I had a rough summer. It was supposed to be a highlight of my year, since I was moving back to Norway to continue living with my partner - something that Covid restrictions prevented me to do for several months.

Unfortunately, excitement soon turned to tears, as the relationship fell apart few weeks into my return to Norway. Ironically enough, I was putting in tremendous ammounts of effort into navigating and communicating the shit out of various problems that were arising, and I really believed that once I navigate everything, our relationship would grow to become stronger than ever. Not that any of that work really mattered in the end, because at the core of it was a fact that there were never any romantic feelings towards me in the first place.

It was a clusterfuck. But, alas, there was plenty of summer (and of my rent contract) left. Also it wasn't the type of situation where you become enemies with your partner, we were still companions trying our best. So I slipped into some sort of high functioning denial mode and we continued to live, travel, and experience things together. Us and also the dark mass at the back of my soul that I was actively trying to ignore.

Anyways, it only really got a chance to come out and make me feel what happened when I travelled back home. Initially I wanted to make a 4 painting cycle, illustrating a process of a breakdown, and at the same time a transformation of the character from white to black. But this piece isn't special - at the core it's just "uh oh I feel b a d sometimes" (Or maybe I'm just trying to justify why I got lazy and I failed to fulfill my initial idea). Yet everything behind that 'b a d' is more complex than anything I emotionally processed before. I don't know.

This is a new character. I just call him 'Dog' for now. This situation feels like very much a paradigm shift moment in life, and I felt it would only be appropriate for a new character to explore aspects of these experiences. Any part of his fur can be white or black, he doesn't have a set pattern. I'd like to do a quick animation illustrating this concept, but the way I imagine it is as if Dog was a lava lamp made of fur, and whites and blacks just flow and mix like liquid vax, but they could also be controlled by will or emotions. I'm excited to explore this concept more as it should allow for some really fun stuff with art compositions and commissions that no other design could provide. I mean you can literally flip values from 0 to 100 to fit your composition however you like, isn't that fucking cool

Thanks for reading friends. I am trying to be productive and work on art and streaming, and other things. Stuff will be ok again eventually, for me and for you all too (I hope you are managing to find your way in these weird weird times. Don't be too hard on yourself).
I've dropped out of school so shit is real now. If corona allows, I'd like to travel somewhere far away for a few months, volunteer in some farm or something. A wee escape to ruminate about things on my own, away from everything sounds very good right about now heh.

It's funny, but for whatever reason I feel infinitely more comfortable sharing stuff like this here on FA. There's just something a lot more comforting about this environment than the anxiety inducing cumshitfuckhole of Twitter, even tho I don't visit furaffinity often.

- Kerpe