I'm making a little end-of-year blog post to remind me of what I did this year and what I want to do next year.

My Pizzasona appeared in Pizza Tower this year btw (Boring choice but I submitted it years ago lol)

I didn't quite post as much art or other creative works nearly as much as I wanted to this year. I think a big contributor to this was my Mario Movie Countdown that was super good for getting me to draw consistently, but burnt me out pretty bad towards the end, which is why it never got finished. Other than those pictures, I got two original works and two pieces of fanart out (plus an upcoming Secret Santa submission), which certainly doesn't feel like a whole lot. I did a lot of art for school projects this year and scrapped a lot of pieces, so my actual output was lower than it felt to me personally throughout most of the year.

Something I started and hope to continue into the next year is the first chapter of a comic I want to write. I don't have a name for it yet, but the general premise sees an insecure artist getting harassed by cryptids while he tries to work in East Texas, basically allowing me to incorporate a ton of my interests and storytelling ideas into one project. I hoped to finish it in time for the Sweet 16 Comic Contest, but an influx of schoolwork + bad time management basically lost me an entire month so that didn't happen. I have the entire story + layout planned, but the dialogue is very subject to change. It's all very first draft, but here's a few select W.I.P pages to give you an idea of what I'm going for. I don't know how many people will even bother reading this, but feedback is totally welcome on these.

This year I've gotten super into Dragon Quest. I've beaten the first and second games, Builders 1 and 2, and I'm currently going through 3 using a Google Doc as a journal where I can track my progress and dig a little too deep into the backstories of the party members I spent way too long trying to get specific personalities for. The series has reawoken an interest in game development for me, so don't be surprised if a large part of my output next year consists of games. I even had the chance to make a dinky little parody game for a class I'm taking that you can find somewhere on the internet if you're particularly nosy.

Knockoff Designs I made for the MC:

Some of my favorite pieces this year were the ones I just did for myself like Inside and this dated Ranma 1/2 fanart. I've never been much of a clout-chaser, partially because I'm too lazy to be beholden to the output schedule that would require of me, but I want to focus on making art for my own sake next year, rather than some imaginary audience. I feel like I get way to hung up on the ideas portion of making art and it prevents me from actually developing as an artist, so if my gallery is still looking about the same skill level this time next year I'll have failed at the goal that I consider most important for 2024.

If you read this entire thing, thank you so much for taking some time to read about my artistic journey this year. I find this kind of stuff super interesting, but I've always been too self-conscious to document my own development. Feel free to drop a link to your own page, website, or blogpost as a response so I can discover and read about more cool artists on this site. There's nothing I love more than following others' creative journeys!