2024: A Year in Review

Well! It has certainly been quite the year, hasn't it? I feel like 2024 really came and went, and it feels completely wrong to me that 2025 is but a day away. That being said, I am very proud of what I've accomplished here in this past year, so I hope you won't mind some of my ramblings as I reflect on the things that happened in 2024. Incidentally, I think this may also be my first post of this nature which wasn't content or some sort of update/informational post, so if you wish to skip all of the extra stuff, basically I'm very thankful for the support and love I've received for my character cards, and I look forward to starting again strong in the new year to further refine and improve my abilities and style! Now, it's time for me to start rambling!

It's pretty crazy to me that at the start of this year, my patreon and overall support was less than half of what it is now. Granted, when I look back at my old works, it does make sense; I feel that the quality of my stuff back then was noticeably lower than it is now. Of course, growth happens over time, but I distinctly remember thinking to myself back then, that "Hm, I feel as if my style has plateaued and I won't improve any further." In retrospect, it was a bit of a silly thought but not one I don't continue to feel today. Every time I make a new character, I think to myself, "There's no way I can make something better than that..." Often times, that might be true for a few weeks or even months, but then inevitably I do manage to make something I can be proud of. I wonder if this is how other creators feel, sometimes thinking that they've peaked in terms of their character creation abilities. It's a funny thing. I feel like creating characters in Honey Select actually doesn't have a limit in terms of how good it can look. Or at least, not one that is realistically achievable for most people, myself included. Because of that, I can only hope that in my case, if that time actually comes where my characters cannot improve any further due to my lack of ability, that I'll have either found something else to further improve on or branched off into something like mod creation. I'm not sure that would ever happen, honestly, because my passion really is in making the cutest and most beautiful characters possible. But that's probably fine, since I doubt I will ever reach a point where I feel there is nothing else I can improve upon. I've thought that I've hit the end of the road time and time again, but without fail I always realize my naivety in thinking that. So, all of that to say, I fully expect to continue strong for another year, and likely years to come. For those who have joined me on my journey, thank you so much for tagging along. I hope you'll continue to support me in the future!

What else happened this year? I tried a bit more to market myself and share my characters around. I shamelessly posted a bit more in discord servers, and also created a pixiv account which has garnered a small bit of attention. And in growing my patreon, I've made money in a hobby I only ever partook in for fun. I've had mixed feelings about doing this, and so I hope you'll indulge me as I use this post to mull over it a bit publicly and share a bit of my own situation.

I'm very fortunate to have a good job and the means to support myself financially. So having a patreon and supporters for making characters is very much a luxury and a bonus for myself. I've often felt some moral quandary about taking money in exchange for my work, because I do technically have the means to simply release them for free and for fun. In some ways, I justify it as a means to further improve my craft; I use the money I make from patreon to invest into other mod creators, which helps me make higher quality characters. But sometimes, it still feels like to some extent that I'm taking money I don't really need. Honestly, there's not much reason to me typing this all out, because ultimately I do think that the amount of time and effort I put into my characters is worth something. And if you'll excuse a bit of my own ego here, I do think my girls are of a high enough quality that they are worth spending money for, especially given the payment model that patreon enables me to use. I highly doubt I'll change the way it currently works anytime soon, where being a subscriber gives access to all my cards so long as you have the patience to go back through every post and find what you like. To that end, if you aren't a member of my Discord server, that might be its best use, which is an easy way to see every release and a link directly to it.

Speaking of Discord, I didn't start it in 2024, but it certainly kind of feels like I did. I originally made it because I had a desire to interact more closely and personally with my supporters and fans of my work, but it definitely didn't quite work out that way, did it? One thing I've wanted, since the day I started making characters, was to make friends who shared the passion for making girls like I did. I've tried chatting with people here and there, and I have made a few friends here that I really enjoy talking to! But I'm always looking for more, which is why I was quite hopeful with the server as a place to interact. Part of me still hopes that it might become like that in the future, but as of now I think it mainly serves as an easy way to keep my releases and commissions organized.

And that's the next thing, commissions! I think it was a lot of fun to open them up because most people who enjoy my work probably like the same types of girls and aesthetics as I do. I'm somewhat surprised it hasn't been utilized more by my patrons, but it might be better that it's not. I think I'm still trying to figure out a good way to handle them, because as of now there's no limits on commissions and it's mostly being sustained by an honor system of only one per patron. I don't always enjoy the commissions as much, so I may want to shift it away from a guaranteed commission and more towards suggestions, as I'm very happy to make stuff that I think I will also like, but that feels a bit too wishy washy and honestly, I don't think I got a single regular suggestion in the past year and a half. Ideally, I would love a thriving community with close friends and supporters who share our works and ideas. Maybe that's a bit unrealistic, but a girl can dream, can't she?

We also stopped doing polls this year, something that marked a significant departure from my original way of doing things. I always love making concepts and themes and applying it across a variety of characters. I had a few favorites, as I'm sure you're all aware, like bunny girls and idols. I do sometimes miss it, but pumping out 8+ characters for every release was not super feasible, and I think it's apparent that the quality of my characters suffered as a result. I also wasn't able to give each character more of a personality, something I quite enjoy thinking about. If anything, the last few months of 2024 showed that perhaps I was right in assuming you all would want more specific characters of a higher quality and with more of a backstory/personality. So that's what I'll hope to continue doing in the future too!

Lastly, I'm not sure how relevant this is to my fans, but there's always the question of how explicit and naughty my content should be. I have no doubt that if I leaned hard into the sexy side of things, I would be able to appeal to more people. But animations are not my strong suit, and there are already incredible creators out there who eclipse me in a heartbeat when it comes to that. While it's something I wouldn't mind adding to my arsenal, I'm personally not the biggest fan of constant naughty content. Of course, sometimes when I'm in the mood, I've created it before, but generally speaking what I enjoy the most is crafting cute girls. Obviously, I give them sexy bodies and sometimes very skimpy outfits because I think they look good, but that still feels somewhat different than going all the way into the sex. That's for a few reasons, actually, one of them being that when it comes to explicit content, there are any number of kinks and fantasies which are different for everyone. I feel it is much harder to cater to this side of the community since everyone has different tastes, myself included. Sometimes I wonder that my own works would be far too hardcore for my normal fans and would alienate them completely, and other times I worry that creating porn of any kind would kind of ruin my image. So I guess this is something I would love to hear feedback from the community on, because if it's something that people are interested in, I want to help provide the sorts of things that people want to see. But I wouldn't want to hurt the image that people have of me, so I suppose I've been at a bit of a loss for this topic. Nonetheless, I know for sure I will continue making my girls as I always have, and for the chance to do that you have my thanks.

If you've read this far, congratulations! You don't win anything, but you should be proud that you have a better attention span than most people seem to nowadays. I really just want to thank you all for a wonderful 2024, and I eagerly look forward to providing more content in the coming year. I've thoroughly enjoyed being a creator here, and though I took a bit of a vacation these past few weeks, I promise I've got more things planned and more stuff in the works. As always, don't be a stranger, and my DMs and server are always open. I'd love to hear and talk to you! Thank you for a wonderful year, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one! I hope you all have had great years as well, and a lovely time with the holidays regardless of where you are and what you celebrate. Let's go into 2025 with positivity and make it a great one! And I hope you're as excited as I am for many more cute, sexy and pretty girls to come!

-Honoka <3