Arkuras
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A Year in Review 2021
🕑 Added 2021-12-29 22:48:28 +0000 UTCIt's that time where everyone reflects on the year, and Spellbound is no different! This was the year I took the plunge and retired from the exhausting labor industry to focus on my work as a freelance and erotic comic artist! How was 2021 for me as an artist? Well, I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, but by all counts and metrics on Patreon and Discord, 2021 has been a fantastic year for me and a record-breaking year. So let's get into it!
Let's recap what was accomplished this year. I tried to hit the ground running, and boy did I sprint hard! That led to a lot of work in the spring and early summer. I was able to finish a comic that had been on hiatus since 2018! My comic page output per month nearly quadrupled, and I even added a new short comic reward to the mix! But as it seems to be on-brand for me, the year was not without its delays, projects put on hold, and some unfulfilled promises on my part.
I typically play fast and loose with my general work, but after going full-time in March, I wanted to try to open up a steady stream of commissions and pinup work to start. Many of you lined up for commissions, and I had a blast creating the different scenes for you. Some of them were very challenging, and I took on projects I never thought I'd be able to do or finish! But by the time August hit, I was very burnt out, and a boiling summer heatwave did not help. I decided to close commissions indefinitely until I re-evaluated and refined my rates. Here are some of my favorite commissions and pinups from this year.
The pinups this year went through a tremendous metamorphosis. For the years since 2018, the pinups have been largely Spellbound character-based to be intros and expanding the lore of the world of Spellbound. And I realized it was a little challenging to introduce characters in text-based format and then ask you all to vote on who you'd like to see. So when well-known characters came into the mix, they would nearly win every time. So I opted to change the format to a more image-based poll at the later end of the year. I've been enjoying that more as you can see what you're voting for, and it allows me to enrich the Spellbound world a bit more.
I added a new tier this year! A Spellbound Short Comic is the specific reward, and that has been a fun thing to use to world build slightly. As the Pinup this year shifted from character pinups to more scene-oriented images.
My main project is the Spellbound anthology comics. Jumping from story to story creates a woven erotic horror-based world with demons, witches, monsters, and magic that transforms the lucky chosen. Going full-time has been the best thing for the delivery of the comic. The dark days of 2019, where I delivered an embarrassing one page every two months, it seemed, have passed. I hope to never be in that position again. Now we appear to be at a steady pace of three to five pages per month which is a vast improvement! I hope you all have noticed a change and I hope it is to your liking! There have been THREE different titles worked on this year! Including the wrapping up of Outer Demons and an entirely new tag in Devout, which I hope to make a companion to Inner Demons!
Moving into 2022, here's what I'd like to accomplish!
As mentioned at the beginning of this dossier, there were some unfulfilled promises this year on my part. One of those was the dual work of Devout and Inner Demons at the same time. Inner Demons is a project that requires my full attention, and to work on both simultaneously would result in a lot of cut corners, which would be a disservice to the comics and you guys. I was too ambitious for my good and bit off way more than I could chew. So at the pace, I'm going now, I would expect Inner Demons 3 to wrap up around spring or summer time in 2022, and that will complete the first VOLUME of Inner Demons! And we'll move to Devout after that, which I'm planning only being two chapters for now. We'll see if characters require more exploring. And once that is concluded, I'd like to explore more of Outer Demons and start seeing the Dragon Queen and the other Gods of Spellbound in that series. There is some general house cleaning of the patreon that needs doing. I think the Milestones and stretch goals are severely out of date. I need to go through the tags and confidence content, so it's easier to find on patreon. I've talked about a Spellbound website for years now and haven't done anything with that. Our Discord is growing, and I'd like to make it more community-oriented and get more moderators in there to help make it an exciting, fun, and welcome place to post all the dank erotica, talk about Spellbound and make new friends! There's a LOT to do to make Spellbound the erotic comic series I want it to be, and there's plenty in my head to get on the page that will be years in the making! I hope you guys stick around to support me as I make this all work.
And the last thing I want to mention is this year; I took a lot of time to go back to fundamental studies as I am just a self-taught artist and don't have any traditional schooling or experience learning from art teachers. So I've been branching out a lot to try new things and new art techniques to continuously refine skills and challenge myself. I started to put that into practice with the pinups starting with the September pinup and continuing to push for more detail and lineless artwork. So to keep that momentum going, I've decided to enroll in a digital painting art course on Proko.com! It starts in March and is taught by a game concept artist from Hi-Res Studios. So I'm looking forward to that and continuing my journey as a freelance artist!
So yeah! That's pretty much it! Leave a comment below on how you think the year went for Spellbound. Let me know what your favorite pieces/comics have been from this year and what you're excited to see. Is there something you'd like to see me improve on for next year?? PLEASE LET ME KNOW! You can comment here or DM me on patreon or Discord.
I can't thank you all enough! You are what makes this possible for me! I hope I can continue to make you guys the best succubus comics I can for years to come! Thank you! Thank you!!!
See you all in the new year!!!
