Community Update: Yay birthday! and a word on January...

Well..That didn't go according to plan

January actually started out really solid. I got a lot of work done early in the month and everything was originally on track to be productive. so lets start off with what DID get done..

The Oura comic is nearly complete with just a few pages left to go and the Main comic is actually getting pretty close to being ready to be revealed.

4/9 species bases are finished

set designs are underway.

The story is written out for 14 characters.

Rendering pipeline is being refined and I have a working path forward for actually making this possible even if it's a bit inconvenient. and some options in the future for alternatives for animations.

I also have 3 pages for the Oura comic basically finished. I've just had chronically low motivation and confidence lately and it's made finishing them feel almost impossible. Fighting with the feeling of "It's been so long that they can't possibly be good enough" but I'm feeling a little better so they should be out within a couple of days.

___

Later in the month though things kinda started going south. I got some kind of bug mid month but then the political drama hit in the middle of me being mildly ill and the stress of it all really destroyed me for a while...I've definitely been at emotional rock bottom for the past 2 weeks and I imagine that's for understandable reasons..

It's hard to stoke artistic passion and motivation when you can feel your rights slowly being torn away as your hopes and dreams start to shift from sharing artistic visions with the world to wondering if you will even survive another year... I haven't felt this helpless and hopeless since the pandemic and it is really getting to me. All of the stress and being sick also seems to have cause an auto immune flare up because I've been feeling absolutely awful..the brain fog and fatigue have been so bad that idle games have been too much for my brain to focus on at times.

I'm feeling physically better now though and I have been able to focus on work more.

___

In other news, the moo has made it around the sun for a 33rd time o-o

Yay for birthdays! Kinda feel like I'm struggling with them more and more every year though. It feels impossible to even comprehend that I'm actually 33.... I still wonder sometimes if I got mentally stunted somehow during the pandemic.. Like I feel like I've been mentally stuck at 27 this entire time and somehow feel like I'm going to wake up, back in my old apartment, back to having a 9 to 5 job. I kinda miss the normalcy and I really miss the independence. It's still hard to deal with not being able to do things the same ways as I used to. I'm still not used to having severely limited energy and focus. I'm really happy that I get to pour what there is of me into my art though and I am glad to have this opportunity. It's starting to get pretty scary though. Patreon and SStar are my only real sources of income at the moment and they are definitely not in a state I would consider "Financially successful"... I know that's my own fault even if only by circumstance... Being sick all the time isn't exactly great for retention of subscribers. Hopefully the new comic having something more to sink your teeth into as far as story and engagement will make things more appealing. I'm doing my best and hopefully over time as my skill with all of this improves it will eventually pay off in being able to continue doing this and not being forced to go back to more mundane and less exciting forms of money making.