pine-niidles

[pine-niidles]

2024 Retrospective

read on my blog

Every time I write one of these updates I like to look back on my previous ones to remind myself how I structure these and what I wrote last time. In the intro of my 2023 retrospective I said I was 'not quite depressed'. Which I still think was true... for a while. Unfortunately I did end up depressed for a large chunk of 2024, and still kind of am. I've been in a state I've not really been in since high school and a lot of old habits, thought processes, and other such things I thought I'd eradicated have come back. One on hand it's frustrating because I worked SO hard to get rid of them the first time but on the other I know I've done it before and this time I can approach things knowing what worked last time and what didn't. I've just got to be patient with myself and take things one step at a time \o/ (I've been really enjoying this emoji lately. Just a little person with their hands raised in enthusiasm. It's what I'm striving for).

2024 year of art

I wasn't sure I'd actually have something for every month when I set out to put together this year's year of art compilation but even though several of these are the only thing I drew that month I did end up with a full spread. And I'm pretty happy with what I drew. I didn't really get around to learning and experimenting as much as I'd wanted to at the start of the year, but even so I think I made some nice art and improved :)

My favorite drawing this year that I keep coming back to is this common murre I drew for the sea unseen zine. It's not particularly complicated or fancy but it's a nice bird, and it makes happy.

2024 Art Pdfs

Continuing on from last year I'm once again putting together a pdf of all the art I made 2024. Last time I formatted it more like a sketchbook but this time I'd like to do more annotating and discussing my thoughts and process. I don't know exactly how much annotating I'll do or how in depth I'll go with it, at the moment I'm just gathering all the stray art I've got lying around and looking at artbooks I own for inspiration!

It's hard to figure out how best to layout a page to fit a good view of the finished piece, all the steps to get there, and then also space for notes. It sometimes feels like the steps deserve to be bigger or as big as the finished piece because I have a lot of thoughts on them, but if I did that for every single drawing this pdf would end up very long!

Life Drawing

I'll be putting together a pdf for my life drawing as well, though I did end up fully dropping my habit towards the second half of 2024 when my wrist problems started. I want to pick it up again this year when I'm doing a little better but I'm not putting too much pressure on myself yet.

2025 Plans re: These Updates

I've been well aware how over the last year each update had very little to share other than 'I'm not doing good', and that's not really interesting to keep up with. I've put them on pause for short breaks over the course of the year but now I'd like to just stop these monthly updates fully for a while until I do have actual progress to share. When that'll be? We'll see! Hopefully not too far in the future but I don't really want to make any estimates.

So for now, farewell. I hope I'll see you here again when I'm back but if not, thanks for keeping up with me and my art up until now 💌

[pine-niidles]

oops... time for bed 💦

I'm still sleepy//

[pine-niidles]

I'm working on setting up a waitlist system for after I finish the last couple of commissions I'm working on and there are a few different ways I can go with it so I'd love to get some feedback to help me make some decisions: https://forms.gle/fEHTotx3xfYLC3oa7 💫

[pine-niidles]

Bg3 commissions for @denim-lich✨💜 I had a need to draw cute couple art and it was fulfilled :>

[pine-niidles]

I'm working on setting up a waitlist system for after I finish the last couple of commissions I'm working on and there are a few different ways I can go with it so I'd love to get some feedback to help me make some decisions: https://forms.gle/fEHTotx3xfYLC3oa7 💫

[pine-niidles]

A spell to vanquish all your art block ✨

(I have no memory of drawing this, I found it in between the layers of a different drawing but I kind of love it. I think it helped me back then, I hope it helps you too.)

[pine-niidles]

Analyze (Deatrey belongs to @pine-niidles)

[pine-niidles]

I'm in this again this year! Always so nice to see everyone's stories and worlds side by side + the writing portion this year is really lovely 😊 I went for a seasonal theme for my piece this year (preview below) featuring some ocs I don't think I've talked about anywhere. I'll post the full piece here eventually but for now if you want to see it check out the zine!

Window to Worlds is back!

The 2024 issue is our first edition to feature written contributions 🎉

The two volumes are packed to the brim with gorgeous original art and writing from 75 contributors. If you like original characters, projects and worlds, you won't want to miss this!

This zine is free to read, get it here 👉 windowtoworlds.itch.io/window-to-worlds-2024

[pine-niidles]

Plant (Hymn belongs to @pine-niidles)

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Starting a little late but drawtober/october day 1! 🌿

I used to always start my sketchbooks and these sort of challenges drawing Shen so I had to start with him :) I don't draw or think about him very often these days but he's still one of my fav ocs <3

[pine-niidles]

2024 September Monthly Updates

read on my blog

I've got a very short update for you this month. I don't have any significant milestones or progress to show, I've just been keeping at it making progress on various things I've talked about recently. October will probably look pretty similar so I'll likely skip doing an update for it, especially since my girlfriend and I will be moving into a house late in the month and that'll be keeping the bulk of my attention! Once we've moved I'm planning to get the supplies I need to launch an online shop 🌟 I'll be easing into thing listing mostly prints & stickers I've already got designed but I've also got some plans for bigger things I want to make in the coming months :)

In other news I decided last minute (right now as I am writing this post) to do an October drawing challenge! My friend was telling me about their plans I got nostalgic for when I was in high school and took requests of other people’s ocs to draw every day in October or turn into merfolk in May… So if you’d like to submit a character for me to draw I’ve made a form here! I’ll be doing them in the same template I did these artfight attacks in because they were really quick and fun. I don’t actually know how long I’ll keep it up or if I’ll even do it daily, I’ve put zero planning into this and I know I have a busy month ahead of me so I’m also putting zero pressure on myself about it but we’ll see!

[pine-niidles]

\o/ I'm in this! (you should really open those read mores because Mod Ara did an amazing job on the graphics)

Contributor Spotlights: START!

The great wait is over - It's time to meet all of our contributors!

Please look forward to our contributor spotlights, which will be added to this post in the coming weeks! 🌙🦋

See our first round of contributors below the cut!

Up first and drawing for the Kotone Shiomi, the Fool, is Sijia, whose stunning rendering is going to make her card shine!

INSTAGRAM: @/jd5vlp0610

Next is Honk, representing the Magician arcana with Junpei Iori! Honk's work is eye-catching and distinctive!

TUMBLR: @sirlanval

Please give it up for the other representative of the Magician arcana! Linktoo will be putting their beautiful compositional skills to work on a card for Kenji Tomochika!

CARRD: https://linktoo-doodles.carrd.co/

Bringing up the rear for today's spotlights is David, whose writing is beautifully poetic - they'll be sure to tug at your heartstrings with their piece featuring our Fool, Kotone Shiomi!

TWITTER: @/halberdierradio

Stay tuned for more! 🎵

[pine-niidles]

2024 August Monthly Updates

It's a very text heavy update this month, I'm... working on getting back into the habit of regular art. My art muscles have grown stiff and it's slow going training them back up. It is going though - I've even been doing some sketching in my physical sketchbook this week.

Doodling fish makes for a good warm-up

Website/Blog

I've been wanting to set up a proper art blog for a while. Social media has always been hard for me to keep up with, I've never really had fun posting art online ever since deviantart stopped being good. Figuring out what, when, how to post & keeping up with constant changes... it's been said a million times so I won't get into it, and at the end of the day even if it's frustrating it's still worth it for the connections I make and the art I get to see because of it. Still, I don't want to rely on social media to be the only place where my art lives (it's a sad thought!). That's why I've been compiling art pdfs, it's why I've been looking into physical print making, it's why I started these monthly updates in the first place.

So if you're reading this on my new blog welcome! (if not - it's here) I'm planning to eventually move to hosting it myself but so the moment I'm relying on wordpress, I apologize for the banners. I'm still deciding how I want to do monthly updates from now on - I'll be posting all of them on the new blog for sure but I'm still undecided if I want to continue to cross post them on tumblr & kofi. I have a poll just for that running right now if you have an opinion (or if you don't - it's a nice motivator just to see that people are actually reading these).

Other than monthly updates I'll be posting process breakdowns on here, and more in depth looks at individual projects at various stages of their process. Maybe doing some features (or even reviews?) of other artists/projects. We'll see how it goes! I won't be cross-posting those, thought I'll probably post links to them when I write them (you can also sign up to the email newsletter for this blog at the bottom of the page - though you'll have to make a wordpress account). I know a lot of people use patreon for this kind of thing but I like the freedom of not having an expectation of consistency (or quality).

Fanzines

I've started taking part in fanzines again, there's a couple in particular I'm very excited for! Not much more to say on that topic as I'm not allowed to announce my participation yet but that's something I've been working on this month.

All in Good Time

I've done very little (read:none) art for my own projects this month, but I have done some writing for a couple I've yet to introduce publicly.

The first is a short (12-16 page) self-contained comic featuring a friend of mine and my ocs. I've written a rough script for it and will be working on character designs and art for it when I have a little more free time :)

They Say There is a Monster in These Woods

The second project I was doing writing for is much longer term - I've been toying around with the idea of doing a solo visual novel for some time now and I finally came up with a story idea for one.

The game starts with you in the woods, injured. You stumble across a clear where a lone manor stands and collapse in front of it. When you come to the Lady of the manor greets you, and invites you to stay as her guest for some time while you recover from your injuries and to attend her birthday celebrations in two weeks. You spend this time in the manor getting to know the inhabitants, maybe finding the sparks of romance with one among them, and maybe even figuring out the source of the mysterious rumors that there is a monster in the woods...

\o/ I hope that intro sounds fun to you! I'm certainly excited about it. This will be more of a long term project - both in the fact that it'll be a lot of work to make and because I have other game projects I want to prioritize first, some collab work and some of my own games that are only a couple steps away from completion (Don't Wake the Sleeping Dragon I've not forgotten about you...)

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And that's all for August! I'm looking forward to Summer ending and the start of Fall, maybe I can do some plein air watercolors of the leaves changing color when that time comes :)

[pine-niidles]

Monthly update post will go up today or tomorrow but in the meantime - I've set up an art blog to talk about art projects & process & whatever else I feel like rambling about :) I also plan to post monthly updates posts there from now on but I haven't decided if I want to continue crossposting them here on tumblr or not so I'd like to hear your preferences

[pine-niidles]

Hello ! My supporting friends ,🖤💚💔🤍🍉

Thank you from my heart for what you are doing for the people of Gaza who are in bad need in this tough and dire time. 💔💚🖤🤍

You are examples for kindness, generosity and nobility. You have been standing with for long and showing how brave one should be in time of need. 🍉🍉🍉🍉

You helped me greatly to make progress in my campaign, but I am still in need of your kind support to reach my goal.✌️✌️

As noticed, the campaign is very slow😪😪 now and needs strong move and this can be carried out through your contribution and cooperation. 😯😯

Please don't leave us alone during this dire time. I am still in the first quarter of my campaign. ❣️❣️

https://gofund.me/0dc0aa34

Thank you for reaching out to me! I've donated and hopefully my follower can as well, or at least help spread this.

This is #214 on the vetted fundraiser spreadsheet.

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A quiet aside just for the two of them 💙💚 for @yonah952

Commission Info | My Links

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I'll be there to catch you when you fall 🌠 for @denim-lich