And now for something positive...
What I've learned and accomplished despite getting my ass kicked last year!
Hello there and Happy New Year!
Or happy mew year, according to Pumpkin.
Last week, I wrote about how much 2024 sucked the life out of me, chewed me up and spat me out. It was a rough year for sure, but in spite of that (or out of spite, or whatever), I’ve managed to learn a lot and grow as an artist/professional/human being.
Here’s a list of things I managed to do, despite 2024 beating the shit out of me!
1) I ventured into the world of drawing other people’s comics.
I didn’t know if I had it in me because, sure, I can draw the things that I do for myself, but how would I fare with someone else’s ideas and characters? How would I fare with having to interpret someone else’s scripts and pulling off the things they need me to pull off?
Once I got past the initial anxious feels, I have to say it’s been FUN! It’s really great getting to collaborate with a writer and discuss things and get feedback and just… have another person to work with. Working on my own comics can be a quiet, lonely, sometimes draining experience because there’s nobody to discuss things with and I don’t get the kind of positive energy I would when working with another person.
It’s almost like being a kid who shows a drawing to their parents and the parents (the writer) are like “yeah that’s awesome!” and then they put the drawing up on the fridge. I love it.
I’m still looking for some more comic work until April, so if you’ve got ideas, drop me a line. I’m mattasorcier on Instagram and BlueSky or you can email me at msorcier(at)sacrimony(dot)com. I’m also looking to do more covers this year, so there’s that…
Speaking of which…
2) I drew four comic covers last year!
Yeah, I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a lot for ME. Especially since I did two covers in 2023 so it’s twice the amount of covers! Can I do eight this year?? I would absolutely love to. Hell I’d love to do 12. Or 20. Or more. I love doing covers so much <3
3) I finally learned to write an actual proper comic script.
I know what you’re thinking. Shouldn’t I know this already??? Well no, not really, because since I’m doing all the writing and art for my own stories and I know them by heart, I haven’t had a need to write things beyond some vague notes and key points in the story.
I took a bit of time to learn to write a script, in case I ever needed to prove to people that I can write a script. It was a nice learning experience. I have no idea if it will ever come in handy, but I guess we’ll see. In the least, it’s something I know and it’s always nice to know things.
4) I’ve managed to make Sacrimony even prettier
Since I started publishing Sacrimony, I’ve been searching for some sort of combination of lines and colors that worked for the story. Sometimes I felt like my lines and colors were too sloppy or the colors were too weirdly saturated or the inks too blocky or something was always just… off.
I spent a lot of 2023 trying to figure out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it and I didn’t really come up with any results that I liked. In 2024, I thought Sacrimony #7 was passable enough for me to publsh but something about it could somehow be… better.
For Sacrimony #8 I decided to take some time off from moving forward with the story to figure shit out again. I played around with some new ways to digitally ink and color to give things a softer, prettier feel and the end result is exactly what I’ve wanted to achieve for the past few years. I’m really excited to move forward with the series in all of it’s pretty glory and I can’t wait to launch Issue #8 in March. Now that I have that figured out, I feel absolutely unstoppable.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…
5) I finally built up the courage to start my artbook campaign!
I know it seems like a silly thing to be anxious about, but hear me out: Artbooks are kind of a niche thing and I realize that a lot of folks who are into my comics won’t necessarily want an artbook, which is fine. But also, these campaigns take so much time and effort to prepare and launch, and laying out the book also takes time and effort.
I had a rough time on Kickstarter last year, with one project almost not funding at all until the last 3 hours and the thought of putting together a whole campaign and book for something this niche and having it not fund sucks. It’s not the threat of “failure” because I’m not the kind of person who’s afraid to fail, but it’s more of a time issue. I do a lot and I’m always saying “There’s never enough time!” and having the campaign flop would mean that at least two months of preparation has gone down the drain.
But honestly, I don’t care anymore. I’ve always wanted to see my art in hardcover book form and I’m going to see if that can be a reality this year.
That being said, the campaign goes live on January 13th. If you’re interested, be sure to go to the prelaunch page and hit “Notify me on Launch” so you can get a heads up when the campaign goes live. It will only be live until the 23rd and the physical hardcover book will only be available for the duration of the campaign.
If we can get to 85 followers, I’ll throw in a little bonus ;) What is it? We’ll find out at 75 followers.
I’ll talk more about the book next week before launch day, but right now, I’m gunna take a nap. I’ve been typing this all with a terrible migraine so forgive any typos/grammatical fuckery.
If you’ve read through this whole thing, you’re an absolute champ!
Take care and have a great weekend!
-M
Hell yeah, sounds like a lot of great accomplishments! I'm looking forward to that very fancy art book