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2024 Retrospective and plans for the next year (Long text...
8 months ago
Hello!
It's a good time of the year to reflect on events from the last 12 months and make some plans for the future. This year a lot has changed in my life, for better and for worse.
In short, 2024 was... wild. I started very hyped with my comic project prepared, story and panels written down and for the first few months the work was going smoothly. At the beginning of the year I went through a rough break up and drawing for hours every day helped me with my mental state, which decreased heavily during that time. I spent days without going out and doing anything besides work and drawing (don't tell me it was unhealthy, I know!) But at that time, it was the only way I knew to deal with the harm my ex caused me. And it helped in a way.
With a lot of time spent on drawing, I needed something to keep my mind busy, so I started talking more on discord groups, making connections and tightening already existing ones. It was a time of my first meetups that we continued throughout the year. With the first warm weeks of spring I finally got out of my cave and started walking more, and even found my favorite place in the city to go and just enjoy the views.
While I was getting my social life back, the time I could dedicate to art has shrinked significantly. At the end of may I barely had time to continue my comic. I REALLY wish I could still work on it, but seeing how much time and energy it took just to produce 4-6 pages a week, it would be impossible to tell the story I wanted within a span of my life lol! I stopped working on it completely in june when I found myself in a new relationship.
Summer was the wildest and strangest time of the year, with lots of adventures and trips almost every week. I felt like I'm not bound to my own world and stories when my life finally has some meaning to me. I didn't draw much and I spent all my time focusing on my own life and own happiness. I even started working out which I'm really happy about. This state didn't last long though.
The person I trusted the most has hurt me in an unimaginable way, leaving me in the worst state I've been for years. To cope with the mental pain, I continued working out and walking. Walking A LOT. 1-3 hours a day, just to not think about my life and what happened. At that time I felt like in the beginning of 2024, when my last 'friend' hurt me the same. I didn't have motivation to draw, to eat or do anything really.
I've just started feeling slightly better maybe 2-3 months ago, when October drawing challenge came along and I had a lot of sketches to do. It again kept me from thinking about my life and made me focus on art alone. Then, with no more art block, and a need of a place to escape to, I came back to my world and stories I had in my mind, and since then I worked on personal art for most of my free drawing time. That's why the last months of this year were so productive if it comes to art, and you can see it in my gallery! At that time unfortunately I lost my job, which also forced me to draw over my limits, trying to survive off of commissions alone.
How is it now?
I'm still coping with the loneliness, feeling of uselessness and inability to live for myself and finding happiness. There are days where I feel alright, sometimes even hopeful, but there are days where I can hardly focus on things. I still work out and make progress (it's so hard to motivate myself to keep going sometimes) and I still walk a lot, even more than before. I feel like it calms me down and helps me survive the current state. If the weather is nice, I go for 2-3h walks or go biking around the city, just to not stay trapped at home. Even in winter.
I keep working on my world and stories, even if I can't show the full story in a form of a comic, I can give you glimpses of what happens in sketches and colored drawings (and sometimes even short text stories!). Besides that, I keep working on Arvenian language to make it fully functional at the end of this year.
Plans for 2025
It's hard to make any plans for the next year knowing my current state, but I thought it's good to have at least some foundations.
1. First, I really want to make an artbook at the end of the year, after I got some interest in a calendar I made with my own art (I posted pics on my discord!) which wasn't for sale, but making a dedicated calendar and an art book with my characters and artworks would be so, so cool! To achieve it, I want to make at least one personal artwork a month (fully colored if time allows) and some sketches with the stories attached to them. It's so fun to do personal work, but!
2. I'll keep looking for a stable job to cover my rent and other expenses. I don't have a big enough audience to live off of commissions for a long time, and a stable job would make huge change in my life. So hopefully I'll find something very soon
3. I want to keep working out and walking a lot, to get in a better shape. It's important to not lose motivation to change, so I'm going to look for new forest tracks and places I could go to to keep my hype for outdoor activities
4. I'll look for new friendships and people I can share my interests with. It will help me grow as a person. I want to explore new hobbies, see new places and learn new skills, not only art related!
Some smaller things I want to do:
-I kinda want to make Eternal's outfit in real life, which means assembling all the pieces because I'm not a cosplayer ^^; But I've been wanting it for sooo many years!
-If I find the right people, I'll try to do some art collabs!
-I'll focus on growing my watcher base mostly on fa/da and discord. I like keeping contact with my watchers, although I don't have much time for casual talks
-There are castle ruins 15km from my hometown, and it's the point I want to reach this summer, of course by walking there! :D
-If I get a job before summer, I want to buy myself a wooden bow and start training archery again in the forest!
(if anything else comes to my mind I'll probably ubdate the list!)
At the end, I wanted to thank you for going through that long wall of text!
BIG THANK YOU For everyone who submitted their replies for my art questionnaire <3 Every reply was very helpful! If you still haven't done it, you can do so here!: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1.....orxzQ/viewform
Right now I'm much more active on discord, so if you want to see my future projects including WIPs, sketches and just rough ideas that come to my mind, feel free to join my discord!: https://discord.gg/WHx39eRdDa
Or if you just want to support me as an artist, you can do so on my patreon/buy me a coffee!
PATREON | BUY ME A COFFEE
It's a good time of the year to reflect on events from the last 12 months and make some plans for the future. This year a lot has changed in my life, for better and for worse.
In short, 2024 was... wild. I started very hyped with my comic project prepared, story and panels written down and for the first few months the work was going smoothly. At the beginning of the year I went through a rough break up and drawing for hours every day helped me with my mental state, which decreased heavily during that time. I spent days without going out and doing anything besides work and drawing (don't tell me it was unhealthy, I know!) But at that time, it was the only way I knew to deal with the harm my ex caused me. And it helped in a way.
With a lot of time spent on drawing, I needed something to keep my mind busy, so I started talking more on discord groups, making connections and tightening already existing ones. It was a time of my first meetups that we continued throughout the year. With the first warm weeks of spring I finally got out of my cave and started walking more, and even found my favorite place in the city to go and just enjoy the views.
While I was getting my social life back, the time I could dedicate to art has shrinked significantly. At the end of may I barely had time to continue my comic. I REALLY wish I could still work on it, but seeing how much time and energy it took just to produce 4-6 pages a week, it would be impossible to tell the story I wanted within a span of my life lol! I stopped working on it completely in june when I found myself in a new relationship.
Summer was the wildest and strangest time of the year, with lots of adventures and trips almost every week. I felt like I'm not bound to my own world and stories when my life finally has some meaning to me. I didn't draw much and I spent all my time focusing on my own life and own happiness. I even started working out which I'm really happy about. This state didn't last long though.
The person I trusted the most has hurt me in an unimaginable way, leaving me in the worst state I've been for years. To cope with the mental pain, I continued working out and walking. Walking A LOT. 1-3 hours a day, just to not think about my life and what happened. At that time I felt like in the beginning of 2024, when my last 'friend' hurt me the same. I didn't have motivation to draw, to eat or do anything really.
I've just started feeling slightly better maybe 2-3 months ago, when October drawing challenge came along and I had a lot of sketches to do. It again kept me from thinking about my life and made me focus on art alone. Then, with no more art block, and a need of a place to escape to, I came back to my world and stories I had in my mind, and since then I worked on personal art for most of my free drawing time. That's why the last months of this year were so productive if it comes to art, and you can see it in my gallery! At that time unfortunately I lost my job, which also forced me to draw over my limits, trying to survive off of commissions alone.
How is it now?
I'm still coping with the loneliness, feeling of uselessness and inability to live for myself and finding happiness. There are days where I feel alright, sometimes even hopeful, but there are days where I can hardly focus on things. I still work out and make progress (it's so hard to motivate myself to keep going sometimes) and I still walk a lot, even more than before. I feel like it calms me down and helps me survive the current state. If the weather is nice, I go for 2-3h walks or go biking around the city, just to not stay trapped at home. Even in winter.
I keep working on my world and stories, even if I can't show the full story in a form of a comic, I can give you glimpses of what happens in sketches and colored drawings (and sometimes even short text stories!). Besides that, I keep working on Arvenian language to make it fully functional at the end of this year.
Plans for 2025
It's hard to make any plans for the next year knowing my current state, but I thought it's good to have at least some foundations.
1. First, I really want to make an artbook at the end of the year, after I got some interest in a calendar I made with my own art (I posted pics on my discord!) which wasn't for sale, but making a dedicated calendar and an art book with my characters and artworks would be so, so cool! To achieve it, I want to make at least one personal artwork a month (fully colored if time allows) and some sketches with the stories attached to them. It's so fun to do personal work, but!
2. I'll keep looking for a stable job to cover my rent and other expenses. I don't have a big enough audience to live off of commissions for a long time, and a stable job would make huge change in my life. So hopefully I'll find something very soon
3. I want to keep working out and walking a lot, to get in a better shape. It's important to not lose motivation to change, so I'm going to look for new forest tracks and places I could go to to keep my hype for outdoor activities
4. I'll look for new friendships and people I can share my interests with. It will help me grow as a person. I want to explore new hobbies, see new places and learn new skills, not only art related!
Some smaller things I want to do:
-I kinda want to make Eternal's outfit in real life, which means assembling all the pieces because I'm not a cosplayer ^^; But I've been wanting it for sooo many years!
-If I find the right people, I'll try to do some art collabs!
-I'll focus on growing my watcher base mostly on fa/da and discord. I like keeping contact with my watchers, although I don't have much time for casual talks
-There are castle ruins 15km from my hometown, and it's the point I want to reach this summer, of course by walking there! :D
-If I get a job before summer, I want to buy myself a wooden bow and start training archery again in the forest!
(if anything else comes to my mind I'll probably ubdate the list!)
At the end, I wanted to thank you for going through that long wall of text!
BIG THANK YOU For everyone who submitted their replies for my art questionnaire <3 Every reply was very helpful! If you still haven't done it, you can do so here!: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1.....orxzQ/viewform
Right now I'm much more active on discord, so if you want to see my future projects including WIPs, sketches and just rough ideas that come to my mind, feel free to join my discord!: https://discord.gg/WHx39eRdDa
Or if you just want to support me as an artist, you can do so on my patreon/buy me a coffee!
PATREON | BUY ME A COFFEE
PATREON | BUY ME A COFFEE
DEVIANTART | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BLUESKY | DISCORD
Please don't send notes/add me to discord friends if you just want to say HI, I'm a busy person and I use messages for commissions 99% of the time. Thank you!
15km is quite a walk, especially both ways. But making some food etc. to go along could be quite nice. *prefers bicycle* lol
Vix
Best of luck in the job search, as well as your continued mental and physical health efforts.
I wish you a Happy New Year. :)
Hoping you can find a good job, soon!
Best of luck to you!