2020 was bad. It was filled with worsening depression and apathy with short-lived spikes of happiness. It turns out that even if good things happen, it doesn't make the bad things go away; they just distract from it.

It was slow and yet went by in the blink of an eye. But if there's one thing I've learned from 2020, it's this: In order to do something, you have to do it. Do not wait nor make excuses. The problem is that I am not equipped to do that. Not with any meaningful consistency, anyway.

Commissions

The argument of "Should I continue being a freelance artist or should I get a 'real' job?" and "Can freelance even be considered a real job compared to jobs like burger flipper, janitor, cashier, etc., especially when I make less than even minimum wage?" when people assure me freelance is a real job dances around in my head nonstop. The thought of doing both is awful; imagine trying to balance a real job and freelance when I cannot emotionally handle a real job and cannot financially handle freelance. The push and pull would be too much. (There's another layer of guilt from the fact that everyone else on the planet can do both and yet I can't. Combined with people's advice that you should "follow your dreams!" and "Don't compare yourself to others!", it leaves me questioning if I'm even a good person or a manipulative bum at every turn.)

Often, I receive advice by other artists to simply increase my rates until my financial needs are met, but that brings on a whole new set of problems.

• If I already struggle to find people willing to pay for cheap work, how can I hope to find exclusively find people willing to pay much more for the same quality of work? The vast majority of clients are just your average joes and cannot pay a living wage.
• How can I physically pull off an increase in art quality analogous to the rate increase if I'm already doing my best? If I increase my rates, how can I sleep soundly knowing that I'm arbitrarily asking $100 for something today that was $50 yesterday?
• If I already struggle with guilt in taking people's money, how does increasing the payment relieve stress when all it does is increase the stakes if I don't meet expectations?

I have been very fortunate to have the clients I have had and am grateful to them for choosing me over others. I am sorry that I do not do enough. The most notable commissions from this year were the ones from MatterBoar and WaffleDew.

YouTube

Totally Good at Games will be on hiatus. There may be streams from time to time, be them art or games, but I want to focus on finding stability in life before further pursuing YouTube. My resolutions for 2020 centered around finding stability in order to get TGAG off the ground or send the channel in a brave new direction, but after the COVID-19 pandemic struck that went out the window. Darren and I haven't recorded together in person since the Breath of the Wild episodes in May. The enthusiasm I had for expanding, filmmaking, and let's plays at the beginning has waned because of the utter lack of progress made over the years.

Music

There is a new album coming out soon! I'm not gonna talk about it too much because it's a surprise! I hope for it to release early January 2021.

Comics?

I've been thinking of moving away from animation. Not because I dislike it—I still love the art form as much as ever—but because animating is such an immense time sink that the reward of completing it is not worth the effort put in (among other reasons). Animated cartoons, freelance or for fun, do not make career sustaining numbers on NG or YouTube for me despite animating since 2012, nine years ago. The highest viewed cartoons of mine are Oney Plays Animated: Well Well from November on MatterBoar's channel at 85,000 views (and 940 on my Newgrounds channel) and Funny Mii Thing from eight years ago on my channel at 67,000 views. Despite my passion, there are a number of internal and external factors that prevent my life as an animator from being successful and I do not know how to fix that outside of continued stubborn, blind, hopeful persistence.

The benefit that comics have are that they are generally easier to make and so I can tell larger stories with less time. Before 2012, I was a comic artist and so I at least have experience making comics as a kid. I don't know if that's the direction I will be taking, but I'd like to just try it out without pressure. The takeaway here is that I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing. I haven't been sure of what I'm doing for six years (in any aspect of life) and, given external pressures, only having that ambiguity when things should be concrete is maddening.

I've also slowly been working on a Sonic Adventure 2 comic adaptation in my spare time. When I'm not working on commissions, I may work on it. It's the first comic I've made that uses a dip pen! I was inspired by the art in 90s cyberpunk manga and wanted to replicate it. This City Escape page isn't from that comic; it's just something I made to try out the dip pen and digital screentones since I'm very new to it. The plan is to complete the entire comic and then post it instead of posting pages as it progresses. That way, I can focus on making each page to my liking without worrying about hooking everyone with consistent updates. Given everything, I'm not sure if I will have the time or peace of mind to create this at all, but I'd certainly like to.

2021 Resolutions

I hope that things improve. I don't know how to make them improve, but I hope they do.

• Either quit freelance (permanently or temporarily) and get a real job or instead make freelance sustainable
• Afterwards, expand Totally Good at Games to be something more than just another let's play show