I’m not really into celebrating my birthday, but I guess today is the day I put on my online accounts… It is different from my real one for security reasons, but close enough to hopefully not come off as dishonest to those I feel comfortable telling.

Personal updates:
I’m hanging in there despite all the madness that has, is, and probably will come…. I’m still liking the new job I started about a year ago now as a field technician for a construction consulting company. I got other certifications like my Soils 1 certification now, and I’m working on other specialty certifications like Stormwater/ Erosion 2 and DOT stuff while I still figure out long term plans.

Art stuff:
Slowly making progress on more ideas… mostly still trying to fight that cycle of when I have the time I don’t have the energy, and when I have the energy I don’t have the time. Been trying to figure out how to balance improving quality and improving speed/ efficiency of getting more done.

I am sort of warming up to the idea of doing commission work as a side hustle… my main income manageable for myself, although things like the economy and the weather can make the construction industry very “feast and famine”.



I’m still officially “not” doing commissions though… I still haven’t worked out the logistics to properly do it.



Anyways, I’m still here and more than happy to share ideas and inspiration with anyone who wants to. I hope you all are doing well too on this rollercoaster of life.

So I now have an ACI Concrete Field Testing Technician- Grade 1 certification!

What does that mean? Concrete things (...and better pay), hooray!

It's one of those things I need to get for my job to show I know what problems to look for and how to perform the various tests on concrete before it gets placed in a structure. It's just one of a bunch certifications I need like soils, rebar, welding, etc.

Life stuff:
Mainly been busy with the new job and moving to a new state and such. So far it's been alright, no regrets, stress and anxiety have been stable.

Art stuff:
Still been moving at a snail's pace with a variety of works in different states. It's mainly been trying to find the time and energy to do more stuff. I'm just trying to figure out how to improve the overall speed and quality of the process...

Hope things have been going well for everyone else too. There may be long periods where I'm "quiet", but I am still here in the background. I'm more than happy to make time to chat and share ideas with you all!

I have finally been offered a job that will hopefully lead me on a happier and more fulfilling career path! For those of you that don't know or remember, for the last five years I've been working in a factory near my home town in East Tennessee as one of their inventory monitors. There are things I like about the job, but I feel need to move on to be happy.


My new job will be as a field technician for a construction and engineering consulting firm near the Raleigh North Carolina. It's much closer to my bro already living in the area. The job also sounds like it could more easily lead me into a career more closely related to my academic background in engineering then Environmental Studies (Geology). Apparently I need a Geologist In Training certification and five years of related experience to to even take the Professional Geologist exams.


Right now my energy and stress levels are all over the place with suddenly putting my life in a new direction.


Art stuff:

I have been working on some things and I have plenty more I want to do, but my schedule is going to be very sporadic especially for the next few months. One con (or pro) of changing to a construction based industry, there can be seasonal or weather related slow downs. That might open the temptation to expand into secondary gigs... and by secondary gigs I mean I might consider something like commissions...

Here's just a simple update to say hello to you all and that I'm still around. For the most part not too much has changed on my end. Work is still taking up most of my time and energy. I know I mentioned a while ago how they still had me working several 12 hour shifts for days at a time. Thankfully the amount of overtime I'm doing has gone down.

Job hunting stuff:
Still aggravatingly no progress on that front. I really am stuck on what I should do differently. I'm not interested, or qualified for the various open positions on my current work. I also feel like I don't want to invest more of myself into the company. Stuff like LinkedIn and various job boards have given me mixed results (about as successful as asking for a job here). Most of the in person stuff I can think of have not really been feasible with my schedule.

Art stuff:
Really it's been just a struggle of when I have energy, I don't have the time. Then when I have the time, I don't have the energy or focus. There are a few random things I am slowly making progress on. Part of it is just trying to keep the inspiration.

Other stuff:
As if I don't have enough drama to deal with, I have Covid now too! Thankfully for me and my parents it hasn't been too serious. It just feels like a bad flu for us. It will give me some extra free time to draw for the next few days, although it will be a bit hard to focus since I'm feeling pretty cruddy too.

Anyways, I hope you all are hanging in there. This is just what's going on in my world right now.

I know it's been awhile. Work has been consuming most of my time and energy.

In some ways it's improved with much needed changes in management, them finally agreeing to hiring more people for our group, and actually acknowledging that I'm human!

In other ways it's still gotten worse... there's still 3 of us for what should be a 7 person team, recently I've been working at least 4 weeks straight with no weekends, and several of those weeks I have been working back to back 12 hour shifts for up to a week at a time! I really am not exaggerating that either...

Job hunting stuff...
Progress on some fronts... and some I'm still trying to hold onto my fragile self esteem while getting rejected and dehumanized over things I have no control over.

Art stuff...
Horribly slow. Mainly just from not having time or the energy. Although there are few things I'm slowly progressing on. I'm mostly doing some simple things to at least have something to show.

Anyways, I hope you all are holding up too through these increasingly crazy times.

Hope everyone is doing alright. I just figured it's time to give some quick updates on how things have been going on my end. It's been.... okay I guess.

Work stuff:
I know I mentioned it a few times on my main account, but it has been pretty rough. I'm still in the same position as an inventory tracker at an auto parts factory. It feels like they keep asking for more while taking away more of the resources to actually get the work done. A lot of my physical and mental energy goes to dealing with the same problems with mixed support from management and my teammates.

Job hunting stuff:
What little time or energy I do have leftover should and often has gone to finding a new opportunity I can call a career. A lot of persistence with a lot of demoralizing ghosting and rejection over factors I have little control over. Some things I run into a lot of: Job says "Entry Level" but wants 2-3 years of very specific experience, the algorithm recommending jobs I'm grossly overqualified for, the algorithm recommending jobs I'm grossly underqualified for, getting out competed by 3000 other candidates for this oddly specific job, or even getting ghosted when it's just me and one or two other people....

On a side note.. any advice on how to improve professionally presenting myself online would be more than appreciated.

Life stuff:
So my brother is going to be expecting his second kid early next year and my dad is going to retire from his job next summer. My parents are then considering moving to North Carolina to be closer to my brother and I'm most likely going to move there too if no promising opportunity keeps me here.

Art stuff:
I should have a couple of pieces coming very soon. One is ready as soon as I make time, another should be close, and several more in various stages.

Anyways, enough ranting... hope you all have been holding up through these crazy times and thank you all again for all the support you have given through thick and thin!

I found out today my pet pufferfish, Bobo, passed away today...

We've been boarding him in the pet store since August because our home aquarium sprung a critical leak. We couldn't buy a new one because they had none due to industry glass shortages.

Three weeks ago he looked very sick like we were about to lose him, but when my dad visited him the next week he looked almost like nothing happened. Then last week we visited him again and he looked totally happy and healthy... they even moved him out of the quarantine tank to one of the front ones to interact with more people.

Just as suddenly they said he wouldn't eat yesterday, then they came in today and found him dead.

It really was like having a little puppy. He'd avidly press his face into the glass to get people's attention. He would constantly spit water out of the tank until you give him food. He would even refuse to eat unless you stay and play with him.

Work and life updates-
To put it simply, work and life stuff have been draining a lot of my time and energy... and it doesn't look like it will get any easier any time soon.

Work feels like they've been expecting our group to take on more responsibilities fixing more of the problems the other departments cause while unevenly enforcing rules that ultimately put more of the burden on us. Plus management has been taking away some of things we need or not replacing in a timely manner while still expecting us to get more done...

On top of all that, my partner got promoted to a new supervisor position and they may not bother filling that position, so I will be only one dealing with the whole plant's inventory problems on my shift. Possibly working seven days a week...

I've been looking for a new job more relevant to my degree for some time, but it's been stressful on that front too. I'll get a lot of "entry level" jobs that want 2-3 years experience and very specific certifications that also require professional experience...

ART STUFF UPDATES-
Progress is slow, but I'm slowly getting some stuff done. Unfortunately I just haven't had the time or energy to get a lot of ideas down on paper. It also doesn't help that my 10 year old laptop is on it's last leg...

Pandemic/civil unrest updates-
In my area... it's bad. The numbers have been going up a pretty high rate including several people at my work.

Anyways thank you all for putting up with my whining. Hope you all have been hanging in there! I'm always willing to try and make time to talk you all!

Long time no update, I hope things are going alright with you all. Things are...okay... on my end. Most of my time and energy are spent dealing with work stuff as well as figuring out more long term life plans.

Pandemic and social unrest wise... I'd say East Tennessee is balancing on that razor's edge between "Somehow it's still somewhat functional," and "It's about to get real bad." The hospitals and supply chains have been keeping up here, but the numbers have been going up.

Art wise, I'm making progress... very slow... but progress. There's various pieces in various stages of completion. All sorts of ideas I want to do, but don't have the time or energy to put down paper yet.

Anyways, don't let all this hatred and insanity spewing from everywhere get to you. Remember behind that mask or screen is another person with feelings too. I may be quiet here, but I'm always willing to make time to talk. Hope you all stay safe and healthy!

Well the good news is I'll have even more time to get drawing and stuff like that done...
The bad news, I'm now eating into my vacation time before I'd file for unemployment. I just got a call from my boss I will not be working next week, and we are not sure about after that. It also doesn't help that there was a big fire in the plant while we were out this week.

Financially I'll be okay though, I have a pretty big safety coushion setup for this very reason.


Oh and what is DA thinking with this whole switch to Eclipse mess!?
Normally I would say give the changes a chance. However this leaves a real bad first impression if it's a few weeks away from "launch" and 75% of the features don't work or are missing, even after they introduced it several months ago! Not mention that it also feels like it will crash my browser at any moment.

Welp, I may be out of a job for some time. The factory I work at is shutting down next week, and may or may not reopen for the next few weeks (or months) depending how things go.

The factory is a supplier of body components for serval of the car companies. However all the automotive companies are shutting down in response to the corona virus and the rapidly tanking economy, so it makes no sense for us to stay open.

On the bright side, I will have more time to finish up a bunch drawings I've been working on.

Sorry things have been a bit quiet on my end for awhile. Things have been pretty busy and stressful with my new job.

Pretty much it is a combination of answering calls from everyone in the plant then try and fix whatever problem they're having with the inventory system, walk around the plant looking through 10,000's of parts for problems with the inventory, and try and figure out what and where the problem is.

Drawing wise.
I know I keep saying this but I am slowly making progress. Right now it's mostly experimenting with a few random giant monster ideas with short comic format.

Hope you all are doing well! I'm always willing to talk, even if it takes me a little while to respond.

Why? Because I got a promotion!!

Monday I will start a week of training with my new boss for my new position on Day/2nd shift. Basically I will go around the plant, look for and fix any major issues with the inventory.

I'll admit I was turned down for this position at first, but the more senior person they originally offered it to turned it down for a team leader position. Apparently I was second in line, so they asked me if I was still interested.

Internally I am stressing out about it. More responsibility and a whole lot more technical stuff I need to learn now. On the other hand... hopefully more career opportunities will open up, more convenient hours, and the slight raise in pay doesn't hurt either!

I will miss most of my colleagues on Hot Stamp 3rd shift though, as well as all the exercise from lifting heavy metal every night.

Hope you all are doing well! I just wanted to give another update on what's going on in my little part of the world.

Job stuff:
Well work has been taking up most my time and energy. It's been stressful and exhausting. I finally got a weekend off after working four weeks straight!

It has been a combination helping train new folks to get them up to speed, fill in on the lines when someone is out, learn how to operate the hot stamps and not break $100,000's worth of equipment, as well as learn all the possible things that could go wrong with all the parts on all the hot stamps as part of a "Promotion" to Quality Monitor for the department. I'm still technically a Press Assistant, it's just now I go from station to station checking the parts rather than staying at one station packing parts.

I've been applying for various other positions in the plant. Unfortunately I've been getting turned down due to other more experienced candidates applying for those positions. Although I am getting the impression it has been a very tough decision some of the managers. They are even trying to set me up with an interview with the plant manager to get me in a position better suited to my academic background. I can tell they are trying to keep me around.

Art stuff:
It's been slow, but I have been making progress. A lot of it has been mostly doing random ideas to try and refine my style, with promising results! Some of it has been experimenting with the whole macro comic thing for the fun of it, refine my OC's and vehicles, color some older pics, and work on the gift art for a growing list of friends.

Thank you all again for the support! All the encouragement over the years has really helped me through some tough times!

I hope you all are doing well! I know things have been a bit quiet on my end, but I'm still here... lurking in the background. I just wanted to give you all an update on what's happening in my little corner of the world.

Job stuff:
I'm still working the graveyard shift as a Hot Stamp Assistant with Magna, an automobile body components supplier. It gets rough, and I pretty regularly have to bust my ass off to help keep things in somewhat working order there, but they do see and appreciate that! I have been getting involved with some Environmental and Safety Compliance audits since that definitely has some relevance to my degree as well keeping an eye for any positions would be better suited to my educational background.

Art stuff:
It still has been at a snail's pace, but I am making progress... with "interesting" results. It's mainly trying to refine the designs of some of my kaiju and vehicle concepts and keep pushing my skills on some action scenes. Oddly enough there's even some "fan art" in the mix as well as experimenting with comics to tell a story. I haven't forgotten about that queue of requests and gifts either. The only problem is the ideas keep coming faster than I put them on paper!

Hope you all have been doing well, and sorry I haven't been around more to talk with you all! Thank you all again for all the support you've given me!! It's your encouragement that helps keep me drawing!

So the company I've been working with as a temp has finally decided to hire me on starting at the beginning of 2019!

What does that mean? Well, probably a bit more responsibility now, beyond making sure the parts get from point "A" to "B" with the least amount of chaos in between :D My job title will change from Assembler and Packer to to Assistant Operator, and I do get better pay and benefits now! They do want me to stay in that position for at least a year, which is okay with me while I still figure out my life stuff for the long term.

The only downside I can think of is that it does make me limit my job search for opportunities outside of the company, but that may not be such a bad thing... plus, it looks like they have of opportunities to expand into.

I just have figure what is it I want, and how do I turn that into something that can benefit the community and be self sustaining.


Art related stuff-

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I do have about a week off for the Holidays. So hopefully I'll be able to get to that pile of unfinished drawings sitting on my desk as well as the queue of requests and the constant stream of random ideas from my head.

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Hope you all will have wonderful Christmas and New Year's! I'm always willing to chat, and will try my best to respond in a timely manner.

Okay technically I already was with some other members of my family... but the point is my brother had his first kid Saturday!

Other life updates-

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Sorry for the lack of activity on my end, I've just been pretty darn busy with work stuff in addition to trying to figure out a more long term plan for my life. I'm still working graveyard at the automotive components factory which has been taking most of my time and energy. That guy I was salty about in the last journal, he is still there, but he's gotten a lot better now. Actually he's a pretty nice guy now I've gotten talk with a bit more, although I haven't asked what the deal was those first few days. Work hasn't been too bad, and I am highly considering staying there as hired on employee if I don't get any more promising jobs.

It has mostly been figuring out long term stuff like planing out a career plan if I'm staying with Magna, finding a place of my own, planing out finances, and all that fun stuff...

Art stuff update-

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Well unfortunately the drawing is at a snail's pace as most of my free time and energy is spent with the family or getting other stuff done.

I've got plenty of ideas lined up, some I'm slowly making progress on as well as the que of requests.

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Hope you all are doing well! I'm always willing to chat here, and I'll do my best to try and respond in a timely manner!

Warning, vent ahead!

Yesterday I talked with my supervisor in the temp agency to try and get back on second shift. She did say there was opening with my group I was originally with and she said I could work second shift again starting today. Well, I get the call this morning that I would have transfer back to 3rd shift.

Thankfully they did give me few days off to adjust again because of sudden change plus that I had previous commitment I made to volunteer with Children's Hospital summer camp again.


Now personally I don't find graveyard shift that bad. I can adapt my life schedule to it, granted I don't keep having these sudden changes. Although the hours for getting life stuff done are much less convenient. One reason I'm trying to get back to second shift.


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(The salty part)

The other reason... this one a**hole coworker! Don't get me wrong, most everybody met there are pretty nice, I do my best to bring a good attitude every day, and I normally don't talk s**t behind people's back... BUT THIS GUY... I've only interacted with him for about a total of 30 minutes my frist week on this shift, and I've really had to restrain myself from telling him F**K OFF!

Every day I've been there, he'd come up and tell me something like I'm not working fast enough, or I'm not helping out the other co-workers, or something of that nature... which obviously is not the case if you know me.

One of the days, he was the one that had to break me and one of my partners for lunch...my partner went first so I was stuck with him...first thing he does is start badgering me how I'm going too slow even though we've been just fine all night... then instead of laying out pieces in a nice pattern to make it easy to grind and speed up the process, he starts staking pieces on top of another and mixing the ground and ungrounded ones and telling me to hurry up and grind them. He simultaneously tells me to stop standing there and hurry up on a bending machine that runs a fixed pace while also somehow grinding parts several feet away... then to top it all off, when one the other co-workers came to help because could see the pileup that resulted in just five minutes of this guy... the guy starts talking s**t to the other guy like it was my fault we got behind.

The next day he has to break me and another partner out for lunch again.
We we're doing just fine that whole night, but when we came back from lunch... there was a very clear difference between when we were packing and when he was packing. We even had to tell our supervisor that just in case the next department sends it back to be repacked, we were not the ones that suddenly half-a**ed the work

I am normally not this salty... but I really do have my fingers crossed that he quits or gets fired before I have to go back there. I'm not being over dramatic when I say dread the possibility of working eight hours next to that guy if at some point I am assigned to the same line as him.
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I'm sorry to put you all through this, I really try not make public drama like this. It's just been a stressful last few days and I had to get it out of my system.

Right now I'm just trying to figure what my plan should be, I may ask my temp agency supervisor again if I can transfer to a different department on second shift if I can't go to back hot stamp yet. I really don't want to quit on them, but I do have to look out for myself too... and so far third shift seems to be offering the same benefits of second with more personal costs.

So yesterday my boss told me that starting next week they need me to transfer to third shift.

What does that mean? Well, it means I'll be working from 10:15 pm to 6:30 am now.

He told me it's because we're over staffed on our shift (2nd) and 3rd is under staffed. Part of that also has to with one of the machines being down for service for the last few months and will be down for at least one or two more.

Although I'm not thrilled about it, I'll do it if it has to be done. So far it seems like my only options are to do it and adapt to a new schedule, quit... which I don't want to do, get fired... obviously I don't want that, or apply for a different position in the factory and/or wait for a position to open back up on 2nd shift when they get the machine running again.

I'll still have the same amount of free time. That will probably shift into the evenings now.

Starting the beginning of next month, I'll be working at a nearby factory assembling automobile components. It is a temporary position, and it might not do much in terms of building a long term career, but it's still better than an empty gap in my resume and it may lead to other opportunities in the company.

Whooo!! I finally finished school! It's been rough both academically and personally, but I finished! The next step... take the professional geologist certification exam and look for work to build up a good resume. Now that I do have a little more free time, I'll try and get more drawing done in between looking for a job and whatever comes next.

Since this is my very first journal here, I figure should introduce myself...

My name is Jake Pace. After 12-15-17, I should be a former student of the University of Tennessee with a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies. I originally studied Mechanical Engineering with a strong desire to go into design, possibly somewhere in the automotive, robotics, aviation, or power industries. Unfortunately after three years of engineering studies, I transferred out do the very overwhelming proportion of math as well personal complications due to very serious depression. After a couple semesters of reevaluating my life, I eventually found my way into Environmental Studies... and I loved it!. Job wise... I'm still not sure,but possibly something with environmental impact consulting and remediation... preferably something very hands on.

How I got into drawing:
I have very little experience with art beyond a few classes in grade and high school. On few occasions I would draw mainly vehicle concepts. I found it to be a good stress reliever, and I started drawing more often during my later years in Mechanical Engineering to try help keep my brain from melting from all the non stop math. After seeing a bunch of tutorials from DA, I eventually decided to take a leap of faith and join. While I was searching for a new major, I did also take a blacksmithing class at my community college, and I loved it! I even have a simple forge at home, but unfortunately I have very little blacksmithing stuff to show because I haven't had time to practice more. Hopefully that will change soon!

How and why I joined FA:
I'd say it's partly because a good number of my watchers from DA seem to be active here too, and because I figure I could use this as somewhat independent account to help backup some of my drawings and to experiment with other aspects of drawing. I'm not really interested in buying or selling art, personally I find money just complicates things. I am more interested in using this account for stress relief, improving skills, meeting new people, making friends, learning new ideas, sharing ideas, applying new ideas to my future career (whatever it may be), and having fun!