#life update

july and mid-august

August 15, 2026

i've really been wanting to update my site, but for reasons unknown to me it's been hard getting myself to write anything for it. so this might be a little all over the place, i've been chipping away at this for a couple days. my r key also stopped working midway through this. i suspect it's probably just dirty, though attempts at cleaning the switch have been futile. i should probably just buy a can of compressed air at this point lol.

i recently came back from a taiwan trip, my god the cars you see on the road are sooo different from back home. i'm still a car noob but i did have a lot of fun checking behind cars and reading about them. i got to take a photo of a miata too so i'm happy. i attended a suncake making workshop and tried the michelin star ice cream - it's pretty good!!!

i spent about 24 usd on the new light-up RX-7 gacha (for ethan, of course). i was lucky enough to get both lights and the body without any doubles, but maaan that put a dent in my wallet. it's also unfortunately kind of a hassle to switch the lights on and off, so i just keep it off. the tail lights also keep falling out. they were also just selling model cars one floor above LOL. i bought a lancia stratos model for my girlfriend :]

the heat is finally letting down too, well, at the cost of constant storms for the past couple of weeks. it's been hell trying to wrestle myself out of bed, i miss the sunlight.

artfight

with artfight coming to a close, my free time can now be used for things other than drawing. i realize i didn't explain artfight either in my last post, but anyway. artfight is a yearly art gifting game, kind of like a month-long christmas where you draw other people's original characters. it's fun! i like it a lot. i like to spend artfight experimenting with my art and giving people big gifts. since i'm usually several hours ahead of most people, i like to upload my gift art at night and then wake up to their reactions in the morning.

i would love to show off an artfight gallery but i just cannot be bothered to upload and resize everything right now (the files are pretty big), but here's a favorite of mine featuring fiore.

i thought it was really fun and neat how they had such similar designs and motifs - born to a significant (noble) family, determined to make their lives their own. red and gold, lance users, showoffs, and winners. they also both have big gold pauldrons which is cool as fuckkkkk.

fiore's armor is based on the crest of alpha lupi in destiny - she didn't have any plate armor outfits and i wanted her to fit in a bit more with the other character's theme. as i am not a titan player (nor did i look up what the exotic did), i did not know this was a support exotic lol. my girlfriend told me fiore probably would used stronghold with the per audacia chestpiece, if you must know.

for now, you can look through the rest of my artfight pieces on my bluesky (sorry).

(other things) i've been up to

• commissions (again): finished another quick little chibi batch, and i will probably open more chibi/simpler style comms. artfight definitely energized me but i'm still intimidated by drawing people in my non-chibi style. Honestly i think my style is getting simpler which is FINE. but i also feel a little bad that i haven't really gotten better at faces and that's why i'm simplifying things. Aughhhh i really need to do face studies.

• game dev: less than a month left for the queer wrongs jam and my girlfriend and i can finally see the finish line for our game. it's definitely not gonna be polished or perfect, but i'll be happy to get a project out nonetheless. maybe i'll write a blog post about it when it's done. i'm a little worried it's not very queer "wrongs" - it feels more tragic and sad than "wrong".

  

  i've learned a lot from doing this! the abandoned games walked so this one could run. i think i'm getting better at pixel art animation - i still use a guide for walking and running cycles, but they've been looking better with each try - i think that's a good thing. i've reused old code like, thrice now for major systems and i've cleaned it up a little more each time. optimized? probably not! i try my best though. i am a little worried about not making the deadline, i haven't started on my parts for the cutscenes, and we still need to get free music and sfx assets. augh.

  i've also been eyeing the digital pet jam beginning next month. i wanna make something for myself. fiore pet. ethan pet. the possibilities are endless.



• sticker mail: i sent out my most recent sticker mail batch, i'm just waiting on two more people to tell me if they've received anything or not. i sent out 13 letters for the price of like 25 USD total. it feels so good. i will probably send another batch sometime in december after christmas and before new years.

  (if you'd like to receive sticker mail, please send an email to asthal20 [at] gmail [dot] com and i'll reach out when i start prepping! please do not send any personal details or addresses until i've confirmed with you!)

• convention prep: aaaand we're back again, i've got a weekday event as a university. i've got about less than a month now to prepare - i think i can make it.

  i came across another printshop that's a lot closer to me, i might try to print out a fiorebruary artbook for myself as a little treat. maybe i'll port over the fiorebruary page/thoughts too (and just omit the parts where i'm horny about fiore lol). other than that, i've been really into zines lately! it is, however, very difficult, when you feel like you don't have much to talk about and a lot to talk about at the same time, and you are very, very bad at articulating yourself.

other stuff

i should really plan out a new about page. maybe i can reuse my artfight profile. i still wanna keep my about page as like. a special fun experimental page, so it'll definitely have its own css, iiiii just don't think the reds and browns are really my color. the art is also pretty outdated, it's been what, 2 years? i honestly don't even think about august and akeno anymore. wow, how times have changed!

i also want to get my recipe bookmarks page up and running sometime. i don't really keep track of my regular recipes anywhere (if it's good, i'll remember it and know where to find it) so i'd like to change that. and also share the recipes ive collected with others! admittedly a good amount of them are from youtube shorts (sorry) but i wanna transcribe them so i don't have to open youtube shorts for them.

it's a little crazy to think two years ago, i was working on august august, and my (best) art with backgrounds at the time looked like that (left). now it looks like that (right). it feels a lot longer than 2 years apart.

i've also fiddled around with the css a biiit so it's not as weird and fucked up. i hope none of the blog images broke. i'm still trying to find a way to make a nice one-size-fits-all gallery buuut that's something for when i'm more awake.