XMACX Monthly | 2024 in Review
Thank you so much for a wonderful first full year of XMACX Monthly Cover Art illustrations! XMACX Monthly started off as an idea for Patreon and a way to get non-patrons involved in my creative process. Because of various life events, I couldn’t properly keep up with regular updates and had to close my Patreon. It felt wrong to charge people who genuinely support and love my work when I couldn’t deliver consistent updates. I am, however, very proud of myself for sticking to these XMACX Monthly updates despite closing my Patreon page. The covers were fun to illustrate and I enjoyed putting each of them together!
I’d like to continue with the XMACX Monthly updates next year — I want to make them a staple and tradition, something more and more people can look forward to each month. But with my poor reach and migration of my audience from X to BlueSky, I’m not sure I can continue to host character polls anywhere. I’m hoping BlueSky gets a poll function in 2025, but we’ll see... I could use the “like” and “repost” function on BlueSky posts as if they were poll options… But we’ll see. If worse comes to worse, we wing it.
My Favorite Cover?
I’d have to say it’s September’s cover art. I had an absolute blast drawing Beau and imagining his gaming setup. Also, incorporating the Easter Eggs was a lot of fun too! Plus, I’ve come to realize that I love drawing food! I enjoyed the little details like the droopy sauce and the fast food logo “GG”.
What Happened in 2024?
A lot. As per usual, I set some pretty hefty goals for myself. I had some bingo cards of illustrations and projects I wanted to work on this year… Yeah. None of that got done lol. I’m very grateful to have friends who also love and support my work and want to see me grow and create! Thank you for always encouraging me and for making a bingo card for my 2024 goals, Rose! I think I’ll keep these cards so I can work on some of these things in 2025…
I did a lot of traveling this year. From visiting friends in Texas to freezing my butt off in Alaska, then cooking myself in Arizona, and finally stuffing myself in Japan — this year was wild in terms of travel! I practically tuckered myself out trying to get everything done in time to post. Unfortunately, I burnt myself out early on in the year trying to juggle too many things. Even though setting deadlines is important, I’ve learned to be kinder with myself when it comes to my creative process. I create all my projects and take on projects/commissions out of love and passion. Drawing and creating is what I have to fall back on when life gets difficult. I’d rather not let feelings of disappointment or frustration take away from the enjoyment I get when imagining or drawing things.
Lots of things happened in my personal life too! Most notably, I got engaged to my high school sweetheart! We’ve been deep into wedding planning this past year trying to secure a venue and set a date… We’ve been together so long, it just feels right for our wedding to be a big huge party to celebrate us and have fun with everyone who’s supported us. So I’ve been spending some of my creative energy this year planning it.
In any case, I feel like I let a lot of outside forces take control of me in 2024 and I sort of just rolled with whatever I got dealt. But I think that’s how I normally deal with things. Stuff happens and you just sort of work it into your life rather than fighting back. Ideally, I’d like to “take control” but I’ve learned that I’m not really a person who wants to force things to work the way I want. That being said, it sometimes feels like if I don’t seize the day I’ll never be able to achieve my goals. I will admit that it’s disappointing that I haven’t achieved as much as I’ve wanted in the last five years in terms of my creative goals and aspirations. I’d thought by now I’d at least have a webcomic going… But I need to be a little more patient with myself. I don’t have to move as quickly as my peers, and I think I can still accomplish a lot if I remain determined and remind myself why I want to create.
My Creative Goals & Dreams
I can’t wait for you all to experience Froot Basket White! I have big plans for it and hope you will all enjoy every bit of it! But even after the Furuta Basketball Club/Froot Basket series comes to an end, there’s still so much I’d love to do, so many projects I’d love to develop and create! It’s always fun to list them and daydream about one day finishing them. I don’t often get the opportunity to talk about them with my friends and family because it always seems like I’m moving so quickly through life. But rest assured, I’m slowly working my way down the list. I hope to accomplish all of these in my lifetime somehow…
Froot Basket White
I intend to release Froot Basket White one episode at a time. Here’s the tentative release order for routes: Sutoro, Beau, Renji, Satomi, Pierre, Apollo, and Momotarou. Each episode is meant to be a date with a different love interest! And each is meant to add to an overarching story… I hope Sutoro’s route, which I plan to release in March, will give you all a sense of what I’m trying to accomplish for this project.
After-Party Chemistry
I would so love to pick up this project again! It’s an otome game and dating sim that follows Marina, an arrogant jock failing her chemistry class. The love interests are her classmate Sidney and an underclassman named Basil. The gimmick was that it would incorporate actual chemistry lessons and problems. It’s been almost a decade since I’ve sat in a chemistry classroom, so I’m not sure I can write chemistry lessons or problems or explain things as well as when I was actually studying this stuff. I will, however, give it the old college try…
Moon In Bloom
Moon In Bloom is an otome game I’ve been developing between work and other projects. It follows the Cotton Candy Witch Kiana (aka Kiki) in her teen years one summer as she balances her magical studies, romance, and familial responsibilities all while trying to save the world from an alien attack. I’ve always loved shoujo manga and otome games, so developing this project and seeing it through is a must for me. On top of that, Kiki is one of the first OCs I created, and ever since I was in middle school I’ve always always wanted to tell her love story. I gave her many different possible love interests over the years, but if I’m really going to create this project, I’ll have to cut some out. Her true love interest was and is always going to be Satoru, but I’d love to explore her relationship with her crush, Ken, and childhood friend, Brenden.
Fleeting
Fleeting is a scifi horror BL visual novel, but I’m considering renaming the project… It follows Masa, a cadet at the military academy as he struggles to find a field of study or place to apply his unique abilities. I first thought of the concept of a scifi boys love because I wanted to have someone smooch Kaimana, but I fell in love with the MC I created: Masa. The more I developed him, the darker the story became. Masa is extremely flawed and each love interest thinks they can fix him somehow… I’m interested to see how they end up doing so. I originally intended for it to have zero “happy” endings, hence the title “Fleeting”. But it’s changed a lot from the original 2019 concept. I’m slowly piecing the overall story together because the project below is tied with this…
“Kaimanga”
Kaimanga is the working title of the scifi action webcomic I’d like to draw. It takes place directly after the events of Fleeting and follows Kaimana as he travels the galaxy. I feel like if I talk too much about it, I’ll spoil Fleeting, so I’ll keep most of it under wraps for now. I will say that I want Kaimanga to tie Fleeting and Moon in Bloom together because I want Kai and Satoru to team up and have good times together xDD
On to 2025!
In any case, I already know that next year I’ll be getting hitched to Alex for life and saying goodbye to my twenties. I remember when I graduated pharmacy school, my goal was to release a webcomic before I turned 30. LMAO there’s no way in hell that’s happening now, but that’s okay. The simplest and most attainable goal I can set for myself in 2025 is to release Beau’s Route for Froot Basket White. I hope I’m not so slow where I’m releasing one route a year for the project, but the priority next year is the wedding… When that’s done, I promise I’ll definitely have more creative energy to spare for my projects again! I really miss drawing fantastical illustrations and designing merch. It’d be fun to start doing that again!
TL;DR
Continuing XMACX Monthly!
Lots of personal things and travel happened in 2024
Tentatively releasing Froot Basket White Sutoro’s Route in March!
2025’s priority is my wedding
2025’s creative goal is to release Froot Basket White Beau’s Route
Wishing you all good health, much love, and an all-around spectacular 2025!
Happy New Year!
xxAri
