2023 Annual Review

The Year of Reorientation

General Summary

Hey hello! Welcome to the 2023 review of The Sea of Starlight, and Bonus Action. In this year's review I'll be talking a bit about what has happened last year and what I've achieved. It seems like every year I've got something to say about how hard it is balancing my job as a teacher with my job as an illustrator and writer, but I've been undertaking some solid steps to create a much better balance in the near future.

Numbers

As every year's review, here's a rundown of the statistics of what I've illustrated and made during 2023. As my content archive grows, I find it much harder to get the exact number, so I might have missed a few things here and there, but it is a pretty good estimation!
  Statistics
Type 2023 Total
Images Illustrated 292 1301
Words Written 117.032 490.123
Articles Published 522 2602
Items Invented 269 1133
Potions brewed 56 180
Creatures conjured 5 41
People encountered 17 57
Locations uncovered 31 107
Places mapped 1 8
Random tables constructed 1 39

Missions/Quests Completed

Challenges. This year I only took part in Summer Camp 2023, and hosted my own Contentstorm 2023 instead of the WorldAnvil event in december. Next year I do not plan on doing any WorldAnvil events. The events have taken up too much of my energy and time during moments in the year when I was already very busy and because of the fact that I feel less welcome due to a few individuals within the WA community. On top of that, the platform's policy towards AI and events just does not suit my ethics and style of work and content creation. I will keep using WorldAnvil for the forseeable fouture, but will not participate or sponsor any events for now, and will just focus on my own content and community!   Process. With the help of a good friend, I've been able to improve the (tedious) process of creating bundles of items and content using indesign scripts. I've already published a bunch of themed sets, and am planning to create many more! I've also created multiple variation illustrations that I could easily edit the color, emblem, texture or details on so I could create multiple items or variations using the same artwork. Although this provided a lot of content, It isn't artistically very exciting to create all these variations, so after I've finished the projects that are still in that pipeline, I may not do something similar soon again but instead opt for more unique illustrations.   Reorientation. Last year I've been changing positions at my teaching job at university, mainly because I was spending too much of my time and energy at that job. I am now looking to sort of do the same when it comes to Bonus Action and the Sea of Starlight. For the last year, I've done 12+ items a month, often overshooting this number and burning (or boring) myself out a bit in the process. So for next year, I really want to change my schedule and creation process so I can have more fun with what I'm making, provide more diverse and exciting content and be able to schedule my work better. The first step will be figuring out what my patrons wish to see, as their payment allows me to even do this job. Then, I'll be rethinking the polls and voting for content themes I implemented last year. There were not a lot of votes being cast and the nature of the polls often led to me doing all the work within that particular month, never being able to work ahead much. This caused a few late night illustration sessions and last-minute publishing of products, which was not ideal so it is time to improve that!   Goals for 2024
In short, here are a bunch of my goals in no particular order.
  • Read more educational books (art, design thinking, anatomy).
  • Improve illustration skills and art style
  • Better balance between my jobs and in my schedules
  • More fun and enjoy the creation process more
  • Diversify content (make space for other projects like before)
  • Bundle more (existing) content into products.
  • Advertise products and share content more often and more openly.
  • Update the Sea of Starlight (improve navigation and reorganize lists)
  •   Products
    I'm considering the following products for 2024, more may follow!
  • Tome of Treasures - 520 Items (Relics of the Realms Volume 1-10)
  • Encyclopedia of Elixers - 100 Potions (200 unique cards)
  • Fjords and Frost (Nordic themed items bundle)
  • Pharaoh's Tomb (Egyptian themed items bundle)
  • Curious Cosmetics (Make-up items bundle)
  • Sensational Sweets (Candy items bundle)
  • Extraordinary Ammunition (Massive Ammunition bundle)
  • Ink and Paper (Books, scrolls, pens, inks, item bundle)
  • Trap Bundle (All traps in a pdf)
  • Notes

    Finally, I'd like to thank my patrons, supporters, subscribers, customers and followers for joining me on this worldbuilding, item creating, illustrating and writing journey. It is thanks to you that I can continue doing this! If you are not yet a patron, consider supporting me at https://www.patreon.com/bonusaction

    Comments

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    Dec 31, 2023 13:28 by Dr Emily Vair-Turnbull

    I love seeing stats! :) You've certainly had a great year for content creation. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next year brings.   Sorry that some people have made you feel unwelcome in the community. That makes me both sad and cross. Sending hugs and motivation for the year to come! :)

    Emy x
    Explore Etrea | WorldEmber
    Jan 7, 2024 18:21

    I hope things improve for you. I saw some of the discourse on Discord and I feel really, deeply sorry for that. I do look forward to the new content in 2024, especially Ink and Paper, Fjords and Frost & Tome of Treasures.

    You wanna see what we did for the last events? Go, click here: Eddies Major Events
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