#difficult to keep up with ideas for fun little sketches when i'm that slow at drawing even on any given non [hurdles to drawing at all] day

[unproduciblesmackdown]

more bloodsong whimsy for the joie de vivre

[forfinity3]

From the person who's been making those 'comics'.

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TooLong;Didn'tRead

This marks the end of the X Arc series... and pretty much everything else. I don't really have any plans to continue with it any further too. I'm pretty much done with the over a decade long series and have no plans to continue with it. I can't keep at it for long anymore. I'm putting everything down, packing it all up, and will be focusing on my own well being from this point on. Don't wait for me since I am not certain if I'll be back in a few months or even throughout the entirety of 2023... And Thank You for reading.

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Long Version. Explanations, Thoughts, and Situations.

It's been such a long time since I've ever chatted about anything in regards of this mess of a hobby project of mine... I have much in thought to say but so little words to explain it all... So I guess the best place to start is how much of an affect this hobby of mine was consuming my own psyche and how much it was taking over my own life. While it was fun and pretty exciting to get to draw a story that was unfolding with each passing week, there were times when I was actually regretting it because how overwhelming it was becoming and how much into the future I was looking through it. How much time and work that was needed to be done in order to draw it out. As a one man army with a mountain of ideas, I was overburdening myself without even realizing it until it was too late. Setting myself onto a road of many struggles and obstacles, thinking it will all be okay and easily manageable with just 1 person manning it all. To others, to the people who are just here to view the journey, it looks like an easy feat and fun thing to observe. But behind the curtain lies the ugly foundation of a clockwork that was constantly breaking down but managing to keep on turning. While many would believe it looked like an easy thing to do, but for my situation, with what my life-style is, it was a very challenging task.

Factors I would like to add in that made it difficult for me- Is having a life outside of my hobby project. By life I mean keeping up a Full-Time job and maintaining a status with family members/friends. For about a decade I've been working the typical 40 hours a week- 8 hours a day, 5 days straight job. Since my hobby project was just that. A hobby. No net-worth or any kind of financial income. Purely just for the sport. I needed money in order to keep a roof over my head and to keep on living. Because of this, this was heavily weighing me down already. Dragging my feet and slowing me down in keeping up with any of my hobby plans. The other is keeping a status with family members/friends. Family and friends comes first when it comes to hobby things. Unable to ignore what matters the most in life than just, again, a hobby. Which adds more stalls and needing to skip on more with the selfish hobby project. So when I wanted to work on my project, it meant I had to neglect my life-style. And it actually DID eat away at my life-style a couple of times during the times I had the urge to continue on with the series... So I can't be doing that anymore.

Another factor to add in is the creation and idea building part of the series. It's not easy putting everything together, getting it to work properly, and trying keep the flow going. Almost every idea happens when away from the computer because the mind works better when on the move instead of sitting at a desk. It's until AFTER getting home is when a draft can be made. And that is just the easy part. The most difficult part- is the sketching. Imagined it and now getting it on paper. Even with the amount that I have drawn already, its still rather difficult for me to draw it down. It all seemed so easy in my head than actually executing it on paper. The rough sketch is what demotivated me the most when drawing a comic. How much of a struggle it is to make it just means more stalls on the project... Which is why all of my sketches look very mediocre and childish. I had to ignore quality in order to get the story made. If I had to focused on quality too to make it look more eye appealing, I would have quit drawing all together a very long time ago... But I didn't want to give up. So quality had to be dropped in favor of getting stuff quick and out...

The last factor is a big personal one... Where the thought processes of it all is coming from. The ideas. The roots of it all. All coming from my own personal struggles, psyche, and trauma from what I learned and experienced throughout my own lifetime. Any of the bad events that happened throughout the whole series- which was a lot of it... was pulled from the depths of my own messed up mind and incorporated it into the series. A lot of it had to be reached out, pulled in, and put together as best as I could in order to make the story more "interesting". Lots of bad thoughts here and there... and because of it, it put me in in many ill thought states where even I questioned myself and my own thought process as to why I even thought it up in the first place... There were times I had to tone/dumb it down because I felt like it was a bit much to do for the story and also not to overburden myself any further since it was too much to do already as is. Noticeable events were the InkTober takeovers. A miniseries that was just a fun side project that overran its course and then overtook the entire series with each passing year. The amount of effort going into that mini project doubled my hobby project workflow which meant even more work was putting into something that was suppose to be a fun little project ... And it was becoming all too much for me to handle...

And so that's it... While there is a lot more that can be said, I'm too tired of it all to explain it any further. It's all too tiresome at this point... I had thoughts of canning it and burning it all together, forgetting about it as I go on with my somewhat comfortable daily lifestyle.... But I was told not to do that and instead to give myself a VERY long break from it all. On the count that I MAY come back to it again when I'm caught up with my life and responsibilities. A big MAYBE that I would return to this and think of something else for this big mess of mine of a series that I created...

So that's the end of that... Stopping it on a bitter/sour sad note that is left unfinished because I made it too big and too much of a task to handle...

To the viewers who have been watching- old or new- ... Thank You. Thank you for seeing my weird story unfold and my progress as time went by. Watching me struggle to keep a series going but enjoying the progression of the story all together. Makes me happy knowing that I wasn't the only one who was interested in this very strange series that made little sense of anything from a non-reader perspective. Viewership was all that I asked for. That alone was a big accomplishment for me and I'm happy I was able to maintain it for as long as I could.

Thank You.