Update - June 2022 (Patreon)

Off to another month! And a bit of a slow start yet again, but I have some plans to share ^^

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To start off with though, regarding that slow start… (I’m delving into some personal mental struggles here, so if you’d rather not get into that and want to just skip to the plans for the month, skim down to the next divider!)

In short, I’ve hit a bit of a wall this month, too much time spent trying to force my way through burnout and making things worse for myself in the process. Too many things on the to-do list and not enough spoons to deal with them, and me unwisely trying to just “save things for tomorrow” instead of addressing the bigger issue of having more things to do than I have energy to manage.

It’s doing better though! Kinda by necessity of hitting that wall, but I’m slowing myself down (on purpose this time) so that I can organize, make lists, cross things off… I do have energy to do a lot of this stuff, one of the frustrations I’ve had lately is that I used to finish a lot more in a day. The problem isn’t that I’m completely without energy, but that I’ve been doing worse and worse when it comes to budgeting it, spreading myself too thin and letting depression creep in. I can’t remember the last time I had anything really resembling a vacation, just the occasional ‘break day’, most of which have been a retroactive “oops I spent the whole day disassociating, guess I’ll say it was a day off” (when none of it was at all restful).

Phew. So yeah, it’s not been great. But I’ve had a couple actual rest days recently - even if they’re still getting a bit bogged down in trying to make to-do lists and such for myself - and with that realization that I need to be taking better care of myself mentally, my hope is that if I‘m more careful about my health and giving myself time to rest, I’ll be happier and more productive in the long run.

Being your own boss is great but it also kinda sucks, because you’re the one handling everything and it’s on you to know when you’re working yourself too hard…

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All that aside! TL;DR is that I’ve been pushing myself too hard and hit a point where I’m getting less done and taking longer to do it, so I need to relax a bit and let myself get back into a better rhythm.

it’s also my birthday coming up later this month, so! My vague/rough plan for this month is not only to give myself a bit of rest, but to try and work more on fun, experimental stuff. Obviously I still want to have something to share and show for every month, a finished picture of some sort + whatever WIPs and other behind-the-scenes peeks I come up with. I’m not 100% sure what this month’s picture will be, but with any luck, you can look forward to seeing some interesting experiments along the way! I’m curious to try some simple animating, for a particular example… (I don’t know if I’ll get anywhere with it, but something rough maybe?)

Besides that, I’m also trying to catch up on some client projects I committed myself to before the whole… energy crash thing. I’d intended to re-open commissions back in May, and while those plans did fall through, I have one larger project that should be underway soon (I don’t know if I can share who it’s for yet, but it’ll be another fashion project). While that will potentially take up some of my project time for the coming month or two, there’s going to be WIPs to go along with it once it’s started, and hopefully some interesting bits!

As for the commissions opening that never happened: they will, don’t worry. It just might not be for another month or so again, but for anyone who was talking to me earlier about commission plans, shoot me a message! I’ll be honest, I’ve lost a lot of information due to poor organization, but send me a reminder and you’ll have slot priority when I do get rolling again.

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So phew, rough time lately, and unfortunately not just for me. But hopefully you’re all doing well, and hopefully I manage to actually catch up to myself this time; it bothers me immensely that I keep letting projects fall behind and promises go unfilled (yes, I still remember that “skill fodder” Tharja project I did crowdfunding for nearly five(!) years ago, and yes I still intend to finish it), and it’s frustrating to me that it’s taken this long for me to realize just trying to brute force everything and blame myself for lacking willpower was having the opposite effect as what I wanted.

For once I’ve got a more solid plan heading forward, and while my brain is still frazzled and fuzzy, I’m excited to be getting my head back into just enjoying what I do… and getting to share it with all of you.

Thank you!