Happy new year!!
2025 was brutal, but I'm trying to remain hopeful that 2026 could be a turning point. Hoping for financial stability and creative fruitfulness.
I'm trying to think of attainable goals to set for the year. I want to be ambitious but without overwhelming myself to the point of dropping everything altogether. But I'm not gonna kick myself if that happens anyway. The main thing is just to try! So here are some things I'm thinking about for the new year (job hunting etc. not included because this is supposed to be FUN and HOPEFUL, not DEPRESSING):
CONTINUE BUILDING THIS SITE, POST AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK
I like having this dumb little site and want to continue working towards making it a central hub for myself instead of various social media sites. If I can start getting a steady enough income, I'd even like to splurge for a neocities subscription and a domain name. My idea is anything I make that isn't just a quick joke for a bluesky post, I post here first. Well... I post it to my Patreon and Ko-fi members first. Then a day later, here. And then the day after that, it can go on social media for the people who just hate clicking links or using RSS readers. But hopefully repeatedly prioritizing things this way will make it so if all the social media sites continue to become more uninhabitable, everyone will know where to go.
AT LEAST ONE GAG COMIC EVERY OTHER WEEK
I remember when I first started making webcomics in 2012, I read some good advice that whatever you think is a reasonable workload, you should cut it in half to start with. So, while I think one itty bitty comic a week is entirely doable, I'm only going to hold myself to one every other week. So 26 comics this whole year. Once I get into the groove of things again, if I think I want to do them more frequently, I can. But all I'm holding myself to is having 26 gag comics by December 31st. This also gives me plenty of room to work on other things, like...
A NEW SHORT STORY EVERY OTHER MONTH
I only made three stories in October (not counting customized ones I made as part of my efforts to raise money for rent), and said I was going to continue making them past October, only to leave this place fully abandoned the rest of the year. But I do like doing them, and I think once every other month is plenty of time to keep me from feeling like I'm rushing myself or that it's the only thing I can allow myself to focus on. I may broaden this to include essays too, because I keep thinking I'd like to do some good old fashioned essay writing just for fun.
BLENDER
Yes, just like every other drawing doer on the internet, I feel the need to figure out how to 3D model, rig & animate in Blender. I know I NEED to so I can have more work opportunities, because everyone and their mother is a storyboard artist and ALL of them are better at drawing than me while there are a total of maybe 2 storyboard jobs left that we all have to fight over. Anyway, I've started this process twice before and fell off both times because anything less WYSIWYG than putting a stylus to a screen and making a line appear is too much for my little analog brain to handle. I've never even figured out how to do masks and all that other fiddly stuff digital illustrators love to do in CSP and Photoshop, and that's after I've been making art on computers for 20 years. BUT THIS TIME HOPEFULLY I WILL BECOME BLENDER BOY (nonbinary edition).
GODOT
As a person who plays video games and a person who likes the feeling of having made a thing (VERY different feeling from the feeling of making a thing, which is UNBEARABLE), of course I always think "that would be fun to try someday." Actually, even when I was thinking about college as a teen, I was going to major in art & animation for video games despite being more interested in tv animation, because it seemed like a more viable career path. But then I went to community college and dropped out instead lol. ANYWAY, I've played around with various game engines in the past, such as Game Maker and Adventure Game Studio, but something about Godot being the hot new FOSS in town makes me want to play with it, so maybe I will. Could be fun to make some silly little microgames to give away on itch.io or something.
OTHER THINGS
There are other things I'm interested in doing this year that I'm not as committed to, so they don't get individual categories like everything else. Digital painting, making little songs in LMMS, etc. It all basically boils down to "MAKE THINGS, FIND OUT HOW TO HAVE FUN MAKING THINGS AGAIN!"
Here's hoping this time next year I can feel good about at least some of what I've written here. Time to get cooking.