april 20th 2025

ok i didnt make an entry yesterday so im gonna throw that stuff in here too.

i did a ton of sketching and doodles yesterday. i got to some next stages on commissions and watched art videos. its been a very long time since i actually sit and absorb stuff. i feel out of shape. and i have this consistent frantic anxiety around the fact that im aware of what my art is lacking and the errors im making, but im so panicked that i end up repeating the mistakes.

im also realizing i will come back and see art another headmate has drawn and go "this is fucking shit" and it sparks the urge to purge galleries. there is a dissonance between how we go about creating art. like, its pissing me off. we need seperate galleries or something. we're really trying to find a system for us to like, feel harmonized about our art. because what ida will draw is what hes happy with, hes drawing for fun. im drawing because its fucking so, it does something to me. i know i can do it well, but our hands wont get it out. i get frustrated and frantic and then ida or lucas will just finish it and im like NO!!! especially with commissions. the fact we cant redo a piece after its been sent out...Auh!!!!!!! i dont know. its something. and its really fucking annoying. id like to think its isolated to our art habits but...well, our art reflects us. hah :))

anywho, we animated yesterday. practicing with what we learned about timing charts, which arent really timing charts but rather spacing charts. for the longest, i could not understand the fucking charts thatd always appear on godly animations and now i get it, and why theyre used, and how they help. here, the actual timing is NOT right, but i like it being kind of a bounce.

so, here is a second version where the actual timing of frames is adjusted, and a few frames slightly shifted to better suit the curve.

i didnt do this to show myself i can make super smooth animation. this is a step to chiseling through the ice over our muscles with animation overall. like ANY kind of attempt to just...do it. the level of panic i have around animation makes me so upset. i want to be an animator, and deep down, i am one. but ill sit down and try to do an animation and im filled to the brink of dread and dissociate. instead of trying to go big, we're trying to start small and build confidence or something. i want to animate again. i miss it so much. all i can do is try now.

we're doing more pose studies using shapes as a base. here is one of them of The Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel, which i hope to someday paint Kurai into. id like to use this as painting practice, so basically an emulation piece. of course, for the future...aint doing that shit rn

both me and lucas share a deep love for painting, but we dont do it enough. and we arent exactly sure what our style is. we're looking at paintings a lot more again because we really do want to capture the same feelings the ones we like evoke in us, but its about figuring out what that is.

i cant even say we have a issue with our art style, its more about how we complete pieces. some of us dont give a fuck if it looks finished or not. others of us want it to be Solid, but the panic sets in and it ends up in a semi-finished state that we look back and cringe on when its obvious 2 different people worked on it.

i also finished two drawings for people i know in real life. one is part of an art trade, and the other is a gift to my brother so he can have a fursona

i am honestly anxious about the person i traded with finding my art and realizing im a horny and mentally ill fucker, but honestly i think its about time i not worry hard about this and embrace it, because its key to us accepting ourselves. personally, i struggle with it. the rest of the system doesnt care, or well the shame about it doesnt drag them down. its a distraction to me that i dont like how easyily it can scoop me up. im trying to be better about it.

its funny how long its taken to write and finish this entry. i ended up pausing midway due to finding out my SSD for my PC is kicking the bucket. fun. but its fixable. now, im just exhausted from events that followed getting stressed abt the PC, and then a short outing with my sister, and soon i will have to be around family i dont talk to. im ready for a long nap and i think ill take one before more socializing

april 18th 2025

hello!!! first entry in the sketchbook.yeah, so instead of a blog, im going sketchbook route for how i ramble. this makes me less inclined to reveal personal struggles LOL.

i woke up with a focus on improving how we depict the Furrealife! cast since im touching up and refining things with the series. the specific study today has been making their hairstyles more distinict and make sense.

so yeah, im considering their fur texture into the picture. i hadnt considered thinking of what a single strand of their fur would look like until now, which with this in mind drastically helps guide how i depict them. i often have trouble making Ida distinct from Allen due to both having similar bangs and hair types, but Ida's hair is naturally curly, just damaged from blowdrying it so much (this boy will NOT do a big chop). Allen on the other hand has wavy, lustrous fur. this comes from their parents. Ida has curly mice traits combining with the scruffyness of a tasmanian devil. Allen has just very sleek fur traits from everyone in his family tree. and to really help seal the differences is that im gonna keep Ida with curtain esque bangs while Al prefers his bang to the side.

i style their hair with what species they are in mind, but i wont lie, i honestly consider how i envision them as humans in my head when designing ocs which influence how i go about their hair. so the tightness of Lucas and Astria's fur curls comes from them being black coded alongside what species traits they have. i dont think this is like, hard to not see. ive never been discreet about what ethnicities the cast would belong to if they were human considering Furrealife! began written by my own experiences. And it will continue to be this way because how i code them doesnt impact or influence how they're treated in their universe. its not our world, thank god.

ive actually been writing out the worldbuilding lore for Furrealife! when i sat down thinking about this. like, what are the social issues that exist in their world? a lot of the ones I do know for sure bounce off the same ones that exist in Zootopia and Beastars because the anthros of Furrealife are very much animals. animal people. if you were to split a cast member down the half, it would be a human and then whatever animal they are. they are 100% animal and 100% human, if that makes sense? theres a lot of stuff im adapting to make sense with them being animal people, like finding the middle ground. i cant write furries without them being unapologetically animalistic under their humanity. its awesome. i need them to fight urges to eat eachother every now and then. what is a anthro series if they dont experience something like heats or just act like the beasts they are? :33 makes me go crazy i love it. its very Beastars in this way i guess. also im just a freak that loves it

anyways, back to design choices. to help keep Al and Ida distinict also comes with their snouts and ear shapes. Ida's will be more angular while Allen's is rounded. Ida is overall more pointly/angular while Al is round and soft, funny enough. Like, at their worst emotionally, Ida is very round and soft while Allen is angular.

im thinking more in shapes lately, like i drew my warrior cat ocs with ovals as the base of their head and it came out a lot cuter and kitty esque. ive always used a circle for the base of everyones heads and never really tried going further so im trying this now. also, seeing shapes in perspective because it frustrates me that i cant draw furry heads with snouts at angles where it FEELS right, if that makes sense?

im using references a lot more, like, almost always googling and keeping refs pulled up on my second monitor. Pinterest is pretty clutch for dynamic poses. im very happy im using it reguarly now. ik its kinda clowned now but i guess my algorithm is doing me good? its a lot better than google searching for shit, now that? thats shit. but yeah, really trying to look at more stuff as a i draw than winging it. using ref makes it feel a lot better and i think im grasping elements better without stressing myself out via drilling myself and getting nowhere as a result

i think ive run out of stuff to say here or mention! so yeah. furrealife workings going on as im making ref sheets and stuff and finding myself frustrated as i draw the fellas.