employed now. sort of

i should be drawing birds and plants right now. but i feel like writing. so. some stuff that's happened:

The Becoming (the vampire short story from last year that i finally illustrated)

i keep making things. last year, during my work on The Bite, my editorial uni project about vampires, i wrote a short story about the painful physical process of turning into a vampire, and very early on i started to want to illustrate it. but for a long time, i couldn't quite figure out a style -- or, the hazy, naturalistic style i had in mind for it wasn't really one i was very good at drawing in. so i didn't think about it for a while, instead focusing on other things. finally, in late july, i had a flash vision of something collaged and thought, well yes. why not collage? so i made some collages. and now it exists in real life.

a beautiful second edition of my qpr propaganda comic

i wasn't quite happy with how the initial print of my latest uni comic came out. the paper i used is too cold a white, the green, which i printed digitally for (apparent) lack of a forest green for our riso (turns out we do actually have that, it just wasn't included on the colour overview i was given), turned out too dark and totally overpowered the black in some places, and the riso-black couldn't hold properly on the digitally-printed areas (and the paper generally, it seems), so it turned out sort of pale. plus, i wasn't really happy with the title font.

dockville wasn't my thing (surprising noone)

last year i participated in an art contest hosted by the german beverage (chiefly cola) company fritz who were long the young and woke (and local) opponent to the big cola & lemonade companies but this year went loser-mode and sponsored a political event for the CDU, german's centre-right "christian" party. so i'm not even mad now that i didn't even get shortlisted in that contest. but i did win tickets to a fritz-sponsored 2026 festival of my choice, and me and my friend (who was the obvious choice to ask to come along), decided on the MS Dockville festival in hamburg. it's relatively small (compared to, i imagine, something like Rock am Ring), seemed most compatible with our tastes in music, and its timing suited both our schedules the best.

moving within the comfort of my own home (& cheesecake)

i have moved into a different room in my apartment. this was two weeks ago, and i've gotten very comfortable with it in the meantime.

finally, the him (& a lovely party & a video game recommendation)

the him

near-doubling my trouser-wardrobe

i have finished sewing some new trousers. as i talked about at length in my last post, i wanted to make some pants using the matchy matchy sewing club kite pants pattern, and i am happy to report that they both turned out awesome.

getting back into sewing (though i never really got out of it? just not a thing i do regularly.)

i have survived this heatwave. we are back to normal warm temperatures in the mid to high 20s and things aren't all warmed up anymore. i am also getting back into sewing.

make a terrible comic day (and life)

today is make a terrible comic day. so i made a terrible comic. behold:

some art in these trying times

it is so hot. and i really don't like it.