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~ x ~

Oh hello. It's probably time for a journal update, seeing as the last one was eons ago and produced at a time when my brain was apparently in imminent danger of eating its way out of my head. Good news everyone: it didn't!

So, since that special moment in time, I have finished university entirely (after almost 6 mostly wonderful years). Apparently I'm a "Master" of graphic design now. If I understand correctly - and I do - that means I'm entitled to several slave children, and I get to wear a wizard hat and conduct the ocean at my own leisure via the latest Apple product. Cool. What else.. I acquired a girlfriend. I lost that girlfriend. My old sentimental favourite band Silverchair entered a seemingly permanent hiatus Diorama is still my favourite album ever, it's like a big magical warm hug. I went to Thailand and Laos and had an amazing time in the homeland (I played with baby tigers for an extended period of time!!!). I got a kickass second hand lamp. It's emerald green and gold.

Happy new year and such! I think I say this every time, but I do apologise for not being a very active member here. I see how engaged some people are with the DA community - talking to all their watchers, constantly giving real feedback/critiques, featuring unknown artists, holding contests - old friends I started out here with getting Seniority statuses for their contributions, and I feel a creeping sense of guilt that I should be using whatever little powers I have for good. Instead when I'm online I just kinda....eat chocolate and go on Youtube, haha. I'll pick up my game here some day.

I also need to create a whole lot more artwork. My output is pitiful. I spend so much time thinking and not doing, I'm going to burst. Since the beginning of this year, and even the end of last year, I feel like I've been going out or doing various social things every day. I love seeing people and doing stuff, but I also really like alone time in my self-constructed sanctuary of a room. I think I fluctuate frequently between extroversion and introversion in their extremes, which I think just annoys everybody. I have to ask myself how serious I am about being a professional artist and designer. The answer is very serious, haha. So..it may be time to completely throw myself into it, at the expense of a social life. Time to be a creepy art hermit.

Do any of you experience these sentiments? Surely some of you are as obsessive as me, haha.

On the plus side, the one artwork I've actually completed lately went unexpectedly crazy. I was so confused. I uploaded Neapolia and it behaved as every other artwork would. A fave or comment here and there at a gradual pace. I went to sleep. I awoke to find it had gathered a favourite almost every minute for about 6 hours. Whaaat. I assumed it may have been an overnight DD, but couldn't see any evidence of that whatsoever. Eventually I worked out that this was my first taste of front page fame, lol. I'd been in specific categories' front pages before, but never the general browsing "most popular in the last 24 hours" stuff. Of course the next day it disappeared from there and it slowed to a more regular pace. I just wish I knew why it happened, whether it was one mega popular person who faved and started a chain reaction, or if it was linked to from another site, or if it was just that a lot of my watchers happened to be online at one time. It may never happen again, but man it's cool to have an artwork closing in on 1000 without the help of a DD However, it did kind of make me realise why there is such a massive gap between those that chance upon popularity and manage to stay there, and those that are floundering in the unknown. The system is kind of constructed to perpetuate it.

So what's on the horizon for you all this year??

~Simon

To conclude, here are some of my favourite things of late: