August Update ?

Shown above:
? Modern Day Yzamor Map; shown are current areas occupied by the Ick'rah Republic [white], Panaratikx [red], & Free Territories [green]. The Black Canyon [grey] is rumored to have ??????????????????? {redacted}. Surrounding islands [blue] are Ch'ei territories. Land used for trading & import/export [yellow] are shared between Free Territories and the Panar'.
• made around mid-late 2018. resolution: 5100 x 3800 px

_________________________________________________________

Good afternoon yall ?

I hope you all have been well. July was a bit of a doozy, huh? It felt like I blinked and then it was over. Despite it's apparent swiftness, a lot happened during July. I had an interview, got a background check, and then ultimately got hired by a warehouse following getting my Forklift Certification (which also happened last month). I've finished up my last days at Chipotle. I enjoy working in kitchens, it was nice having people both in Richmond and in Newport News that were a joy to work with, however, I just can't handle the service industry anymore, nor my managers' resistance to putting me on shifts that I requested despite saying they're willing to work with you. The pay was a major hindrance to staying, as well, but also the general public is just terrible. The awfulness is also heightened with the frustration that myself and my coworkers had to go through with telling people to either pull up or wear their masks in general. But, masks are a topic I don't want to get into too deeply here, it's been discussed to death on the internet already.

However, let's get into the meat of things then, shall we?

• First thing, commissions:
So, with this new job, I'm going to be working early in the morning to early afternoon five days a week and then I'll have weekends off. Since, for the most part, my pay here will be more than enough to live off of (for the first time in my life), I can't see myself taking commissions too often in the future. It may happen but it won't be nearly as necessary as before.
The ones on my queue will be worked on, most likely, on the weekends. I'm sure I might adjust this later on as I get used to my schedule/working all week. On one hand, I'm in a bit of shock that I have a job that can sustain me financially and that I won't depend on an outside source of income, on the other, I'm glad that I'm at this point. Commissions have been, more often than not, a pleasure to work on. I've met some of my best friends through commissions (and sharing my art in general, really).

• Second thing, personal projects:
Now with that being said, I desperately want to work on my personal projects. This section may get a bit rambly and for that I apologize but boy this is a loaded topic... I've been craving to start chipping away at several stories. There's so much I want to share with you and so many things I want to make but money was of more importance for such a long period in my life, a lot of these massive projects were put on the backburner.
With that, the main two (and largest) projects I want to start working on are Yzamor and Veld. Yzamor has been stewing in my noggin for well over a decade now and there is a wealth of information to get out; character information, the myriad of major and minor plots, creation myths, and everything in between has been stuck in my head aside from jotting down and dumping info to my friends or onto random documents. Yzamor is my most detail-rich world and is absolutely a passion project and I wish to share it with you. It'll take a long time to get that out but the plan or that is still a large, probably multi-part, graphic novel.
Veld, on the other hand is "newer" and became quite a fixation for the better part of last year. Quotations because Veldts have bounced around two or three different stories that were ultimately dropped and possibly won't be picked up again. This eventually lead to them being turned into their own thing. The overreaching plot was in a state of limbo for a while but got a massive upgrade late last year. I've made some strides earlier this year with redesigns and starting to get a feel for the textures and aesthetics to their world. It's been a good time getting elbow deep into one of my projects so far.
Despite these two, yall know very well that I have other things I like making. There are smaller comic-related projects that I'd like to try doing at some point. Some are collaborative, some aren't. These will be used to both stretch some very sore comic making skills as well as getting acquainted with the comic tools in CSP that I haven't messed with yet.
One large project I've been messing with in the background is Viridæ. This isn't going to be a comic, per se, however I'd like to make a physical artbook. the Viridus are plant people descendant from various species of succulents in a post-human world. The book would be almost like an illustrated guide to their life cycles, social habits, diet, clothing, etc. This is a lot different than what I normally work on as most of my personal work has some sort of narrative to it. (I may start a kickstarter to help with getting physical copies made, I have big plans for Viridæ).
And with the big ones out the the way, some smaller projects:
A very new, project that I started tinkering with a few months ago was a world where there are more undead than living people. This will probably be much smaller in scale compared to Yzamor and Veld but the concepts and characters for the story itself have been fun to mess with. This one will be titled (for now, it may change) Undead Roses. I'd like for this to be a comic, and while I love worlds rich with lore, I think I wanna leave this one a bit light. There are plenty of stories I am working on that are incredibly lore-dense and he story I'd like to tell is a love story, anyway~
There is another project that was going to maybe be a webcomic called Ephemera. I feel I've mentioned that on here well over a year ago but it was one that was kept under wraps even from Patreon, really. There was art done for it back in...2017-18 and two pages were completed, however, my (now) ex was working on the script/writing for it. He started to take it in a few directions that I didn't care for and I started to grow a distaste for his refusal to add elements to it that I felt were going to be an integral part of plot and character development. Overall, the script I have from him will be edited and rewritten to fit the original vision I had for it. I want this to be a happy story (which is something I've come to find I don't often write). This was, and probably still is, going to have three parts and all of which won't be too terribly long.
Choke (title pending) has been sitting for a little while too, despite making the story early last year. Upon some self reflection there was a bit of overlap between what I was experiencing with my ex irl and when I was putting the character through. I found that it was very very difficult for me to find a happy ending for this story. While a lot of what Squobi went through somewhat mirrors what I went through, I think it would be a cathartic story to tell. This will be a comic as well but may focus much less on Squobi's trauma while living with Faulk and more on him healing. (Also, are yall noticing a trend? I like comics...)
There's a few other things that I'd like to maybe touch on as time goes on but gosh this is so much to work on already and for once in my life, I don't feel intimidated, just motivated.

This will all take a lot of time but I hope that as I finish off my commission queue, I can feel vastly more comfortable working on my stories.

• Thirdly, polls, artpacks, & content sharing:
So here, I do still plan on keeping the monthly polls. I really enjoyed working on Koan last month! I think I may change it up here and there though, there's fanart I'd like to do as well as personal pinups that I've been throwing at yall lately. The polls will probably alternate between a pinup/illustration and something fanart related. I feel that'll at least keep things interesting~
So, I still doodle in my spare time. Mainly at night before I go to bed, I have my nose in my sketchbook. While I haven't been too terribly productive when it comes to filling my sketchbooks, I'm considering sharing sketchbook hauls (and hi-res artpacks) every other month instead of every month so that there's a chance for the collections as a whole to be a bit larger. I still also would like to share my sketchpages for Yokai patrons as well in the hi-res artpacks (or maybe a separate collection, I haven't decided). I apologize I've fallen behind on sharing artpacks for both tiers, I want to get that sorted sooner than later.
However, I also want to change up how and what I post here. For the most part, Patreon has been a bit of a mirror to what I post publicly. Granted what I share here is the hi-res work, but I still want there to be more to see here than just things that will ultimately get shared publicly. As stated in the last section, there's so much personal work I can choose to work on and I would very much love to share my creation process with you. A fear that I have is that I never wanted my work to be behind a paywall but I think that with my story and headworld stuff, seeing everything going on behind-the-scenes would be neat to others. I know that I am always digging around for how content I consume was made so I'd like to offer that opportunity to you!

• And lastly, my mental health:
So when I moved to Maryland, I didn't have any insurance at all and I've been off any sort of medication for well over a year. My depression hasn't been as bad as it used to be, but I'm finding that I still need some help. My anxiety has also been better, for the most part, but sometimes it spiked hard. I still have medicine to help with that, thankfully. However, I think the biggest thing on my to-do in regards to mental health is to find a therapist and also try to get a focus medicine. I haven't been officially diagnosed but I am 99% sure I have ADHD and it's been hard trying to function normally and keep up with so many different things in my life because of that, commissions and Patreon included.

I feel that it could only improve my life if I try to work on getting something to help me focus and quiet my brain. There's thankfully a lot of mental health resources and options in my area so I'm going to do my best to get that sorted when I'm able.

This ended up being a bit longer than I intended and that's happened with the last few updates, iirc, but I am feeling very positive the future. This warehouse job is going to be exciting as I've never worked a job that wasn't in the service industry. I also look forward to putting my forklift certification to use!

Anyways, I appreciate you all so much. Thank you for your continued support and being patient with me while life kicked my ass for a while. I want to improve both myself and what I share with you all. Thanks for joining me on this journey thus far~

_____ Tobi ?