It’s weird to see the 2019 wrap up post just below this one. How did it happen that I pretty much stopped writing completely in 2020? Let me take a moment and tell you how I spent my 2020 and what are my plans for 2021.
Tulpamancy
Despite our system growing by one member I pretty much gave up on the tulpamancy as a study subject. Tulpamancy is an interesting concept, but existing for six years now I don’t see any clear distinction between being a tulpa and being a host. The life continues the same for anyone who’s part of a plural system, and it’s just easier to live this life without the extra labels.
Surely, the process of creating new personalities and becoming plural is fascinating, but there was little to no research in that regard as of late. I keep referring people to the meditation practices – if anything, those help to clear and focus the mind.
Is tulpamancy dead? Not at all. /r/tulpas sees its share of daily visitors and my blog still pops up in search results every so often. I think I’ll take a break from being actively involved in tulpamancy community though, just as I take a break from…
Writing
Looking through the list of stories I wrote and never published makes me itchy to write again, and yet I wrote so little in 2020. How did that happen? Predominantly, I figured what I enjoy writing: short snippets of poetry with silly double-talk and innuendos. Those I only share with family and close friends, and honestly, I don’t think I’ll be ever sharing broadly. This kind of writing is exactly what I find fun. The idea of writing and publishing a story (or even a novel) was amazing, but for all the wrong reasons. I think I no longer care much if the world remembers me as an amazing erotic writer, I just want to focus on things I truly enjoy doing.
I wrote lots of notes in 2020, notebooks with details on sculpting and anatomy, conspectuses on Zbrush, blender, topology, modelling and so on and so on. Creative writing though, I expressed predominantly through the visual medium and my violin.
Speaking of the violin
Clearly, failing the violin exams was wrong as now I will have to wait who knows how long until those start happening again. But who cares, I keep practising, I learned many new pieces this year, and I still love playing. I fiddle for myself as a way of relaxation, to be calm the mind and be on my own for a lil’ bit. I keep saving my impromptu performances in the music notes app and maybe one day I will pull them up, transcribe, and finish, turning them into proper pieces. But there’s no rush in that. Violin is my little secret and lovely passion. Something that I don’t spend enough time on to turn it into something tangible, something that I can’t give up for I enjoy doing it.
The 3D elephant in the room
Pretty much all the 2020 I was busy studying 3D, anatomy, muscles, tendons, poses, composition, lighting, low-poly modelling, texturing, animation, arrrgh – this field is enormous. Surely, one of the things to work on in 2021 is narrowing it down, but insofar I really like everything I learned this year.
2021 Goals
Time management
2021 is the time to get back to proper bullet journalling based scheduling and wikis! I spread myself thin trying to study too much and I need to be careful what I spend my time on to make tangible progress. Thus, decluttering is the very first subject to tackle in 2021. Stop binge-watching all those YouTube videos and start putting hours into practising!
Sculpting
I had lots of fun sculpting the bodies and I want to continue doing that. One specific topic that I will have to get better is sculpting faces and muzzles. I also need to get better with hair – much better – but I have some plans on how to tackle those issues. For one, I got myself a set of wonderful head refs that I plan to use in early 2021; I hope they will be helpful in figuring the head shape and proportions better.
Modelling & Composition
I also want to get better at building complete scenes – sculptures are only good if you can place them in a lovely environment, after all. I loved doing the low-poly stuffs and I plan to do way more of it in the coming year. Those scenes are bite-sized and allow me to study specifics, while being art on their own.
I also plan to work more on my fundamentals, the generic scene composition, the lighting, the camera placement.
Writing
For 2021 I want to get back to sharing my knowledge – the 3D notes I made. Writing is a great tool to systemise my knowledge, and I’ll definitely enjoy authoring more posts for you. That said, I don’t have any plans to work on any fiction just yet, other than coming up with paragraph-long quickies for the 3D scenes I make.
Peace of mind
This one is a bit of a system-wide goal; we definitely need to get back to regular meditation and physical exercise to make sure the body can handle us all well (especially given how many plans I have!). I’m sure it’s all doable if we reduce the distractions to the minimum, and we’ll work on that together starting tomorrow!
Have a great 2021, y’all and see you around!