Hey lovelies, how's life?

It's been a hot minute since I've talked about myself in one of these journals. While I don't like to bring my own life's drama into things it's probably about time for my own wellbeing. To be honest I've had multiple attempts at writing up a journal since the beginning of the year and I've either scrapped them or only planned them out in my head. I'll try and keep it as concise as I can and I'll likely miss some thoughts I've had but whatever.

So uh, first thing is that the last 18 months have been crazy for me. I've had myself and the team I work with bust our asses for over a year to integrate the business with a new owner only for that company to flush the hard work and effort we had built up for the last 5 years down the toilet. It's gone from a demanding yet satisfying job to a tedious and unfulfilling job. If it wasn't for the fact that I work with some amazing people I would have left ages ago. We're now in the middle of switching owners yet again so either things will improve or I'll look for another job down the line.

In addition to that I've ended up losing some close friends over the year. Some we've had fights for whatever reason, some just drifted apart naturally in life. Either way I'd be lying if I said it hadn't had an effect on my state of mind, even if new friendships arise. It doesn't help that I've been slowly moving away from playing a particular game I've loved for years which in turn means I don't talk to the friends I know through the game as much. I've been going through cycles where I lose sleep, feel like absolute ass, lose motivation to do things, slowly regain that sleep only to lose it again and repeat the process again.

Despite that I've been trying to make some changes in my life for the better, and it's not all doom and gloom. I mentioned in a journal ages ago that I had started some healthy habits and I can now happily say that even if it hasn't been a straightforward process I've lost 30kg in total since I started and that I'm at a weight and waist circumference considered healthy by health organizations. I'm now trying to build muscle and work on improving my cycling endurance and times however they're requiring more time and effort that I'm currently putting in. I've also been trying some photography while I go hiking, although I'm quite new and still learning. Lastly I've been trying to open up a bit more with people in the furry community and make new friends where previously I kept a certain distance. I've met some amazing people that I probably could have met earlier, so I'm hoping to continue to slowly open up and talk to more people in time.

So why are you telling us all this? Well, at the end of the day the more I have going on in my life the harder it is to fit time in for drawing or even just enjoying the furry community. When I made an account of FA over ten years ago I purely wanted to draw round and large characters. I didn't really want my own fursona or character, I simply made one to fit in. In fact I was afraid that if I made one I'd become delusional and start thinking I *was* that character which is silly in hindsight. Now after all this time I've grown quite attached to my big, green Derg. I'm slowly eroding this barrier in my head I've had when I was a teenager that I cannot enjoy my character or anything related to furry culture out of it being shameful. I'm enjoying the process of fleshing out a world around him in both regular situations and ones involving growth of some kind and I really want to draw some of the world-building ideas I've got.

But before I do any of that I need some time to reset myself and establish a routine again to work on the art I owe plus the backlog of ideas I have. In order to do that I'm taking a bit of a break from uploads. Honestly this probably won't even look like a break as my upload schedule has been sparse but this helps me "shelve" the idea in my head that as an artist I should be uploading more art and more consistently otherwise I'm letting people down or I'm a failure of a content creator. There's more reasons too but for simplicity sake I've learned that I'm happier when I'm making things and I'm miserable when I'm obsessing over things. I've been doing more of the latter than the former, so lets change that.

The break probably wont be longer than a month or two but when I get back I'd like to explore series again (Think the charizard one I did) as well as do weekly uploads of just, whatever. Get back into doing suggestions and such.

I hope this is succinct enough. I'm flying out in a few hours on the first holiday I've had in years and my head is all over the place. I should mention that this won't be the end of me drawing inflation, fat or growth related things, there will be plenty more coming.

I know this sentiment gets repeated ad nauseum in almost every social media space but thank you to anyone who takes even the slightest bit of interest in myself and my art as well. It dawns on me every now and then that over two thousand people follow this account, and I think "God damn, I'm lucky to have that much interest in my silly balloon and blob characters." I look forward to making more, and making them bigger. And wider.

Take care of yourself, and I'll see you soon. <3

Tl:dr; Taking a short break in order to come back with bigger and better uploads