Dear Notaly

All's well that ends well. Xaider has been captured and contained. Unfortunetely, it was only due to him falling into a food coma after devouring all the donuts in our humble village. Almost everyone is to say the least, upset. Everyone wanted the donut thief punished. So he got punished. He is now standing in the middle of the town, in wooden handuffs, right next to my beehives. Or I guess he's so fat that he's technically laying on his giant gut. He doesn't have any capacity of standing anymore, not with this many donuts inside him. We also put a face-cage on him, so he can't suck up or eat anything on his own.

The people are happy, knowing their donuts are now safe. They enjoy walking by the caught criminal and having a chuckle at his expense. Calling him fat and saying he got what he signed up for. You and me both know that the glutton is enjoying those more than he should. He would boast about his size to the residents, if not for the fact that ocassional burps and the sensations of being undeniably fat are getting in the way. I really don't think he learned anything.

That's why he's not getting released, ever. He's a shapeshifter, he can get out of there on his own. But in order for him to do that, he needs to change forms, and put a stop to him being a donut sucking machine. When he changes back, he will get out of the donut frenzy and he won't do it again..... hopefully. At least not immediately after, please....

There are some residents of the town, which are somehow fascinated with the giant size of Xaider's gut. Particularly one certain white spider (I think their name's  okatotf or something). I swear they visit him more than me, and Xaider's my roommate! They don't interact with him, just approach the Job-board you set up, and pretend to be choosing a task to do, while very obviously gaping at Xaider's bloated gut. At least I gotta admire their attempts to hide it, even if they are, well, not good. I swear, I even saw them blushing once. I better not tell Xaider about them. He's never going to give me a break once he finds out, that there's someone out there mesmorised by their gluttony. Good thing Xaider has no eyes in this form.

So, Notaly, even if you didn't respond a single time, to any of my letters. I greately appreciate your assitence with helping me put a stop to Xaider's donut frenzy. I hope he'll be back to normal by the time you return from your vacation.

Your beloved beekeeper,
Shlaim

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This was a doozy to draw. I really went all out on this one. trying out and experimenting with what would happen if I were to do something more polished and "realistic" if that makes sense. Even if it is still cartoony, I think it's closer to realistic stuff than the few previous things I posted. Cartoony stuff is just the best tho, so I doubt I'll ever be going full out realistic :D

I like how this came out, I feel like I got the weight of Xaider weighing down on the wooden cuffs and bringing them to a snapping point really well. But I do not know whether I will be drawing stuff this complex in the future. It took me like 10 hours or more total to get this finished. I'm sure I'm gonna get faster with it over time, but I think I'd rather do stuff that takes 2 times less time to make, but still serves the idea justice. I wanna explore more concepts and ideas, rather than spending tons of times polishing one up.
I haven't yet found a nice balance, with how much effort I wanna put into drawings, and where there's a point of "enough". I'll be experimenting with it. Seeing how much shading I actually want, and whether I want any at all. After all, there are so many ways to make just simple flat colors look so good. And some of my favourite stuff out there, is simply black and white! So I don't need immaculate shading or quality to create something meaningful.

I do not know how often will I post stuff. It might be super infrequent or super frequent depending on time of my life. The upcoming perioud will roly have no posts at all, but who knows what will happen later. It's not like I don't have ideas. It's just that there is more stuff I wanna do than just art. I've got games to make, stories to tell, experience to share, and shtuff like that. So for the time being, enjoy this absurd glutton of a spider! BOUURPP!