coby

day 25. well that was scary but it seems to have basically not affected uploading attacks. however, at some point i slept wrong and now my neck's been stiff for 3 days. got to take even more breaks than usual. but i wonder...will i ever truly recover enough from the damage i've taken over the years?

day 26. oh the touhou wiki has all the fortune slips up, let's play the roulette. misfortune: sumireko. hobbies: your compatibility with the internet is low. oh well that's...i figured that one out on my own

day 27. the bridge is fixed so i'm being returned to the mountain early. being out in the woods again is nostalgic in a way that just hurts. am i ever going to leave? can i ever become an adult? do i even want to? it's like i'm mourning every moment that passed all at once.

august 1st. well i managed to persevere and do 28 attacks despite everything. that's right...july is gone now...i had all those long projects i could've been working on. (weighing up two thoughts: i completely wasted an entire month again, it was a lot of good art practice that other people specifically liked) (deciding on: this was a better use of time than being reclusive all july)

and it's done! these autobiographical comics always tend to finish on a dour note, so i specifically made an effort to not do that this time. it was close though(4/4)

18.4 what the hell?! (graph going high, note that 6-8 is a healthy blood sugar level) well time to draw this candy zombie (after being properly medicated) (two hours later) 3.6 what the hell?! did...picking this character curse me?

hm, i'm actually kinda happy with how some of these turned out. (door slam) gah! who is it? hey bud i'm here to kill you in your dream. your art sucks bad btw. damn it dunning kruger! (dunning from hotel dusk dressed as freddy krueger, that's the whole joke)

day 21, mobile disconnects again. haa...i'll just plug it in directly (this works) day 22, mobile disconnects even when plugged in. hey what? unplug and then reconnect everything and it works

day 24. alright that's four whole linearts done. color tomorrow and- (phone alert) you've used 100% of your mobile data. heh?

this stretch didn't actually have many difficulties so there's some filler from here on. by the way, my blood sugar was normal since then, until today when it's Doing That again (3/4)

got to do more figure drawing. tried to sketch a fullbody without reference since i’ve been sticking so close to the model lately and it was like i’ve never drawn in my life. finding effective practice is really difficult but tons of gestures is probably a good enough fix for this problem

at dad's apartment, and so i'll be staying for a few weeks. there isn't a desk i can use at all...and yet i brought my desk chair for some reason. maybe i can just do physical sketches this year

end of day 13, dad moved some stuff around and now: bookshelf desk! there's no leg room at all and it's not ergonomical, but it beats trying to use a laptop in bed

day 15, groupdraw time. (mobile hotspot cuts out) wait how do i fix this (searching on phone) i don't want 6000 ads just tell me how to fix it...(search results are all top 10 wifi router list type things)

day 16, attack is done time to upload. (hotspot cuts out again) ah. the settings haven't changed so i'll just restart everything. (after restarting) it still isn't connecting? (restarting just my phone wifi fixed it again somehow)

i did make an attempt to do traditional art attacks but it just wasn't working. really feel like i should use my sketchbook more though (2/4)

end of may. it's been a whole month and the internet's still out. at this rate i might have to miss artfight this year. maybe that's for the best, i'm not really a creator. (it's back online) instantly excited: really?!

day 1. alright time to start draw- (lights go out) (lights come back) phew that was scary. at least it was only an hour (ominous aura)

day 2. alright time to start draw- (wifi cuts out) (zoom in on the exact same face in panel 1) well if it's just the internet i can still- (power cuts out again) the power went out for 6 hours. i did not draw

end of week 1. hey you have to leave. hm? the bridge is going to be closed for repairs until august. it's the only way into town so you'll be in trouble if you run out of stuff. so you'll need to stay with your dad until it's open

usually i wrap up artfight with an overview of which characters got attacked how much, but this year was so hectic i'm making a comic about the experience instead (1/4)

you really did good work on the atmosphere and mood of this one, thanks again!

Day 82
Art Fight revenge for @cobalt-ex.bsky.social

i keep wanting to socialize more on here but then every time i open up a social media the percentage of posts that make me want to throw my phone in the river increases by 1. so it goes. maybe when artfight’s done i’ll start making drawings i can post again

there’s some type of construction machine nearby that blares the first two notes of auld lang syne exactly every time it turns on. i want them to figure out the other notes so i can hear the full industrial remix

every time i go back to my rpg about factory workers unionizing i’m struck by how that’s just not how the world works anymore. i don’t even know if it would be cathartic to make this anymore. i truly have no idea how a better world can be possible beyond Somehow

once again wishing i had the type of brain that just fixates on one genre or one artist’s work. i’m trying the “study an artist you like and apply their methods” approach to practice and that’s difficult when i don’t have a particular ideal or goal. there’s so much good art out there! i can’t pick!

it's still make a terrible comic day somewhere in the world (lying)

probably northwest passage or john paul jones, if they count

i think the world is ready for a new big budget videogame that looks like a Video Game. gene godhand was right to walk into giant rotating cherries and oranges, it’s the only way

ghost character lying on a blanket in a flower field in the rain, partially covered by an umbrella

i haven’t been doing illustrations lately at all so i wanted to draw an environment that was kinda cozy #art

i was confused why there were fireworks just going off randomly but i guess they’re just that excited for touhou 20

if this were a just world there would be a yakuza/rgg style hajime no ippo game where you could have sendo uppercut hundreds of men into the river and play crane games, but there isn’t

Touhou Project: Archaic Akashic Record by cobaltexe Two witches try to move to Gensokyo and research how other outsiders died.

second, a touhou visual novel i did just to make something in that kind of eerie early windows game space. only really tangentially related to touhou at all but hopefully still interesting
cobaltexe.itch.io/touhou-proje...

Call of the Void Act 1 by cobaltexe A group of thieves struggle with morality as the operation grows more sinister.

these two projects have just been sitting there for a minute so, may as well just release them both at once. first, the opening third of a sort of crime drama visual novel about the worst thieves on earth conflicted about their career
cobaltexe.itch.io/call-of-the-...

plushes are one thing but where’s all the touhou muppets? i need to see sanae scrunch up her face like kermit the frog

i know everybody thinks this but i hope people make super cool amvs with my characters someday

phoenix ikki from saint seiya and jun manjoume from yugioh gx walking out of a ruined volcanic landscape

drawing the guys who keep crawling out of hell to bring some of that energy into my life #saintseiya #yugioh

there should be a kind of creation that doesn’t take months of working in silence
(remembers the devil’s whisper that rots the heart of humanity)
actually i love the process and being too ambitious in every project

yeah exactly! i love seeing the skies you draw honestly, so atmospheric

the thing about learning art is i always feel like i'm missing something at the most basic level that just isn't taught, like what level of zoom i should be using when doing lineart or how to get lines to connect without those lumps or how to draw from the shoulder...hoping to fix this next year

every time i make myself take a long break i feel like the wikihow image of “step 3 accepting your death”. this is not a good response to a day off

reimu on the stairs running from bullets, in place of the frame where megaman runs from the birds, subtitle "when i notice i've only got a little bit of space"

reimu collapsed in the void with a bomb pickup behind her, subtitle "that's when i always use the bomb"

multiple reimu heads, subtitle "soon i lose my remaining lives"

sepia reimu hitting a ran dummy in the woods, subtitle "thus for the sake of absolute victory"

second and last set, i ended up getting to the point where i had to really think about who i was going to use in place of woodman

ran half-covered in shadow, subtitle "i can't defeat ran"

reimu being blown back by the wind, the bow flying away as a substitute for megaman's helmet, subtitle "the wall shoves me back regardless"

ran doing the fake airman pose from the part of the music video where all the enemies appear in order

ran spinning in place of the tornado that multiplies, subtitle "but against that tornado it's meaningless"

by the way, i had a self-imposed challenge going where every time i lost a run i had to do a rough doodle of a can't defeat airman frame. here's some highlights:

i need some kind of teacher to give me direction and purpose but, for a lot of reasons, that's not going to happen. so i'm kinda stuck in a cycle of getting obsessed with my work for two weeks, burning out when it still hasn't left the first draft trash stage, repeat

really wish i had something to steadily improve at. drawing and writing *should* be that, but i care a lot more about conveying a mood or emotion than i do about actual technical ability and that's much more difficult to study and practice