Whether or not you personally feel that way may be another thing, but the fact is that I over-promised and under-delivered by my metrics. So I'm going to make sure that this year is better, and that you as Patrons, who have generously decided you want to support what I do, get some additional benefit apart from just seeing what I would've otherwise posted publicly, and let you enjoy a bit more of the creative process with me, because that's my favorite part!

So where does that leave us moving forward? Well I think January will be more par-for-the-course so far with how the last year has been as I make a push to get the last of things squared away and tie up all the outstanding projects and pieces I have that are unfinished and owed. I might try to get some more Patreon bonus content done if I can squeeze it in, but the majority of what I have set in motion for this month is so that I can set myself up for success in the rest of the year, both on Patreon and more broadly speaking. I want this to be something I can do sustainably, and I feel like I'm getting pretty close to being able to do that! Just gotta give it that extra bit of effort!

So it's been a wild year, for sure, but even with all that, it was still a pretty decent one from an art standpoint, and part of that is thanks in no small part to all of your support over the year, no matter how big or small, so thank you so much for that! And once again, here's to a new year full of bigger (in more ways than one!) and better things, both in terms of art and in the rest of our lives!