Important Mid-Month Update (April 2024)
Hello everyone, thank you for your patience as I wanted to let everyone know what is going on. For the past few weeks, I ended up hitting an increased amount of stress going on in my life, leading to a long and very prolonged depression spike. This ended up giving me a lot of clarity and I wanted to share it.
Month of OCs is cancelled for 2024
With a heavy heart, I am going to have to cancel this year's Month of OCs. The reasons are as followed.
Planning for the even happened later than anticipated and I can no longer catch up to meet the deadline I set myself for the art.
I have to admit that my heart and drive was not in this month’s theme at all. While I had every intention on following through the votes during the OC Ballot of 2023, there was something uncomfortable about trying to (forcibly) match canon characters with original character when the month/event is meant to celebrate Month of OCs.
I am at the point where I can no longer solo this and need help not just with setting up the event but also to promote it.
The 2nd point is something that I consider a major point sadly. I rarely do Fanart and still focus mostly on Original Characters. And when I do fanart, it is often of smaller and lesser-known IPs or ones that aren’t tarnished by the IP holders, fanbase, or both. Despite it being the 5th anniversary, it is best to stop and return next year.
I will say, the theme for 2025 is “Lore Dump,” with the main focus being on a digital zine focus on Original Characters’ lores and profiles. This will also be a test to see if I can even continue Month of OCs, if it needs to be moved to sometime like November or back to July.
Hopefully I can come back with a bang.
What will replace June?
Well…
Shake of those nerrrrrrveeeessss!! Tell us a little somethin' somethin' about each one, post by post! 😎✨ Your own feral little group of stans for your OCs will come
— Hika/Tām | HK★TMK (@hikatamika.com) 2024-04-18T22:25:19.113Z
I was in a conversation on Bluesky a few days ago and some gave me a “challenge” to post and mention all of my OCs (at the time 424 OCs) and talk about them. Post by Post.
Challenge Accepted 😎
I’ll try to get ready all of the post, it will most likely bleed into all of the Summer but it gives me an excuse to OVERSHARE and OVERENJOY my OCs. XD
I will most likely be only on BlueSky so follow me there!
Art Burnout Acceptance
I want to apologize to the people who have commissioned me and have received very little in terms of progress. While I was able to push to accomplish all of the art in April, I have experience a bad case of artist burnout. It was bound to happen and it’s why the list was made so many years ago to help keep up with the weekly art posts. What accelerated it was the stress and depression mentioned in the beginning.
I am doing better now, so I’m hoping to jump back into the art soon but it may take longer than anticipated. Unknown for sure but will let you all know if anything changes.
Any Major Changes?
I’m going to try my best not to do any major changes but for the most part I’m going to try to have a stricter schedule to help keep me in line, as there is a good chance the looseness of the schedule is what hurt me in the long run. I’ll also be working on now filling in the gap that’s a part of June 2024.
There is still a planned Mermay sale, but the original update+new YCH(s) might be on hold due to lack of time prepping for them.
Stream are back but will be more focused on art and design and any work that’ll need to be done, with the occasional gaming stream.
Best place to check them out is on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@CentaurWorks/streams
Community Night Tomorrow!
There is the 3-Movies Night tomorrow at 8pmET for April’s Community Night! It’ll be Freaked, The Wizard of Speed and Time, and Dr. Otto.
It’ll be a weird and fun one so hope to see you there.
Conclusion
I’m always blown away by the support I get from the people around me and especially online. I can not thank everyone enough for putting up with everything that has been going on. Hopefully things get brighter from here.
Hope you all have a great weekend!