Arkuras
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2022 A Year In Review
🕑 Added 2022-12-31 02:30:07 +0000 UTCAs we close 2022 and dive into 2023, I want to thank everyone who stuck with me this year. You're all fantastic, incredibly supportive, and understanding. I learned a lot this year, about my art and where I want to go in the future. Many goals I set out to make at the beginning of the year didn't quite make it to fruition some I did manage to complete and revel in. So let's take a look at the ups and downs of 2022.
Pinups and Monthly Images
Toward the end of the year, I was set on transforming my style to and adding a new style to my toolbox! A lineless, stylized art style in the same vein as calms work. I was committed and signed up for a digital painting art class on Proko. The class was instructed by the wonderful Jon Neimeister from Hi-Rez Studios and it was an excellent start! I even committed to applying my learning to the monthly pinups! It was a hefty task that challenged me to meet my deadlines and apply my learning in a timely manner.
Ultimately I came to the conclusion that these parameters were taking too much of a toll on the development of my comic production. So for the first half of the year, the monthly images were in this partially developed art style and as you can probably tell, some were pretty decent while others were slightly undercooked, if you ask me.
On top of that, I decided to make the switch from Photoshop to Clip Studio Paint. A switch I am 100% positive was the right one. The May pinup was the first image complete in CSP and is what convinced me to convert to the program.
One fluctuating reward that became a little difficult to provide this year was the works-in-progress and timelapse. While CSP makes it easy to upload the timelapse of my work, this year I struggled with wanting to add those for more rewards tiers. I ended up doing a content dump every month or so and I don't want to make that a habit.
Short Comics and Long Comics
Boy was it a great year for the Spellbound comics! Inner Demons volume 1 finished its run with the long-awaited transformation of Cameron into her demon form. We got a few provocative transformations of Nuns and Goatspawn. A little revisit to a short last year with a therapy session followup. And a gritty return to Wicked Hunter. Comic wise Spellbound is richer than ever!
Devout is ongoing at this point and will continue to deepen the lore and factions within Spellbound in 2023!
Commissions and Collaborations
This year wasn't a particularly productive year in terms of commissions and client work compared to previous years. These projects are typically put on hold if my main projects are suffering or require more attention. Regardless the work completed was pretty popular and proves that many of you have great ideas for comics and scenes!
I also went into talks with other creators to collaborate on projects such as 3d minis that could be coming later and helping other artists with their own art projects. These were more experimental but show promise down the road for some really cool art!
Socials and Promotions
As I've spoken before I HATE promoting myself but its sadly a necessity in being a successful freelance artist. So this year I worked a little more on an online presence with Instagram and Twitter. In June I began to experiment with Instagram reels and self-promotion there. It was pretty fun and working around their ToS still managed to bring in the most views my art has ever seen. Alas, it was all very short-lived as in September my account was banned and remains so despite many petitions. So now the focus is Twitter. which is slightly harder to get more eyes on my work but the nsfw art community is far less restrictive there and the support from other artists is fantastic.
We did have a content leak this year in September that appeared to be nonmalicious. It was unfortunate and resulted in me having to set some boundaries for sharing my content. Art theft is a serious issue and is very difficult to combat.
Plans for 2023
This coming year will be a big year for Spellbound! Just from the things coming in Devout alone, it will open up Spellbound to more possibilities for exploration and discoveries.
The first order of business is to optimize the patreon and release those new teirs I've been talking about. The last quarter of 2022 was pretty busy on the homefront and kept me from doing what I wanted with the patreon. So I'd like to overhaul the patreon with new milestone goals, tiers, and rewards.
I will be posting some early polls as well to get a sense of what kinda things you would like to see in 2023.
I'm plan on structuring my months to a schedule I'd like to post at the beginning of each month so you all can get a sense of what I'm working on when not on discord.
A goal I've talked about for years is to kick off a dedicated Spellbound website with comics, lore, merch and discussion forums etc. but it's been put off as I don't really have the funding for it yet. This will be made into a new milestone goal. So once there's enough support, I'll make it happen.
All that will hopefully help in keeping my workflow constant and delivering promised images, discounts and other content for you to help deliver you all into this wacky weird provocative world of Spellbound!
Devout 2 will wrap up maybe around summer time and Wicked Hunter I'm particularly excited to get through. I'd like to start doing art raffles as well on twitter, discord, and patreon. Working out the logistics will be the hardest part but it will encourage more interaction and hopefully pique some interest in new characters coming to Spellbound.
Final Thoughts
It's been a surreal experience watching this community grow the last year and each and every one of you has my gratitude for supporting me the way you do! It's especially great to see the comments and love my work gets. It may be obvious when patrons continue to sub month to month. But it's ten times more amazing when you comment and leave a like on my work. Please continue to do so! I try to reply to all of them when I can.
Please let me know what your personal favorite part of this year is in Spellbound. Are there things you're looking forward to next year? What's your favorite comic? Are there things you'd like to see me improve on? Let me know in a comment below!
Love you all and Happy New Year!!
Comments
Arkuras
Thank you so much! I love that!
Ander
Thx for all your work. I can't stress enough how much I support and love your work. So keep it up and I'll leave with this Latin proverb "per aspera as astra" - through obstacles to the stars! β₯οΈ
Arkuras
Thank you very much! Devout is very special to me, its helped me develop my "drama storytelling" skills and I'm hoping it pays off when we reach the end. I'm glad your enjoying it!
Star Journeyfriend
Happy new year Arkuras! Devout is definitely my favorite thing you do, but I definitely understand the appeal in your other works as well! Hope you have a fantastic 2023 in which you can make progress toward your goals, my friend ππ€
Nice i look forward to it
Arkuras
Thank You! And I'm 100% on board with this. Monster Girls were an original ingredient in my creation of Spellbound. I do plan on incorporating wolf girls specifically in this currant run of Wicked Hunter.
Cant really say on a favorite part i just love your work something that i would like to see is an occasional branch out from your normal demoness work into some other things like slimes wolfgirls and the like having other creatures could bring in more people but either way keep up the good work
