PROGRESS REPORT 7.07.25

Hey, y'all! It's time for another progress report to fill y'all in on what's going on!

First and foremost, I need to be honest with everyone. I'm starting to feel burnt out. This is completely my own fault as I've been trying to do too much--creating merch, the monthly Copic challenge, comic work, collab projects, streaming...I've been stretching myself way too thin and I'm starting to get fatigued. I'm cutting back on designing merch since I have enough backlog to work on at some point.
I am not including commissions in this listing as they're a job and as such a responsibility (plus I have been enjoying working on them!) whereas my personal projects are things that vary in terms of importance but otherwise can be put down at any time.

I'm going to prioritize my collabs as they need to be done by the end of the month so the sooner they're knocked out the better. I had already moved streaming from Fridays to Sundays for the Final Fantasy summer campaign because alliteration (but also because I want to relax on Sunday evenings before I return to work. Art streams will return to Sundays once the bulk of this campaign is done). The Prompto one-shot will be taking a priority as well so I can meet the October deadline (more on this later). New merch designs are on hold until I knock out most of my duties.

It's not much of a cutback for now, but after July things will start to stabilize. Ultimately I want to just focus on making zines and comics this summer if not the rest of the year.

So, here's what's going on:

-Stationery: I had made mention that June would be spent on stationery designs and some of this has been done. I'm likely to put in an order of pens and sticky notes sometime in August/September. Although the intent was to do fanwork--and some of this will be manaufactured--I plan on putting some of the shift towards my original work as part of an effort to bring my characters front and center.

Other merch: While I am scaling back on designing new merch, I do have sticker designs to show off sometime this month. This is from a backlog as I had been working on them over the past couple of months.

-Final Fantasy Summer Campaign: Work has started on this series of illustrations--these will be made into trading cards as rewards, but I will be collecting the illustrations into a zine at some point as well since there's been some interest in this possibility. c:
I haven't brought up the Host Club in a while and part of this is due to the uncertainty surrounding the tariffs but also I'm just so tied up with my current run of projects. I'll put this one on the backburner for now until I'm less burnt out and have some time to put into this project. I apologise for anyone looking forward to it, but it's not a high priority for me at this time.

-FFXV Fancomic: On that note, the next progress report may end up running either a little late or it's going to be a lighter preview--I wound up scrapping a scene I had been working on as I didn't much like the way it was flowing. That said, there will be one this month and the next. After August, the progress reports will go on a short hiatus so I can focus on finishing up the Prompto-centric one-shot I've been working on this year for October's release.

-Zines: As my goal is to work on zines, I'll be revisiting a few zines I started working on earlier this year. The plan was to spend the summer working on them but I'm honestly considering just focusing on them for the rest of the year; I'm seriously burnt out on merch. I might recover in due time, but for now I'm just going to put merch on the backburner.

That's the report! I'm sure I sound kinda tired, and I honestly am. I'm trying to do my best but I've given myself too much and it's exhausted me, so I'm going to scale back as best as I can and try to focus on the bigger projects for now. I know I'm a slow artist as it is, but I'd like to meet some of these deadlines (namely the one-shots). That said, I'll try my best to have something finished to show so y'all don't think I've abandoned you, either.

Thank you as always for your patience and support~!