I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season and a good New Years! It's 2025 and I've been anxiously awaiting to implement some new changes for the new year!
As some of you know, 2022 and 2023 were extremely challenging for me. My ex wife and I separated after ten years, my best friend passed right before my birthday shortly before, I went through a really rough health crisis due to COVID at the time, and at the end of the year unfortunately lost my car shop business shortly there after unable to recover financially. 2023 was all about recovery and getting myself out of that deep hole financially and mentally, and I cannot express how hard the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 was for me.
The year 2024 was all about mental recovery, and grounding myself back into my routines and creating healthy habits, as well as rooting myself into a good job. 2024 was full ups and downs, but was a way more gradual and steady climb from what 2023 was. With the amazing support from my friend circle, my boyfriend, and my new connected relationships with my family, I was able to get through the year. It wasn't easy, and I'm still hard pressed for a lot of work. The end of 2024 was the hardest with the divorce trial being in late November, and my unfortunate grandmother's passing right before Christmas after her steady decline (She was 95 years old; we had a close relationship). The end of the year was difficult mentally, and while I still have plenty of work to do, I am hopeful and motivated.
What does this mean for 2025?
Well, to remain transparent, I have more work to do LOL I still have another divorce trial date in late February, and depending on what happens then might change a few things. However, I am steering my focus a bit to my art and commissions, as I've long awaited the opportunity to do so. Let me explain a little!
For the new year I'll be heavily focusing on a few key goals!
⭐ Focusing on artistic and creative improvements and habits
⭐ Forming more relationships and networking on social platforms
⭐ Developing my comic book pages starting at x2 pages a month
⭐ Improving my client relations and jump starting my commission que
⭐ Putting together new features, ideas, and activities for this Discord server to improve engagement and relations with my fanbase
⭐ Creating new habits and focusing more on routine and scheduling for my artwork, my time with my kiddo, and my employment status
These are ambitious and hopeful goals, but I aim to try and focus on each of these things for 2025. Up until now, since 2015, I have been constantly and repeatedly pushed back on my goals and dreams, routinely jumping over obstacles and through hoops for years just to get by and satisfy everyone else around me. I lacked the motivation and inspiration to continue my craft the way I wanted, and I selflessly and naively put all of my effort into other people while being put under enormous amounts of stress and social pressure. I'm hopeful and confident 2025 will be the start of a new chapter for me creatively.
So what does this mean for commissions?
During the next three months I will be gradually steering more to my que and artistic schedule while maintaining a solid and steady relationship with my part time employer. I am fortunate enough to work just enough to pay my necessary bills and have just enough time and freedom to focus on other things. This is a crucial and very important part of my plan, as it is incredibly difficult to form such in today's economy. I have been striving and focusing very hard on this aspect of my life.
With this new strategy, I'll be focusing on improving workflow, commission turn around time, and relationships with my commissioners. It's incredibly important to me to maintain a connection and relationship with my followers, and I acknowledge I haven't been the best at it the last few years, and I aim to fix that with new solutions.
What about the comic?
It's no surprise or secret that I've been trying so hard to motivate myself to put my creative plans and story into a manga-style comic, however, I've been seriously lacking in this part of my life and career. I've striven and worked so hard up until awhile ago for my story The Glytheum State. It was originally a 2D platformer video game built for the PC, and there was some major success there for awhile since during and after highschool. Unfortunately the dream of creating a video game faded, and it was hard keeping a team together without any pay. Eventually this project changed into a world-building project for a future comic production, and here we are years later, a bit late to the party.
I acknowledge that I've dropped the ball on this and so many promises I made for it for so long, as I tried so desperately to balance this project with other things while under extreme pressure to accomplish other unrelated things for my ex partner, their family, and my own. I unfortunately lacked a lot of inspiration and motivation during all of this, and unfortunately left the ball rolling for my comic production.
For context, I've been developing and honing my story and characters since high school over 15 years ago (Some of the OGs here remember!), and I owe it to myself to continue it. I would be lying if I said I didn't disappoint myself... but I aim to fix that. It's such a huge and major important part of my life, and I strive to continue it for 2025. You'll see a lot more TGS content!
What about merch?
I will be releasing a lot of new merch as the months g...
