It's that time of year again!! And holy heck this year was pretty dang eventful

So let's get right into it!!

me n matt

mango: the dingus

The first half of the year was... not great. I mainly was just job hunting, I wasn't really a part of many events because of the stress. My heart goes out to anyone looking cause it is rough rn!!

Around this time, I started leaning more into traditional art and doing consistent almost daily drawings. Which I've kept up!! I fell a little behind because I had some projects + the holidays though

I have them all in this thread, which I also just realized I haven't updated it in a while lol oops

In April I was commissioned by @ZenonRetna! It happened at such a great time because by that point I was really running low on money and wasn't finding anything in my job search. I was incredibly grateful for it!!

BUT... my luck turned around in May because I finally finally got my first real software developer job!! The only downside though was that I wasn't really doing many projects during this time, I had a lot to learn and adjust to. Another thing I was SUPER fricken grateful for. I remember having nightmares each night about whether or not I'd find a job, the fear of running out of savings, and even just... not being able to pay rent. It was getting scary, I'm so glad to be out of that

I did also start baking this year!! So far, these were the best things I made:

I'm also making gingerbread cookies today so we'll see how those turn out lol

Overall though, not a lot of stuff happened though till fall hit. In November things picked back up again and I participated in the Kanto Pokemon Collab!

I started working on my game again, though that's on hold till the holidays are over. I made some concept art tho!! We will see how much I'll get done next year. That's my goal, is to make significant progress on my game, and to start doing more digital art doodles

And then the final project of the year, I participated in tankmus. I uploaded my drawing here if you haven't checked it out yet!!

This year was just me trying to improve in one way or another. Improve my programming/developer skills. Study more art fundamentals and get better at art. Learn game development so I can get these dang ideas and stories out of my head via a different medium. Learning how to improve myself as a person, get better at conflict management. Getting better at spanish

I feel like I've come a long ways since last year! 2024 was the stark opposite. That year I just felt... stagnant. I was doing the same thing over and over. I even had started going back to online tutoring just before I got my current job, which I guess was this year actually, but still. I think that was the lowest point for me, for multiple years I worked really hard to have a better life, to be able to save, and it felt like I was giving up

Things picked back up again luckily, but that was scary. And I feel like now I finally have the space to grow, now that my brainpower isn't taken up by stress

This got really personal lol, but it really was just an important part of this past year so I felt like I had to say something!!

Happy New Years newgrounds, to my friends, and to anyone cool I've met either in the past or even new people I met this year. I hope all of you have a wonderful new years, and that you have a better year next year! Whether 2025 was terrible, amazing, I hope that whatever the case, it's even better

Take care everyone!! I'm going to stop writing this before I tear up LMAO