Author: thestarheron

Art Summary 2024

Posted on | by thestarheron

From my CARA post here

Waaa ok so I know I’ve only been posting older work here for the time being, but I did want to do an art summary for 2024 since (where I live) it’s currently New Year’s Eve! πŸ™‚

I am insanely shocked, I honestly thought I had months where I drew nothing, which is kind of true, but I’ve also been working in VRoid Studio to make new 3D models for the OGIENOIDs, so, in a sense, yeah, for the first time in years, I have made some form of artwork every month! Are you kidding!!!! Wowowow! I never thought I’d get out of my burnout, honestly. I can’t believe I did.

So yeah let’s go over the months, since Cara is kind enough to let us have 5,000 characters πŸ˜‰

Jan: Started off with a brand new project, dipping my toes into Vroid Studio, Blender, and MMD for the first time in years. I always wanted to make my own models, but going from full time school+work to working full time, trying to write a book, and other stuff has limited where I can/am willing to put my spoons. VRoid Studio has been my savior in that. There are some things it definitely can’t do, but that’s where I’ve used Blender to help πŸ™‚ I’m very excited to show more off next year.

Feb: A slow month for art, admittedly, but a busy time for my personal life. I only really got doodles in during D&D sessions. This is a bit of a sloppy sketch of my Trickster Domain Cleric, Elci, in an alternate outfit.

Mar: Ohhhh my sweet baby angel… My little pookie pie. This is where my art started picking back up! I started focusing on developing my OCs from my story, GodSeed more heavily around this time, and guys I can’t resists drawing my OC Senka………. I love him. He is who I have the most fun with playing with expressions and practicing facial features. He’s such a little shit, but he’s my little shit. I’m excited to share more at a later date.

Apr: I fell off again here a bit, so it’s really just another sketch, but this is another character from GodSeed, Sylvia. For lack of better description until my world building is a bit more concrete, she’s basically a kitsune with a very closed-off personality. Girl’s had it rough.

May: Yay more models! I focused on DIONE OG05 in May, using VRoid’s bodysuit to achieve a plus sized figure. I did have to go into Blender to shape her body further to get things a bit more accurate, but I was surprised how close I was able to get just in VRoid πŸ™‚

Jun: A module concept for AXIS OG06 for Unknown Mother Goose. Not released because I just never think to post anything smh. I’m working on a model for this design rn as well!

Jul: Ok listen I saw a pose reference on Pinterest and Senka’s my “oooh let’s practice this cool thing” OC… I just think he’s pretty, ok? I think this is the only art piece I really did for a bit between models, but I tested out my new HUION screen tablet for this! Previously I’d only been using it for model texturing, but gave it a go for a doodle.

Aug: Took more breaks from art to finish up work on models, namely one of HONOS 0G4 πŸ™‚

Sep: …..Remember when I said I can’t stop drawing Senka? Practicing male anatomy here and uh. Well. He’s fun to practice with lol.

Oct: I tried and failed to do drawtober! Surprise surprise! Only one finished piece made it out from the first day. I did a fantasytober prompt list, the first entry was “Scars”. Laelia, my MC for GodSeed, has quite a lot, most noticeably the ones on her legs. I decided to use this entry as a means to study her shadow-woven scars.

Nov: Hello I am the president of an ancient Vocaloid rarepair, Lily/Kaito. I own both of their V3s and still have yet to do any kind of covers? A travesty. November was enabling the brainworm. I’ll try to do more for them in the coming years.

Dec: I started getting into character designs again in the last couple months, focusing on giving GodSeed characters some love and revamps. Most were designed around 2013/2015, and I just wasn’t satisfied, so I’ve been working slowly on those πŸ™‚ This one is for my OC Ornata

But yes! Art! I did art! And I look forward to more art and writing in 2025 πŸ™‚
I’ll keep plugging away at uploading old stuff here in the meantime. When you see these pieces come up later on, you’ll know it’s time~

Posted in Art
Portrait shot of a young woman with pink hair and fox ears, staring at her hand against a snowy backdrop. Caption reads: TW: Gore, broken limbs, visible bones

Sylvia

Posted on | by thestarheron

Old excerpt from 2012, detailing a bit of her backstory:

When she was young, Sylvia lived along with her father and older sister with a small tribe of mountainous farming families. The mountain was very secluded from city boundaries as well as rocky, but it had amazingly fertile soil. People called it a miracle, but a lot of innocent people died on that mountain, Sylvia’s mother included.

The constant amount of ice is a dangerous hazard on their trails, and Sylvia’s mother made a fatal mistake of slipping. It was the first and last time. When her body had been retrieved, Sylvia was presented with her mother’s favorite earrings. After that day, she never took them off.

One day while taking an ordinary stroll with her sister, Sylvia herself tripped, falling face-first down the tall side of the mountain. She hit many ledges on her way down, bruising and cutting her body. In her shock, she never had a chance to try to protect herself. Her left arm caught itself numerous times on ledges and sharp surfaces. It broke, and before she could blink, she had landed, breaking the upper part of her left arm practically in half.

When she’d been days hours later, freezing and losing blood, there’d been no hope to save her arm. By that time she’d already lost all feeling in it, and it’d turned a shade of sickening purple-gray. She lost her dominant arm, and her legs had also been damaged. She didn’t walk as well as she used to and she could no longer run without feeling pain.

She still swears to this day that the only reason she’s alive is because she’d wore her mother’s ear rings, and that her mother had been with her.

Since she no longer had two good, working, arms, her father sent her away to live a safer life with her Aunt and Uncle. These days she enjoys keeping after her Aunt’s home and flower shop. She makes vases and paints them for a job, she also babysits once in a while.

Separating Doom and Creativity; Limiting My Social Media Intake

Posted on | by thestarheron

I used to think TGIF was cringe as a kid, but oh boy do I say it loud and proud as a full time working adult OTL On that note, happy Friday everyone!

For those in the 25+ age bracket, a very common memory is the separation of technology from real life. Where as now tech and the internet are integral parts of day to day existence, back in the early 2000s, it was a different world. Most things were still on pen and paper in school, besides computer classes themselves, and we did a lot of writing by hand until middle school (in my case), where we’d have computer lab hours to type out essays and work on power points.

Even back then, though, when all we had was dial up internet at home, I formed a crippling addiction to computers. The dopamine hit hard for an only child raised in the countryside. The internet became my third space, and at some point, I became dependent on it for a sense of self worth and validation from peers.

As I got older, though, it felt like the culture online had changed significantly. It got a lot less fun and a whole lot more hostile. There’s only so much the human brain can take day in and day out. I realized a year and a half ago that I’d reached my breaking point and took a huge step back, pausing all my projects and vanishing.

I came back, but I realized my mental health was still as fragile as ever when I began to start putting myself back out there and trying to interact with new people. It’s scary, as always, and it doesn’t help that social apps want you to get addicted and become obsessed with how others perceive you. Getting you to play the numbers game is the whole point, and as someone who’s been playing it for a long, long time (ex: at one point, a YouTube channel a ran had 2k subs back when it was actually easy to grow online, and I’ve never gotten close since) it gets demoralizing when you just can’t ever get past a certain point no matter how much you engage. And that’s the point. It’s a whole cycle of dopamine hits and crashes. I’m over it. I want to do my art for me and whoever I happen to meet along the way that wants to be part of that journey.

So, in comes the topic of this journal: separating and detaching from social media as best I can. Still remaining active enough not to fade away, and opting for smaller sites that cater to the internet experience I grew up on. There will always be an exception or two (TikTok please don’t actually get banned), but for the most part, I’ll be sticking with Bluesky, Cara, ToyHouse, Tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram (reluctantly). Most of these sites give you options (WOW!) to view latest posts and search by tags (and it actually works, I’m looking at you Instagram, get your shit together. I only use you cuz all my friends are on there 😭).

In comes the other half of my solution: two devices. One for work and play, one for social media. I dug out my 2011 Macbook air and replaced the battery (which was inflated…so that was fun…and that was a wild ride from Lion when I reset it, let me tell you!). I also kept my old phone when I upgraded here recently. Wiped both and ta-da! total separation of doomscrolling machine vs my actual devices I use for work, writing, drawing, gaming, and web development. When it gets to be too much, the doom machines get turned off and hidden where I can’t be tempted to grab them. The next step is to curate a channel-less YouTube account purely for fun and education. Then, finding a way to block a lot of these sites on my main computer so that I can’t be tempted…

So far, what I’ve done is actually working, and I can already feel my creative drive coming back. o_O I’ve pumped out three different character designs for GodSeed, and it’s only been a few days! That’s the wild part! It turns out when you decide to stop caring about numbers and stop letting yourself spoon feed the dopamine social media offers, your mind will start to crave it in other forms. Better forms. More creative forms. When you finally break above the surface and gulp down that sweet, sweet air, you can finally breath. I’m hopeful I’ll get there. Until then, I’ll keep swimming for land. I think I can see it.