Wrapping up year 3! (Patreon)

2025 is coming to an end, and 2026 is less than a week away, which marks 3 years of doing this now.

It seems insane that someone like me has been able to do this for this long. There are hundreds of artists that I admire that make fascinating works of art, but don't have half the monetary support I've been given. As Hank Green put it about people who get this kind of success, it really does feel like I'm just a nerd who got lucky. Have you seen Shifter Labs 1? How did a buggy broken mess like that launch my career??

Regardless, this journey has provided me with so much personal growth than I ever would have gotten if I was still working at that grocery store. I've met friends who have become my deepest, closest companions, and people who have become my teachers and mentors. I've learned about myself so much that I'm barely an echo of who I used to be.

In 2022, when this whole thing started, Chaos was my fursona, and it was pretty much my only form I'd ever take.Now, coming on 2026, I've transitioned my fursona to become primarily Ruin due to being taught essential lessons about how the mind works, my personal relationships with my characters, the concept of multiple minds in one head, and how that affects my art.

Every year since about 2020, I've named every year as if it were a movie title. It's basically a small exercise I've taken on to help me be thankful for every year that passes by and to look back at how the year has changed me.

For those curious, 2020 was "Stay Back"i didn't have one for 2021.2022 was "Year of the Salamander"2023 was "Defied Realities" (you can imagine what happened then)2024 was "Blooming"and finally, I've landed on "Death of the Artist" for 2025.

The title represents my desire to break away from a lot of my old senses of self that I used to have. Ruin has become a lot more than just my fursona, but the spirit of the person I wish to become. I've adopted the title "therian" to represent that I am more than my human self, and that my adventures into turning Ruin into not only my fursona, but my honest-to-goodness self, are true. I wanted it to be striking, memorable, and true that my separation from the solid person I used to be is no more, and I feel beautiful, prettier, sexier, and truer to myself than I've ever felt. The death of the artist I used to be, and the rebirth of a brand new, incredible self I can be.

But even then, my adventure into learning and improving myself is far from done. In the past month, I've gotten to learn a lot about myself and my mental health issues. I'm taking ADHD medication for the first time, and I'm also learning I might be on the autism spectrum too. I've also learned about a type of depression that has been making it hard for me to do tasks that I'm eager to work on helping. 2026 is going to be a lot of re-invention of myself.

Anywho, that's a lot about myself. What's coming up in the year to come?

Well, the LRCGames are going to be continuing, finally. I'm also probably going to be taking some more commissions, but hopefully not as many. I want to work on my own projects too, because I have a lot of ideas that have been building up in my head.

Shifter Labs 4 is coming this year, this time I'm serious.

Happy new year, and thank you all for your generous support!!