The Ol' Switcheroo

Greetings friends and enemies!

As you might have noticed, I started switching over my account names associated with my art from skiddykid over to haleandwellmet. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while and I just had to bite the bullet and get it over with.

I used to love being on the internet and coming up with a unique name for each account (I used to come up with cool celestial and mythical themed usernames). As a kid, it felt like getting secret identities and cooler more exciting names than my own. (This was very transgender of me.)

The way the internet exists now, with the five big websites and decreased privacy, this kind of account creation isn’t really encouraged anymore.

Especially if you’re trying to run a business, or otherwise “make it” on the internet. Changing your name a bunch, or having different handles across platforms harms brand recognition. How are people who liked your art one time in the past ever gonna be able to find it again if you’re changing usernames every month?

On the other hand, what do you do if you feel like the name you’re calling yourself on the internet (“brand name”, I guess...), doesn’t seem to encapsulate the work you do anymore?

I was listening to this podcast, Thoughts on Illustration, and in an episode Tom Frose, the host, says you should always use your real name for your website/portfolio. “You will always be you,” is what he says. That has never felt true for me. I’m constantly existing in the possibility that I might want to change my legal name. I’ve never tried because I’m indecisive, but I want to leave that door open. And in the same way that I struggle to find a name that encapsulates my work, I can’t seem to find a name that encapsulates me.

Also! I work a day job. And I make some art that MAYBE I don’t want my boss or future employers to be able to find on a quick Google of my name.

So: skiddykid versus haleandwellmet. skiddykid is scrappy, edgy, and invokes youth. Haleandwellmet is giving historical with some fantasy elements and is a secret throwback to my first big role in a play (which was kind of a big egg-cracking moment for me). For now, that does a better job at pinpointing the kind of stuff I do and who I am. Plus, I’ve already been using Hale as a pen name for my written work for a while now, so it ties in nicely.

Hopefully, I’ll stick to this for a while, but honestly, if I change it again who the fuck cares. I sometimes need that reminder that it’s not a big deal, I’m getting way too in my head about it, and if someone can’t locate me on the internet, TOO BAD!!

UPDATE: I wrote this segment two weeks ago when I changed my tumblr url… but in the meantime I discovered that haleandwellmet is taken on insta. So, um? Post cancelled, I guess lol. I should have checked again before I made the switch, I’ve literally been thinking about this for months, but what can you do! I’ll keep things as is for now until I figure something out—probably a similar, but slightly different handle—but also I liked the things I wrote, so I didn’t want to cut the above from the newsletter!

Thanks for sticking around for this roller coaster!

Shop Update

Four new items are in the shop! Two of them are zines by my partner, and the other two are a new zine and sticker I made for GR zine fest.

Do you too want to get out of the nebulous “here”? Do you want to look at many sketches of my middle-aged characters smoochin’ it up? You’re in luck!

Overall, prices in my etsy are going up, because they are killing me with fees and zine printing costs were abnormally high because fedex print center hates gay people. However, newsletter subscribers will be spared from this price hike (because you’re cool)! Use code NEWSLETTER30 and you’ll get 30% off.

If the code doesn’t work for whatever reason, shoot me an email and I’ll help figure it out!

New Short Story

I’ve been trying to challenge myself to write more often, but it only ever works if I feel like I have a deadline. So I tried entering a short story contest. Reedsy holds these weekly prompt-driven contests based on themes.

The week-long writing period turned out to be a good thing since I had to vomit out whatever I could come up with and not worry about it too much. There are some wild grammar errors in it because I couldn’t bear to look at it after I wrote it, but looking back overall the story is not bad for a first draft! I didn’t win anything, but I’m happy with it.

Read the story here. The prompt was “Set your story during rehearsals for a production of a Shakespeare play” and the story is about a trans boy struggling with jealousy and toxic masculinity after missing out on his dream role.

(p.s. If you’re wondering why my name is different on Reedsy, see the intro note to the newsletter re: my obsession with pseudonyms)

(p.p.s You may recognize Virgil as being one of my characters I used to draw a lot! When I have to write a story on short notice, I often just use a preexisting OC and just put them in a situation!)

Zine Fest Recap

Behind the Scenes

If you follow me on Insta, but not on Tumblr, you probably only saw the vertical layout of this piece, but I originally made it to be landscape so you could see more of the background! Here are all the steps (minus the animation) I went through to make this fake visual novel screencap (can you tell backgrounds continue to be a weak point for me? lol):

If you also wanted to make something like this you COULD draw all the lines on one layer, but if you plan to animate it like I did, I don’t recommend it! Separating the “UI” from the sprite from the background will just make everything a little bit easier.

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Fare well until December :^)