RobinRavenSky

-mictap- does anyone still check this thing??

welp if anyone does this is my official signin' out. I've been on this stupid site for something like...four years? Longer? who the fuck knows even. i think i've reached my limit with it. i don't post much here and the stuff i do post goes to my tumblr anyway. I don't stay in contact with anyone here unless i know them elsewhere.

so yeah, I'm deleting this thing. Most of my old stuff is pretty shameful anyway, and i might as well shuffle off this internet mortal coil. gotta kill it once it's dead, etc. etc.

this here is my tumblr, if you wanna contact me for whatever reason. art goes there occasionally, but I haven't had a massive drive to do much of it lately.

deleted a lot of my old shit and stuck the rest in storage because I'm deeply ashamed of many of them

ugh

I've been so quiet lately. My insomnia and depression are apparently resurfacing so there's a lot I've had to deal with now. Mostly I'll just come on here to upload my latest art and vanish again because that's just. easier. I guess. I'm getting help with this stuff but it's going slower than I'd like.

So anyway. Sorry.

i am stressed and frustrated that art just won't happen.

i just want to play minecraft with someone while skyping them and i think that would just be so much fun

Sorry about the radio silence from my end lately. There are lots of replies I need to get to and I will get to them eventually, I promise.

Okay. Well.

This is going to be hard to say.

I think I'm going to cancel the Half Moon Chronicles.

What's more, I think I'm going to stop animating entirely.

I'm sorry.

I know I made that commitment to you guys and I should have stuck with it. But the point is, I had no idea that the series would still need continuing after four years. It's been almost five years, actually, since I originally started the series and I am so, so happy you guys stuck with me and encouraged me, but the point is...well, I'll get to my point soon.

For one, I never imagined that people would actively enjoy the series. I was always doing my own thing and was happy when other people happened to enjoy it too. But lots of people started enjoying it, and then it became more than just a hobby or something I enjoyed. It became stressful. It turned into a commitment I wasn't altogether good at managing. I had to set deadlines for myself to produce more content for people. It wasn't just about me anymore, but about everyone who liked the series. And that was okay! For a little while, at least, because I was still getting some enjoyment from it.

Eventually, though, it began to pile up. Because stuff I had planned for the future was going to be intense, and much more challenging to pull off than my skills could deliver. The series stopped being fun at that point, around the time I started doing episode 12, because then it just became stressful. On top of managing HMC and my other planned animations, I had more and more things piling up in my life that demanded attention.

Then I was diagnosed with anxiety, both social and regular, and then I started getting panic attacks, and I knew that I was done.

It's been amazing working with everyone involved, from background artists to you splendid voice actors to everyone. But it's come to the point where it has begun to affect my own personal and mental health, and adding huge levels of stress that I just cannot cope with.

Plus, I have to face the fact that I am a grown-ass woman who needs to start focusing on her own career choices. Animating was never a passion of mine, but more of a hobby. And it's come to the point where I have to choose between a hobby I used to enjoy and the passion I want to actually make a living on, and I'm sad to say that I just do not have the capacity to keep up with a hobby that has begun to affect me negatively.

I have completely lost any drive to animate anything HMC- or Warriors-related at all. What's more, I'm simply not very good at it. My skills have improved since I began, yes, but nowhere near as much as I want them to. And getting better would mean devoting time that I do not have to something I no longer enjoy doing.

There's also the additional note that I need to make, that HMC was simply not very good.

• I literally invented the plot on the spot, including all the dialogue, for the first three episodes. From there, I had to work to make the story make some kind of sense. I never planned it out at all, which meant I had to tie plot holes that I never thought were going to be a thing.
• HMC was and still is the least favorite story I've come up with. I don't like any of the characters I created (save for Scree and Rannid, whom I enjoyed writing) and the story was predictable. Thralia was a borderline Mary Sue at best.
• The character designs were inconsistent and also really just not good
• The pacing was often off. Whole episodes were devoted to exposition. Sure, it was serialized, but it was never particularly interesting.
• You guys could probaby predict the entire storyline.
  

So it is with a heavy heart that I say I am officially stopping. Not just HMC, but animating. I might start up again someday, but it's not likely. It has added far too much unnecessary stress to my life, and I need to start cutting that kind of stress out.

I will continue to post here, but it will mostly be my own individual pieces. My art style has begun to mature (fucking finally), and I'm trying to get better at doing people and realism. Not very high chances of any dogs or cats or wolves anymore, I'm sad to say. I plan to make the official announcement on YouTube soon, but I am extremely nervous. I'm not sure how to break the news yet. And that is also adding unneeded stress to my life. Urgh.

I really, really need to spend more of my focus on writing and video editing, which is why I've increased posting on my other YouTube channel. I might occasionally post old stuff on my old channel, but truthfully I don't go on there much anymore unless it's to troll illiterate commenters.

I'm sorry, but please understand this is my choice to make for the sake of my own health. Thank for reading this far (if you even did...sometimes I wonder if anyone reads my journals at all).