A Christmas Miracle in the form of a Competely Finished Comic from AppleStorm

At the end of 2020, one of my New Year's resolutions was to draw and complete one long-term comic project before January 2022.
Beginning as a side-gig (just something I did in the background while I tried to brainstorm my Purity comic... cuz my brain needs variety) this ended up becoming my full-time focus when I realized I wanted experience and endurance before I put my whole heart into the thing I really wanted to look good.

And I took the advice of other comic artists to start off with something that was 20 pages or less.
This was 20 pages exactly.
And Purity was going to be over 20. Maybe even over 40 or 50.

So yeah.

Began drawing the thumbnails in mid June. Kicked and screamed and cried through the challenges until December 24. Then promptly praised God for blessing me and for giving me strength and courage for seeing this through to the very end. Despite everything.

Is it perfect? I wish it was. It is not.
But would I do it all over again? Absolutely.
I learnt A LOT about perspective, anatomy, paneling, writing, perseverance, patience, and self-discipline. Amongst other things.

 And overall I am pretty content.
I'm looking forward to doing it aaaaall over again when I next have the energy to spare. XD

And now whenever I go back to look at my old art, I shall probably cringe and hastily scroll past and pretend I never drew any of this. XD
Ah. Such is the life of an artist.

But in all seriousness, this was probably the hardest thing I had to do all year. And 100% self-imposed to boot.

The last time I completed a comic completely was in 2016. Five years ago.
I've tried and failed drawing comics dozens of times since then, so the fact that I am here now - despite ALL the temptations to give up and the burnouts - surprises me a lot.

Man. What a good Christmas gift for myself. And what a way to end the year!
Never going to top this, that's for sure.

Anyway. That's all from me for now.
I've got some shenanigans to do with my family now, so I'll see you dudes in 2022.

*raises glass of apple&mango juice*
Here's to this year finally being over, and let's hope the next year will be a little better than we dare hope!
Or in the very least not quite as bad.

Cheers. And a very Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all. And thanks for reading.
*Drinks up*

Rainbow Misery

Ah. Should've supposed that this week couldn't possibly have been as good as the last.
Still good. But it had it's down sides, too.

Such it is. :)

 My laptop crashed yesterday and I lost a good half hour of drawing progress on a big art piece I was working on.
That didn't phase me, actually.
I mostly shrugged my shoulders and went 'Ay. Could've been worse. Could've lost the entire hour of work. That's fine. I'll just have to do the work I lost again later this afternoon; but better!"

And then my laptop crashed again and it took literally the entire afternoon to restart itself.
Yeah. That completely killed the mood for me. So I was rather frustrated, and sulked for a good hour or something while I tried to process my feelings.

Then I grew bored and decided I was going to draw anyway, but for fun.
Something sparkly and rainbow sounded good.
So anyway. That's the story behind this drawing.

Pretty experimental? But I think it's okay. I had fun. Even if I was still a little miffed.

Scottsmen, Snacks and Space Spiders

WOW. This week was good!
I did a stupid amount of comic work (sketched all the backgrounds I had been neglecting for 4 months, colored 2 pages and redrew a bad page from scratch.. AND inked and colored it!) did a whole buncha light and shadow study work, and even had time to draw for fun in the form of my Interstellar Institute kids! (AKA my sci-fi found-family space adventure)

So yeah!
Despite how tired and nauseous I am, I feel great.
God's been good to me.

Tried putting that shading theory into practice here.. dunno how correct the shadows are, but boy I had fun with the colors. <3

Kinda sunrise-y, kinda homey. Which is what I was going for, cuz this is Hamish's last day on planet earth. He won't be coming back until 10-15 years later; when he's over 30 or something.
Being a part of a massive social experiment takes time, okay?? XD Ah, but in all seriousness, he's super stoked to be getting the chance to visit literally hundreds of planets and to help further the connections between alien species.

A bit naive atm, but he'll grow. :)

"Howdya get here without a boat, old dude?"

 3 more weeks until Christmas, an only four til New Years.
I do not like this information. It alarms me.
Last I checked we still had ages til 2022.

On an unrelated note, I'm still playing LoZ Phantom Hourglass. And I've become invested enough to create my own fake screenshots.
Make of that what you will.

 I've gotten the last sea chart a few days ago. Kinda cheated by looking up how to bypass all the rooms with minimal damage, but I didn't feel like I needed that extra stress, so I don't feel guilty.
Kinda sad my adventure is coming to a close, but that's what replaying the entire thing is for I guess. :)

Mistakes were Made in the Temple of the Ocean King

 I found my brother's old LoZ Phantom Hourglass cartridge this week.
Uh...
Might've inspired me a lil bit?

Maybe?

 It's been WAY too long since I've played a new video game, and I am loving the experience that is sailing on a ship with a wonderful AWFUL captain, solving really fun interactive puzzles with boomerangs and shovels, and almost dying in old temple dungeons to terrifying knights of pure darkness.

It stresses me out at times, but it is so satisfying when I solve a problem by myself. And it makes me laugh at how goofy it is at times, and I love it for it.

Don't think I've ever managed to play a Zelda game past the tutorial town before, either.
I mean... I had lots of fun jumping off towers with chickens and vibing to music in Twilight Princess, but I don't think that counts as 'playing the game'. (To be fair, I was 10 or something. Would've gotten slaughtered if I had gone further than that IMO XD)

Anyway. That's what I've been doing in between drawing and doing house chores.
It's good.

I'll probably be drawing Zelda stuff over the next few days. Least until I stop fixating on it. :)

Lil' Sketch

 Ha. Coulda sworn I would've done something before Saturday. Alas, my brain got derailed, so I don't have anything that interesting to share.

Maybe next week. If I don't get so anxious I can't hold a pen properly, anyway.

 *wanders off and tries to find something to distract bucket of nerves that is my brain*

Sleepy Devil and Casual Karate Kid

 Another week bites the dust. Still trying to be kind to myself, but also immerse myself back into my routine of comic making, art lessons, and general shenanigans. It's a tricky balance, but I've been keeping myself in check alright so far.

Not much to say apart from that. But I think that's good news.

I think my Moshi Monster fixation is slowing coming to a close. The ideas are getting smaller. The urges and prompts give me less dopamine reward.
But it has been really neat drawing the kids that are basically the reason I got into online MMORPG games in the first place. And to what I think helped push me to get better at drawing.
Moshi Monster gave me an opportunity to share my art online for the first time in my small, young life... which led me to Club Penguin, which eventually evolved into me finding Animal Jam, and that inspired me to create a silly blog about Vampire kangaroos that were allergic to cinnamon.
The rest is history.
It's a long, weird path... but it is still relevant.

Shopping Trip

Whelp, got about ten minutes before I'm due to socialize with cousins. Guess that means you know it's getting warmer over here; longer days, and shorter time to prepare posts.

Gonna need to start organizing this stuff beforehand, huh?
We all know I wont. XD

Have another zombie lad with his smol pink friend in the meanwhile tho.

I just find it endearing whenever someone clearly not violent or aggressive wears the most hardcore punk outfit, with their clearly cursed (but good) friend giving them compliments and self-esteem boosts in the background.
It's very cute. :)

Zommer Doodles

 Picked up my Cintiq tablet for the first time in almost 2 weeks on Thursday and gotta say it's good to be back on digital again. My wrist was a little stiff and sore after only two hours or drawing, but that just means I need to exercise it again over the next week or two. It's cool. I'll get my endurance back soon.

Anyway. I didn't want to pressure myself with any serious drawing projects just after I got over my burnout, so I figured "Y'know what? Moshi Monsters sounds really fun right now. Let's draw those crazy kids and don't worry about what other people think for a change".
So I did.

I doodled all six monsters on Thursday, but yesterday I felt like focusing on only one of them. Really work out how they look like in my style, and colour them to my taste. Maybe add some more personality to them while I was at it.

Think I've done a pretty alright job! :)

If the picture looks a little (or very) blurry then you can blame me for using a brush with the width of 1 pixel, instead of my normal inked pens.
Why was I using a brush that was only 1 pixel big? Because one of the best ways to overcome art anxiety for me is picking a random pencil/pen/crayon/etc that I would never dream of using and using it instead of my perfected settings and brushes.

It's super fun, but very experimental. And results may not look 100% pleasing, but hey. That wasn't the point for me this week.

Fast, loose, hard-edged and very old-school... It felt cool. Made me think of all those first artists on the computer and what they must've put up with.
I've deduced I am very lucky living in the modern age. 

Rain and Acid

Another week away from the laptop brings me a little bit closer to feeling up to the tasks that challenge me every day. But I'm gonna need some more time alone before I can pick up my drawing tablet and start working again for real.

That's okay though.
When Christmas rolls around I'll have all the time in the world to do what I need to.
It's cool.

Enjoy a rough sketch of my Phossy boy in the meantime.
Have a nice weekend, guys. Hope you're all doin' your best, and if that best just happens to be not very good (like mine) then know it's only your best today and your best tomorrow might be better.

StarDust Nerds

Feeling more alive than I was last week, but I think I need to spend a good three days playing pokemon and listening to SPG before I can think about drawing seriously again. Which still kinda sucks, but I'm at the zen-point of the cycle so I'm just gonna vibe.

*shrug* Guess I'm spending the October in survival mode. That's okay, tho. Some months be like that.

Whenever I have an ongoing comic project, I make a point to not let myself draw fanart (uh, or just the same thing as the comic project...) because that's just using up juice which could've been used on the comic.
Which helps? (It does, I swear) But then I'm just sitting there with two dozen ideas which I resist drawing and I get sad because I really want to draw them.

But since I'm taking a break, I figured I'd let myself have some fun and draw my Joy and Fear.

Fantom Felix

Hi there.
Burnout finally caught up with me again. You probably saw it creeping up on me over the past few weeks, but it came as a shock to me.

Nothing new was drawn as a result. So I'll share this sketch I did last week.

Looking through all my old art was interesting.
This is the original drawing from like... March 2018 I think.

Lil' bit has change, but overall you can tell it's the same dude. Style hasn't changed much. Just got better.
Cool.

A Little bit of Joy

Uuh...
My brain feels like it's full of white fog.

Hm.

Well. I kinda fell flat halfway through the week and I was unable to draw anything 'productive'. So I let myself have some fun with a quick Inside Out sketch instead.

 It was really nice colouring something to a ridiculous degree again.
The pose didn't come out too badly either.

And compared with what I could do last year, I think it's safe to say I improved a little bit. So that made me happy. :)

7th Anniversary

 Not gonna lie. Kinda had my eye on the calendar all month for this day.
Not because I had anything special planned. It was just because today gave me a wonderful excuse to draw my favorite vampiric nerds again. :)

They're all still living rent-free in my brain. And I don't intend to start charging them anytime soon.
*Raises fruit juice into air* May you live long and prosper, my children! And Fang too. And may you continue to give me joy and headaches for years to come. *Drains glass*
That is all, folks.
*Slams glass into table and accidentally cracks it*

The DeathDancer Kids

I ain't got much to say, except How're ya doin' on this fine day!
And then we'll all leave because life's busy and you have things to do.
But that's okay, because this is just a pit-stop making you take a break before you do something more important.

As it should be.

 September is the month that makes me think of my kids, and the children of my kids. So that's why we have some little DeathDancer's on the scene today.

Their colours make me very happy on the inside. Alexis looks like her mother (but slightly pinker), Vincent takes after his father (except more fluffy), and Aeron is a throwback to his uncles, Grandfather, and Great-Grandfather.
I mean, apart from the penguin genetics of course. But that goes without saying.

Phosphorescent (sketch)

 Hey.
I made another OverKill sketch yesterday.

And it's of our Phossy lad! P4!

Considering I had no idea how to draw glowing phosphorus, I think I did a pretty good job!
He looks the right amount of spooky and ethereal. Fragile and delicate, but you know very well you should keep your hands off him.
Excellent.

Hunter & Blacky sketches

Ah, September is upon us again, and with it comes hotter weather and breezes straight from the ocean. And 20's swing music for some reason.
*shrug* One of those vibes that invites itself over for some reason. But who am I to question it? It's good. I'm having fun with it.

Hm. Not much I want to say this week. So I guess I'll go and try to sketch something before dinner.
*****
UH YEAH I accidentally spaced out and it's now almost ten minutes later and I'm still here oKAYBYE HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND GUYS!

Mind like a Rusty TV from the 20's

 Eh. Had one of those weeks where it feels like your brain is on a restart loop, so you have to cope by turning on autopilot and hoping nothing exciting happens until you can blink for a few times without feeling like you've fallen into an alternative dimension, or like your memory has been linked to a light switch that's being flicked on and off by an angry child trying to blow a fuse.

I know the vibes have been good. I just can't remember why. Or... anything, really.
Probably not that important in the long run. But still. Lil' frustrating.

 Which is why I drew this.

 I have to force myself to continue my train of thought often. Like pushing a train uphill by myself. And then my focus isn't focused on what I was thinking on, but is focused on focusing on focusing on thinking. And it gets tiring. And then I stop trying, and let my body travel without my brain. And I wake up to find myself doing something else two rooms from where I used to be; all a very smooth procedure, if you don't squint and analyze every little detail anyway. And it feels odd.

It even happens in the middle of talking to my family. I have to trust that the part of me that's still controlling my body can continue without me. Even if I can't remember what we were talking about. Or where we're going. Or why. Or when it will stop so I don't have to worry about forgetting to talk back. Or coming up with an answer to continue a conversation that I can't even remember being a part of.

My brain's always done this. It just feels like it's doing it a lot more than usual this week.
I miss thinking coherently.

Eyes of Storm

Hm.
Didn't mean to go this overboard on a shenanigan sketch, but I guess it gives me something to share with you tonight.

 If you're gonna get brainwashed, ya might as well have fun and go all out with it, amiright?

A Trio of Agents

 Well HOWDY, there! I'm back, but I don't have time to stay for long, so I'll post this and I'll be on my way.
I have things to do and dinner to eat before the clock strikes 7:30. So let's do this quickly.

My lil' cousin has been introducing me to some new music, and I've been drawing quick sketches inspired by them for fun.
If I hadn't had such a tiring week (or less time), I probably would've loved to try and colour this. But alas, my energies are needed elsewhere, and I can't indulge on silly sketches. Even if this took me almost 2 hours to make.
Weapons are hard to draw, maaan... Why do I gotta keep doing this to myself?
At least it was good drawing my agents again.

Inside Out Sketchdump

 Ha, well...
New month again. Always seems to happen just as I was getting used to the old one.
Ain't that the way.

Anyway. You're here to check what I've been up to since last time, yeah?
It's not much, but I can offer a little something.

Here you go -

 This pic was basically just me letting my hand do it's thing while my brain took five. Not planned. Not polished. Just... *motions* art. Y'know?

I'll admit, tho, some of the vibes have been rattling in my head for a few weeks. Joy humming and plinking on the controls is a, uh... concept drawing trying to expand my idea of my HQ console?
Like, obviously it's got a lot of buttons and levers and stuff, but I really liked the idea of there being a second layer underneath the official desk - like a hidden drawer - that when you pull it out, it has a very old fashioned 70's keyboard/synthesizer built into it.
(Maybe it glows rainbows. Maybe it doesn't. I haven't decided yet.)
It's not meant to control actions; just stimming and general shenanigans. Because even if I haven't played the piano since I was 15, I loved the finger movements and flying across the keyboard to my own beat. Much to the bemusement of my music teacher.
And pretending I can play a tune to a song in my head is very enjoyable. Even if it doesn't make sense.

Disgust adjusting Fear's tie is another vibe I've liked thinking about sometimes too. Because after Fear took up position as Lead Emotion, Disgust might not have approved of the change in leadership, but she did take her chance to adjust and straighten his attire as much as possible. Can't have a sloppy leader, right?
Disgust did her best with Joy, but the personification of happiness and bliss wasn't going to change her t-shirt and shorts for nobody. And good for her, too.

The other two little sketches was just... me needing something easy to draw. No special reason why I drew what I drew.
Kinda like the Sadness one, tho.

*******

Hm. Yeah...
Guess I just needed a break from being serious for a week.
(She says while she's always trying not to be serious)

Hopefully things will get better next week. We'll see.
But till then, you take care my dudes. See you around! And thanks for dropping by. :)

Hoop Loops

*Deep Breath*
OKAY. So.
A lot has been going on with me this month. Some good. Some bad. But the one thing that's been constantly pushing for my attention (besides my comic project) was Art Fight; an annual art game that happens in the middle of Summer, where people draw each other's ocs for fun (and points).

This was my first year participating. Of course I was anxious at first, but once I got into the swing of things, it was actually pretty fun! Flexing my new art muscles gained from online lessons, as well as showing off my own characters and style. And of course, drawing for other people.

I tried not to spend too much time for each piece, but you know me... I always like doing a good job on something if I can. Especially for art.

So yeah. Didn't mean to add a fully detailed background, but hey; least I got a lot of points for it.
Martini is mine, of course, but the other joker is called Mingle Jingle. They belonged to a Swedish dude ( >> His Tumblr << ) ( >> And his DeviantART << ) who I thought had a nifty style. It meshed nicely with mine, anyway.

If I'm too burnt out over the next few weeks, I might share some more of my Art Fight attacks on my blog. But until then; what's done on Art Fight, stays on Art Fight.

It'll all be over in the next 24 hours, anyway. Whichever team wins is inconsequential; if my team wins, that'd be neat. But if we lose, it just means we got more art, and still win anyway.

I'm definitely going to participate next year (if all is well). Maybe rope my cousins or sister into the deal, too. That'd be fun.

But enough of that. I'm out.
See you all next week! Keep safe! <3

Tiny Martini the Clown/Acrobat

A day spent drawing nothing but short stripey clowns with hoops is a day that doesn't come by often. So I made the most of it and tried to enjoy myself. Which I did. But it also meant I had all these sketches to choose from, and I couldn't decide which one I liked best.
So I'm picking them all.

 

 Even after two years, this lil' clown is still super fun and easy to draw... That's good. Means I did a good job designing her.
Or maybe my taste in comfort characters hasn't changed much since then... Eh. It doesn't matter.

Definitely need to give her some friends to play with, though. But that's a challenge for another day methinks.

Miscellaneous Magic Doodles

 Due to me being sick for half the week, then overwhelmed for the other half and busy with comic stuff, I have decided to share some old sketches and have a day off drawing, instead of stressing myself anymore than I have to.

There is context behind all of this, but I do not wish to explain it tonight. All that you need to know is that the magic in this world is weird, my anthro characters are (sometimes) human, and spiders are treated as farm animals and sheep are dangerous predators and that still delights me on a fundamental level you cannot understand.

 I forgot I even drew any of this. But it's nice seeing these sketches again; if only briefly.