What September Will Bring [Monthly Update]

I'm writing this while listening to the Splatterhouse OST on shuffle so if you want some ambiance or tone to this monthly update I recommend NOT doing that unless you wanna set a completely contradictory tone to this newsletter.

Oh also this newsletter is super long and goes into a lot of personal ideas behind the creation of my art in a way that might be overly verbose or not make sense due to the spontaneity of how I wrote it. If at any point you want to skip a part of this or choose to ignore anything said you're free to. Also if anything here reads as egotistical or uppity, please continue to read on as the message of one of the sections is more about finding peace in the creation of art for myself.

Introduction:

It's funny to call it an Elephant in the Room when it really isn't? I've seen pretty linear growth since the announcement of what September is bringing and I'm honestly happy that a lot of you guys are supporting me through it. Either the men I draw are feminine enough to pretend, you're the audience I actually desire to have or you're strong enough to admit when something isn't for you but you want to support me in my creative endeavors even when the products don't align with your taste. Whatever you think I'm happy that you are sticking around if you're are.

If you've canceled your subscription in preparation for this, worry not I don't think less of you. I would never force someone to stick around and support me no matter what your reasons may be, either I'm drawing something you don't like or you don't have enough cash this month you reserve your right to back away at anytime and come back at your own comfortable level. Even giving me cash once is enough to make me thankful to have you as a fan.

Lack of Femboys

Now that the preamble is done I can actually talk about what this means. Basically I've been on a kick of both enjoying but having a hard time finding specific content in the space where people draw fat people-- And by that I mean fat femboys. There's a handful of artists out there that do incredible standout work delivering exactly what I want to see like Moi and Angel's Bakery, even Muda too, to name a few.

As you know I'm an artist that just does stuff on a whim, I create to create for myself which could alienate or bring people to realize more about themselves than they knew or were comfortable with through my art. This is a feeling that is incredible to me. I've had a dozen people come up to me and personally say that Yumian has inspired them to do more with their characters, making them more human, sexually promiscuous, grosser, whatever their take away is. I've never thought that putting a character out there that is just blatant fetish fuel for "literally no one but me" could actually have such an impact on the lives of people that aren't just close to me, but people who are fans of mine and don't know who I am personally.

What I get out of drawing fat boys, or thick, or whatever qualifier you want to attach to it, is sexual gratification extended to personal relief, double entendre aside. I want to really show people that, regardless of what you like, regardless of what you think you like, there's always beauty in something to be expressed even if it's not something that can be considered perfect.

The Yumian Rant

Yumian isn't perfect. Yumian is ugly, he's smelly, he's out of shape, he's pathetic, he's sexually deviant. He's a character that is complex and for some reason, one of my most sexually attractive characters I've made. You don't have to agree with me, every character I make is someone's favorite, even Swivelle or Hayasa. But to me there's something about a character that is conceptually weird and meant to be unattractive that just has the most humanistic attraction to him. He may be a character that is pathetic and even though he's a demon, he's human.

There's something about Yumian that you can connect with, or at the very most I see within myself. And sure I could design a female character to be like Yumian but there's something about him that wouldn't be able to be the same if he was a girl. Societal gender norms would be angled in a different light if you were to consider that character to be a woman, to me. If you want to think of him from that angle that's perfectly fine, I just think there's a lot of different things to be said about Yumian as the man he is. I could go into this and explain myself but there's a lot of differences between people's idea of sexual deviancy, hygiene, control in a relationship tied to the gender you are socitally. People are trying to break that convention and in a sexual space you have to consider that it's still there and can be used to play against people's conceived notions of gendered norms. There's a clear difference between a man doing something and a woman doing something that can be used in a way to stress sexual deviancy in a way that also brings to light reasons why this is a thing that might be considered taboo or what it really means in the power structure of the world. I know a lot of this might be lost on some people so if this sounds like I'm blabbering on about nothing, just ignore me and the next paragraph will probably make more sense.

Long story short, a small reason of Yumian being sexy is the fact that he is a man who is the way he is and that should be celebrated more from me as an artist. He is a man in a relationship where his significant other, who is a woman, is more or less in control of him. Something where if it was the opposite you can see it in a very different light and the sexual meaning behind it would be different! I hope that makes more sense!

Catering to a Fictional Audience

He's just been in my head since I've designed him and having those thoughts and the idea that drawing ideas need to be spaced out in order to satisfy this pretend audience who only cares about the women I draw feels untrue and unfair to me as an artist-- That's what all of this is actually about. Catering to what my audience might get mad at me for even though I have inspiration wouldn't be true to my character. I know a lot of you only like women, I know a lot of you probably hate seeing genitalia too. I don't want to cater to you. I acknowledge you're there and that a lot of my art is just solo drawings of women, but that's not my job. My job is to create works of art that are inspiring to me and anything after that is a bonus. I very much appreciate every single dollar I've ever received and will continue to do so, but my art is for me. If you love it, if you feel inspired by it, if you have it as your wallpaper, if you buy my merchandise if you support me in anyway or even feel a crumb of joy or hatred from what I do, that's all pure joy bestowed upon me and I feel incredible because of it. A lot of artists aren't honest about this, or maybe I just care more about my own mental health, but drawing art is amazing and creating something for myself and feeling proud of it is a greater feeling than anyone else can give me. This isn't to say that your feelings aren't valid, I'm literally just saying that if you want me to create some of my best work, just leave everything to me! I love praise, I love getting paid, I love hearing what you want me to do next! It's really nice! But if I had no one to tell me any of this, if the world were to stop and all I had was a pen and paper, I'm creating art and working through pure self.

And right now I want to draw chubby feminine men, or those who can be represented as feminine men, because that's what I want to do. I feel nothing but humble for having the ability to do so comfortably. I'm not alone, so I do feel a bit selfish having poured part of my soul out, and I know I'll never be alone-- There's a comfort in that for sure. I appreciate my close friends who have literally talked to me about what I create and really want to see me succeed. The amount of people who have seen Mochi Moshi who have said "you're going to end up hitting it big at some point," boosts my ego for sure. I just love creating and if you like seeing what I make, you'll love what I have in store no matter what I do and letting your sexuality or biases aside to continue to enjoy my work whether you support me financially or not. That's all I ask of you personally.

I Love Those Who Support Me

I always feel like I might have to shield myself just in case I get haters or people who do just downright think what I do is appalling, but it's never anything to concern myself with. I don't have people telling me that I glorify or fetishize marginalized groups, I don't have people googling a character's age and telling me I drew something I clearly didn't. As a person, as an artist, I just mind my own business and enjoy those who reach out to me and love the friends I've made just politely reaching out or having been reached out to. Blendo, Extruded Square, The Growing, Takamoom, dozen of Yoru No Ecchi artists, my friend who you've seen me draw plenty of art for, my co-writer, and people you couldn't even know about. There's countless amounts of people I've personally talked to who have been nothing but behind my art, as I've been behind theirs, and in that way it really does effect me beyond the scope of me doing art.

Before I made it clear I don't draw art for "you," I draw for me, but the amount of people who have seen the art I've made and connected with it has touched my life the same way I hope my art touched yours. I know this is all incredibly sappy and strung together in probably one of the most hard to really read ways but, I do want to extend my thanks to every single person who supports me. Even if the idea behind my art is that it's all for me, I share it because I want it to touch people. I want people to see that what I draw opens a window into who I am. That's what all of that means. Art is complex and has millions of meanings behind it, what you get out of it is as much as what I poured into it and more. So my art might be for me in it's creation, but on the outset it blossoms into being for everyone it touches.

Femboy September

So what is Femboy September about really? It's breaking the mold. It's getting me to really release everything I've wanted to work on without feeling choke-holded by some made up flow to satisfy people who comment "bigger" on a drawing of a girl who wouldn't be able to move. I've also been so pissed off at seeing how much little fat femboy art there is and I want to have people comfortably come to me and go "WOW! You're doing the thing I've wanted for so long!" That's selfish of me but it's how I feel when I draw it, I'm doing the thing that I wanted others to do!

You guys already voted on the first poll and saw that it was lacking your staple femboys like Astolfo, Venti and 9S and had a lot more indulgent pics that I would want to draw. I thought about it when making my femboy list that if I were to put characters like Grusha in it, I know who is going to win. It's going to be Grusha, it's going to be Astolfo, it's going to be the character you've seen so many other people draw in that exact way 100 times before because it's either familiar or you genuinely do want me to draw that character. You have the right to vote for any reason you want, but when I make these polls I try to balance them in a very fair way to see characters not get skewed into completely stomp territory. Okay well... Maybe I did know NiGHTS was going to win but come on can you blame me? You know what I like to draw.

The second poll will feature pretty much every single character from the previous poll and I'm debating even adding a new character to it because I feel like anyone I do add would make them win. Like if I add Moxxie they'll win, if I add Grusha they'll win, if I add James... That one is a tough cookie because it probably was so many people's first breast expansion scene in an anime. All that aside, I want to start making polls more balanced towards characters I want to see drawn rather than adding characters because I think you might want to see them. That means less 2B and more KAEDE from Killer 7, which I know some of you are probably super excited to hear. This also means that some polls might have co-ed rosters, meaning I will have a chance to have femboys win a poll. I don't expect them to ever win but it'll happen more frequently. There will probably never be a femboy only poll without a month's warning in advance.

Personal Life

This year has marked a lot of things for me in my personal life. I've had some low low low lows and some high highs. My mental health is doing rather stable and I've managed to make my workflow make sense. I've been balancing making merch with making art in a way that might be a problem in the future but I've been trying to manage time in a way that keeps my mental health stable. You probably never see me take breaks, which I barely do, but I can assure you that's not my problem. The problem more comes from the amount of time I work in the day, thankfully I've bought a stopwatch to help regulate my flow more.

Mochi Moshi

Mochi Moshi is going along insanely well. Programming feels like a lost mistress that I forgot how much I lusted over in days of yore. You'll hear more about that tomorrow as I'll have to do more work tomorrow on Mochi Moshi.

Free September Drawings

Right now I'm working on two new characters who will be added to the Mallcore: Hellzone relationship chart, and you'll be happy to hear that they're Ashley's adoptive parents. And before you get perverted about it, they're incredibly sexy and gay. They're two jester femboys who I hope you treat like the next sex clowns I know you guys all have favorites of. I don't usually like to say the sexuality of characters unless it's highly relevant but you'll see the two jesters frotting and go "Yeah...... Okay I get it." More on them on release. Oh also if you love Ashley you'll love these two.

The next drawing after that will be another Yumian drawing but this time using a fetish I've NEVER drawn before that I think a lot of you might not care about but it'll be fun to see the responses of it. I'll just link this video and have you guess what I'm going to do.

I also plan on drawing a friend of mine's femboy next month. That'll mark the 4th free image in the set of feminine men being drawn. The first one being the Yumian sex drawing I made this month.

Thank You

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting me, it means more to me than you'll probably ever believe. I know I said earlier my opinion matters more in terms of my art, but just think about what that means in terms of how I see my art rather than how I see you. I legitimately have had anxieties wash away thanks to friends supporting me or the one off comment going "every time I see Ashley it makes my heart flutter." If you aren't one to comment, comment on your favorite artist's works, not just mine. They want to hear something from you! It can be anything from "I like this!" to "Everytime you post it makes my day brighter." It helps. Thank you again for any bit of support you give to me as an artist, Thank you so so much. Have a wonderful rest of August and stay cool if you're in one of those heat wave states like Wisconsin is right now.