concoction

End of Year Life/Art Update

Added 2021-12-20 18:00:08 +0000 UTC

TLDR; New art coming in January, I went through some messed up stuff this year, art schedule for next year is highly uncertain.

Greetings y'all, I hope everyone is having a good holiday season! This update has been a long time coming. I will admit that I have been struggling to put these words together, trying to keep this simple as possible but there's a lot!!!

First things first, I will be uploading new art in January. Yes, finally! I will be unfreezing the pay cycle for the month. I have a series of four (4) illustrations that, in total, are about 75% complete at the time of me writing this, and are tangentially related to the poll I took back in June.

My mental health is still tenuous, so I can't say what I have going on for February and beyond. I want to balance commissions and Patreon again, but that is easier said than done. This isn't the first time I've withdrawn from the fandom and my work, but if I want it to be my last time then I have to do something different. Break the cycle.

So I'm just going to be honest about what I went through this year because keeping it locked up hasn't helped me thus far. This isn't an excuse. I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me. I'm just human and I need to create human expectations for myself and my work. So here it goes.

[ CW: The following paragraph mentions mental health and abuse, skip if you don't want that ]

In January 2021 I had a full mental breakdown, and then it just didn't get better. I didn't have time to rest and recoup; I was still tied up in a big project that just wouldn't end, still in the process of moving, and enduring emotional abuse that I fully did not understand at the time. Then I fell into a rut in June, everything ground to a halt. Move complete, project over, but I was burnt out bad, and the emotional abuse was getting worse. I've been checked out since then. I felt like I was trapped inside myself, desperately wanting to draw, desperately wanting to stand up for myself, but feeling so helpless and defeated. I couldn't sleep, couldn't focus, I was having panic attacks. Managing my headspace and self care became a full time job. Then in October my abuser kicked me out of the place I just moved into.

I've been living with family ever since. Not to be dramatic, but this has been the singular darkest year of my young life, I have a lot of healing to do. I wish I could tell you that I'm back, that I'll be drawing like usual again, but I can't promise I'll have enough steam to make something next month. This upcoming art erupted suddenly from a doodle session with a friend and I feel like I'm just riding the wave to the finish line.

That being said, I'm gonna do my best.

Looking Forward To A Brighter New Year,