HELLO HI it has been a long while since there's been any activity from me. twitter saw me early 2017 but then my online presence faded into obscurity once again rip (king has been a bit more inactive as well between either doing things for me or not having to be around as much due to myself being better)

i really do apologize for worrying anyone as on some sites i literally haven't had any activity in over a year. this past year was just stressful above all else; art classes from hell, even more mental health deterioration, dealing with distance, the fucking election, absolutely fucked up sleep patterns, and involvement in social things at school. and when it wasn't me dealing with these things, it was king. i can't thank it enough for helping me get through this, it deserves to have the time off that it's getting.

and on top of all this was the general anxiety of coming back to social media/art sites and having a ton of people waiting for me to open commissions or do business. something i realized during my time at college is just how much freelance work actually stressed me, and it's hard to explain why. Generally i haven't had any bad egg customers (who were bad eggs with me specifically) and i tend to do my work in a timely fashion, so why am I stressed?

something i came up with is the fact that the customers i work with reflect on me, and also the potential to start and break friendships following working with a customer.

"but chris, friends are good!" i'm well aware, and I do love having friends!! but i am very, very selective of who i personally bond with. and therefore someone might think of me as a friend where i just consider them a customer, an acquaintance, or even an annoyance. like, not to say anyone I've worked with ever is an annoyance to me and I haven't formed genuine friendships with customers!! I definitely have, and I cherish the ones I've made. but when that isn't the case, when someone has a different perception of me than i do of them, it is stressful to no end.

that and there was just so much stuff that I did for others and not enough time to just do things for myself. almost everything I drew before my break was commission work. i haven't been able to breathe and think clearly about myself because i constantly felt the need to please others, and it clouded what really mattered for a long time. like a legitimate concern of mine was not being able to open commissions because of my school workload, because i figured there would be a lot of potential customers waiting for me to open, and clearly that ended well (it ended with me panicking over how i failed to please people who haven't even gotten the chance to do business with me)

and that's why I've been so anxious about going back to social media and stuff. but i kinda realized that like, if i just sit on this for a while and don't do anything then coming back will only be worse, so better to get it over with and deal with my demons now

so with that, I officially declare shop closed. I no longer will do freelance work until further notice (and no amount of bribery will convince me otherwise) HOWEVER now that this weight is off my chest I can return to creating content again and focusing on myself again, like how i used to before i was so caught up in needing to please people constantly. and once I definitely get back into the groove of things I'll set up a patreon at last so that you can support my content or whatever and maybe have a say in the stuff I'll produce, not like a request but as a suggestion

I'll also continue to sell designs for characters, and also plushies at some point!! I learned to sew in college and I want to get some more practice under my belt before I start actually selling anything. And I might do YCH auctions with ladder features from time to time, so it may be possible to get art from me.

so yeah the long and short of it is, I'm alive, the last year kicked my ass, and no more commissions

i'm glad to finally have gotten this off my chest so i can sleep. tomorrow I'll post some sketches and stuff that I've done over my absence on twitter, and try to find more complete works to post here. if you read all this then good job sport, and if not I don't blame you bcos my attention span almost couldn't handle typing this all in one sitting. in any case thank you for reading and understanding, I hope to return to more regular activity soon!!