life update 4 Everything's Coming Up Milhouse (Patreon)

This a very overdue THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the insane support on the donothon, I am still in quite disbelief that we crossed the goal and reached $6,000 by the end... I am seriously indebted to you all, thank you so much.

I wanted to you know, do a proper thank you post and everything after wrapping up the YCHs on my end but, this month has been very chaotic!!!! I had the former secrets, now revealed, Webtoons and Lies of Caelum work, helping out Yumi with an event she will be tabling at, the YCHs themselves lol, slowly chugging on commissions, hunting down what I need, studying and interviews with the school (More on that later). It has been overwhelming both good and bad, good because yeah, more work is never bad! But, it seriously arrived at a time where I am already filled to the brim lol.... deadlines are stressful, but I'm managing and I believe that all the hard work will be worth it.

I want to publicly update a few things, let's start out with the more conflicting? ones, for lack of a better word.... I guess its more so the things that I feel guilty about lol:

COMMISSIONS

I'm extremely sorry about the slow progress on them, with all the donothon stuff, plus private work, I will unfortunately find myself still working at a slow pace.

You can check out my Trello where everything is listed and updated. The ones marked in red are the top priorities. I intend on updating everyone this month, but the red marks are the ones that I will do my best to finish during September. I have chosen those mainly due to them being the closest to completion

Commissions are most likely over at the moment, I seriously don't think I can take anymore! I'm already panicking a little trying to balance everything. I often make the mistake of biting way more than I can chew, and it would be quite the stupid move to add more to my plate when I can not swallow down anything anymore. I apologize if you were looking forward to getting something from me! I may be able to take one or 2 every other month or so, but definitely I am not freely available like I have been in the past years anymore. At the very least I will not be accepting a single one until the to do list on Trello is fully cleared.

YCHs, donothon rewards in general

I am about 2/3rds done with my YCHs batch! As you could see in the most recent post. Only about 5 are missing I believe.

Of course, that's only one part of the incentives you guys got, the rest I intend on handling in the following order:

Cursors right after wrapping up the YCHs, and finally the sketches. YCHs are relatively "easy" since I have a template to go off of, cursors are a bit more complex since its pixel art, even though likewise, there is some sort of template I have for it. There's not a lot of them either, so I think (hope lol) that they should be relatively easy to knock out within a week or two. Sketches are more of a wild card since it all depends on the request I got +whatever visual comes to mind lol, so those will be last.

As for the goals that we reached, (unbelievably so, everything wow!!!!!) some of it is already sort of in the works, as you have seen, there were polls related to illustrations with sketches, the voting periods are over, so we know what we have to do, thankfully all straightforward here. We are still missing one poll, the Krea & Agitha one, we have around 5 sketches roughed out, I just need to polish them a bit and slap rough colors on them so the poll can go up. This is the last time you will be allowed to suggest anything for those two, you guys have had plenty of time lool....

Yumi is working on her sticker sets, adding more and I believe she's taking suggestions too, so you are free (and encouraged) to tell her what you would like to see for that.

Merch thingies, like bubble stickers and the tin box are still in the works and being figured out what to do. Not much to comment here yet.

What the hell is going on with the Japan stuff are you there are you flying whats going on??????

Also, I had already gone in depth, but I will do a short recap of what's happening with the donothon money, since I have been asked and there seem to be misconceptions about the timeframe of the move and all:

I am not moving anytime soon!

The plan is to enroll into a Japanese language school and once I am accepted then I can finally move. The sign up process has already started, we thankfully passed the first round, and at the moment I am gathering all the documents required to continue enrollment.

The first phase was honestly a massive weight off my shoulders, if we didn't pass honestly like... all the hard work for the past year, especially the past few months, would have felt like a waste! Because if we didn't pass it, we would not be able to continue at all, we would not be allowed to even apply.

Hence why I thank you all once more, showing enough balance to prove that I can afford to go, and to be taken as a serious applicant would not have been possible without your help during July. It was really scary but everything worked out and I am super grateful for it still.

During September, especially these first two weeks, I will be, as stated previously, gathering documents, getting help with translation, payments, and anything else the school may ask.

I ask for your patience and understanding if once more this ends up being a rather quiet month... I feel really guilty because I don't want to make it seem like I am not working hard and just taking your help for granted, quite the opposite, its the most overworked I have been in a long time! In part thanks to getting to work with Merryweather and Lies of Caelum (the artbook goal got reached, so I'm in big trouble lol!!!!!), but it comes at the downside of well, I am unable to share the source files, high resolution or even the complete drawings at all, especially for the latter since well, would be a bit redundant to have an artbook when you can just see everything here, right?

I would like to try to balance the silence with streaming, but I haven't been doing so because of studying, documents and again not having permission to stream certain things. Maybe I will pick up messing with my sketchbook much more often to have something to show. It is really tricky...

I am not travelling anytime soon or anything like that, the money was never meant to fund a trip or anything of the sorts. I am stuck grinding to save up for the eventual move and such lol it truly never ends!!!!

Your help has made everything much more doable and honestly, hopeful. I was already telling myself I would have to wait another year, I had no hopes and have been very depressed, so I really can't stress enough how thankful I really am.

The money was required upfront because the school needs to look at my finances and check that yeah, I have the money and can afford it, which was our mistake last time (Like I had mentioned in my in depth post about it, not a very good look to have your bank at $0,000,000.00 lol!!!!). I didn't have the necessary funds in my bank account at the time, and thus had to shut down the entire plan. So until I need to start making payments and such, all the money is safely kept in a savings account, I'm not touching any of it.

I already talked a bit about both things, but I can go a bit more in depth:

Lies of Caelum: Spirit Kickstarter!

I joined the team just last month, and well it has been a bit of hell lol given that the Kickstarter would happen at the end of it, so it was quite the rush to the finish to have everything done in time and with good quality. Work really never ends with it, as soon as I finish one assignment I'm already tasked with another lol, but this is a big deal and good. I am happy to have the trust of someone to represent what has been their passion project for a long time, I am very happy that the campaign has been really successful so far, I love seeing people succeed doing what they love, and I'm glad I can be a part of it.

I don't think my head has fully registered everything going with it, or like how big of a deal it is. As recent as a few days ago those drawings weren't finished, and now they're being showcased in a game?? Its a bit too fresh for me lol, in due time I'm sure the realization will hit me.

Either way, the game looks really cool, if you want to support it you can do so here!!!

Merryweather Comics

At the exact same time while I was in talks with LoC team, I also was in talks with Merryweather Media lol, all I could think was The Simpsons' Ralph "I'm in danger." because I knew that yeah, I would be spreading myself too thin, and indeed I was...

I already went in depth about the comic I got to make with them, so I don't have too much to add here. It was fun and very enjoyable to make something small again. I am currently working on another one, similar theme but different tone... Stay tuned to see it in a couple of weeks!

That's all in regards to updates at the moment. Thank you for your patience and those who have stuck around despite my shortcomings, I owe you guys and will try my best to make up for the quiet months. 🙇

Last little sneak peek, some little merchandise I designed for something that will come out in a couple of days should be revealed. I'm not sure if it will be a simultaneous release, but hopefully you will see it sooner than later...