Progress Report, Plans 2026

Hello everyone, Happy New Year once again and "Merry Continuation" as we say up here! It is time for the usual first progress report of the year where I attempt to delineate some of my plans and the likes going forward, while drawing upon lessons learned from the past year.

The Past:

First up is a review of the 2025 schedule, which honestly seems to have worked pretty well all in all! While it did mean an initially relatively hefty drop in support at the start of the year, I think the Less Popular Ladies Loop alongside the Scenario every month forms a pretty solid backdrop against which sporadic Wednesday animations can land comfortably while I can still get long-form content worked on consistently. A 6 day work week with Fridays off has also guaranteed me some reprieve, where it's managed to alleviate me feeling guilty for taking a day off (something I had to do sporadically, often when hitting a wall, prior to the 2025 schedule), and has done wonders for my stress levels as well. For those curious, this is how the schedule looks these days:

Monday: Animation release day, editing day, wallpaper day whenever animations do not land
Tuesday: Comic work day, Aftermath wallpaper day
Wednesday: Animation day
Thursday: Project work day
Friday: Day of rest
Saturday: Animation day
Sunday: Animation day

Owing to the schedule's structure I also get one weekend every month, the first one that occurs (such as this coming weekend) that I can dedicate to model work, asset hunting, technical study and the likes as well. Hiccups in the schedule can (often) also occur towards the end of months when the Scenario is about to be completed, which might eat into what I usually have scheduled just to get it finalized. But such is the nature of the game, as they say.

Feedback pertaining to my content direction is of course always welcome - I've developed this schedule iteratively and largely in response to community polls and the likes where I've tried to keep the media formats I am known for producing covered while also keeping in mind what is, to perhaps sound a bit cynical but which is also something that has to be accounted for, economically viable. Long-form formats in that sense, such as comics and projects, are given one day each per week to work at, while everything else is dedicated to the continuous content production schedule that pays the bills. This doesn't mean there's no room for tinkering with the schedule, but until further notice (where some truly surprising insight that I hadn't considered suddenly might be laid before my eyes - which has happened before), I think this schedule is the best I can accomplish, so I hope you're all overall positive towards what it manages to deliver in that sense! :)

The Ivy Project appears to have been generally well received, all in all. While I know it's on par with some of my longest, older projects in terms of length, the amount of work it took to resolve comparatively is on a different level entirely given the sheer amount of custom animation, lip sync and so on that went into it. Still, going into the future, I will consider the Ivy project as the new bar for quality in terms of project work, though I'm not sure if the next one will be quite as long - more on that in the coming section below.

The Future:

The 2025 schedule will continue into 2026, where for those curious I can see the next EDI (Mass Effect) comic chapter landing sometime in late January or February of this year with the pace I'm getting it sorted every Tuesday. It's the longest chapter yet, which is why it's taken its sweet time resolving it, but I think folks will enjoy it as I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out, themes and all.

The big glaring question now of course, with the Ivy project out the door, is what comes next for Project Thursdays. Despite my hangover yesterday I opted to do some initial testing for some ideas I've got, and while I haven't 100% firmly settled on anything yet there are a few things that have began to coalesce and take firmer shape in my mind. Thus there are presently 4 projects, all on a shorter run-time (upwards of 4-5 minutes perhaps, by my estimates) compared to Ivy, that occupy my mind and which I'd like to do some more research on before I'll make a proper announcement.

I can reveal, however, that the one that I'm the most interested in personally does feature Lulu from Final Fantasy X, but that it also requires more testing in terms of system load etc for what I have planned for it before I can say whichever way it will go. The other three features Ashley (Resident Evil 4), Mother Gothel (Tangled), and Jack (Mass Effect) respectively, and while they have their own challenges that need to be resolved, they all have their distinct charms too, meaning they make for good backups in the event the Lulu one simply does not pan out. This all said, I endeavor to make all of them at one point or another, so it's mostly a matter of priority here rather than a zero sum game. Any other projects that I've mentioned in the past, such as Laying Low (Tifa, Scarlet - FFVII Remake) and Continued Negotiations (Miranda, Liara - Mass Effect) and which have not received firm announcement of cancellation can also be presumed "safe" and something that will happen eventually, but for which I still want a deeper understanding of Blender before tackling. Conversely, given how the Ivy project was not of my own choosing, it is sadly very unlikely that I'll leave this present matter of priority up to a community vote, where I'd very much like to pick myself instead this time so as to be able to work on something that really carries a spark of interest for me this time around - if anything just to see how that impacts my work fervor.

While my brain is still suffering a bit from the New Years binge (when you get older, hangovers last longer - especially for those who don't drink often), I believe this is what I had planned to mention during this first report of the year, but if you find I've failed to mention something feel very free to note it in the comments below and I'll answer it to the best of my ability.

So as always, thank you so very much for your support and kind words! 2026 is looking to be another interesting year, where we live in interesting times, but no matter the obstacle I'll endeavor to measure up to your kindness by keeping the content train running down the tracks. I hope you've all had a good, restful (or fun and eventful) holiday and that the start of the year treats you as gentle as can be.

Please take care of yourselves out there folks, as well as each other!
/DH