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art summary 2024

the year is ending in a couple of hours, but i haven't put up any of the posts i was planning to! take my 2024 art summary at least.

while i didn't draw much in 2024 due to my new status as a fulltime working adult (and my reddit addiction), i feel like it was a pretty great year overall. i finally settled on a consistent, replicable art style and stopped being so sick in the head about social media and my own skills as an artist.

Q1

i spent the first quarter of the year focused on my own fan projects DOGS and GLOR10US RO@D. honestly, i forgot that DOGS existed up until now. i'm glad i stuck to schedule and ended it early on LOL. we donated $1000 for the guide dogs foundation, which i was really proud of!

as for GLOR10US RO@D, i had only completed the cover in Q1, which took about 50 hours just on my end. i'm not sure how much time it took when considering izzy's portion as well.

Q2

i got a space in the lottery-based local convention quite suddenly, so i did a lot of full background artwork in april. i'm still proud of the date and mizuki piece because it was the first time i felt like i could use my own 'serious' art style in a full scene. i've since been able to apply it to other pieces with... varying results.

that piece also proved to me that i don't need to use captions to get my artwork to go anywhere since it got 1.8k likes with no text. it's super hit or miss, but it helped me accept that twitter is a roulette that's not worth getting stressed out about.

the convention was fine. i had a whole post planned out about it and when i couldn't finish writing it i had another post planned as a follow up and i didn't finish that either. the highlight of the event was meeting my australian friend calamari-san!1

i started studying art properly for two weeks in may and it made me improve a lot. imagine if i could put in that focus all year round! okay, i'll make it my new years resolution!!! i was pleased with my shinsoku illustration for the sideM zine and the zine itself went without a hitch— except for the part where paypal locked me out of $2000 and i had to pay for it out of pocket.

april to may.

Q3

i became a single-fandom artist for shinsoku ikkon again. i felt like i hadn't been far from sideM for that long, but the last time i was so dedicated to it was in 2019 (excluding the dojinshi i released in 2021). it was all in preparation for my first trip to japan for the 9th live concert.

of course, it was amazing to finally meet my internet friends who i had known for so long and see the sideM seiyuu perform live. however, what 'fixed' me the most was probably meeting a japanese sideM fan who said they saw my sticker artwork online.

sideM's fans are exclusively huddled on twitter, but twitter has a shit tagging system so it's difficult to get people to view your artwork unless you're already established. i don't want my art to be seen for the sake of popularity, but i do want people who actually like the characters to be able to come across it at all.

i know i'm one of the only english fans who actually gives a shit about shinsoku2, so i always felt like i was trying and failing to reach that elusive goal of being seen by 'japanese twitter'. it turned into an abstract concept, but that meeting made me recognize that my artwork really did exist i guess.

i'm still frustrated about posting on twitter and the lack of organization (this is more to do with my insane SEO-rotted brain), but the whole thing made me feel like i achieved some kind of goal and i became mentally sane re:drawing and posting fanart on twitter. however, it was in a way that i just don't care about posting fanart online anymore LOL.

i drew an entire 21p comic for the genbaro anthology as well. it was so cringe that i can't read it BUT it gave me the opportunity to create a risoprint for the first time— which i'm still so happy with!

mine is on the left. the opposing motif was unintentional but cute!

i also did some 3D work on the side and remade my pcard. then i got absolutely fucked for time with IRL work and lost track of the days like crazy. i don't know how much i did or didn't sleep...

Q4

i got mildly interested in enstars and extremely interested in local pro wrestling which sucked up a bunch of my free time. in an attempt to force myself to study, i bought andrew loomis's art books for $100 and was pretty dedicated for a week before giving up. it improved my faces a lot! ...i need to get back into it before i forget.

august to november.

i was very happy with the ryuki/tama piece but it totally flopped online. since drawing the genbaro comic i've been using 3D pose reference more often, so i wonder if it looked a bit stiff? i spent a while recovering from an operation which fucked over my sense of time even more and i wasn't able to complete a single full illustration afterwards.

we decided to create a physical idolmaster zine, so i spent a while working on that. however, it caused google sheets nightmare-induced back pain and i had to limit myself from getting too involved. i can't wait for paypal to lock me out of $6000 next time.

project summary

i say i'm too busy with IRL work but it seems like i'm just doing an insane amount of fanart still.

organization:

participation:

to 2025

lately i've been thinking about what kind of artist i want to or can be— what will make me feel satisfied?

i enjoyed the convention circuit because it was the one place where i could comfortably be me IRL and me online simultaneously, but i dislike producing physical merchandise so i won't be doing it next year. the same goes for running and participating in fanzines— DOGS was my attempt at creating merch without mass production and GLOR10US RO@D/YE@RBOOK are just special anniversary cases.4

TBH i'm not feeling fan projects or events in general. 2024 was the first year i didn't participate sideM santa and i'm giving up moderation entirely in 2025. art trades seem like good motivation to draw to a high standard in a timely manner, but i'm probably going to find like, five people max who are interested.

i think what i've been longing for is to have more people that i can get better alongside. it's what made me enjoy art so much in university— we all studied together to improve, and i could rely on others for help and critique and help and critique them in return. i don't want to go to some random forum for it, but i don't know many others i can talk to about it either. why do i have such a stupidly difficult art style!!!!!

i'll keep focusing on it myself in the meantime. hopefully i can stay dedicated to studying for more than 2 weeks in 2025! i'm also doing gamejams!!!

  1. i was amused that that my first ever meeting with an international internet friend was with someone who i knew from zine servers but whose zines i had never participated in. i'm the one person in existence who cares about star trek zine history from the 70s and they're the one person who enabled me (i don't think either of us care about star trek).↩

  2. or at least up until recently. we're having a resurgence in the shinsoku ikkon discord server baby!!!↩

  3. black bumped me up to basically a mod since i trimmed all of the risoprints myself...↩

  4. the upcoming manosouta anthology is because i'm stupid and an idiot.↩

#art #goods #illustration #rant #zine