First and foremost, happy new year to all of my wonderful followers watching this. I hope you had a good one.

2015 was an eventful year for me, for better or worse.

Around this time last year I was given less than a months notice that I needed to find a new place to live. At the moment I was unemployed, rather depressed, and had been dragging myself through one of the worst artistic dry spells i've ever experienced. 

I packed my stuff up in my car, went to the cafe, opened up my laptop, and started drawing like my life depended on it. I made a massive amount of design mockups in order to put together a portfolio, hoping that i may be able to get a graphic design gig somewhere to make some quick cash. Unfortunately I was turned down by the firms I applied to. Rejection after rejection I was told that my work wasn't well suit for design, that it's too cartoonish or fantasy-like.

I had been up for four days straight, had only eaten a few lousy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches over the course of a week, and was feeling particularly useless. In a desperate attempt to crawl my way out of an art block, I created a picture called Unrest. This picture captured exactly what I was feeling in that moment. I felt engulfed by a fire perpetuated by misfortune that I brought onto myself. A flame composed of an anger towards my own laziness, apathy, and comfort. I was plagued by a fear of opportunity, and now only the ashes of that fear remain.

I promised myself that I would never compromise my integrity for petty comfort again. To never give up on my dreams because of the wishes of shitty family members, shitty friends, or my own shitty insecurities. When opportunity came to me, I wouldnt run and hide.

Shortly after that, some amazing people came through and helped me out greatly. I found a new place to live and started working my ass off. As luck would have it that next day I was approached with a massive opportunity, and I took it. Funny enough, I was offered a gig after the person running it saw the same design portfolio that was turned down by all the other clients I reached out to.

I spent the following months doing all of the art for a music festival. Going from a period of doing no art at all to assuming workload of an entire team seems insane but it was what I needed to pull me from the depths of unproductivity that I had sunken to. It was crazy. I hardly slept, learned practically everything as I went, and did things I didn't even know I was capable of.

The festival was great, and is still the funnest and most succesful project Ive ever worked on.

2015 didn't come without its own grievances though. I've struggled with my living conditions month to month, watched my closest sister go through cancer, and was continuously forced to put personal work to the side in order to pay a mountain of medical bills. Hard drives crashed, computers broke, and my sketchbook was stolen, setting my personal projects back by an abysmal scale.

I'd be lying if I said this year didn't completely wear me down a few times, but we are better for the moments we endure. 

The quality of my life is different now. I'm more productive, more outgoing, and as creative as I've ever been. Though there's still a mountain before me, a colossal pile of unfinished projects and half dreamt worlds, and my ascent has just begun.

I spent the last year working hard on other people's projects and learned a lot from it. This year I think it's time to work on my own project. Its finally time to turn those little worlds I've shared through the art portal into living, breathing games.

This is the year...

~Carrion <3