Art 2: The Sequel (it's short)

     As of late, I've not been feeling very good. Depression seems to generally be kicking my ass these days. That's also why I haven't posted much on this blog, despite making promises to both myself and others that I would. That being said, I figure I should give myself a little nudge and just get things out there rather than sitting on blog post drafts.

     I made more art than this, but I'm simply posting what I've already written descriptions for. Maybe I'll change up how I share things and what I share in future posts, so I don't sit on mounds of art and feel like I have to explain every single one. Maybe I should post stuff other than art. I don't know.

     I've got so much potential and have the power to do so much with what I have, but I just don't use it because of how bad I feel. I want to do things and feel accomplished, which means I need to overcome the despair I feel, get my life together a little more. I've been trying a little. It's hard, I still feel stuck. I hope I'll get somewhere eventually.

Some sketches for a Steven Universe gemsona concept- namely, a fusion with monstrous features similar to Alexandrite, as I never applied those traits to any of my own gemsona designs thus far.

I'm unsure about the gem placement- it's obviously being used as both a forehead gem on the "normal" face and as a nose gem for the monstrous face, which makes me feel as if the two "placements" would make it difficult to decide where the gem goes in the component characters.

However, canon fusions don't always make sense- see Malachite with her 3 pairs of arms and no "legs," when her components have one pair of arms and one pair of legs each. While it does slightly bother me, I suppose that means this design is within the rules of the series canon, so it's fine as is.

A concept sketch and blurbs for a "pearlsona" — this one being an actual "sona" as it's meant to be a representation of me in some aspect.

I've often related to Pearl as a character. Something she says in the Steven Universe episode "Friend Ship" resonated with me deeply back when I was in middle school:

"I'm just a pearl. I'm useless on my own. I need someone to tell me what to do."

During one of the last times I found myself feeling similarly, I decided to create a pearl gemsona that's a representation of me, so these doodles and blurbs were what resulted. I haven't yet decided on a design (nor a gem placement,) but this pearlsona will be used in the future, as I'm fond of the concept.

These were an attempt to create a logo in the style of the Slime Rancher logo for my SR OC that I've mentioned in my previous post, Kingpin.

At first, I accidentally made the logo too detailed compared to the actual SR logo, so I exported that as an alternate version and then went back to make a more accurate version.

A work-in-progress attempt to redesign an old gemsona of mine, Citrine.

Citrine was an actual sona, similar to the pearlsona shown earlier in this post. She was based off of my "alternative birthstone" and was created when I was in middle school. Her original design was derivative of Peridot's, with high-tech arms, a visor, and geometric hair.

(The memory is fuzzy, but I may have designed her to impress someone I was trying to court, that person now being my ex.)

Citrine became more and more obsolete to me as Steven Universe ran on and cemented lore that she conflicted with— I found myself trying multiple times to redesign her in a way that fell in line with the series' lore. I was never happy with these redesigns, but I always found myself unhappy just leaving her as is, conflicting with canon.

Sometime before working on this art, I had found some notes from an old attempt to redesign her yet again, after the original Steven Universe show had ended. These notes included the concept of adding corruption scars to her, as well as giving her Peridot's old limb enhancers, as Peridot was one of my favorite gems back in the day.

I'd already designed a version of Citrine with corruption scars, and I'd already had countless redesigns including limb enhancers.

I started working on this as a simple doodle to explore that idea of Citrine with Peridot's old limb enhancers (with rust included, because canonically they'd been dumped into the ocean.)

Eventually it became an attempt at a be-all-end-all, double-or-nothing, final, ultimate redesign for Citrine. A talk with a friend had helped me push aside, as much as I could, that nagging feeling I get knowing that my OC didn't fit rules established in SU canon, so now this is just going to be me trying to give her a design I'm happy with.

The image shown isn't the final result, but rather an example of what I'm going for.

Made this based off of an idea that popped into my head- a gemsona weapon idea based on a "peridot" theme. Funnily, I was thinking that I could maybe use this for a serpentine gemsona I'd been planning, who would be sort of a peridot supervisor-type gemsona and take design cues from the "classic" homeworld gems and old interpretations of the diamonds. Generally an "old fandom" type of gemsona, y'know.

Messing around with trying to mimic the Flipnote Studio limitations, made a sketchy angel and some variants, including one with comets/shooting stars.

     I'd like to think that the possibility of me recovering my self-esteem and acting out all these things I'd hoped for, making a happy and fulfilling life for myself, isn't too far away. I'd say that it likely is, but this is the kind of thing where your mindset is what dictates what comes next. If you choose to keep going and believe you'll get better, you will, and if you have no hope, you'll stay stagnant. I want to try the hope option, because being hopeless and stagnant isn't leading me anywhere, and if I don't get away from that mindset, it may seal my fate.

I'll get better. I have to. I'll move towards a brighter future, and handle the hardships as best I can.