One of my hardest months ever
October was probably one of the most soul crushing months I’ve ever had to do; Fourth month in a row now of 70-80 hour weeks. But this month was different.

Already I’m fatigued from going at this pace for so long, but the nature of the work changed. Renovation on my commercial real estate piece got fully underway. I had to oversee and pay contractors to do plumbing, flooring, and electrical work amounting to over $5,000 at least. I’m still waiting on the electrician to send me his bill for the 4 full days of work he and his team did which I expect to be several thousand more.

Then in the later part of the month it changed over to preparing for painting and then painting itself. This last Sunday I was down there for 8 hours painting a 20’x20’x12’ room mostly by myself which involved big windows and painting around the exposed HVAC system.

There is lots more work expected. I’m estimating just about as much work in November as there was in October for it. I’m expecting several thousand dollar more expenses as well for flooring installation and constructing a room around the HVAC system. And then more work involving me personally painting most of the interior rooms.

And all of this on top of it being Fall. Home has lots of trees and they are all dropping their leaves. We have two disposal bins for leaves and they get filled to the brim every week. This usually continues until the 1st week of December.

Creating habits
Despite this huge mess in my life, I am putting some work in personal development. I’m creating a morning routine I should be able to do 5 of 7 days of the week. I am hoping these will help put me in a better mood and feel more motivated.

One part of the routine is reading a little bit. I’m reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’m hoping with the take away I can get from this book will help me address some problems I have, particularly me hating doing digital sketching/inking.

Here’s to hoping this morning routine helps me to be better.

Lineless digital for pencil drawings
My workflow for doing pictures starting with pencil lines to digital painting has developed in such a way, that it is now faster for me to just straight up remove the lineart entirely by the end of the picture.

I finally reached my ideal dream goal of making my main digital media be lineless; the way it used to be years ago. But now I can finished these pictures in 1/3-1/2 the time they used to take with quality that is exponentially better.

Any new pictures starting with pencil lines that are not yet started with coloring will default to be finished linelessly. Commissioners would have to ask for the pencil lines to be included if they want them.

I wasn’t actively trying to get here. This whole development happened on its own. >w>

Patreon charging

Patreon recently gave artists the ability to swap their payment schedule to their benefits lasting a full month after the date of their payment. Which makes a lot of sense to benefit people signing up at the end of the month.

I contemplated this swap (as the swap is permanent) and decided against it. My benefits are available at any point of the month no matter when you sign up. You literally could sign up on the last day of the month on my $30, submit a sketch request, and vote in my polls and I would still honor these. (just the sketch would get finished next month; the doodle would likely get done as I save finishing these until about 6 p.m. Central; but even then, if a request came in later, I would add it on to next month)

Keep this in mind if you are considering/reconsidering pledge options!

So there you go with how my life is going. November I expect much of the same as October. But maybe after that, my birthday month of December will finally be something to look forward to.

Just gotta keep telling myself I need to get through at least one more month of this. @.@’

(note: You may wonder for someone as short on time as I am why I’d type something so long. These are sometimes “venting” my problems which I normally don’t do in the public eye. This particular “journal” was especially negative but after letting it sit for a few hours, I went back and deleted several hundred words. Nothing changed, but I felt better/more accepting of things)

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The theme for doodle/sketch requests on Patreon this month if opted in was my characters swapping outfits, swapping species, or in a were-form for Halloween!

Here are links to the doodle pages:
Page 1: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/49638706/
Page 2: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/49638724/
Page 3: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/49638746/
Page 4: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/49638770/

 Patreon You can find my Patreon which features early access, full resolution pictures, and the monthly voting for picture ideas and/or completion at: https://www.patreon.com/EclipsisStudios

 Twitter Want to keep up to date with all my posts and teasers of my Patreon? Follow me on my Twitter at: https://twitter.com/EclipsisStudios