Whoops, I haven’t actually posted anything here since August despite saying I’d be active-ish. My bad.
I’ve been busy, I promise. I revitalized my online presence after a long time of being a hermit, opening up a DeviantArt right at the end of September (always be plugging).
Since then, I’ve been cranking out a decent bit of art. I like to think of October as a good month to focus on Wisp, so that’ll be 90% of this post. I also shrank down a lot of the art for this and am only sharing highlights—so maybe go check out my DA for the full-sized art and more pieces (always be plugging).
wisp: tarot series
I actually had the idea of a Wisp tarot series a year ago, back when I had no follow-through and my job kept me way too busy to actually do what I love. I’d squeezed out a few wonky sketches, but nothing really came of it—so I thought it’d be fun to try again for October 2022.
Check out the full-sized images on my DA.
I’d intended on doing three more pieces featuring a couple other lads I didn’t show off here, but I guess I lost steam. Still, nine out of 12 isn’t a bad batting average. I’m thinking I’ll pick it up again sometime, and maybe do up the whole major arcana with more of the Wisp cast.
wisp: misc
It’s funny how Wisp’s taken up 90% of my brain real estate, but until this past month I hadn’t shared any of it with the world (save for Somnol and occasionally showing bits to folks in real life). Reception’s been pretty good—Wisp doesn’t pull the same numbers as animal people, but I still get excited when someone favourites almost exclusively Wisp stuff and starts watching me. Quality over quantity, right?
Here are two seasonal pieces I did up over October:
Plus a bonus doodle as a sequel to the above:
pit stop: ego monster
Oh, word, there’s blogging going on in this blog post. Where the furries at?
First, I’d like to take a minute to look at my history with sharing stuff on the internet. As I mentioned up top, October was the first real, full month in years that I was out there. In the public eye, where people can look at me.
Don’t get me wrong, as an art kid who grew up on the internet, I had had an old Deviant Art and Tumblr. I was putting out pieces that got a whopping three favourites (on the high end, if it was fanart).
The lack of attention was deafening and, at the time, incomprehensible. Obviously now I know that I barely tagged anything, didn’t interact with people outside of my immediate circle, and had amateurish art (because I was a child).
This was compounded by an ex friend who shall not be named getting loads more attention on Tumblr posting GMod screenshots. (She then went on to try to sell commissions… of GMod screenshots… and was confused why they didn’t sell?)
I was a jealous little middle child ego monster who would periodically nuke my accounts because I wasn’t getting enough attention at home and I wasn’t getting enough attention on the internet, and clearly I was putting in way more effort than some people who were way more popular at the time.
I packed up my shit and quit posting around 2016, threw out an old webcomic idea (which was never going to work anyways), and started developing Wisp in private. I shared my work exclusively with Somnol, and then I left for a while—so it was just me, alone in my room, drawing. And I drew!
Turns out I wasn’t just doing it for love and attention after all.
the crowd pleasers (furries)
I’d had a theory when getting back to DA that anthros would net me more love than anything else. Good thing I like drawing animal peeps.
A cute Halloween piece featuring my Pennyverse kiddos Nate, Jo, and Hubie:
Pulled some record favourites while experimenting with textured brushes with Cammy’s boy, Maldwyn:
Then broke another record with another magical cat I did up for Halloween (actually a redesign of an old character, Digory):
pit stop: solitude vs. loneliness
As I got older and started hating myself less, I became okay with the lack of attention. When I stopped engaging with the internet (and Somnol for a period) but kept drawing because it’s what I always did, it went from being deprived of attention for things I worked hard on to just… working hard on things.
Obviously, I came back to Somnol, and things here are finally (finally!) looking stable and happy. Over the past few months with the group, I’ve been more supported artistically than I ever have. And that support made me feel, for the first time in a long time, that my art was good enough to start sharing publicly.
More than that, I was making things anyways. So why not make things and then post them?
There’s still an ego monster attempting to claw its way through the back of my skull some days. But now that I’m older and wiser and have gone through a nifty little thing called “therapy,” I’ve been working hard to rewire my brain when it comes to attention. Every favourite I manage to get is a human person (hopefully) who likes my art (hopefully). If one person watches and favourites my art, that’s someone who gives a shit who never would’ve seen it otherwise.
the yassification of berry
Or at least, making her way more cute than I’ve been drawing her.
Last bits I’ll feature here, I finally ironed out a design for Strawberry Milk:
And celebrated Halloween with one more piece featuring my fruity girl, this time made with Rebelle, an art program Somnol’s been playing with:
Anywho, that’s it for now. I’ve got some extra pieces I didn’t feature here floating on my accounts. I promise I’m more active on DA/Twitter than I am here.
Honestly, it feels really good to be back. Now, when I die of mysterious circumstances at 28, you’ll all have a record of the things I did and when I did them.
