🍂 September report

Well, I did get some done despite my ambitions. I hope everyone’s September went better than mine.

September goals:
✲ Commission progress (0/2)
✘ Kinktober sketches (0/5)
✲ Upload sketch backlog (≳11)
✔︎ Aster, birthday bun

✲ Commission progress (0/2)

It’s frustrating to continue missing my own deadlines entirely due to mental health issues! But I did make progress; I am making progress; all I ask is peoples’ patience.

It is a struggle balancing my own personal high standards with the need to deliver client work. I want to provide the best work I can, but I can also spend days, months, years fiddling away at a piece to make it “better.” At some point you need to fully realize and accept that people commission you because they like your work, and you HAVE to let yourself move forward with the piece. It helps that I am genuinely having fun with it.

If only I didn’t also have to wrestle with these weeks of being unable to focus despite sitting at my computer for hours!

✘ Kinktober sketches (0/5)

On a similar topic, I’m upset I was unable to get down sketches for Kinktober. 😞 However, I’ve also been struggling to come up with ideas for this year, and lacking concrete designs for a majority of characters hampers my options. Truly, this just bolsters my desire to write more.

✲ Upload archives/backlog (3/~24)

Revisiting old work is something that’s meant to help while I’m stagnating on ideas and unable to focus.

The problem here is I fell to the temptation to refresh (or, in the case of some, completely redraw) these pieces I’ve had sitting around unpublished. For smaller touch ups, I simply wanted to update Aster’s design, or add in my signature, or tweak areas of anatomy. For the others…

It took far more effort to redraw this sketch (originally done at the beginning of last year) than it would’ve to do simple touch ups, but in the end there was too much that sat ill with me, and I couldn’t resist having another go. In fact, the only lines I kept from the original are for Carnelian’s head, and even there the only part left completely untouched is his hat.

Besides updating the piece to his current design, Aster’s pose was completely shifted around to better suit the narrative of a rough, impromptu fuck. His legs are kept together, loosely bound by his own pants round his knees; his hands press at the boundaries of the space; and his face is cast in shadow to play with the clandestine nature of the encounter.

But that is perhaps more detail than I need to get into! I just think it is interesting how much your artistic sense can develop even in a year. I’d like to see how I’ll improve by this time next year.

✔︎ Aster, birthday bun

Here we are, the single thing that went to plan. It helps that I managed to get a sketch down early and was reasonably able to estimate (within an hour) how long the piece would take to finish. (Roughly 6–7hrs, for anyone curious, from inks to post-processing.)

I think I would’ve liked to experiment more with the colours and background, but, as it was meant to be a simple piece, I had to let myself run with quicker decisions.

I’m still fairly happy with it, and I’ve been surprised by the positive response it got! I’m glad a silly bun I find fun to draw can give others some enjoyment.

Goals for October:

◻︎ Commission progress (0/2)
◻︎ Kinktober [1, 5] - I sincerely can’t promise I’ll do anything for this, especially after failing to prep sketches last month. Perhaps I’ll focus on character design instead.
◻︎ Upload archives/backlog (≳21) - I’ll try for at least one or two a week to clear these out… This includes older commissions as well as unpublished sketches; I hope folks don’t mind ‘em.

I’ll open for one more commission slot later this month. This will be the last opportunity to commission me this year at the current pricing—these adjustments are mostly to accommodate reasonable pricing for YCHs.

Lastly, if you follow me on both of my accounts, you’ll see a repeat of this, but at the end of each report, I’d like to start recording books, movies, and music I’ve engaged with throughout the month. I think this is a compromise to my wanting to talk about everything but lacking the energy for coherent articles or not wanting to bother people. And I’m happy for any suggestions (or to just hear some of your favourites)!

Take care these last few months.

This month…

• read: Earthsea (The Tombs of Atuan – The Other Wind) by Ursula K. Le Guin
• watched: First Knight (1995); Casablanca (1942); Hamlet (1996); Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978); An Actor’s Revenge (1963)
• listening: “Albatross” by Thrice; The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me by Brand New; “Firth of Fifth” by Genesis; A Dark Poem, Pt. I: The Shores of Melancholia by Green Carnation; Arctic Monkeys; Maxïmo Park