A Slow Year

 Well hello everyone. It’s already September and it’s been a while since I’ve made a general update post to Super Justin: the Blog that isn’t live/remote event coverage. I would normally use Twitter to make posts like these but with how it would get buried under its busted algorithm (and who uses Facebook these days?) I instead opted to dust off the good ol blog and use it to let everyone know in greater detail just what exactly has been going on this summer, and to an extent, what I have planned for the rest of the year and into 2023.

As you can probably tell, I have not been in the mood to create as much as I once was. Even after completing a lineup of four different characters in what was supposed to be my big comeback, progress has still been agonizingly slow and any attempts to return to doing regular art or spritework have either spiraled into spending time on other, smaller projects that don’t require as much effort to get through or simply not bothering to get any work done, binging Youtube videos and enjoying some good video game beats. It’s made me feel a lot more lazy in general and it made me realize that I may need some kind of big refreshening beyond trying to expand out and learn new projects (which didn’t work out that well, if my attempt to break into learning Blender in 2021 is of any indication).

And if you’re wondering about conventions, they can only really go so far in the grand scheme of things when it comes to keeping me motivated. While I love having them back in full swing for the first time since 2019 so I can go out, get exercise, and meet up with friends, they don’t really help keep my motivation at a high pace once I return home, and in July and August there was either a convention, a birthday party, or a video game night/event on every single weekend whenever it be Friday, Saturday, and/or Sunday. It pretty much prevented me from getting a good, long break to rest my legs from whatever event(s) happened before the next one started up the following weekend. And this is ontop of the stress from my mother’s surgeries in late June and early July messing up the entire family routine though the following two months (and this is after already having surgery the prior Winter). Thankfully she’s recovering and will be able to walk by the end of the month even if she’ll be confined to a cast for a while longer.

In other words, consider this another small semi-hiatus. I didn’t want to pull out the hiatus card so soon after what was meant to be the return to making art but when I get so much on the mind and barely any time to take a breather among getting interests in a bunch of other, smaller projects catching my attention (like Doom mapping), I don’t think I’m in a state of mind where I can consistently make artwork or sprites and stay committed to one piece before moving onto other things. My workstation also currently doesn’t feel as tailored to drawing art (traditional especially) as I’d like, and the drawing tablet I got for my birthday takes up most of my desk and is too big to keep out at all times. Since it’s far too big of a scope for me at the moment I’m also putting game dev and 3D art through Blender a pass for now, though I do intend to pick them up when things improve. As for art, well, maybe I need to rediscover my passion for it after it slowly faded in the late 2010’s and it never really recovered since the pandemic’s beginning?

I have so many questions and not enough answers, and I won’t know for sure until things start getting better around here and I have more encouragement, knowledge, and determination to dive into doing bigger things. As for this blog, I’m unsure when I’ll get around to posting new content proper, but if nothing comes then I’ll likely reserve an entire post for New York Comic Con 2022 mid-October.