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Deevins

I'm 21 now lmao
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I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I really don't have much to say for this end-of-year recap.

This one's gonna be a bit short, because to be honest, 2023 was a bit of a crummy year, if my inactivity and radio silence on my social media wasn't deafening enough. Between working a dead-end part time job and then having a rough first semester going to University, I've realized I reached a point in my life where my personal life has taken high priority over my social life, and as a result, I have not had any time to draw art like I want to, and it made me feel stressed. I have been drawing and posting my art for over 6 years now, and I felt like I lost a part of myself not being able to draw art regularly while In college. I apologize if there's still anyone here that enjoyed my artwork, but I'm beginning to think It's almost time for me to part ways with art. First, I've had this bad tendency to put a lot of things on my plate without realizing it. This applies to art. When I come up with ideas to draw art, sometimes I start a sketch, and either complete the drawing, leave the sketch unfinished, or never start a sketch. Sometimes I come back to it at a later date, but this has put me in a perpetual cycle where I have sketchbooks that have a mix of artwork and blank pages left in them. I've been flipping between finishing older sketches and drawing new art for a couple of years now, and it might have resulted in burnout. I can never start drawing some new artwork without having to worry about finishing older pieces. I also feel like I've been drawing art out of obligation instead of drawig it for fun. Second, I compare myself with other talented artists too often. I feel like I can never reach a point where I can post art regularly when my attention is drawn elsewhere, and seeing the amount of work some artists make and the rate at which they post regularly severly demotivates me from drawing. Third, I feel like I really have no other platfoms to share my art. People are either leaving the platforms I'm already using, and my options to explore new ones are limited because they're being managed questionably or aren't that large enough to gain attention. Lastly, I've been cursed to draw traditional art. Not only does it take too much time for me to finish an art piece, but I think a lot of platforms, Deviantart Included, favor digital art. While I've made digital art before, and I have a tablet that's a few years old, I feel like I missed my chance to grab a drawing tablet and learn how to use properly a while ago. I also really can't afford to purchase a new tablet either or have the option to buy a decent art program because I need to manage my finances appropriately or have the time to make digital art in between my classes.


Regardless of what I just said, there's still a dumb part of me that wants to push forward with art in spite of my difficulties. I think I'm just refusing to let go of this part of my life. I want to set goals for this year and If you came from Twitter/X, you've likely seen the first of many daily Mallow drawings. Why am I doing this? Because I'm a glutton for punishment and because I want to show that I'm capable of drawing things on a consistent basis. I might even draw mallow doing funny things related to certain dates or art challenges. I'm also slowly working on a batch of artwork of all the shiny pokemon selected from 2023's Pokemon Go Community Days, which should be coming out in a couple of days. Those drawings will only be posted on Twitter because Uploading art to Deviantart is time-consuming...

Speaking of 2023, You might be seeing a lot of old art from that year posted every now and then as I slowly work to fill out another sketchbook.

Lastly, there's the PMD Comic. I have a lot to say about where I'm at with it, but I'll save my thoughts for a separate Journal. I'm going to try my best to post at least one page a week, Starting on January 5th. I want to post at least 4-6 pages a month, depending on how many Fridays there are in a given month. My goal is to draw 60 pages by the time December rolls around, or at the very least, get 52 pages done.

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Well friends, here we are again. Another year in the books, and a pretty progressive one at that too. While I said in the '21 Year Review Journal that I wanted to enter last year with stride and confidence and to improve my executive functioning, that... never happened, especially since I'm typing this journal 4 days into 2023, lmao-

It's still hard as hell to balance time between college and free time, especially when you throw a new job in the mix, more on that later. So to answer the big question: How was my 2022? Pretty Mid if you ask me. There was a mixed bag of both good and bad events throughout the year, and I plan on encapsulating them all. Let's cut to the chase and talk about the fun stuff first!

Like every yearly review journal, you should expect me to cover some of my favorite memes this past year. Whether you paid 4 Dabloons to either watch Mobius Morbius emote static or the Minions: Rise of Gru WHAAAAAAT? (Chat Icon) in a suit and tie, participated in the many factions of r/Place's second incarnation (The Bronies will never die /) (\ ) , Got randomly horny for bowling pins back in April or over Clussy, came for the Wondertart's Nectar or whatever that Pink Sauce was, tried to describe who Doctor Livesy is, the entire Alphabet Lore, and why exactly the Koopas dance against their will with the help of Michael Rosen, as well as witness the absolute madness of the Spamton Sweepstakes (Seriously, how does Toby keep on one-upping himself each time Undertale's anniversary passes by?) , 2022 was a good year for memes. Probably my favorite meme last year was the unexpected rise and resilience of poor old Mr. Incredible becoming either Canny or Uncanny. You'd think a meme with an exploitable formula would get old quickly, but the internet found ways to keep the meme slightly relevant by making variations of the meme itself until it finally simmered down by May/June.

Mr Incredible


2022 wasn't without losses, however. Before the year could even start, John Madden passed away before 2021 ended and then right before New Year's Day, Betty White passed away at 99 mere weeks before her 100th birthday. The death of Thurston Waffles saddened me deeply but he will be forever immortalized thanks to his meme. One of the more serious losses this year was the passing of Queen Elizabeth, despite what the memes said about her being immortal. Although I'm a bloody American, the fact she remained in rule for 70 years is something to recognize, despite her assorted past.


Thanks to the pandemic simmering down in 2022, I was able to get out a lot more than I did the year prior. Besides going to campus for 2 full semesters, Probably the greatest things I did in 2022 was watching Sonic 2 with the same friend who also went out with me to watch the first Sonic movie before the pandemic got real bad, but more importantly, Attending Anime Central for the first time in 3 Years. (Yes, I'm finally not coy on saying what cons I go to!) The first time I went to ACEN was back in 2019 when I was still in high school. I went out with a close friend of mine, and we both had a blast together. It was so much fun that I registered for the con the next year but as we all know, everything was shut down in 2020. ACEN could have hosted a con in 2021 but May of that year was around the time the vaccines were beginning to roll out. While the con could've gone on with face masks and proper social distancing requirements being met, the organizers made a smart move to wait until 2022 when covid was less severe and contagious. While I was able to go to Anime Midwest a year earlier in summer 2021 (Midwest was the first con I went to back in 2018), it pales in comparison to the amount of activities you could do in ACEN. ACEN 2022 was the first year that I decide to attend panels, and boy, were they fun. From anime trivia to seeing Gawr Gura and Hakos Baelz playing 2 truths, 1 lie with their fans (the line for the panel was so long that I was lucky enough to sit in the back row!), as well as supporting artists from Artist Alley, ACEN 2022 was definitely a con to remember. Midwest 2022 was also fun as well, as I took a friend of mine who had never been to anime convention before, and it feels poetic that I passed the torch to someone like my friends did to me 4 years prior. I'm glad I made the responsible financial decision to register for full passes at both conventions and I can't wait to once again spend my newly received disposable income for more expensive anime merch. More on income much later... Last year I cosplayed as Red, and for 2023 I intend on cosplayed as Calem to celebrate X and Y's 10th anniversary this year! If for some reason you actually recognize me at either con, I will either be impressed or slightly scared at the fact that I have a stan who loves me so much that they try to stalk me.


One of the main reasons why 2022 was kinda "mid" for me and why I would like to call it the year of Divine Intervention was the fact that I got a job change right when I started the fall semester. I mentioned it in the 2021 journal, but back in April, I got a part-time custodial job at a retail store which gave me a huge boost of confidence and establishing some much needed independence. However, as covid restrictions were lifted into 2022, I suddenly saw my hours dry up. On a whim, I decided to apply to a fast food restauraunt and I somehow got hired! My custodial experience carried over nicely and my managers gave me all the hours I needed... Too much hours, in fact! One of the many reasons why I just dumped a whole bunch of sketches between August and December 2022, and why the PMD comic was in a standstill all year long was because that job was sucking so much hours out of my free time that I would've normally spent drawing art. Doesn't help that I get home around 10pm every night... Couple that with a demanding History course and a Logic course with a slightly bad instructor and you've got a recipe for procrastination and unproductivity! Fortunately, I've learned not to be so hard on myself, and it's helped me give more self-love, in a way. Speaking of self-love, my soul-searching is practically done. I've finally realized that I have a passion for weather and meteorology and that's the field that I'm going to study for when I transfer to University. I recently registered for my last set of classes to get my General Computer Science Associate's Degree which I will use to help me enroll to some big name university. It's... kinda crazy that I have plan set forwards for my life. I know what field I want to study, I know what campuses I want to go to, and I'm currently trying to collect the finances to keep myself steady when I move out of the house. Going away from home is going to be the biggest change in my life, and I need to mentally prepare myself for that. It's crazy that 3-4 years ago I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do when I started college. I had become so codependent on my parents to let them do everything for me that when it came time to graduate, I felt kinda lost. I'll elaborate more on that later. Still can't believe that I went from a shy, nervous 16/17 year old teen to a confident, responsible, 20-year-old adult. Oh right, I forgot to mention that I turned 20 last year. Let's hope my 20's are as wild and crazy as they say they will be!


Despite all the chaos within my personal life, one thing remained a constant in 2022, and that was watching ProtonJon's streams. Whether or not I just wanted to have a night of fun or unwind from another tiring day's work, Jon, your team of moderators, co-comms, and community never fail to make me smile. If you're wondering why I've been uploading art of busty women lately (especially with what drawings I'm finishing up with an inktober theme), that's because I've been drawing a lot of fanart for jon and the image booru that he runs. This year started an "altjon of the month" prompt and I responded to it in kind and drawing what are essentially beautiful women with nice curves has ironically got me to learn anatomy in a weird way. Speaking of self-refleciton, this March will mark 3 years since I started watching his streams, and they came into a pretty dire point in my life. I will be explaining my experience with depression in a separate post, but to get my point across, around the first half of Senior Year (Fall 2019), I had what I can only describe as a very early quarter life crisis because of three reasons:

  1. I was afraid of losing all the friends I made after a crummy freshman year

  2. I was jealous of all of my friends' social accomplishments while feeling ill prepared for college

  3. I was hellbent on keeping straight A's. Might as well go for broke when you have nothing else to lose.

Eventually the anxiety-fueled crisis led to worrisome thoughts and I was sent to a mental institution for help/group therapy with kids suffering depression. The thoughts never got to a point where I had a plan to off myself, but it's still scary thinking that my mind was in such a tattered, vulnerable state. Eventually, I came to my senses and realized that I had a fortunate living situation, a loving family, friends, teachers, and faculty who cared about me, and to some extent, my online friends, watchers, followers, and mutuals who support me in my artistic endeavors. I asked myself what kind of legacy I would leave behind if I had actually kissed this world goodbye. But the last thing that really made me snap out of this rut was when Vulpix, an old friend of mine, created her deviantart account around the first/second week of my visits. I had not spoken to her for 2 years since Miiverse closed down, and after she joined a discord server with our old friends, needless to say, I felt joy for the first time in several months. Past Friends reunited was the best feeling I ever felt. Ari, if you're reading this, I don't think I ever told you how important your return to the internet meant to me.


While I was ready to take 2020 to new heights and turn around my senior year, wishful thinking could only get me so far. We all know the pandemic made 2020 hell for everyone, and even for me, it felt surreal knowing that Friday, March 13th, 2020, would be the last time I stepped foot into my high school in person. I nearly panicked over the uncertainty of the pandemic and thought I would never get past online classes, but not even a week into the pandemic, something magical happened. After Jerod co-commed a Fortune Cookie Stream on March 21st, I was introduced to... Well the Jonaverse and all of its alts, as well as a wonderful community filled with amazing artists, some to whom I look up to. After the absolute chaos that was Chaos Fortune Cookie from TRG Colosseum 2020, which eventually lead to the birth of the disc only podcast, I decided to stick around for more cookies. Then In late August, when college started, I watched a game clearing stream and then that lead me to start watching more of Jon's streams throughout the week since they're a great way to end off a long day of classes, and in recent times, a long day's work. I know I shouldn't be paying attention to my morbid curiosity, but had I never tuned into that fortune cookie stream... lord knows where I would be today.


Probably the last sad thing that kinda scared me early on in 2022 was a sudden health scare my father faced back in February, which explains why I only posted 2 pieces of art that month. Unexpectedly, he started to experience heart arrhythmia/slow, irregular, heartbeats, and that reasonably made me feel nervous. Despite the fact that he and I don't always see eye to eye together, losing a parent is something gut-wrenching that I never want to experience. Heart Disease is the leading cause of death in America, and I don't want my father to be the one of the 647,000 Americans who die from it. Fortunately my father has been seeing a doctor regularly and as far as I know, has been taking medication to help regulate his heart beat.


Moving on to a more lighter note, one of the other things that kept me from drawing lots of art this year was... ironically looking at my own artwork! As I continue to finish the last batch of drawings from 2022, I took some time to look at my gallery and realized how far I've come as an artist. I joined DeviantArt back in September 2017 when Miiverse was about to bite the dust, and while 15 year old me could draw, I could never imagine drawing the art I'm able to produce now. Maybe this whole art thing might even be a good backup in case Meteorology isn't set out for me, but I need to either buy a drawing tablet or begin to use the new markers I got for christmas to take my art to the next level.


And now it's time for some final words. If you've made it this far, I'm gonna tell you now that it's taken me 3-4 hours to write this journal for deviantart and then converting it to a twitlonger post. It's 4AM, god help me. I was going to talk more about my depression or what my plans are going to be this year, but I'll save those for future posts another day.

Here's to a wonderful 2023 to you, me, and all of us!

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Deviant for 5 years

Well would you look at that. Half a decade has passed since I created this account, huh? I wanted to get this journal out on the 7th, but it's now the 9th (10th since its past midnight) and at this point, I'm not surprised I'm celebrating occasions days or even weeks late. It's always been a bad habit mine of doing that.

5 Year Anniversary

Anyways, I was a 15 year old sophomore trying to enjoy his free time back then, and now I'm a 20 year old college student who has very little free time. I still remember the last weeks of miiverse trying to tell what little following I had to find this account, and for the most part, I have kept in touch with most of my miiverse friends since the site shut down. Some, I've slowly drifted away from and treat them as mutuals and sadly I've lost about touch with about 2 or 3 people, mainly due to eclipse being on the horizon. I'm not upset that they're gone or anything, sometimes friendships can end abruptly when you least expect them too. Some people just stop talking to you, not because of something you said, but because they're busing dealing with their own personal affairs in life, and so do I.


Not all is lost, however. Ever since I joined this site, I've met a lot of people in the past 5 years , some of them having the honor of being close friends. A good chunk of them were friends of my miiverse friends, but we somehow all built a nice circle in the past 5 years and I keep up tabs with all of them. A good way that we've done that was through the creation of discord servers. Some people that I've met on DeviantArt also went into this circle, and we're all pretty chill with each other. Sometimes I have other friends are in different circles, but they do seem to be aware of the activity of my other friends, which is something I like. Hopefully one day I will make a server of my own to unite every single friend and mutual I've met on my time here. As for my watchers, my following here on this site has doubled since I left miiverse with only 250 followers.


However, not everything has been sunshine and rainbows here. There was one person that I met that almost destroyed that circle. I will not mention them by name for their own sake, but for my watchers, you can ignore this part of the journal. And to this person who just so happens to read this up all the way here, If you're reading this part of the journal, you know who you are. It's a shame you were one of the first individuals I met on the same month I joined the site. You had a very cute minccino OC that I stumbled upon and I watched you as a young and impressionable artist because your artwork was so much better than mine, and you knew it too.


As time passed, your potential and talent as artist grew, and so did your watcher count, but somewhere along the way, you let those numbers and your own prowess get to your head. You suddenly began drawing your characters doing edgy things to either impress new friends or for the sake of being edgy. When things didn't go your way, you lost your anger quickly, and instead of relieving it in a healthy way, you took it out on us. We agreed to do an art trade once and when I reminded you to follow up on your part you lashed out to me saying we never agreed to do one in the first place and I technically ended up drawing two pieces of art for you the next time we agreed to do a trade.


You never seemed to take full accountability of your actions, either. In your path of wrath you hurt and harmed your so called "friends" emotionally. No wonder why you used core to change your username every couple of months, you refused to acknowledge your wrongdoings. It was around late 2018 that I finally began to notice your toxic behavior and realized your were not a good person to be around with after multiple mutuals called you out on your awful actions. At first, I denied you were capable of such wrongdoing because I was still young and gullible. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and though that time would heal the wounds of your victims. However, I started distancing myself from you because I didn't want to have someone else's dirty laundry aired onto me. Even though you and I generally had good relations with each other, after 2018, I felt like I was walking on eggshells when I had a conversation with you. I didn't want to get on your bad side or have you lash out on me unreasonably. By late 2020, after a follower of yours called you out (but would strangely whiteknight you months later after another friend of mine called you out again), I had enough. I unfollowed your accounts and went into no contact with you. At that point in time, my art skills had improved to a point where I no longer required the validation of more talented artists who are patient. It's bittersweet that an artist like you would just throw away your talent over your anger and lust for fame and fortune. In doing so you also began selling out your talent for sexual arousal. You seem to be fine catering towards other "like-minded" people who may have also done the same. Not like you seemed to value the friendship of other people who cared about you either.


Sorry if a portion of that journal seemed to be sour, I think I just processed years worth of denial and confusion with someone who I once looked up to. On a more brighter note, I'm glad to announce that DSSC is finally back, or partially back... That's because I'm making a PMD Comic series! The plot is loosely based off of the story of the first PMD game, but with a few comedic twists!

PMD: Stupid Rescue Team Cover Page

Admittedly, this whole thing was inspired by JIMATION'S PMD 1 in a nutshell video which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDVJELk2REA

This will also be the last ditch effort I have to get this comic series popular in some way. I'd figured I'd go all in and make fun of a rather simplistic yet engaging story. If this comic series doesn't catch on, then I will cancel Deevin's Stupidly Short Comics permanently. I've lost hope on spending time on a deadbeat comic strip that barely anyone reads and I would rather spend what little time I have left these days on the regular art I draw which gets lots more attention than a black and white comic.

Even though I didn't expect this whole journal to be so melodramatic, honestly, that's kinda how all of my journals are. As a 20 year old, I have less free time than I ever did as a teen. I have work and school to tend to, and I have to stop acting like a child sometimes. One of these days I might just leave this site altogether to better my overall health, but at the same time, doing so would lose several connections I have built up over the years.

If you're still reading this somehow, I guess I have to say thank you to all of my friends, mutuals, and watchers who have supported me for half a decade. Even a single comment that arrives on my art keeps me going. Here's to hopefully more productive years ahead, and less time wasted on distractions!

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So, here I am. Back again doing a year in review journal. Try singing that in the tune of Goldfinger's "Superman". This is something I haven't done since 2019, and let me tell you now, this journal isn't gonna go off with a great start. Normally I would start these journals off with some negative stuff that happened this year, but honestly, I think we can all agree that a lot of shit happened last year that warrants its own section in this journal. The reason why I never made a 2020 year in review journal because 2020 was a rough year in general. 2019 me had wishful thinking hoping 2020 was gonna be a good year. It... was not. On top of dealing with a pandemic that forced me to stay indoors most of the time, what should've been a brilliant second half of my senior year of high school was taken away from me. My graduation wasn't grand at all, we had this weird, makeshift drive-thru graduation. We drove through the parking lot to pick up my diploma and my cap nearly flew away in the wind. Yet for some reason when I'm looking back at last year's events... I never really felt uncomfortable during the height of last year's pandemic, with some major exceptions. I Struggled to go through the first few weeks of online classes but once I established a routine, I got my head back in the game. I guess the reason why the pandemic really never hit me hard emotionally up to that point was the fact that I had become emotionally numb from the bout of anxiety-fueled depression I had recovered from the fall of 2019, and i was fortunate to hang out with a couple of my friends over the summer while chaos was unfolding in front of our eyes. That was until we received news in November that year that my grandfather had suffered a heart attacked and passed on. A piece of my childhood, gone. The amount of fear and anxiety I had going through the airports when covid cases were at their height is something I'll never forget. I kept telling myself, "Holy shit, this is scary. I don't want to catch covid..." Thankfully I have moved on from my grandfather's passing, and I've been fully vaccinated since April/May of this year (and boosted since December 14th!), and I can leave this rather terrible part of my life behind me for good.


So, 2021. How was it? Well, let's just say 2021 was basically 2020: New Game Plus. What last year should have been. Before Delta and Omnicron cropped up by the end of this year, It felt so good to return back to some form of normalcy, albeit for only several months. Additionally, after some recent self-reflection, I've realized how far I've come and much I've grown emotionally and personally. I guess you could say I'm nearly done with the soul searching that my 16 and 17-year-old selves described from years past. My executive functioning skills have improved greatly, I've been working a part-time job for basically 9 months now, I'm able to go to college by myself through the use of public transportation (which can sometimes be fun!) and I have a general idea of what my future lies ahead for me. I also won't lie about my time management still needing some improvement, but the fact that I'm realizing these things now while also learning how to love myself is important, and I can only wish you do the same to yourselves someday instead of wasting your time beating yourselves into a pulp. I want you all to enter 2022 with a stride of confidence, as I plan to do. There's just one last thing I want to mention before I close off this journal. After doing this much needed self-reflection, I need to tell you all a secret that I've been holding for quite some time. However, after some second thoughts, I'd rather continue to hold this secret away from you guys for my own safety and comfort, until the right time comes in 2022. It just feels stupid to say that something I was born with can attract so much attention, both positive and negative, and that's something I'm not mentally prepared yet to face....


To close out this journal, I want to share two funny memes from this year for old times sake, and because midnight is rapidly approach. The Goddamit Kris meme, susie : ) [F2U] The Fat Controller/Sir Topham Hatt banishing Sir Handel to the Shadow Realm,Sir Topham Hatt Smiling Sir Handel Scared Emoticon and the Shuba Duck meme,🦆 all of them made me smile and laugh so much this year. I also want to again mention The8bitdrummer for being a wonderful person who does nothing but his best to share much needed positivity and kindness with the wonderful commuity he's cultivated in a world filled with relentless negativity. I also want to give another shoutout to ProtonJon and his wonderful team of Co-Commentators/Moderators, who I've been watching since March 2020. Your community is filled to the brim with wonderful people and artists like myself who have given me the confidence to say these things. That and I partook in my own Game Clearing list this year. Without you two, I honestly don't know how long I would've held my job, or even found one in the first place or continually improve my executive functioning skills, even on days when I feel down on my luck. Without you two... I don't even know if I'd be alive today. It's kinda scary thinking if my mind would've gone back to darker places during this pandemic, but that's just my morbid curiosity being wild again.


And to all of my friends, mutuals, followers, and watchers, some of which who have been following my antics and shenanigans for over 5 years now. I would also like to say that I have forgotten that my dA page hit 500 watchers earlier this month, but that's not important. To everyone who has made it this far reading my journal, good tidings to you, your friends and your family, wherever they may be, and I hope you all have a fantastic 2022!

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Goodness, It's ben 6 months since I made an update journal? Let's change that. Also, this journal is gonna be a bit short.


First of all, I'm fresh off the heels of another successful year of Inktober, even though It took me a couple of extra days to finish up the last few pieces. I so badly want to take a break from art for a few days and focus on clearing out some vidya I've been meaning to play for a while.


Second of all, November and December are gonna be some weird months. I'm gonna go back to some of my older sketchbooks and finish/draw down some Ideas that I've had in my head for several months. Of course, I will continue to draw the Stupidly Short Comic Series as normal and TRY posting a new comic every 10 days. Emphasis on the word try.


Lastly, as the title of this journal says, Monthly Art trades are open again! I tried opening them back in May of 2020 but that just so happened to be the time Eclipse dropped, which may have drawn people away from me...

With how busy my schedule is right now, I will only take three slots. I know my limits.

I also don't know if I should host art trades here or on my twitter account but just in case I host them there, my twitter handle is https://twitter.com/Deevins1 if you can't find it in my DA Bio.


Hope you all have a good evening, and now if you'll excuse me, I am going to play Animal Crossing New Horizons and Pokemon Cafe Remix-

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