Rhyw Year in Review - 2024 (Patreon)

Heyy folks. It's Rhyw! I figured I'd make a post about some of my thoughts that I've had over the last year. There's only minor content/status updates in this post at the bottom, so feel free to skip the read if you aren't interested in my process or BTS yapping!

Artwork Comparison

One of the funky quirks of the second great Twitter exodus is that it happened around October, which coincidentally was the last time I posted to BlueSky back in 2023. This gave me the idea of showing a bit of a comparison between then and now, plus 2022. While I don't think there's been too much drastic change between May and now, I definitely feel that my style has matured some since. I think this is a great example of there still being improvements made that wouldn't be strictly visible to the artist at first glance. Things still improve, just sometimes in small ways!

This isn't my only style though! I have two distinctive ways of rendering things and there's been awesome improvement on the realism front too. I did a ton of work in 2023 studying elements like skin and materials to make things look better. In 2024, I solidified that even more, producing some seriously crazy stuff. (The PG Shower render was a crazy achievement especially since my PC died half way through!)

Early 2024

I started 2024 in a really rough spot. I won't get too much into specifics, but alongside my OG computer dying suddenly and barely scraping together the cash to fix it, I was also neck deep in choices I'd made in attempt to help boost my traditional IRL career. The sudden inability to produce what I wanted was quite poetic, both as a student and as a 3D artist without a computer. Ultimately, these choices turned out to be wildly incompatible with what I wanted to do. So, starting out the year by dropping out of education was a major blow to my confidence. We've come a LONG way from that in just this year alone.

Feeding the Content Machine

The people who are close to me (you know who you are) are well aware that I fight tooth and nail against my ADD to produce content beyond what is expected of me. More so than ever this year I've felt that weight and admittedly it has driven me manic and placed unnecessary pressure on me as an artist. I don't think I'd have it any other way. Perhaps to an individual outside of the artist space I'd look completely mad, pursuing something that can be actively damaging in most cases, but believe me when I say I thrive in this environment. This pressure has magnified my motivation to improve my work month-on-month as much as possible. I refuse to become stagnant in all areas of my art, and part of what keeps me on my toes is figuring out how to do these things both consistently and under a deadline.

The other side of this story has been the release of content in a timely manner. I recognise that I am much slower than the other content creators I rub shoulders with and part of this year has been accepting that and pressing forward regardless. Sometimes those who don't/can't post as much get absolutely shafted by the algorithm and I have been concerned about being trampled under the boot of the content machine since 2023. Despite my worry, we've somehow knocked that out of the fucking park. I am both super proud and content with the growth we have been given this year and I am happy beyond all measure that I get to see people excited for the work I do. Having that worry disappear has been insane for my motivation and output.

Where do we go from here? (November - December)

The Halloween special, plus a few other tid-bids in my life over the past bit, have left me a little tired. I don't think I will be releasing anything big for the rest of the year. Instead, I'm going to take some time and make a few smaller things (Think IQ, Tracer's Stretching, etc.) and only make variants where I feel comfortable doing so. I've also got some commissions I'm finishing up too, so those will be going out. Expect a potentially quirky and more varied November.

I've mentioned in passing about taking some time off, and I think December is the best timing for that. I will make a few pieces in advance plus a Christmas special so you guys have some stuff while I'm away. Just some cute stuff for the holidays!

What do I want to do next? What goals are there for 2025?

I think it's better I do this in bullet point format, since it helps with clarity.

• Produce more OC content (Fallout, JACC, other OCs.)

• Find more interesting things to work on for Patrons

• Animate a little more, make some short interesting loops that aren't just fugging.

• Stream more and integrate it into our weekly schedule if possible.

• Outside of NSFW, I do also have a private SFW art life too and that has suffered without much respite. I would like to get that back on its feet to give me more freedom, but it comes with learning to balance two things at once (Rhyw and SFW) this will probably be it's own update if/when I figure things out.