Art Summary 2024

December 28, 2024

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2024...

This year was rough for me, and for many others as well from the looks of things. I didn't have as many larger works this year, but I've managed to scrounge together what I did make for a filled-out summary.

As a heads up, my final thoughts on this year are heavier and touch upon some of my fears & concerns for my future. Light reader discretion is advised.

January - it's snowing again

A piece about feelings of uncertainty and caution entering 2024. It's bleak out there, but it snowed a few times at least. It was nice to look at, I guess that's something.

Febuary - POV: Your partner is a New Englander

Point-of-view from Alia at a workstation, holding a picture of Io with a Red Sox cap eating a Donut at a Red Line subway station

A screenshot redraw challenge from Twitter. I like to imagine Alia took that photo on a Boston trip with Io because the Red line was running late.

March - LPS EMPRESS

a pink cat with a tiara and plaid skirt holding a record, next to a white cat with a small top hat and glasses on a plaid chaise lounge

2024 was the year I got more into IIDX, and back into LPS collecting. As a result, these otherwise completely different interests ended overlaping a lot more than I thought lol.

This one's a spoof on the IIDX empress CS boxart, combined with two long-term dreamie LPS I got around that time.

April - A Quiet Afternoon Birthday

Android prisma sitting next to Monster hunter prisma, who is eating a slice of cake

Prisma & her AU Monster Hunter Prisma were major comfort characters a few years back. While both versions taken a backseat recently, I wanted to make some form of nice picture for her birthday.

May - Io - ver. aquatic

A robotic mermaid with a shark-like tail and pink fins holding a spear captioned - Io ver aquatic

A last-minute mermay picture featuring Io! I based their design on a black-tipped reef shark.

June - My Pet Shop.pdf

photo of My Pet Shop.pdf as a physical zine surrounded by various LPS that appeared in it

A zine based on my revived interest for LPS, highlighting a few 'named' pets in my collection. Some of them are older ones with sentimental value, and some were (relatively) recent additions to my collection.

July - The Uno Incident

Nix, Siren, and Eiri (offpanel) playing uno. Nix is drawing a blue and is screaming 'ARE YOU SERIOUS? GIVE ME A GREEN CARD!', Siren is laughing, and Eiri's hands are in the foreground with a green reverse, 3 draw 4's, and a cup of sake.

Guys I don't think he's winning this round.

Uno brings up some funny memories from college for me. Notably one instance where I got drunk and got skipped at least 3 times during gameplay (and missing several times I could've played a card...). It became a running joke for the rest of that year.

August

three halfbody sketches of Shem from iidx

Wasn't much from this month (or at least much that wasn't part of unfinished projects). I think this might've been the only one I posted. A warmup dump for a project I was working on at the time involving Shem.

September - m_l_nch_ly

Io with the nonbinary color pallete on the floor of a white void, looking up longingly as parts of their body become liquid and float upwards in droplets

A piece about feelings of fear, stagnation, and hopelessness as a queer individual. Feelings that loomed over me 2023, 2024, and especially now entering 2025.

October - Zinnia MLP custom

photo of a blue-striped LPS Zebra with purple hooves and muzzle and magenta hair with an orange stripe, next to a larger version on a custom My Little Pony figure of the same character

With my revived interest in LPS came a revived interest in custom toys (though I'll likely keep this as a minor side-thing). This was an old MLP G4.5 base I prepped years ago, and made into a figure based off my LPS mascot.

I based it on how I draw her, though I think next time I do a project with sculpting I should think about how to make it more efficient (It took about 3 months to make between motivational dips...)

November - Still more to do...

Jpeg on the left on a beanbag in a messy room, surrounded by packing material and boxes of stuff that needs to be unpacked. They're stressed out and looking at a box of partially unpacked gaming stuff. Risa is on the right eating a taquito and is uninterested in helping.

My contribution for Window to Worlds 2024! This year I gave the spotlight to Jpeg and Risa. In which Jpeg realises they haven't packed anything that isn't gaming related since they moved in, and Risa not being much help either.

December - Webmaster Io - v2

Io floating in cyberspace and waving hi to the viewer with their left hand, and drawing on a monitor with their right. They're surrounded by blue windows representing the website, a batlike version of themself, and a text editor with lines of code in it

A redraw of an older picture of Io with their updated design to celebrate the site's recent layout update.

I would argue the latter is my biggest project and proudest achievement of 2024, so I like to see this illustration as a stand-in for that as well.

So, 2024... I feel like the best way to describe this year was this piece of vent artwork I made early on.

Io highly fatigued with messy hair and slouching over a phone. They're being asked 'you doing alright there' and answering 'what do you think?' They're surrounded my articles describing topics such as queer oppresion, inability to own property, and the art industry on the decline

I don't have much positive to say this year. It's been difficult this decade, and it feels every year becomes more difficult than the last. With 2023, at least I had positive experiences in college to remember. In 2024, I feel stagnated, paralized, and especially with the current political state in my country terrified of what lies ahead.

It's terrifying, knowing that I've become stagnant and isolated while watching all the doors of opportunity be replaced by 30ft thick walls before I could even think about opening them. To know that pursiung art even part-time may not be viable, or that the sliver of time 2022-23 might've been the last time I'd ever be out of the closet in real life. And without oversharing, there's been tensions rising within my home that prevent me from feeling comfortable there. And that even though I have a goal of at the very least moving out by 2026, that this goal might not even be feasable, and that I'll still be stagnant as ever. I barely even met any of my goals for this year, nevermind this.

And it's becoming harder and harder to motivate myself to do just about anything as every other day it feels like there's a new anti-queer law being passed somewhere, or more threats and destruction to the viability of being an artist in any capacity, or the feeling I'll never be able to leave home. Really, I think at this point the main thing I've been motivated to make art for is Roots 26 fanart, but I can't help but feel like that well might run dry eventually. And if that happens, what then?

I don't know how to enter 2025. Like 2023 and the years before that, i don't want to say anything to jinx it. Doubly so this time. The only goals I have for that year is build a foundation for moving out (or ideally move out that year,) and to keep up with hobbies. Not even with an improvement goal in mind, more-so a "don't fall out of it like I did in 2020" thing (especially for rhythm games, which I've been using as a motivator to get out of the house).

But there's this feeling, that it won't be enough. I feel like I am drowning, and I'm terrified that I won't be able to swim.