Rounds: July 2022

Hey there again everyone!  Another month gone, another round!  ^O^

It's going to be a little short this time in terms of my artwork.  July just ended up being a whole thing IRL, making it difficult to draw.  

I feel like what I got done though, made it worth it.  I did get to at least draw a character that I haven't gotten to in a while.  Really tempted to draw Chezola again soon to be honest.

She falls into that character trap a little.  You know the one:  the character whose design you absolutely adore but has so many little details that it makes them difficult to draw all the time?  Yeah.  I've thought about redesigning her but...I don't know. XD  Her theme because I'm a sucker for food related things is blue cheese.  She is my cute blue cheese demon.  XD  I need a way to get that across without all the goo and stuff, same as how Red works where if I don't draw tattoos on her, she still looks like Red technically.  But at the same time, all the fruit and flower crown kinda makes her...her, y'know?  It's a tough conundrum.  Perhaps that's for Halloween goals this year. 

My goals really would be to draw more of my OCs that I haven't in a while.  I haven't because Sakeko and Princess Star seem to be my more set characters--I know what I want there, and who they are.  I have a tiny backstory for Star and Nectarine in my back pocket.  Even the Execs kinda tie into Star's story.  So, sometimes the characters that are just....there, like the demons, just fall on the side.  I think of them as characters without a world in some sense.  Do I build the particular realm of purgatory they exist in?  Or do I leave that up to the viewer's imagination what kind of realm these colorful beings exist in?  Same as the Oracle.  What is the ascended realm?  The higher plane?  There's a portion of me that wants to make it more concrete, and a portion of me that feels people can imagine something far more vivid.  Either way...more of them. XD

I do still feel at least my drawing is keeping pace, but I feel like I've slowed again.  Some of that had to do with the OTHER half of July.  I learned something new recently though that I'd like to try out, but that might have to be experimentation on other drawings rather than my  Abysmal0 ones.

Part of July's news was that I'm attending an Anime con again this year!   And this time, I can't just rely on my old drawings anymore.  Even my newest illustration from those rotations is 3 years old at this point.  I feel like I kinda have to earn my spot there, especially since it's based on review, so I definitely elbowed out some people from the list;  judging by how salty they were in the group's chat...yeah, I feel like I should step it up a bit.  Partly motivated by my bull-headed nature to drown out their saltiness, and partly by my own guilt that it's been a while since taking something new.  The challenge comes down to balancing that, with this Patreon.  We'll see how it goes.  Will I complete my massive shoujo anime poster in time for October?  We shall see. XD  It doesn't help that they send out the call in the end of April, give till the end of May...and then don't tell people until mid-July.  3 months is tight, especially for drawing something new and sending it to the printers.  (Especially since Charms is one thing I gotta restock!)  Wish me luck as I die of exhaustion.

And that brings me to the other half of July:  Family, and sickness.  Unexpected 4th of July visitors are....a thing.  XD  It was a bit of a mixed bag;  on the one hand, I do love my family.  On the other hand, it came up when other...political things were still a little raw.  We had a good discussion, but all in all, I'm an introvert.  My batteries were already drained before the visit, let alone during and after.  I always struggle with how much to let people in, and that twinge of missing some family...and then remembering why I don't visit that often.

And then I got sick.

Guys, I was sick for like...3 weeks.  But one week actually knocked me flat on my ass.  Which I hated.  It's this mix of like...I guess I get to watch shows and play Genshin for a week?  But I'm an artist.  And after a bit, I get that itch to draw.  So, "sitting still" for a week was both relaxing, and anxiety inducing as work piled up while I took everything I could think of to stop being sick.  This was...geez.  And then as soon as that was done, and after a week of just cramming for Patreon, my son's birthday was end of July.  July was just packed IRL.

I always feel bad when I hit the end of a month, and it ends up being I don't have extra time.  There's always people asking if my regular slots are open, and if they'll open, so I feel extremely guilty when I hit the end of the month and there's just no time left to do extra pictures.  But this time, with the end of July?  I crashed for the last 3 days before Patreon started up again, and it was glorious.  

Sometimes, you just need that extra break, y'know?

~Abysmal0 <3