Ellie Summer Outfits (Patreon)

The last reference sheet was more of a simple caricature of Ellie to get some expressions and basic design elements down. Of course I want her to have a more serious look outside of the cute looks because the story is darker in tone. There's a lot of focus on psychology and the complexity of romance and the human experience. What it means to be normal, is it more desirable to be normal? How to deal with suffering and numbness. I've been dealing with mental health issues long before I started SWFTD and unfortunately it got worse as I increased my workload. I became isolated and neglected my personal life until I developed anhedonia. I've found the only thing that has been helping me is trying to remember my childhood and reexamining what actually happened to me as a child, and promising to myself that moving forward--I will not suppress my true feelings and desires anymore. I can't keep disassociating from my true self and expect to get healthier. I feel it's important to talk about these things, so I'd like to explore that and try some new things out. I finally feel like there is some purpose to my life, part of that is healing myself, my inner child, and the other part is creating art that will help others heals, or at least consider a different way of looking at life. These are things I wish I could have imparted to my younger self.