[STATIC] "Demi" (Patreon)

I have returned! How have you guys been? Sorry about disappearing. I have a lot to tell you all. Both good news, and bad news.

The good news is, Santa Claus is undeniably real! Checkmate, Santa Deniers.

The bad news is, I was mistaken for a Christmas Elf and kidnapped. I've been at the North Pole since late November. Conditions are pretty fucking horrible, I must say. The Elves are like a slave-caste, endlessly making toys. For me, beatings were daily. Santa was sick and twisted, and he was more like a frost golem than a jolly bearded man. One day I watched as Ting Tong, the Elf who lived in the cage next to mine, was fed to leopard seals, as an example for the rest of us. But hey, I was stationed in the Sex Toys department, so yours truly made some of the Bad Dragon dilds some of you guys got. 

A few days ago, Interpol actually busted down the gate to Santa's ice fortress and literally gunned him down in front of all of us. It was fucked up, but we're all free now. Unfortunately, Christmas is cancelled next year, on account of Santa being dead. So, I hope this Holiday season was good for you all! I'm waiting to be shipped back home, and using my mom's mobile data to make this post. So, I'll probably get beaten for that when I get back, too. 

-----

Real talk though, in actuality I've been doing a lot of thinking. October was a pretty disappointing month for me, I didn't enjoy making either of the gifs I made, and the response to them was a little lukewarm. I don't even remember the Hex Girls animation, honestly. It's like a blank space in my memory. Then, I helped a friend with a pretty big project, and it came out pretty nice. He told me how magical it was for him, and how all his peers congratulated him, and how he almost cried in front of them... and I just felt nothing from him telling me this. He said I was the best artist he knew, and I just felt completely indifferent. That was definitely a wakeup I needed. Holy shit, why am I even doing this shit if it doesn't make me happy? To feel nothing? I was like a robot or something. 

So, I just stopped myself. I told myself that I wasn't ever going to let myself be motivated by stress or anxiety ever again. I reevaluated why I'm doing all of this. It's like... I wasn't being the artist I knew I was, and now... I am the artist I know I am. It's weird. And it's not even a fucking subject-matter thing, it's a mindset thing. I've been taking things much slower, making sure I'm doing them right. Not settling, none of that. Enjoying the process. Another thing I've been doing is actually practicing, I've been keeping a digital sketchbook, and I plan on posting all that to a separate account that you guys can peruse if you want. So, I haven't had the sads like I had last year, this was more just fixing a lot of internal toxicity.

-----

What does all this mean, KYDE? Are you still going to be the dashing, roguish animator you've been up to this point? 

Yeah, absolutely. Nothing's gonna change about the work I make, just the process, which no one sees, is different. Something truer to me.

Are you still making that Frankie GIF? If you abandoned it again, I'm going to hunt you down. 

Yeah, I am. Just taking my time with it. I'm really happy with it so far, I'll be updating the Patreon with a WIP of it soon.

Sorry if this kind of thing is annoying from me. It's embarrassing that I haven't figured out this whole artist thing. I'm kinda just rawdogging it though, I don't have a mentor or anything. I wish I did though. 

-----

Anyways, that's all the uninteresting update shit. Who's this purple chick? Well, one of my friends got me this game called Lunacid. It's cool! I like it a lot, and it's cheap as chips on Steam right now. It's inspired by old FROMSOFT games so it has this PS1 aesthetic. It actually does it well though, it's not one of those shovelware games you see do this kind of thing. Anyways, it's dark, it's depressing, and this is the first NPC you see:

He looks exactly like my asshole. He's fucked up and ugly. I was hooked, it's so unnerving. So, I'm going through the first area, it's got spooky Silent Hill music, and I round a corner and see this:

Oh Dear Christ. What is that? Some kind of imp? It's got red eyes and it's looking at me. Well, momma ain't raise no bitch, I says, so I run up to this thing to fuck its shit up. And this is what I see:

"What the fuck?" I say out loud. Talk about tonal whiplash. It's a fucking little purple cutie-pie anime girl. Look at the Old Man again and compare. Her name is Demi, and she talks like a Banjo-Kazooie character. She teleports you to the rest area, and it's got all these zany characters in it. It's bizarre. One of them is Sheryl the Crow:

And like, holy shit, I'm trying to play a fucking creepy video game her, not get an erection. Her voice is also just terrible, I always thought "Earrape" was a tacky thing to say, but no it's very fitting for her. I dunno though, I still want her to wrap her scaly thighs around my face and lay an egg in my mouth. Like, I'm just saying what we're all thinking here. Is that so wrong? Is that so illegal? And yes, before you comment, I am furiously beating off while writing this. I'm pretty good at typing with one hand. 

Anyways, I thought I would lewd the little purple demon. I thought more people would like her because not everyone has exemplary taste in women like I do. One day, Sheryl. One day when people start seeing the light. Plus, I think Demi is the developer's personal OC or something, and this is revenge for the fucking horrors they put in the Catacombs. God, just awful. This game has genuinely scared me a few times, it does darkness very well. As you see in my piece, I tried doing shadows this time around. I'm happy with them, though they're probably not great. That's one thing I'm working on is... actually working on the things that bother me in my art. Like, shadows. It's bothered me for years, now. So I've actually been learning them. Wild concept! Actually learning things! I dunno, guys. I'm pretty bad at just doing things in general. So many of my profound discoveries are just common knowledge. 

Anyways, that's Lunacid. Y'all should definitely consider getting it. It's a pretty solid dungeon crawler. 

Stay tuned for more art, ol' KYDE is getting back into the swing of things, and this time I'm not going to fuck myself up doing it.