Art Summary 2025
December 26, 2025
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A rough year for me and the wider world as well, following a rough 2024. Jesus fucking christ.
I'll withhold my feelings until the end. A warning, this years thoughts are heavier than the last. A continuing trend it seems.
January - 3 Months in on Japanese
This year I've been learning Japanese in the background. I made a 3 months in post to talk about how it was going at the time. The main highlights were finding Anki & exterior resources more helpful than Duolingo, IIDX brainrot, and getting sidetracked with Animal Crossing.
February - (private AU fanart)
The only thing I remember drawing this month was an illustration for a currently private AU. I don't have much to gain or loose anymore, so I'll post it here. This is part of a body-swap AU between Nix & a self-insert. I drew it to decorate my obsidian vault. I guess it's adds some more polished pieces for this year, but I feel it no longer reflects the tone of the AU (which has gotten more venty / hurt-comfort).
March - The G7 LPS Experience
"This one's the Panda, right?"
The full version of a youtube thumbnail I made for a video complaining about the state of G7 LPS. It's funny because this is the G7 experience; I've spent more time checking blindbox codes than I'd like to admit... But it's also sad. I didn't know then that would be my last true LPStube video & the channel ended on two videos on what ruined the hobby for me.
April - Zinnia 3D Model
Earlier this year, I wanted to try low-poly modeling. Learning 3D had been on my art bucket list for years, but fell to the wayside until now.
Zinnia was made in Blockbench, since I wanted to learn a low-poly style. I feel like for my first finished character model she's alright. Just ignore her terrible UVs & texture...
May - (Refrence for an ALT 2.0 model)
This month technically didn't have any finished pieces. The only thing I could find was this t-pose ref I made for next month's pic. I guess it's something? but it's not the final work
June - ALT 2.0 Model
The next character model ended up being ALT 2.0! I moved over to Blender as I didn't like Blockbench as much as I thought I would. Plus I wanted to learn how to properly rig a model.
She's kind-of janky in some areas. The shader ended up covering most of the issues. But I feel like the way I rendered her feels too close to my 2D art, but more stiff. I might do a re-render that takes advantage of the 3D style more.
If you're wondering what I'm planning on doing with these character models? Nothing for now. They're just for study & learning 3D.
July - AF 2025 - DDR Dog!
I was planning on sitting out on Artfight this year, but joined since I was artblocked & wanted more ideas to draw.
OC belongs to Hobbestopia on Artfight. My first 3D attack! ...and the only one. I think this was good practice for making a low-poly / PS2 era render. But it took a long time to the point I ran out of energy for more of these.
August - The Projects I Haven't Told People About
Where I talk about two ROOTS 26 AUs that are currently private. I wrote that article as a 'puff piece' for myself since late July-early August were very bleak. I didn't want to leave the blog on three bleak blogposts in a row, so I wrote about some projects that made me happy this year.
The reasons I haven't shared them are in the post. I've posted a few smaller doodles related to them but that's the extent of it.
September - 1 Year into Learning Japanese
Or 11 months, but I was impatient & wanted to get the post out earlier. And 1 year makes for a better title. At this point, learning had become pretty inconsistent with me wrapping up Kaishi 1.5k and transitioning into immersion & sentence mining for new vocab. There were some other interesting things, like how it ended up tying into other things I've tried this year (linux & doll making specifically).
October - Let's Get Tropical! October 3rd
This originally started as a meme-y piece, but honestly? I just wanted to draw something fun & genuine. Iroha's my favorite out of the IIDX girls & I haven't drawn Lilith that much.
November - Been Getting into Linux Lately
Another thing I've wanted to try for years, Linux! Ironically this pic was drawn on Windows, I didn't start daily driving it on my main system until December. But I thought it'd be fun to draw Io as a penguin. To be honest learning Linux has revitalized my interest in tech. It's fun & rewarding learning about my OS of choice.
December - Fame
I'm not sure what made me want to log back into Flight Rising this month. I think I was feeling nostalgic. I realised I'm skilled enough to draw my dragons (or at least more willing to draw details). This is Fame & he's a Veilspun I picked up earlier that month. You can visit him here!
Thoughts
To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to writing this year's reflection. Looking at my reflections on past years & my art galleries feels like a record of my declining mental health with no signs of any worldly improvement. I'll leave the heavier vent on a separate page.
The page linked below contains talk of suicide ideation and depression. Reader discretion advised
A Heavy Hearted Reflection
Artwise, I think this might be my weakest. I haven't drawn or felt the motivation to draw for most of the year. I've lost the drive for most of my projects. At this point, art as a career is a dead dream to me & I've pivoted towards mostly personal work.
I guess I didn't do nothing at least. I didn't do much illustration-wise. But I did learn how to do 3D character modeling & make plushies. Both were things I wanted to do since I was young. But old blender overwhelmed me, & plushie supplies were out of kid me's price range. Learning 3D was a failed goal in 2024 because I wanted to go more 'utilitarian' & use it for blocking out sketches. But I think deep down inside I wanted to do character stuff. I went low-poly to both match my artstyle & keep things easier on me. On plushies, my main goal was making a doll of Nix (a character I grew very attached to this year). When I was younger I wanted to make larger stuffed animals. I guess a small human doll is different from what I thought I'd do, but I think if I make more I'll keep it smaller. There's also those private IIDX AUs, though they've faced some artblocks on their own. I guess it helps they're private & in the form of short stories, so there's nothing at risk if I drop them. Ioswap even got a decent amount of doodles, though I've only let a few out of the vault.
Outside of art stuff, I did my first solo trip. It was stressful to plan on my own, but I wanted to do something as I don't know if I'll be financially or even mentally able to do something like that in the future. It was fun, I got to ride the Amtrak for the first time & play a ton of rhythm games. I want to try doing a small trip next year too, but probably somewhere closer (16+ hour train rides are brutal...)
I also finally switched to Linux. Kubuntu as of posting. I've wanted to do this for both feeding my tech interest & frustrations with modern Windows, but I think this was well needed beyond that. Learning about Linux has helped relieve some 'tech apathy' I've been feeling and is one of the few interests of mine that I haven't gotten apathetic towards.
On other goals, I did continue learning Japanese, as difficult as it's been through depressive slumps. It's a routine I can latch onto I guess. And I also played more IIDX (I cleared my first 8 this year). I did blog more, though I guess that's because I find blogging therapeutic & helped a lot in the back half of the year. The only goal of 2025 that I didn't meet was working on moving out, but again, that's postponed due to family affairs.
I'm not sure what I want for 2026. Right now it's mostly continuing with personal art & not pursuing an art career. There's a chance I might back out of an online presence entirely. I want to keep this website up for as long as I feasably can, but in the event 2026 is the end of 'Jade Everstone' this is a reminder that I'm ok with people saving my art for offline personal viewing.
The 2020's feels like I've been dropped in an ocean. I don't want to drown, but as the years pass my fatigue is taking over, and any sign of refuge has yet to be seen.