Hello! So, uh, how are you? Oh, really? Oh. Oh that's a shame. Well yeah,
at least you've got that. No I don't think you mentioned it before.
Really? Huh, I would never have guessed. He didn't, did he? Wow. Okay.
Mhm. Right, sorry but, I mean, this is all very interesting but I have an
update to write. No that's okay, I asked. No. No that's fine. Yep. Yeah.
Cool, have a great day. Love you. Bye!
Right, where were we?
Everybody pull out your chalkboards and rack up another tally on the 'Crispy Updates with Nothing Significant In Them' column because, you guessed it, it's another shallow fortnight of slim splashings and sparse spillages.
The closest to a concrete product I can show you is a drawing of my Pokémon RPG character Deco made for her first session last week. This wasn't pure selfishness on my part since it served as good practise for a similarly styled commission for one of the other players. Still pretty selfish though.
As for the sort of things you're presumably deciding to pay me for, I have been working quite hard on comics albeit in an unfocused fashion. A good day spent thumbnailing a J&K comic before the bad head set in (more on that later) led to the need to draw a soothing smooch. The smooch then compelled me to imagine another separate comic (also containing a smooch) which I promptly thumbnailed and am now part-way through cleaning up. Hence my efforts have been spread thinner than expected, but progress has been made.
It's worth pointing out that this thinness wasn't wholly accidental: I've had too many days of late where I've sat down to start drawing and been thoroughly unable to make progress. 'It's just not a drawing day' has been the excuse for being unable to hew something from nothing. But if the phenomenon is that common then surely I ought to develop contingencies for it, no?
Since the sketch phase is the bottleneck, why not spend as much time as possible whilst I can sketch building up a bedrock of ready-hewn doodles. That way when I discover I'm low on creative verve I have some less-taxing lining and colouring work to fall back on. On my worst days there's always writing, something which can be affected during an equally head-soothing walk. If I have to deal with an inconsistent but varied workforce (regardless of if they're all just me) I might as well prioritise the work appropriately. Anyway, I've just discovered this new thing I'm calling 'Management'.
Now, about that bad head: I'm beginning to identify a number of root causes underpinning my burgeoning existentialism of late and a few of them are unionising under the shared banners of insecurity and dissatisfaction. I've retroactively found myself walking blinkered down a tunnel network into a bare-rock dead-end where I'm neither satisfied with what I'm doing nor in any way secure in doing it. Sure there were alternate paths and crossroads along the way, but I wasn't trying to notice them.
The specifics as yet elude me and thus so does the solution, but suffice it to say I can smell some significant change in the air. What form that takes, how drastic an upheaval it will be, whether this Patreon gubbins will thrive or die because of it I don't know, but I thought even a vague advanced warning might soften the surprise.
Fortunately for me next week I'll be on holiday visiting friends and the week thereafter will be spent resetting myself and doing all the things I keep saying I'm going to do but never have the time for. Like cleaning. This distance and time spent with friends will almost certainly afford me a little decision-making room and I'll hopefully have a clearer course to outline for you come the next update in a few weeks. After all the worst that can happen is I just find a second dead-end.
Anyway here's a portrait of human Opiter I forgot to post.
Streams! They're mostly still happening, including the predictably bizarre supernatural soap opera and punctuation hoard of 'Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice for All', wherein I get to exercise my pan-European accentage.
Friend streams, when my aforementioned brain will allow, have been spent doing some mild therapeutic cleaning in Viscera Cleanup Detail, followed by our cosy foray into the land of communal doodlage. Some off-screen time has been spent exploring Drawpile as a Magma alternative to solve lag and network issues, but a little more ironing out is necessary before I'm happy to make that leap.
And now the predictions section which, I'll be honest (because of course I'm usually a massive liar) is sparse. Of the three weeks until the next update I'll be almost entirely away from the computer wrenched between holidays, family commitments, crafts and preparations for the above. I intend to take a sketchbook with me on holiday and get some much-needed physical art practise in, but friends are of course the priority.
All I can promise for sure is the results of a few weeks' mulling over my future, a gaggle of ill-assorted doodles, two weeks of streams (my second 'week off' will still see me streaming) and hopefully a slightly healthier brain. It's the months following which will likely bear fruit. I just need to plant a few saplings first.
For now I thank you all profusely for your unwarranted support in this trying time. You all do your best to help reduce the arsenal of the anxiety-monger squatting in my head and I appreciate that greatly. With any luck the mid-future will allow me to show you my thanks more tangibly.
Have a lovely few weeks!
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜