2024 recap

hey all! sorry for taking a bit to get this out, ended up pretty backlogged with some commissions and such, including a few other things including updating and reformatting the patreon page related to a few things mentioned in this post. anyways, without further delay:

lookin' back

i wrote a much longer part about this originally, but i think the short of it is i was lowkey pretty artblocked for 2024. i had a number of works not come out the way i wanted and plenty of things that didn't see the light of day (sorry!). i very much appreciate your guys patience with me as i continue to try and really figure out what the whole cdlum "artstyle" is all about. it's a real process and i'm at the point now where i'm just trying to figure out what to keep in and what to de-emphasize.

just for example: you might've noticed some more painterly works here and there and thats coincided with more of my interest in that type of art, but you can probably easily imagine why that kind of approach isn't exactly logistical for things like animation and such, which is something i'm hoping to do more of in 2025. i have a frankly obnoxious backlog of ideas and patreon requests i'd very much like to get to. fingers crossed we can strike a ton of em off the list.

i think in general another issue ive ran into is just obfuscating my own scope with things - coming up with way too elaborate animation ideas or comics when i think a lot of the time - X character in the cdlum style doing Y suggestive pose/action is more than enough haha. expect more in this vein as i look to catch up!

surveyin'

the CDLUM SURVEY 2025 was a relatively impromptu idea i genuinely wasn't sure I was gonna make till i actually did - helps I came up with a fun gimmick for it i think haha. that all being said, i'm really glad i did and frankly, the feedback has been kind of overwhelming (in a good way). i was honestly expecting a few dozen responses at most. it ended up nearly a thousand before google stepped in lol.

i got a lot of really valuable information and some stuff that really surprised me, in particular that a pretty large majority of you guys would prefer to see my own cast of weirdos above established characters. i kind of always assumed the interest would be the opposite, so that's really cool to see. trust - i've got plenty of ideas in the tank. i keep getting more to add to the pile on a semi-regular basis and it annoys nobody more than me.

i really appreciated you all giving some really well thought out answers across the board - having this outside-looking-in approach is great to keep it all in perspective. i feel like i have a bit of a better understanding about what people like about my art and what they want to see more of - which was indeed the whole idea behind this survey. i also learned that a lot of you guys have no idea what an "elevator pitch" is, but i did appreciate the responses that attempted to pitch a literal elevator.

also! for those of you that missed out on this - i will very likely run a survey again at some point in the future - one that hopefully won't get taken out back by google's terms of service next time. i already have a funny contextual idea for it and everything, but it'll likely be a good bit before it shows up. if you were really biting to send any feedback about work you liked or things you'd like to see more of, you can always send an email to my work address (cdlumwork@gmail.com). i can't promise i'll reply, but i do read everything that comes through there!

whats changin'

SO given the big-ass backlog of patreon polls I've still gotta get to, I figure 2025 makes sense to cut back on em at the moment till i actually catch up. The plan is still to get to all the prior existing poll winners, do a sfw (yknow, relatively) piece, and a nsfw piece, but otherwise there won't be any new polls for the time being.

does that mean no more fanart works? not at all! i still have plenty of things i'd like to draw that pay homage to a number of different series - recurring characters like samus, zelda etc that don't really make sense to contextually vote over. but, in part going off the survey results, i figured it'd be neat to lean more into my own characters a bit and see what comes out. hopefully much of what's trapped up in the ol' noggin.

other than that, it should be business as usual. in my experience, art blockage isn't something that you can just turn off like a light switch, but right now i'm feeling a good bit more confident and hoping to translate that into some solid work for you all.

let's rock

i want to thank you all again for your patronage, support and encouragement. it's a real privilege to be able to do this in any capacity, which is one of the reasons why i keep trying to do it the best i can, even if that can sometimes mean taking my sweet time to get there.

at the time of writing i'm feeling a lot more warmed up and have been cooking up some work im quite excited to share once it's good to go. as always, please don't feel any pressure to support the patreon if you're unsatisfied for any reason or otherwise financially unable - i promise it's no hard feelings.

that's about everything major out of the way! now excuse me whilst i return to the trenches - see you guys shortly.

tl;dr: polls on hiatus, poll winners still to come, more original character stuff coming too.