And Once Back Around Again ~ Supporter Update (13-01-25)

*Inhales* Ah! Can you smell that? The crisp, fresh morning air of a brand new year! The pong of pleasing possibilities, the fragrance of fulsome foresight, and the rank of ready-reneged resolutions. It brings a tear to the eye. Oh wait, those are paint fumes. Sorry.

It's 2025! I don't know if you've noticed. And if you use a different calendar I'm clearly talking nonsense, or at least a more specific nonsense than usual. Anywho, let's leap into the non-leap year with the gusto it deserves, starting with the very first warm-up doodle of a new era!

Okay, perhaps a tad more enthusiasm than that.

This update is a tale of two halves. The first half - encompassing the now thoroughly passé end of 2024 - consisted of wrapping up some of last year's business: Completed commissions, more warm-up doodles, a brand-spanking new Patreon update header image, the list goes on! With one more thing!

Bingo! The hot-potato concept of bundling up new-years resolutions into a gamified bingo sheet was tossed between friends, and who am I to say no to a tasty tuber? Also a square of squares in a square year (2025 = 45²) is pleasingly thematic. We're even one quarter of a square completed already! More on that later. 👀

After the seasonal tradition of waiting approximately one month for Christmas cards to snake their way through the labyrinthine postal system, I'm now fairly comfortable sharing the design for last year's card! It is - naturally, given my primary design theme of 2024 - centred around the Calendars and their numerical connection to the 12 days of Christmas! These also got sent with sticker sheets of the emotes I'd been posting last month, albeit the stickers came first and the idea for emotes came second. Time's funny like that.

And with that we charged forth into the first full week of the year, one in which I started as I mean to go on: Not working!

That's right, for the first time since my Netherlands trip last June(!) I took a week away from my typical work to, uh, do atypical work. 😅

My time was mainly split between three things: The chill aspect was playing We Love Katamari which, given how much I fell in love with its predecessor, was my guaranteed wind-down time. Well, until the cow-bear reared its spotted, grizzly head. ¬¬

I also got to catch up on a couple of unfinished bits from over Christmas, including working on crocheting some rats for my brother who, through some grand cosmic coincidence, has just adopted some rats! Okay, perhaps it's not quite so coincidental. I think the word is 'causal'. Either way I'll share those when they're not an unfortunate looking pile of not-yet-membered body parts.

But the main attraction for the week took the form of my grand return to linocut printing! Way, way, waaaaaay back in July of 2022(!!!) I tried my hand at linocut printing and got a little too annoyed at the 'printing' part to bother continuing. Since then a gaggle of ideas have gradually raised their collective bonces in aid of improving the process and nudging me back on track.

Perhaps I'll make a whole separate post, either here or on my blog (my website has a blog, have I mentioned that?) detailing the rabbit-hole that that became - making a modular registration system, gluing blocks to registration-variable supports, making home-made barens, etc - but suffice it to say the Ornstein print is back on track with the first of three stages already printed and drying above my monitor as I type this very sentence.

Of course as this was all churning away behind the scenes, the machinery of streams continued to grind: The change of years was rung in and out with Dicey Dungeons and our Tracks tradition irrespectively. Those Tuesday and Wednesday evening streams are now immersed in a suave swathe of European culture, by which I of course mean me flailing to remember how to speak Dutch to play Escape Simulator with Cheeb.

Saturdays hold our attention with our ongoing Grim Hollow play-test, in which we made good friends with some owlbears before a half-orc made good friends with an actual bear. Sundays are, with pleasing consistency, steadfastly doodled-along with friends!

Morning streams find me working through December's rather belated comic. The inking is under-way and now that I'm back at work matters should speed up considerably, he said with uncharacteristic optimism!

And with that we're up and running for yet another year to pass me by without nary a memory formed! But hey, perhaps we'll get some bingo squares stamped-off! 🥴

Previously I did promise that this update would consist of me explaining all of my plans for the year to follow, but, uh, I haven't made them yet. That's this afternoon's job. 😅

So instead I shall bid you all a wonderful eleven-and-a-smidge months to come, een gelukkig nieuwjaar, for all of your personal goals to be met, for the goals of your enemies to slowly fold into a mushy pulp, and for each and every one of you to frequently discover some chocolate that you didn't remember was next to you.

Thank you for your inexplicably unwavering kindness.
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜