December + 2025 Art Summary + Wrap-up
... to be honest, I should probably wait until the last day of December, but I whole-heartedly can't be assed to wait when I'm done writing! If anything else miraculously comes up in the last 2 weeks before 2026, I'll add them afterwards.
2025 Highlights
- Getting onto Neocities and meeting a lot of cool people, including some I never thought I'd actually become mutuals with!! :D I've learned a lot about CSS and HTML in this time
- Finishing my post-grad VR Production program, which I began at the beginning of the year and finished in August
- I've gone to quite a few events at the school, and our group was even interviewed/filmed for school's local news program
- Got a high distinction award for having over 90s in everything and being the highest in the class as well ... I don't like tooting my horn since I'm just doing what I do, but I wasn't expecting it
- Finished editing my friend's debut book which will be releasing next year!! And I did the cover work for it as well
- Making my very first HTML/CSS templates to share with people, and seeing them get used as well
- Getting a contract job through my school, and finally getting to use my business name for stuff (even if it's been a pain in the ass to set up things for it), and have an official business bank account
- Beginning my Minecraft forever world!! I've had it made since 2023, but never did anything with it until this year
- Making a forum with Joro!! Although it's only been a month so far, it's been nice to have a slow, asynchronous communication spot where unlike Discord I don't fear stuff getting buried into a hole + being too overwhelmed socially to keep up
- Read 10 books!! My friend and I have been doing read-alongs so to say, to kinda inspire me to keep up with reading. I love reading but it's hard to get myself to do it without having goals, so her kinda giving me 'chapter goals' where she stops then inspires me to read
- I'm very much either a 'voraciously reads and finishes a book in a few days that you should really have paced yourself reading' or 'takes two bajillion years to read anything', with no middle ground
- Starting using Obsidian ... I'm still kinda detangling how I want to handle it, but it's been helpful to do stuff like ... well, writing this entry actually; all of my blog posts are written in Obsidian first, then copy and pasted into bearblog when it's done. I've also been using it to mark down my HTML/CSS studies, C# tips and stuff for Unity, and anything else I'd wanna note down
2025 Art Summary
Yikes, this year was still a major burnout for me ... you can see on my art gallery page that I uh ... did not do a lot this year ... to be fair, my creative energy has been very split across a lot of stuff, which included editing, school work, and now my website. Like I'm very glad I do have outlets, but my art has suffered for it + my general burnout from last year around it. Thankfully I am glad I have done art, and quite a few I actually really like, like Sylvie's pinup pose + the outfit swap.
Template is from ap0statis.
2026 Goals?
Honestly I'm not sure, I don't tend to think ahead of things for my plans ... I'm hoping to continue with my contract work if they're happy with my work, and maybe try to job hunt again for something more permanent (unless I'm magically offered a full-time position here). Hang out more with my one classmate, cause it's nice to actually have someone in the area I can physically meet IRL (one of the things I sorely wish I could do with my internet friends without breaking the bank or having to travel an hour or more when having no car).
More work on my friend's book covers (since I'm basically like a co-author and the primary artist at this point, and the uh ... social media manager ...), as the first book is releasing next year and I'm really, really hoping it works out. Indie publishing is hard and soul draining. But it seems like the use of a dragon "VTuber" for the TikTok is helping a lot to at least draw interest, even if not specifically from the book sphere itself.
I'm making it more of a goal to continue walking on my mini treadmill, and hopefully I can bump up from 15 minute walks, to 20, and eventually to 30 on good days. Maybe even more if I can.
I'm also hoping to open up my smaller commissions again (my YCHs) to just have something small to do, and maybe even consider making one new one (unsure yet what it'd be).
Also of course, more website work. :D I hope to finish some of my long-term goals and ... eventually finish that one DeviantArt mock page I wanna do badly LOL. Curse of the fixation already wearing off so I'm not in any rush to return to working on it just yet.
... also finishing House of Leaves. God I love it, but it's such a hard book to read sometimes. I have a few other half-read books I'd wanna finish next year as well.