Checkout the NSFW Pics Review Here!

Checkout the Overall Top Choices of the Year Here!

Oh what a disappointing year 2023 was. There are several reasons I did not get the output I'd hoped in this year. With only 18 pages total, it fell considerably short of the prior 3 years' average output of around 24. The gravest challenge this year, however, was not found in my 3D but in my aging equipment and within my aging body. I'm tired. Each year I feel my pace is harder to maintain and I can't escape the dreadful sense that I can't keep all this up forever. This year, saw my computer begin to struggle as well. Cracks that appeared last year began to grow into fissures.

For this year's annual review, I want to reflect as well as celebrate and name my favorite outputs. As many pages stretched beyond the month they started in some of these choices don't quite line up with when their page was posted. I excuse this thusly: It's my review, I can do what I want :3

The clean works were grossly outnumbered this year due to the very nsfw nature of the comic pages covered this year, but consequently had easier choices. The most difficult choices were found earlier in the year when we were still largely in cleaner territory.

January - I hit the ground running at the start of the year. Riding on the fumes of last year, the first month produced an enormous number of shots and Page 66, in part constructed with renders that had begun development in 2022. Page 66 rapidly decomposed into 3 pages, affecting the planned pages enormously by shifting everything forward a few. With Page 67 also coming out in this month, it was both the most pages in a single month in the year and more realistically, the start of an average 2-3 weeks per page.

This choice shot came from the end of Page 66 (later page 68). I genuinely believe that this sequence may very well be my peak. Creating it sent me spiraling into a month-long melancholy, and even reading it in earnest today reverberates a twinge of that feeling. I can't say why. The background detailed is among the oldest in conceptualizing Rederick and Yeltsin's past and setting a specific tone. Choosing a specific shot out of all that was not difficult. But I'm not ready to explain why it's my favorite.

This month was also the revival of what I came to call "Sudden Death Shutdowns". Over the week long vacation, which was spent largely away from my computer, I had scheduled 7 or some simultaneous renders, with one or two expected to be running by the time I got back. It performed magnificently, even as the threat of these random shut downs hung over it beginning in the last year. It stayed up the whole time. But not long after it was done, it shut down. As though the power plug had been pulled right out, without so much as a beep or a chirp. this would grow to be a pattern. Rarely would it occur during renders. It was much more common when nothing was happening. It would slowly creep up: first once in a couple months, then once every month, then with the start of this year, it began to appear a couple times a month, then reliably once a week as the year wore on.

February - Technically this shot was done in January, but I held on to it until Page 72 was ready. There was no contest for best clean shot here. February was among the most productive months this year. 4 pages and some of my all-time favorite lighting work. Very close to what I pictured in my head. It had some of my best shots; arguably better than this one. But I chose this one not for technical reasons. This shot was never in the plan. What was going to be presented was going to be ambiguous and restrained. This shot exists not because I planned for it, or for how it fits the story. This shot exists because I wanted it. It's a shot for me and the first time I've genuinely wanted such a thing. I wanted their kiss. It would not be the last personal creation. This story has always been for me, but never so much as it was here.

March - This would be the last month with any truly clean comic page. Even still, it's slim pickin's here. I went with this one because I think it's cute. Rederick's little hover-hand in particular.

April - The bathroom's lighting presented some challenges that unnecessarily slowed things down. There were very few clean shots here, but I rather like this sweet little hug even if I don't think I got Rederick's expression down right.

May - Totally clean, I swear! This was a modification of the planned shot but I'm really glad it turned out as it did.

June - This is the month where output really started to suffer. Crushed under the weight of dread as I wanted my hardware faltered, I found myself deeply dissatisfied with the first attempts at Yeltsin's little dance while undressing and found myself deeply demotivated as I approached a twin vacation. Immediately after I had solidified my plans to attend Anthrocon, my family's plans for a vacation suddenly crystallized. They had been aware I was going to make plans, but were undecided on details. So, the dates for their family vacation ultimately became a negotiation between mine and what my work would allow for me. Most of the end of this month and the first week of July became ground zero for this vacation, in which little would be produced. So, I opted to spend the first portion of the month developing an animation to run over that vacation (praying that my hardware would allow it to succeed.) Miraculously, the failing hardware did not hamper it too greatly. So no comic page this month, no clean renders this month. Nothing but Yeltsin shaking his booty while I took a vacation.

July - June's shockwaves continued to ripple through this month. Nevertheless, I managed a comic page and out of all the shots two of them were clean. I chose this one because I like Blythe's eyes as she scoffs.

August - This month felt like I was getting back on track. Good output on pages. I appeared to have solved my hardware issues with a replacement power supply, and things were starting to run smoother even though I only managed one page again. Poses were beginning to get complicated as Rederick and Yeltsin interact more and I was working hard to make them look good. Nothing but randy naughtiness, though. Not even something I could kinda crop to be clean.

September - One of the only clean ones I could pull from this month, I still think it would come out on top if the whole month had been clean purely because it's a moment I've wanted for this comic for a very long time. I'm so glad the response among friends was so positive, too.

October - The month the hardware issues reappeared again. Honestly, there weren't really any clean shots, though technically this one wasn't explicit. I chose it because I like the teeth.

November/December -

"Ahahah. ...I can't believe he actually wrote out his laugh."

The hardware issue seemed to rapidly grow more common. It began to happen daily. Just a couple days before Thanksgiving, it happened twice in one day and I panicked. I bought a 3rd power supply. In truth, I'd been investigating the next build since July to some degree. My plans started to come together in October and finally I started to begin buying just before the panic. Thankfully, the new power supply seems to have stabilized the system. I've always had rotten luck with power supplies. Nevertheless, building began November shortly after page 85 (which had no clean shots either) and December has been consumed in testing and preparing the path forward. This post is not the first render on the new machine (though I've had a few runs on it as you might suspect) but it has been the first image assembled on it.

2024 is looking up.