05.03.25
hi everyone =] how are you? as of today i am Officially done with my semester, i didn't have any final exams but i did have to present some of my work today. thankfully that was really all i had left to do, so now i'm free! yayyyyy. well, until my summer job starts up here in a week or two that is. school has really drained me this semester despite this being one of the easier semesters in terms of classes i'm taking and credits. i'm done with all my major requirements and gen eds so at this point I'm just kind of taking whatever sounds interesting. graduating early is an option but since im going to school on the GI bill, i get paid to go to school and i want to enjoy that while i can.
tbh not a lot of interesting stuff has been going on. i'm getting my porch garden together, the big plant sale happened last weekend and i went and spent more than i wanted to on plants... we ended up coming home with a bush cucumber seedling, blue cohosh, wormwood, cinnamon basil and one other thing but i'm blanking on it. i want to get a little shelf or rack or something to organize our plants a little better but it's hard finding something that will fit out on our tiny porch.
still working on OC pages, i have a few written up i just need to actually code them and draw some portraits for them. i have the cutest stuff picked out to go on louis' page i just dont have the energy to sit down and do it... speaking of energy i'll probably play some star stable online then go crash on the couch for a little bit before i start drawing. this summer i Reaaallllyy want to draw more, i know i say it every single year but i really want to try my best this year! yesterday i was talking about setting up some kind of horror art/OC discord, if that's something that sounds interesting lmk.
while it sounds like a good idea, i hesitate because i feel like moderating that type of thing would be such a huge nightmare. it seems recently that people are not really cool with any kind of bad or wrong characters and that's super stressful... for whatever reason, people LOVE movies/tv shows/books where there are characters who do bad things or who have loose morals, but when it comes to OCs suddenly it's a direct reflection of the artist's inner soul. like why is it cool when it's on a large-scale project like a movie or TV show, but a small indie project or some guys OCs and suddenly it's immoral???
don't get me wrong, i think that if there's things that bothers you then you should avoid them. there's things that bother me and i avoid those things. but i don't think that if someone has a character that does bad things that means the artist themself is bad... you would think that this is a really simple concept but it's the source of a lot of grief and drama that i've been seeing going on recently. anyways, all of that to say that i want to open a horror art/oc discord but everyone has to promise to be normal and cool about it perhaps
well, that's really all i ahve for you guys today. i don't have any cool pictures to share cuz im too lazy to import anything right now... i'll write again soon though with some fun stuff! see you around
04.18.25
wow... has it really almost been a month since i last wrote a blog post? i didn't mean to let everything slip away, i've just been super busy with a bunch of stuff at school and with work. this is one of the busiest times of the year for work, there's all kinds of baby plants that need taking care of and not to mention all the plant sales now that it's starting to warm up. it was a really gorgeous day today, i lazed on my porch in the sunshine after i got home from class and listened to one of my favorite albums and watched the wind blow through the trees. it was so quiet and peaceful, i could hear so many different birds and it was just the right temp out... just the right way to end my week.
well, the week isn't over yet. i have more work tomorrow but only in the morning so it shouldn't be too bad. mostly i've been painting, this is the most recent piece i've been working on. i've had this canvas for a while and i knew that i wanted to use it for my body of work this semester, but i just never had any ideas for it. you can see where simon had put his claws and or teeth into it -_- i brought it in to class on monday and just sat there playing with it and it all started coming together.
not to get all cheesy but i think it's so sad when people think that genAI somehow makes art 'accessible' because it lets you skip the hard parts of creating. like yeah, it sucks to not have any ideas, or to have an idea and not know how to execute it. i had to wipe off this canvas 4-5 times before i finally got what i was looking for, and then had to redo the head even more times than that. but once i started getting into the flow it felt SO good... to think that genAI cuts out that process of creating and eliminates all possibility of breaking through something that was giving you issues is just sad. sometimes your idea will flop, sometimes you have to scrap something, sometimes everything you draw comes out looking bad or weird or not what you wanted. then there are times where your brain makes those connections and everything comes together and makes sense and its so so worth it.
don't really got much else to write about, just been busy. my semester ends soon and i'll be around a lot more after that, so stay tuned =]
03.29.25
it's really feeling like spring today, it's a whole 70 degrees out and i'm starting to see more and more green everywhere i look. there's even some trees starting to leaf out already. to be honest, spring was never my favorite season growing up, but now that i live somewhere that has all 4 seasons i love seeing everything suddenly explode around late april. there's still a little ways to go before we reach that though. it's been a bit of a stressful week, there are a lot of wildfires in my area right now... everything's been so dry, no rain and there's tons of debris still from the hurricane that's just waiting to go up in flames. a few days ago at work i was outside tending to things and i noticed a pillar of smoke just up over the highway where a new fire had started, it was super close and we were all kind of spooked by it. thankfully they were able to get it put out. my heart really hurts for everyone who's had to evacuate and have been affected by the fires, like folks around here haven't already been through enough. it was also recently the 6 month anniversary of helene too, to add to it all. there should be rain coming tonight and tomorrow, i just hope it's enough to ease everything.
well, i've been posting stuff on twitter again. it's not like i've "moved back" there or anything, i very much see my website and my bluesky as my main platforms and twitter and tumblr as places to cross-post for my friends who haven't moved anywhere else. i don't really know if i'll stay there though, i still feel strongly about it all. it's a little hard to summarize how i feel about it all, i think i just want to cross-post my stuff as much as i can right now. i think it'll be short-lived, it really feels kind of evil on there now with just how extremely far-right it's gotten. it's hard for me to notice on my private account because i've had it forever so the algorithm just shows me the same shit it always has. but on my public account it's kind of crazy just how much they push the alt right grift shit. we'll see how long i last on there, i think if i don't feel comfortable on there i'm just gonna abandon the account for good without a word.
on another note, progress is being made on oc pages, i think i'll have them up on here sometime this week if all goes well. there's a bunch of other projects i'm working on including a 16mm film that i'm trying to shoot and a mini show that i'm still working on paintings for. so if the art posting slows down or my blog posts become a bit scarce, that's why. i am also writing outlines for quinn again, since reworking the characters means that the story has been changed a little. tbh it was needed, there were a few things that didn't make sense but i was still just going to push on with the comic- now that these weird little plot holes/loose ends are tied up, things are going to be more sensical and hopefully more rewarding to read. fixing things also kind of re-ignited my excitement to work on it again, for the longest time i kept saying i wasn't burnt out but.. i definitely was lol
so yes, slowly but surely things are happening. gonna wrap this entry up now since one of my keys is getting key chatter and it's driving me fucking insane lmao TT_TT see you guys next time, stay safe if you're dealing with wildfire stuff..
03.17.25
hi everyone, it's a bit of a late-night entry this time. or i guess very early morning, depending on how you look at it. it's 1 AM here and i'm still up, figured i'd sit down and write a quick entry before i get swept away by the business of the week ahead. spring break is over, and i'm trying to prepare myself to go back to everything. it feels like every semester i'm more resistant to going back after break, and i'm not really sure where that feeling comes from just yet because i love going to school. i really like learning in a classroom setting and most people laugh at me when i say that, but coming from a homeschool background i guess i didn't show up to college already burnt out on that.
working on this a little tonight, i'm trying to get back into doing bigger pieces with actual things happening in them. with drawing OCs it feels like it's easy to get stuck in a "heres them on a blank background" thing, which in itself is fine, it's just not what i want to do with my art right now. this is technically a redraw of a very old piece that i did a long time ago. i figured it'd been a while since i drew quinn, and even longer since i drew him playing with clive... or i guess really it's clive playing with him. there's a song by boards of canada that i really love and whenever i hear it i instantly get this urge to draw clive. it's called 'soylent night', and i really love how this playlist stages it to where it slips away into 'nothing is real'. they're both songs that really make me think of clive, i think it's the biblical references in both of them. does anyone happen to know what the vocals in 'nothing is real' is referencing? ive tried finding it out, but i've never had any luck. bocpages doesn't have anything on it either.
if you can't hear what it's saying in the song, the lyrics go:
"Jesus, was it you indeed,
to flirt unkindly with my greed,
promising eternal life,
when you knew it was not right,
when you knew that what I'd need was willingness and comfort there?"
it just makes me think of clive so strongly.
there's something i've written that goes along with this piece that i'm going to share with you all once the piece itself is done. kind of want to play around with integrating it into the piece somehow, maybe as a sweet little cross stitch in the background or something, we'll see... but for now i'm logging off, just wanted to pop in and say hello =] hope you're all doing well.
03.08.25
guys i think its finally starting to feel like spring outside... we had some snow a day or two ago but today it's going to get up into the 60s. im so excited for spring, this transition time from winter into spring is always so draining to me lol i'm not really sure what it is. tbh i think it's just i'm so ready for winter to be over by the time we get to this point. it's been a busy couple of weeks since i last wrote, i'm really trying to focus on my art for class and not much else.
i have however started to work on some oc pages that ill stick somewhere on here, i got the first one pretty much finished but i want to wait until i've gotten the majority of them done before i get them published. OC pages is something i'm always going back and forth on, i'll have them on here then get sick of them and take them down, or i'll make some then take them down. not even really sure what it is that makes me feel weird about having oc stuff on here, i think i'm always like 'well i have a toyhouse for this and its cluttering up my site' so i end up taking them down inevitably. let's hope this time they just stay up...
here's a little graphic i made for clive's page, there's some others too but i'll save those for you guys to see once they're actually live =] for now... stay tuned. no painting update for you right now, it's pretty much finished but i'm strugling back and forth with deciding if i want maggots on it or not. i put a few down as a test and i just couldn't decide, so it's been sitting in the studio for a little over a week now untouched lmao =P it's spring break so i plan on using this time to get the jump on working on another piece.
i feel like i got lucky with my first two pieces, i immediately had an idea with what i wanted to do for both of them and now i'm just kind of at a loss for what i want to do next. at first i was thinking of using a self portrait idea i've had for a little while but idkkkk i kind of want to leave myself out of this series since i feel like it's so college art student to make a bunch of art about yourself. i guess that's just an artist thing in general tbh. but i do have a few ideas i need to sit down and play around with, i got a big ole canvas im gonna play with and a piece of wood that i think i could do something fun with so stay tuned...
before i leave you, i'll give you this playlist i found last night, it's so fun and nostalgic. hope you guys are all doing well =]
02.22.25
hows it going? it's been kind of a rough week for me, do you guys ever have a week where you have a few little bad days/bad moods then it just kind of all comes to a head? that happened to me this week lmao last night i spent HOURS toiling away on a really simple sketch just for it to look really bad in the end and it just set me off so bad TT_TT i still don't feel really good today, but oh well. going to just try to take it easy today, i don't know if i'll even bother drawing cus itll probably just piss me off really bad again.
the good news is i'm chipping away more and more at this piece- i just need to finish up the horn and throw it in a nice little bed of grass and add some finishing touches. i finished my first one up on wednesday but i need to take a picture of it and it's stuck up at the school right now. painting has been so much fun but i really don't do it unless i have to for a class... maybe this will change in the future.......
i think part of my bad mood this week comes from my upstairs neighbor, we've had trouble with her in the past but we kind of made up and were on friendly terms a few months ago. she's got a lot of health problems and has unfortunately been in and out of the hospital this month so her mom came up to stay with her for a little bit while she recovers. the mom walks SO hard. like you guys the entire house rattles, things on the wall shift, plates in the cupboard rattle. and she walks around so frantically too like at a breakneck pace!!! but i don't want to say anything to them bc what do you even say??? "Sorry you guys are going through this hard time can you please be quiet" just feels too rude idk...
we weren't going to say anything to anyone, the stomping really unnerves me and has me on high alert 24/7 but if it's during the day then i just let it go. however... a few days ago she started up at 7 AM and was stomping back and forth pacing until that night. then she started up again at 12 AM, it sounded like she was hitting the walls repeatedly and she kept slamming things on the bedroom floor above us super hard, sometimes in rapid succession like she was knocking... you guys this went on until 6 AM. slater and i didn't get ANY sleep that night, i had to call into work and skip classes that day because i was so exhausted. we ended up going to the management office to see if someone from there could say something to her. still frantically stomping around all day, but at least we've been able to sleep at night.
i have a lot of sleep issues already and losing sleep exacerbates my other problems so i think that's been the reason why i fell off so hard the last few days. this isn't even a 'get headphones/earplugs' situation because you can still feel the impact/stomping/slamming through the floor, it literally jiggles the whole house. im sooo tired of living in an apartment you guys i need to get out of here bad =[
well i guess this is just me complaining for a whole blog entry, i don't really have much else for y'all. i'll get some pictures of my other painting after tomorrow and add it to my gallery since i only have one thing in there right now... OC entries will come as soon as i stop hating on my art so hard lmao. see you later =]
02.15.25
almost said 'good morning' but i checked the time and it's already 1:30... it's been grey and rainy here all week, we had a little false spring last week but there's definitely a little more winter left to go before we get to real spring. lots of stuff going on between work and school, all the usual =P i keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, it's been a suspiciously enjoyable start to the school year that i keep thinking 'ok so when am i going to start getting a stupid amount of work put on me??' i shouldn't have even thought about it cuz now itll happen haha
hope everyone had a good valentines day, slater had to work for a bit yesterday but we were able to spend the morning together and we made a yummy salmon dinner =] well, slater cooked it lol i can't take any of the credit for it. it's been a chill weekend so far aside from my upstairs neighbor, i'll give them some credit because these apartments are really poorly made and you can hear literally everything but there's no way she doesnt know how hard shes stomping TT_TT and its just constant all day too, i can't imagine walking around my apartment that much every day. what are you even doing up there bro
think i'm going to try to draw today since i don't really have a lot of stuff i need to do over the weekend. i tried a few days ago but my hand is super weak now, it's funny how over break once i start drawing all the time i get back up to speed/strength by the time the semester starts back up again. but i haven't been entirely uncreative, just focusing my efforts on getting my pieces for class done before worrying about anything else. it's been a whole year since the last time i tried using oils so i was intimidated going into an upper-level painting course, but i 'get' it now more than before. i confided in my professor that i felt like my paintings looked better before i got concerned with how to paint 'the right way' and that i felt like i needed to go back to more of a creative approach to painting.
when i say 'the right way' , i don't mean throwing all of the fundamentals out the door or anything like that. i just get so caught up in what the 'right' way to paint is, whether or not i should be using oil or acrylic, what i should be painting on, etc. there's also the whole entire problem of painting/drawing in class in front of a bunch of people that messes me up too. so far i've been able to find a good balance by starting my pieces at home outside of class hours then working on them in class. that way i'm able to get in the zone and really tap into what i'm doing instead of feeling too anxious to start my work... there was one class i just packed up all my stuff and left bc i just couldn't do it lol
this is what i'm working on currently, been sticking with the zorn palette for my pieces so far. not sure what the measurement on this canvas is, i think it's 12x18 which is a little bigger than what i'm used to working on for paint. i plan on going back and fixing up this guys neck because it's a little wider than i would like it to be... but maybe he's just a really juiced up baby unicorn i dont know...
i'm going to head off and try to draw some oc stuff now or maybe some toyhouse icons. or maybe i'll lose the whole day to stalker 2 again... we'll see =] have a good weekend everyone
02.08.25
wow.. hi everyone... it's been a minute! you'll have to forgive me for not posting anything in a minute, i've been so out of it since the semester started... i have no real reason to be since my course load is pretty light this year and i am mostly in studio classes, but i still feel so drained and tired. it's too early for me to be feeling like this too hahaha idk what im gonna do =P but so far so good, i'm really into the classes that i'm in. there was one that i thought i was waitlisted for but apparently a spot opened without them telling me? so i ended up getting into the class without knowing it. found out about this after the first week of class had gone by, so i literally missed out on the entire first week of that class... TT_TT thankfully the professor was super chill and understanding about it!
unfortunately this means i have Not been drawing as much as i would like to. i'm really REALLY bad at having a work-life-school balance, i can only have two at a time it seems. so it's been work and school, and most of my free time has been spent either working on projects outside of class or playing stalker 2. which btw i'm ALMOST finished with it, i'm like two quests away from being done. once enough time has gone by and i've played through it again i think i'm going to write a really long annoying blog post about my thoughts about it, ESPECIALLY regarding the stuff with noontide. i got shit to say... speaking of stalker, i've saved a URL to start a stalker fansite =] i'll be getting around to actually developing it soon so keep an eye out for that.
though i haven't had it in me to draw, i have been painting... i just finished a small painting on a board of a wet specimen goat, it's drying in the studio still but ill snap a pic to show you guys next chance i get. this semester i have to write a proposal for a body of work and ohhh my god you guys its SO hard writing about my stuff. there's something about it that just feels So freaking awkward and i really need to just grow up and get over it. trying to be a little more authentic since im pretty closed off/shy irl especially when it comes to my art, which as an art major isn't a good mix =P
also, i posted about this on my neocities profile, but i think i'm going to do a few entries on my blog to talk about my ocs. i've written some about them on my toyhouse, but i would like to do some in depth stuff/share some sketches on here. so expect to see that soon once i get the chance =] trying to make a point to draw/write/paint or do at least Something creative once a day so i don't get rusty.
well, spring is on its way... hang in there guys! we went and picked up seeds for our garden today, i'm really looking forward to having actual plants on our porch instead of sad empty pots/pots full of dirt. hope you guys are doing well also, i'll write again soon!
01.18.25
hiii hello everyone hows it going? we got some snow from that last big winter storm that blew through, it warmed up enough today to finally melt everything away but there's still some white patches up in the mountains. it's gonna get real cold again soon though, so i'm not holding my breath. if anything i'm dreading having to walk to class every day in the cold, but i'm trying my best to look forward to starting school again this week. i've been bracing myself but i really don't need to, i finally finished all my general requirements last semester so i can literally just take fun low stakes classes for the rest of my time in school. this semester i'm in an upper level painting course and i'll be doing a video course too- really looking forward to that one because i want to learn more about film processing before i start my darkroom job.
been savoring the last few days of my break, i'm at the point now where it feels weird to sit at my computer and not be doing something creative. i know- shocking... ive been Doing shit!!!! one of the things i've been working on is quinn, the script for the first chapter is done and i'm ready to start work on it. however, i don't plan on actually beginning work on it until i've finished scripting out the rest of the chapters (i'm on 3/10 right now!) so that way if anything needs to get changed i can alter it without worrying. i'm also taking a different approach to how it's structured this time, i think i was so worried about how it was 'supposed' to look as a webcomic, but this time i'm throwing that away and going off intuition alone. balls to the wall... it's gonna look however i feel like it should look, and how i think it flows. it took some time for me to realize that it shouldn't 'look' any particular way despite how other comics look - it should simply be a medium to tell a story and it should tell that story as best as it can without worrying about constraints.
i guess that's common sense to a lot of people though, but what can i say... i get caught up in the little things =P i hope i can really keep my creative spark up, it's going to be difficult juggling studio classes and personal work again but i feel like now that i'm in upper level courses it'll be easier for me to mesh the two a little more. i'm also taking way less credits this semester so i think my work-school-life balance will be a little better this semester and (HOPEFULLY) i'll freak the fuck out a little less.
here's a sketch of alfred i'm currently working on, i drew it up a week or so ago and haven't gotten around to polishing it up/start finishing it because i'm stuck on a few details. the pose needs some tweaking, i need to decide on an expression for him/what direction i want him to be looking and most importantly, i need to decide what his tramp stamp says. slater and i have been going back and forth with ideas, i think 'skank' in a sweeping script is pretty funny but 'sexy bitch' is also pretty good. and you best believe he's gonna be in the bedazzled jeans... there's a few other self-indulgent things i've drawn a few days ago, but this is all i can give you:
there's so many brushes in my CSP library so i've been trying to go through them, so i did a very messy little thing with louis. i need to go through and actually clean up my brushes/organize them, get rid of the ones that i don't use, etc. but ... i dont want to.... it's been good to get back in the groove of drawing shit though, i feel all my brain cells starting to wake back up one by one. just gotta keep it going though.
well i think thats all i have for now, hope you all are keeping warm peace luv harmony for all of equestria. ill write again asap =] (hopefully with more art to share)
01.08.25
well here we are with the first official blog post of 2025! i've just been taking it easy, most of my break has been spent playing through stalker 2 but i've also been trying to get back into drawing some. it's a little frustrating because i know that by the time i get back into the swing of things with art and actually feeling inspired again, my break will be over. this happened to me last year too =/ it's really really hard for me to find a work/school/life balance, work and school just kind of takes over everything else in my life. this year i'm trying to make more of a (realistic) effort with art, and try to draw something at least once a week even if it's just a really loose and messy sketch.
tbh it's kind of depressing, i used to always have a sketchbook with me wherever i went and almost all my free time was spent with my wacom in my lap working on something. now i work a labor job so no time to sketch at work and during class i have to pay attention to every little thing if i wanna scrape by lol maybe things will change a little this semester since i'm taking less credits. after this summer i'll also be in a new job, so maybe that will change stuff up. i just really, really miss drawing. i see my friends drawing and writing stories and i feel sooooo sad because i miss doing it so much, it just feels like all the life is being sucked out of me by external factors right now.
well what a way to start off my first post of the year, i promise it's not all doom and gloom over here lol. here's a meet the artist i made for my bluesky since i realized i didnt have one up there yet and i wanted to make a pinned, but the quality got crushed to death so i'll probably remake it (at least the text part):
the text is just WAY too small, it looked fine fullscreen on paint but compressed on bluesky/resized on here it just doesn't translate, so i'm gonna fix that up at some point. or maybe just do a completely new one.. i never know what the hell to put on these, for someone who starts so many sentences with "i" it's hard for me to come up with anything worthwhile to say about myself. tbh i just ended up copying and pasting what's on my about page here. anyways, thought i'd throw this in here so i wouldn't be completely empty handed this post. there's also a landscape background i started working on for some stalker fanart, but it's kind of huge and really loose so for now just take this little snippet:
which... stalker 2... where do i even start? i'm still not finished yet and i've been able to stay Mostly spoiler free, so i'm nervous for how it's all going to turn out. i really love what they've done with all the characters and how they've taken the story, it's so upsetting but i can't get away from it. to me, stalker is one of the best pieces of art out there... every part of it, like how it borrows from its source material, the source material itself (both tarkovsky's stalker and roadside picnic), it's all so endlessly good. the universe that GSC created will always be my favorite out of all of it, and that's coming from someone who is diehard about roadside picnic. i almost want to bring back my shrine pages just so i can revamp my stalker one, or maybe even make a fansite or something.
i won't say too much of my actual thoughts just yet on HoC, just because i feel like it's still too early to blast spoilers (i'll post warnings of course when i do get around to writing about it here) and i want to finish the game in its entirety first. the events that happen at the midway point of the game hurt me soooo fucking bad bro =[ like i literally felt sick to my stomach thinking about it all!!!! thats how you know its good storytelling though i guess. maybe that'll be my next website project, a big stalker fansite. we'll see what happens. =] i also went and reposted a shitload of my OLD stalker fanart on my tumblr, so check that out .... if you want...
and if you haven't played stalker - do it. the first game is almost 20 years old now and it shows its age, but do it! if you don't like FPS games, still give it a go because you'll see that it's way more than that. if anything, watch a video essay on it and go down the rabbit hole... you won't regret it =] seriously one of my favorite stories of all time, i love the zone and everything in it so much.
anyways, that's all i've got for now. please go play stalker if you haven't already and ill be back soon! take it easy!
12.31.24
another year come and gone... 2024 felt like both the longest and the fastest year ever. wanted to get in one last blog entry before 2025 comes knocking! this next coming year i think i will mainly be using my blog to post sketches, i'm not big on resolutions but one thing i want to start doing more is to draw something at LEAST once a week. i've been feeling a little inspired to draw, especially now that i'm on break, but i've squandered most of my free time away because slater got me stalker 2 for christmas... unfortunatley im INSANELY addicted
long time stalker fan, die hard SoC enjoyer, i was a little hesitant about picking up HoC just because i heard so many mixed reviews but man omgggg it's so good. i'm a little under halfway through the game and i'm blown away by how despite all the bugs, it's still such a good game and it feels so much like how the original did. not in the sense that it feels like the same game, but it elicits those same feelings that SoC does for me. and the ability to switch the voiceover language to ukrainian is a total lifesaver... pick it up... you won't regret it
but i do plan on getting some art in while i'm on break, i can't spend all of it on stalker... or can i... anyways, just wanted to pop in and wish everyone a happy new year and i can't wait to see what 2025 brings for us all =]
12.24.24
hi everyone! its christmas eve here in NC. we had to make a last minute stop by the liquor store to pick up a gift for some family that we're seeing tomorrow, but other than that we've been just chilling out and taking it easy. tomorrow we'll make the drive out to see everyone, it'll be good to see family after everything that's happened this year. it's a little sad not seeing my parents this year, at this point it's been almost 2 years since i last saw my mom - something really unusual for me. i think this is the longest i've been without seeing her in my life- i always made it a point to travel to texas to see them for the holidays but i just wasn't able to swing it this year. tickets are too expensive and the drive is really long/hard to do solo.
my dad had neck surgery around thanksgiving so he's been down and out recovering, and every year my mom's work picks up even more around end of the year/beginning of the new year. so it's been really, really hard to co-ordinate seeing each other... being in school also adds another layer of difficulty to it all, it's not like i can just pick up and leave during the semester for a week. they've been talking about moving out to this area for a really long time now, and i wish they'd just do it. it would be so nice to have my family close by (despite it all lol)
tomorrow we're going to wake up really early to head out to see slater's family, so tonight we plan on exchanging the gifts we got for each other here at our place. slater's going to make makaronia me kima for us tonight, it's something super fast/simple. i think for the rest of winter break i'm going to try and cook more, it's amazing how much more energy i have when i'm not worrying about school.
also been trying to draw everyday, haven't been super successful but i'm just trying to ease back into the feeling of actually drawing. i also have some canvases i plan on prepping so i can get familiar with painting again before next semester starts and i'm struggling to remember how to do it all over again.
well, that's all i really got for now! i hope everyone is having a super cozy winter! stay warm and i'll try to write some before the new year sneaks up on us.
12.20.24
its finally over... i am oficially Done with this semester as of today! i had turned in all my final essays last weekend, but i still had a few classes to attend/a film screening for one class, then i had my last final exam this morning. i had spent a ton of time studying the stuff that i felt weakest on/was most worried about only for there to be one little multiple choice question about it. oh well =P can't go back and change it now - it is what it is. said goodbye to my friend who is graduating but i think she's coming by later to drop off a hairdrier that i had lent her. it's a weird feeling having friends who you only know for a really short amount of time before having to move away from them and not know when you'll see them again. it's something that i'm pretty used to because of my previous job/lifestyle but i'm still not used to it! it's definitely kind of a weird vibe with the end of this semester- last year there was so much excitement and buzz in the air but i think because of the hurricane we were all just kind of hanging on for dear life/burnt out by the end of everything. like i thought i would be SO hype right now but i'm really, really sleepy and might knock out here after i write this.
but don't think that this means i'm going to be out of it all winter- i have some big plans that i'm starting to work on! i'm starting work on quinn again, i know i keep saying this but i feel like i have a much more concrete direction for things to go in now which was what was stopping me before. but for now i just need to kind of chill out for a day or two... think i'm going to eat some udon tonight and just chill on star stable =P we'll see. ill update you guyts with some sketches/plans soon!
12.14.24
it's been a cold cold two weeks since i've last written here, we got a little bit of snow a couple of times but nothing that really stuck to the ground. for whatever reason i feel like i wrote an entry recently then just deleted it instead of posting, i have no clue why i didn't just post it? well, anyways... i recently got an offer for a new job starting next fall, so i jumped right on it =] this way i'll be able to finish up some stuff at my current job, then move on to the next thing where i'll probably stay put at for a few years. my only problem is that it won't be outside with plants, which kind of sucks. i've really grown to love working with plants and doing landscape design, it's just the work environment i'm currently in is making me really unhappy and it's really hard on my body.
which, speaking of... about to try and start the whole fiasco of getting that hip problem diagnosed again. yes, it's been almost 2 years of me trying to get this diagnosed. it felt like i was FINALLY making some progess, i was going to get referred to another clinic and i was going to meet with someone else about my claim, then the hurricane happened and i haven't been able to get ahold of anyone since. so now i'm going to have to start all over again from square one... i need to get back into going to the gym, i think getting out of a labor-intensive job is going to help me with that and i can hopefully start strengthening those muscles again. there's been a lot of pain recently, i think those steroid shots i got around this time last year have either started to wear off or have worn off.
but enough of that! i think i'm finally finished with all of my classwork. well, i'm just waiting to do one more final then i'm done. i took one of my finals today and only missed one question, then submitted two of my final papers. there's only one more exam i have to take, but that's at the very end of the week on friday...tbh i wish i could just go and get it over with. but even then i'm already feeling so much lighter like a weight was lifted off of me. already starting to get the itch to get back into drawing more frequently, and i want to start writing for quinn again.
i constantly bring up starting to work on quinn slowly once more but it's been hard these last few years. tbh i didn't want to admit it for a while,but i think i just got burnt out on working on it and i completely lost sight of my own characters/story. taking a big step ack from it for a while and thinking about other things has been helpful to me, and i keep trying to come back and revisit quinn to see if interest gets sparked again- which it does! but its always so brief and i have so much on my plate than i did before. but i think now that i'll have a little more time and energy to devote to my art soon i'll start doing more with it. we'll see what happens. either way it'll be slow going for a bit but i do still feel really passionate about the story and want to share it.
well, don't have any art to share with you guys. it's been a rough couple of weeks while i scrambled to get everything done, but i think i'm over the hump now. i'll talk again soon, i plan on picking up stalker 2 after this week so i'm sure i'll have lots to say on that...
12.01.24
hi guys! how's it going? i've added a second page to the blog to help break it up some, so now there's nto a giant wall of text to scroll through. images should also load better now. well, it's finally december... 4 more weeks and 2024 will be over, that feels so fucking weird to say!! this year has flown by, i know i said the same thing about last year and probably the year before that but it really feels like time just slipped right on past me this year.
well, i've been a little quiet on here just because of everything going on. school has been a nightmare, trying to make up for the time we lost out on during the flood has made things feel so rushed and stressful. feels like every night i'm having dreams about missing homework assignments, having a surprise test, etc etc. i was so excited to have a little break from school/work with thanksgiving weekend, but i ended up getting sick at the beginning of the week... thankfully it cleared up by the time break rolled around, but i'm still coughing up a bunch of nasty shit from being congested.
then on thanksgiving we woke up and simon was hiding under my desk. he normally wakes us up every morning begging for breakfast, but today he didn't beg at all... he wouldn't move, wouldn't come out for food or anything so we were really worried. we waited a little bit to see if he just needed to throw up, but after a little bit we decided to take him in to the ER vet. thankfully there were no obstructions or anything like that, we think it was a problem with a medication the vet had put him on to help with his IBS. he's off of that now though and on a probiotic instead, so we're hoping we can correct it with a planned diet and monitoring him for a while... he really gave us a scare with that though (but don't worry he is back to being 100%!)
over on bluesky, i've been doing a thread where i introduce 1 oc per 1 like the thread gets. the likes have surpassed the amount of ocs i currently have, but i thought i would have some fun with it and make little intro cards for each oc i'm posting about.
these are the ones i've made so far, it's hard to try and fit all this information into short concise posts on bluesky. especially when it comes out to my really fleshed out characters, like clive and quinn. doing it like this helps a bunch though, especially for characters that i don't have any art of like my stalker (as in the series stalker) oc tima... i don't think i have more than 2 pictures of him. i want to share more about my characters, but it's difficult trying to get out all my thoughts in a way that makes sense and sounds good. it feels like i'm always leaving something out/missing something important any time i try to make a toyhouse page or an oc page on my neocities.
i've played around with the idea of having character pages here on my personal site instead of keeping everything on toyhouse, but i've never really been able to flesh them out to the extent i'd like to on here. it also feels like 'who is going to actually GAF about this?' whenever i'm making it which in itself is just a silly idea because. it's my site bla bla bla i do what i want etc. i guess at the end of the day, it just feels a lot easier to set up a character page on toyhouse and throw a bunch of images in their gallery and move on. but maybe in the future i'll sit down and craft some fun individually themed pages for each of my ocs. toyhouse's custom CSS is great, but i do like the complete and Total control a webpage gives you.
speaking of stalker, has anyone picked up stalker 2 yet? i'm holding off until the semester is over, the last thing i need is to get sucked back into my favorite series right when finals are lurking right around the corner TT_TT it'll be a nice little gift to myself i guess. it's been a really stressful year and i can't wait for it to be over!! currently i'm doing the whole 'what are we doing for the holidays?' song and dance with my family and it's making me want to rip my hair out. we gotta get everyone living in the same state, i think that would make things 100x easier...
well, i think that's all i have for you guys, kind of a long one sorry lmao. i was putting off writing a blog entry until i felt like sitting down and splitting my blog pages up. anyways hope you guys are taking it easy and enjoying winter =] see ya next time!