It’s been a long year, I’d say! 2023 had plenty of ups and downs, but overall, I’m alright with this year.
Besides all my art stuff, going to conventions, and I losing my iPad, I’ve been living a simple enough life. Back in August to went on a trip to Arizona to met up with my friends and visit SabotenCon. The previous time I went to Arizona, we did more hiking and exploring the state. Most of my 2023 trip was wandering the convention, but I’d love to comeback again and visit the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas.
As of wring this, I’m doing laundry and not feeling that my day is any special. I still waste my time wondering what I did wrong in the year and hoping that I can fix what’s wrong with me in the future. For now, I’ll look back on what I’ve been doing for the past month and the past year.
After a packed year of conventions and art events, I’m reflecting on my 2022 year and planning my next one! I feel like I spent more time learning to write than learning to draw. I wrote more blog posts, more promotional stuff and more story things that I’ve been sticking with instead of burying it away in my files.
Despite my feelings that I didn’t get as much artwork as I wanted to be completed, looking back, I had a good run for my convention stuff, doing a convention almost every month and figure out myself as an artist and what I really want to do with my work.
It’s almost the new year and I look back on 2021 with thoughts. It started out with promise, but I think it went downhill closer to the end. I can’t help but say I felt directionless and the stuff I’ve been doing wasn’t as amazing as I’d like for it to be.
I had plans, but they went to crap last year. With all the virus stuff, so many cancellations and changes in my life I didn’t get my goals done. The two freelance projects I had taken up most of my time for the year, but they kept me alive and maintained over 2020.
From doing that, it lead to me starting to make a video game called Blackmask. I want 2021 will be the year Adam and I go full throttle on Blackmask! I want to have more update videos for the game on the development YouTube channel. Another goal is to make a Kickstarter campaign for Blackmask and get development going on it.
I reached 100 Followers and even got Affiliate on my Twitch Channel! To celebrate that and the New Year, I did a request pixel art stream for any viewers who commented. In the future, I’ll give it a year of streaming on Twitch while posting clips on YouTube Channel.
I finally finished my illustration for Furs of Fury! I think I was too precious with the work as I wanted to make this and give the game a good first impression. I think I’ll get the hang of it once I figure out more of a work flow for any future projects.
I’m still doing my sketchbook stuff and I want to do more to put more purpose to my sketch and concepting work.
I’m also going to talk a bit about some music and bands I’m listening to on Bandcamp. Currently, I’m listening to a Russian Sludge Metal band called Old Sea and Mother Serpent.
I can’t listen to a majority of my faves on my livestreams like Pink Floyd and Camel. My solution is to look through Bandcamp to find bands, genres, and musicians I’ve never heard of. I’m a big Prog Rock fan, enjoying ridiculously long songs and albums, so Doom and Progressive Metal seem like a nice transition from Prog Rock. If you like Sludge and Doom Metal, give Old Sea and Mother Serpent a listen.
For this year, I want to get more choosy about the freelance jobs, my clients, and commissions I take on. My other 2021 hopes are to get more prints of Pizza Man made and selling on my Etsy store! It’ll be a small run since I’ve been sitting on many copies of comics, so I want to get through them before printing more. There are a few conventions that’ll hopefully run, so I’m pushing to get more things like stickers and pins! My website needs a massive overhaul, such as my own online store to not depend on Etsy to sell my work.
