Info: Messages of the Mundane from Mentha

Hello there, thank you to all of the new patrons^^ I hope you enjoy the little illustrations.

I bring you an update on my life since my last posting, which was at the beginning of June.

The big thing was Hello Girl, which I had detailed everything about on my last post. Since then we've also released a funny little bonus scene where the girls smoke weed and play with each others bunny ears (not a joke). Please, if you haven't already, give Hello Girl a read and also the bonus scene^^

Working with IMO Team on things is probably one of the best things to ever happen to me, creatively. It's really nice to work with others who hold such great talent, to have my input desired, and to just see our efforts culminate into wonderful things. We plan to create many more things together as well! We have already begun work on the successor to Hello Girl, which is titled Kavaya Local Maximum. Please look forward to it~

Since Hello Girl, there was also the ending of my sale on art originals, which went a lot better than I could've ever expected. For the first time in my life I have savings. I never could have imagined art doing this much for my life, financially.

I've also reopened my shop. I had to close it at the beginning of September because I was overloaded with orders, and during its downtime I was able to catch up. But now, it's back open and revamped with better preview images, more options for the shirts, and internally, I now have a better way of tracking and handling orders. My shop is a huge part of my income nowadays. The process of pressing shirts, packing up orders, and shipping them out is really relaxing to me, and makes me happy. So thank you to everyone who has ever ordered anything from me or plans to.

Yuri Game Jam is coming up, and I plan to put in an effort on trying to release a solo VN project for it. This project is most likely going to be Sunday, the VN I wrote for the first VN Cup in 2022. But things are going to be overlapping with other things in my life, and so nothing is guaranteed.

In more personal news, my living situation is causing me a lot of stress. My goal is to save enough to move out, but things always seem so shaky, and our plan on how we plan to move out isn't great. It's hard to handle moving about in the world, to make solid steps in improving my situation, with the amount of anxiety I have at all times. I feel lucky to have so many supporting me, and that fact comforts me, but I always fall into a pit of despair when it comes to formulating what comes next. It feels like everything just comes down to money, and enjoyment comes second. Art has always been my first job of choice, I can not see myself doing anything else, so things working out so well this year has made me feel I have a place in the world...

Rambling aside I am very thankful for all who continue to help Ibis and I. We'll continue to work hard on Ribboncutter and on finding space to breathe, and we hope that the future holds wonderful things for everyone.

Thank you for reading! And if I owe you an illustration (for second tier patrons) don't hesitate to let me know^^