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September 2024 Check-in
a year ago
~Milachu's Journal~ Heya there~
Just wanna do another lil check-in. More updates on:
- the state of my projects & what I plan to work on
- what I’m thinking of working on
- any other updates
- and let any of you all ask open-ended questions you’d like me to answer.
— Projects & Plans —
I spent quite a while trying to figure out how to ship the remaining 2 dakis to Europe, but I haven’t gotten any closer to figuring that out yet. I checked out one service called Shippo that I thought would make the process easy, but it’s still super confusing. I need to reach out to more people soon for more help on this.
I’m halfway through completing my commission queue. It feels super good to be doing regular commissions after so long. I’m familiar with the process, and the pay is very reliable. I’ve completed 6, and I have 6 drawings left in the queue.
New Down in the Dungeon pages are being posted for now, but will soon stop, because more pages need to get made. I’ll continue making those once my commission queue gets cleared out.
I have only done one writing session for Pushing my Buttons since the last journal. A lot of irl stuff happened that made doing that hard to do, but I have hope coming up soon to do more of these.
— Ideas —
I’ve been thinking about Lantha wearing nothing but her big puffy sweater lately, the bottomless look is really cute on her. I’ve also been thinking about drawing some femboy Buttons stuff. Dressing up girly and being treated as girly is something he’s really into.
Like I said last journal, once the commissions are done, I want to start work on another animation, which I already have sketches for. I really like the reaction my last animation got. It’s still wild to think that animation is my most popular thing now.
— General Updates —
I took a break from doing commissions last week to recharge myself. I managed to clean up my place pretty good, I spent time with friends, I did some long gaming sessions, and made some really nice personal art for myself. All in all, it was a much needed break, and my time was well spent!
I think I should take breaks like that either once a month or once every other month. I think what made it a good break is I set some personal goals and I met them, but I also let myself cut loose and indulge in personal interests to a level I don’t normally allow for the sake of productivity. I feel really good with my place tidied up now.
— Feedback —
If you have any feedback you’d like to give or questions you’d like answered, feel free to ask. Suggestions, technical stuff, how I do certain things, if I’m okay with something, anything.
Just wanna do another lil check-in. More updates on:
- the state of my projects & what I plan to work on
- what I’m thinking of working on
- any other updates
- and let any of you all ask open-ended questions you’d like me to answer.
— Projects & Plans —
I spent quite a while trying to figure out how to ship the remaining 2 dakis to Europe, but I haven’t gotten any closer to figuring that out yet. I checked out one service called Shippo that I thought would make the process easy, but it’s still super confusing. I need to reach out to more people soon for more help on this.
I’m halfway through completing my commission queue. It feels super good to be doing regular commissions after so long. I’m familiar with the process, and the pay is very reliable. I’ve completed 6, and I have 6 drawings left in the queue.
New Down in the Dungeon pages are being posted for now, but will soon stop, because more pages need to get made. I’ll continue making those once my commission queue gets cleared out.
I have only done one writing session for Pushing my Buttons since the last journal. A lot of irl stuff happened that made doing that hard to do, but I have hope coming up soon to do more of these.
— Ideas —
I’ve been thinking about Lantha wearing nothing but her big puffy sweater lately, the bottomless look is really cute on her. I’ve also been thinking about drawing some femboy Buttons stuff. Dressing up girly and being treated as girly is something he’s really into.
Like I said last journal, once the commissions are done, I want to start work on another animation, which I already have sketches for. I really like the reaction my last animation got. It’s still wild to think that animation is my most popular thing now.
— General Updates —
I took a break from doing commissions last week to recharge myself. I managed to clean up my place pretty good, I spent time with friends, I did some long gaming sessions, and made some really nice personal art for myself. All in all, it was a much needed break, and my time was well spent!
I think I should take breaks like that either once a month or once every other month. I think what made it a good break is I set some personal goals and I met them, but I also let myself cut loose and indulge in personal interests to a level I don’t normally allow for the sake of productivity. I feel really good with my place tidied up now.
— Feedback —
If you have any feedback you’d like to give or questions you’d like answered, feel free to ask. Suggestions, technical stuff, how I do certain things, if I’m okay with something, anything.
2. How long do you look for refs before starting? Sometimes it takes me days to look for a ref or a series of refs to put together and it limits on the time I have to draw, which takes even longer lol
3. Do you have a tipping point? The point where something is too hard, taking too long, something that frustrates to to the point where you need to step back before I gets worse.
This time I wanna asked maybe 1 or 2 thing about how you do things, wanna see if I can change up my style
HYD1. How do you practice everyday, like always practicing drawing? I guess what do you draw like an object, your ocs, different scenes or background, irl places?
HYD2. How do you or if you need to, draw a complicated character into your style that is simpler, like changing shapes or not adding all the detail needed? I was working on a character where the head shape was so weird from a certain angle that I couldn’t get it but looking at other refs I saw different shapes but I didn’t like that style
2. It depends on what I’m drawing, but most of the time I already have the refs I need, because if I am drawing something I’m inspired to draw, then I likely already have the refs I need. Otherwise, I’m drawing commissions, and the commissioner sends me the refs I need. I’m kinda curious what you’re drawing now. :3c
3. Yes I have struggled with that in the past. I sorta have a way to prevent that. So usually I have default/fallback methods for drawing stuff in a basic way (if needed), which tends to be basic lines and color and shading. I recently made a commission where I was going to try doing experimenting with a certain style for the background, but I wasn’t sure if the background would turn out good or not, so I set a time limit of 2 hours to see if I could make it look good. It ended up working out. But if it didn’t, I was going to stop after 2 hours and use a fallback method.
HYD1. I always love starting out drawing my own characters. I used to start out with just drawing pikachus. Then I made Mila, so I had my own pikachu to draw. Some days, I feel like drawing Mila, some days I feel like drawing Lantha, or Buttons, or Milo. If I can’t think of anything specific to draw for them, I will just drawing their head facing forward. I always feel like that’s a good starting point. Then I might add their shoulders and upper body. Then I might draw a different character the same way, or the same character from another angle, or maybe doing a certain pose.
HYD2. I have some shapes that I tend to use a lot, like circles as the base for heads. I used to turn every character’s head into some kind of circle shape with a sorta flat nose and round eyes (like pikachu). Over time I experimented with trying to draw stuff like muzzles, and now I have a default shape that I use for heads with muzzles too. It took me a long while to find the shapes I liked, but only because I didn’t experiment or practice more often. I still don’t think I experiment enough. I do it for only a few days each month. I know I’d improve more if I experimented for at least 2-3 days per week for just an hour or two each day.