I meant to get that pic out waaay sooner, but a couple of things came up. First I caught a 24 hour respiratory infection that had been making the rounds (still got a bit of congestion left over from it). After, I injured my drawing hand trying to buy milk at a U-Scan and had to wait a day for it to heal a little. Wrist still hurts, but I have been delayed enough. Gonna take it a little easier now that I got that lewd drawing out of my system, tho.

I am using a different signature/watermark now. Unfortunately, when people see my old name in a game lobby or a text chat it seems to be a coin-toss whether they will actually read the letters in the correct order or start an internet fight when they don't. Yeah, not personally condoning or condemning any sociopolitical ideologies or whatever, it's just that constantly attracting unsolicited internet fights from semi-literate buffoons wherever I go is fucking exhausting.

Some of you may already be aware that my mother passed away. Well, it wasn't very long after that my sister was in an accident and suffered a permanent injury. Until this summer I was helping to take care of her, but my own health has once again failed me. My spine is in exceedingly poor shape, and things that were once trivially easy have started to become a challenge. I had to move out and trust her wellbeing to another family member. It was a very difficult decision, but one that I had to make swiftly, as I was simply no longer physically capable of keeping up with the responsibility. Within the first month of the move I did something that I don't think I had been able to do for over a decade; I cried. It was cathartic to finally let some of the pain out; and with no physical witnesses to the event there would be no emotional collateral damage, so I cried myself to sleep. I have spent these past few months trying to work the cold, hard stones out of my heart. They got there as a defense mechanism against the constant, unyielding trauma, but I'm safe now. I'm safe and I much prefer the softer, warmer personality that I had before. So if I seem cold and standoffish please don't take it personal, I promise I'm trying here.

Anyway, my old computer died, and it took a vast majority of my work and all of my work-related programs with it (I did find a handful of backups on various storage media, but most of it is just gone). The good news is that my new housemates helped me cobble together a new computer out of spare parts, and I am in the process of learning some new software to try and get back to doing what I love; drawing the kind of things that I would not show off in church! I don't know Krita well just yet, and I find the blank canvases almost as intimidating as my own unreasonably high expectations for myself, but again, I'm trying, and that means more than I can express in words here. I know me.

Got some new OC's, too. Maria Redfox came to me in a dream, and I just kind of started building a universe around her and the lore that I remembered from that dream. She lives in a Roger Rabbit-esque universe where humans and toons live and work together in relative harmony. Been writing up a suite of housemates to share a rental property with her, but I haven't drawn any of them yet except one of the two stoners taking residence in the basement. Honestly, I'm not too sure where I'll go with this whole canon, but it is a blast to work on and that's what I find most important for inspiration to keep moving forward.

I apologize for vanishing from here without a trace. A few years ago my health just kind of fell apart and I lost almost everything in pursuit of a diagnosis (I was starting to think that I was going crazy). It wasn't until the Fall of last year that I finally got a lead: Sleep Apnea. I have apparently been living with undiagnosed sleep apnea for God only knows how long, and it has ravaged my physical and mental wellbeing. I'm actually a little lucky to be alive.

Finally got a CPAP early this year and my condition has improved dramatically since I started using it. There's still some things that I just can't do anymore, like drink caffeinated beverages, dine on really spicy hot sauces, go running or hiking, or just take spontaneous naps, but I am rebuilding my stamina, and my digestion and breathing have finally improved back to a human level. I did lose my job, and I don't expect finding a new one to be easy, but I do have a plan for going forward.

As for when I will be able to start making art again; I don't know. Losing my apartment came not long after losing my employment. As such I do not have a suitable workstation at the moment. There are places I can stay, and my computer is actually in usable condition at one of them, but it is by no means in a state where I can just draw whatever I want on it in anything like a free or timely manner (not that I have ever been a particularly speedy artist). But, like I said, I do have a plan for going forward. I may even be in a place where I can start sketching and scanning my sketches in relative privacy before the end of the year.