Progress is slow.

I’ve changed jobs a few times, trying to find something stable that keeps me sane, while also trying to survive. These past few years that I’ve been on hiatus/burnout have been really rough, as it has been for everyone. I’m trying to get myself back into the mindset of this comic, as I still continued to write scripts even during my artistic burnout…but again, its slow. So thanks for sticking around. I’ve had to move back home, as living on my own is just not possible anymore, and I’ve been a mental wreck for the past two years. All of it culminated and destroyed the creative part of my brain.

We’re almost done with chapter 5 (longest chapter ever, my lord), and then we move onto more stuff. I’ve got the conclusion for this particular story almost wrapped up, with 5 more planned chapters coming after this one, give or take a few. The story with our main characters is far from over, of course, and a lot of things are yet to happen. Things that I think are very exciting and very dark.

Doing a lot of self reflection I found that felt strongly inadequate about my art, my style, and my rendering, and that lack of confidence led me right into burnout. I spent a while during the hiatus trying to just draw in ways that made me feel like I was improving something more substantial with my work, and it looks like it has worked a bit. I’ve noticed that I have a bit more patience with what I’m working on more than before, and I’m feeling more okay about spending time to make it look more refined than the mentality of “I need to get this out as soon as possible.” I set up a lot of unreasonable expectations for myself in the past 5 years with this comic.

I kept measuring my success to those who are far more successful than myself, who have garnered a bigger following. Big mistake. I measured my success to the amount of comments/views/retweets and likes with my counterparts. Again, big mistake. My success isn’t tied to these things, as my perceived measure of success in the webcomic world isn’t part of my survival. I lost track of the idea of making art for myself, and sharing that world with others, rather than what I’ve been doing to try and please others with my work. The road back to doing art for my sake has been a long one, and trying to forgive yourself for these things is probably the hardest thing I have to do. Being hypercritical of yourself is another big mistake, but I can learn from this and adapt for the future by listening to what is really important. I know I wont garner a massive following, but that’s not the point anymore.

It’s for the sake of a story that I want to tell, for whoever will journey down that road with me.

There is still a bit of second guessing myself, as I just lack the confidence most of the time with my writing and my art; and it shows sometimes. But this is a story that I still want to tell, and there is no better way to do it than just DOING it. I’d rather spend the time to do it in comic form rather than anything else, to be honest.

So, stick around for however long you’d like, know that I appreciate you all for reading and coming by with your comments. I read all of them. I’m too shy to respond to a lot of them, but I do read them.