Happy, uh... End of June! (Patreon)

Hey, everyone!  Hope you all had a great month!

I forgot to make a post last month (cough and this month cough), but since I wrote this in June, I'll count it as a June journal entry!

I'm sure a couple of you saw, but I released the game I've been meaning to release for the past couple of months!  It's a little silly, but I hope those of you who played it had fun.  :)

Any Patreon news?

There are a couple of requests that I still need to do for June, but I'll get back to you guys soon.

Umm... I'll also post the NSFW/SFW polls soon.  Like... later today, hahaha.

Sketches/doodles will be clumped together in a single post.  Possibly once per week or two weeks.  This way, you guys won't be spammed with post notifications when I post low quality content.

Also, I'll be changing the way that credits for my projects work.  Instead of having to fill out the form if you want to be listed, I'll change it to having to fill out the form if you don't want to be listed, or if you want to specify how you want to be listed.  This way people who don't look at my messages (but want to be included anyway) will automatically be listed.  This will be mentioned in the monthly PM!

What's my next project?

I planned on making a comic that focuses on a demon maid named Astra, who slowly gains a sense of self and learns to appreciate those around her.

However, I'm not sure if it'd be feasible to work on that since I've been rather busy lately with Patreon things and commissions.  Don't get me wrong, that's great since that means I'm able to stay alive, haha!  I need to learn to better manage my time (which was a new years goal for myself) before I can start on the comic.  I'm in a weird spot right now, but I'll figure it out.

Instead, I'll work on a visual novel idea I've had for a few months now.   The comic will be more of a side thing, and will also be in a 4-koma sorta format so that it won't take too much of my time.

Sooo...  what would the visual novel be about?  Generally, it's about trees turning into girls.  Tree girls!  I thought it would be pretty cute (and funny) to humanize trees, so it's a pretty nonsensical premise.  The story itself is still in the works, so I can't say much.

There are a couple of things that I want to experiment with in this VN.  First, I want to either have the sprites animated with Live2D, or just the CGs animated with Live2D.  Or both!  But most likely it'll be the former, since it'd be kinda easier compared to making a bunch of animations for the sprites to express... well, expressions.  Secondly, I'm gonna try to have it without any gameplay elements, like with a dating simulator.  I'll... try to write a "normal" visual novel, where it's a story with choices!  Third, I wanna make an animated (badly animated) opening, but that's a huge step and most likely won't happen.

Once I get the basic idea down, I'll put down deadlines and will try to provide this when I can.  I'll have to think about it more realistically, since I don't have as much free time as I did when I was in college, hah.

But, uh... If you guys have any favorite trees (or plants), feel free to mention it to me, haha.

How are things coming along, art-wise?

Things are going... oookay.  I've been more attentive towards compositions and posing, so I feel like I've gotten a tad bit better.

So, now, I'm going to try to focus on colors.  Atmospheric colors and color schemes!  I think that's another thing I'm lacking in, so I'll try to experiment with this more.  I'll be mixing this up with backgrounds as well, which I'm slowly getting more comfortable with.

Anything else?  Possibly more thoughts on what made you pursue a career in art?

I've been thinking about how I started to pursue art seriously.  I don't think I've ever written about it before, so I'll explain it a bit here.

I started drawing when I was just a wee girl, and continued to draw ever since.  But, I never thought about art seriously until about two years after I graduated college.

Around October of 2017, I made a quick doodle of Halloween Nowi and posted it on r/FireEmblemHeroes.  Now, before this point, I was a pretty "whatever" artist and never really gained any attention through my art.  However, that post slowly gained traction and I was really surprised at how well received it was.  I know a lot of artists say that you shouldn't care about getting attention from your art, but honestly, it felt really great.  After seeing how much people liked what I drew, I started to think "man, maybe people actually like my art!"

That was probably the first thing that caused me to believe that I could possibly make an actual career out of art.

Another thing that comes to mind is my first Patreon supporter.  I started my Patreon around the end of 2016, just to play around with it.  I never advertised it really, other than on my stream.  At one point, one of my friends noticed that I had one and pledged to it.  I don't think I ever told them this (you know who you are!), but that really brightened up my whole outlook and also contributed to the idea of "hey, you should just focus on art and get way better!"

A bunch of other stuff happened between that and when I became a full-time freelancer/artist, but I'm too lazy to write out everything, hah.

Ending Notes

Okay, I have no idea what else to say, so I'll end this here.  Thanks for being here and supporting me, everyone.  If you wanna chat, feel free to message me or to drop by my stream!