Intermission: The traveling bunnies

I don't remember the last time I've done a proper update here. In the months since I've stopped doing these posts regularly, life has taken such a good turn for me and Ibis.

Toward the beginning of the year, we made some lifestyle changes, healthier changes, that's resulted in both of us being much more productive and focused on the things we want to do with our lives. Also since Ibis has started living with me, life has just been a lot more worth living! I can say I am a lot happier than when I lived in hell mansion, for sure.

Ibis and I went on a long road trip in February and March that brought us closer to friends and lovers and closer to our appreciation of the Earth itself. Seeing beautiful places and amazing friends and amazing experiences...

Since March, I've drawn so, sooooo so so much more than I ever have in recent years. My output has gotten so consistent lately, and I've finally reached the point where I feel as if I can draw the things I want to, when I want to. This has helped with translating ideas into image seamlessly as well as for commissions.

We are still working on our writing skills, and part of that includes reading more books and visual novels. I'll get more into the visual novels bit later. Writing has never been my strong suit but I look forward to improving!

Ibis and I currently plan on developing two visual novels together, simultaneously. It is my first new visual novel project in over 10 years. It is amazing how underappreciated visual novels are as a medium and how powerful they can be when done well. Visual novels feel like a perfect medium for which to tell the story of Ribboncutter and Sunday, and so we are beginning to adapt our stories to it.

Side note: Yumapepita/Peanutballfun has created a visual novel named "save me" that uses music from Medicine, I would highly recommend reading it. It's so touching and lovely, a story with characters I'd love to give hugs.

Ribboncutter is still going to be the "epic" story Ibis and I want to tell desperately, though will take more time than anything else, meticulous planning, lots of scrapping and redoing, and lots of iteration to get to the story we want. It may be years until you see it.

Sunday is a smaller, shorter visual novel about a girl and a shovel. It is seperate from Ribboncutter. I can't be more detailed with its description without spoiling it all... but I am excited to share this story with you all soon.

As for other developments from this year, I have been posting some timelapses of the art I've created every month. I haven't done one for this month as I've been a little slacking in quantity, but I will do one for next month once.

I redid my website layout, you can see it at ribboncutter.fun. Sorry the SSL certificate expired and I don't want to bother fixing it at the moment (it's all a scam anyway).

And another thing notable from this year is the Second Life land Merilynn and I are working on together, Casa Meja. It's a part of Sofa's Conejo Island, a small community of artists and Second Life enthusiasts. Please come by and check out our land as well as the rest of Conejo!

The rest of the art I've done this year is well, notably darker. While the year has been nice, it hasn't been without its low points. There's always been this internal method of comprehending the world that I've had that involves examining it through drawn images. Expressions of pain have just happened to be the output recently.

I know that the themes of the newer images aren't for everyone, and it has lost me some of my audience, but I will continue with it so long as it continues to help me to understand the world. It isn't my wish to bring more suffering into the world, it is however my goal to attain personal catharsis through art and for others to hopefully understand and sympathize. Though I completely understand if the content matter loses people in the long run.

And an apology ahead of time, as I will not provide any warnings for any of the more intense art that is posted on any platforms.

Interesting developments were made in the process of the creation of the recent art as well. I was able to explore things such as drawing images based off the morbid writings of an AI, and developing a new facet of Mint's character with her as a test subject. Subject Mint will be a part of Ribboncutter's final story as well.

And hopefully not making this post too long with too many tangents, I want to just wrap up with the rest of our plans for the rest of the year.

Ibis and I plan to take another road trip out west, hiking and camping our way around 4 states in the western US. This has been a road trip months in planning, and we are hoping everything goes well and that we see a ton of beautiful things.

Commissions and merch orders will have to slow around this time, expectedly, and so I will not be accepting commissions for the entire month of October. Merch orders will have to wait for a month or more before they are shipped. I hope this is not too much of an inconvenience for everyone.

The rest of this year I will focus on the work on Sunday so I can get a finished script by the end of the year, and a release date of sometime in the middle of 2023. I hope you all be around to read it^^

I will be sure to update you all again with photos from our travels and from the development of our visual novels. Thank you for your longtime support and for your generosity.

Best wishes to everyone from me and Ibis ^__^