ADR 2-4 is on its way. It will be completed in the next few days and go up as soon as it is finished.

And I need to take a break.

Not from art necessarily - moreso from A Decaying Realm. I've operated at a feverish pace for the past six months concerning the comic, and I'm burning out on the story. Which is not what it deserves. I was naive and thought that the forced break of finals and moving for the four weeks at the start of this month would work as a suitable buffer, but all it resulted in was additional stress and apathy towards the comic. Combine this with my lingering frustration that the comic will technically be celebrating its third anniversary on Dec 31 but has only 25 pages to it so far when it should be celebrating somewhere near 150 pages and you can see how I've gotten myself a bit down about all of this.

This situation became apparent when I completed a piece of fanart last week that I plan to post after this page goes up. And, as of right now, it is the best thing I have ever drawn. Consistently, throughout the year, my work has improved with each new piece. And page 2-4 is not an improvement on my technique as seen in that fanart piece. The comic has been twisted into a chore, and I do not want to put out work that does not feel like a suitable improvement in even the most minute sense. I've given in to distractions easily while working on this page (while I was perfectly content to sit for four hours streaming that fanart), and because it is not completed I feel compelled to avoid visible interactions on my art social media (which is also a terrible habit), and I have avoided informing followers of these further delays. I even go so far as to avoid getting caught up on notifications for art - I apologize to my mutuals, each time I want to go through the mountain of art and journals piling up on my accounts I lock up and think about how I need to finish the page first before I feel I can justify enjoying other people's work. Instead of working on the page, I have wasted time and missed not only it's promised posting date four times in a row but also the free sketch stream I had promised before Christmas.

This habit of ignoring my problems and stalling stops now. This behavior cannot be allowed to go further, and certainly cannot be allowed to enter into 2018.

I will have the page up before the end of the year, that I can guarantee. After that, comic will go on hiatus. And then I will be reverting to a monthly update schedule, resuming updates on February 17 (I will be graduating next semester and (ideally) starting a job (and if that falls through, job hunting) while attending university full time - this is a saddening but necessary measure to keep me from immaturely quitting the comic again). I apologize for the turbulent existence of ADR, and my infamous inconsistency. I hope that with this I can begin to take steps towards ending these bad habits so that I can actually approach a professional level of doing art as I would like to.

I don't expect forgiveness for my mistakes.

Following completion of this page, I will be going through my art social media and catching up on all the wonderful work I've caught glimpses of when I occassionally log in. In keeping true to my promise of my free sketch stream, I will do two free sketch streams on both Saturday, December 30th, and Sunday, December 31st, as a way of giving back to all of y'all who have stuck by me through this stuff. Streams will be starting at 12PM CST on both days, will be SFW, and will start at one sketch per person (but if the stream is mostly vacant like normal, then as many sketches as each person wants! May even go for color and shading on the better ones).

I'll make a few more posts over the next couple of days before the streams with info about the streams and the link to them.


SO, LONG STORY SHORT:
I have been avoiding work on ADR
ADR is going on hiatus until February 17, 2018
I will still be doing art during this time
I will be doing two free sketch streams on Dec 30 and Dec 31 starting at 12PM CST both days




Thank you all for putting up with my antics for this long. And, I've said it far too much this year, but one last time: I'm sorry.

Stream is live! Come join me for some comic work and thrash metal: https://picarto.tv/ManuelMaz

EDIT: Stream done, comic will be up tomorrow afternooon most likely. I’ll start the free sketch Christmas stream tomorrow!

Hey y’all! I’m getting ready for a night of comic-ing and plan to stream work on the next page of A Decaying Realm, starting at 6PM CST (about an hour from now). If I’m not too tired after the comic page, I might keep on going and do a free sketch stream (WARNING: this will be a really, really late night, so it may get pushed to either tomorrow or Sunday!)

I’ll announce when the comic stream has started, and then I’ll announce after if the free sketch stream is gonna happen tonight! The sketch stream post will have more info and rules about the sketches.

Hope to see y’all there!

Live, with a thrash metal playlist! https://picarto.tv/ManuelMaz

EDIT: Stream done! Despite a few technical difficulties (OBS crashing and my tablet acting up), it was the longest stream I've ever done at 4 hours!

I'll be working on fanart and sketch practice! I need to finish a couple of things first, then we'll be good to go! I’ll post a link once it’s live!

Like I put in the title, I need to stop “hoping” for things and actually start working towards constructing a daily schedule within which this “hope” will just be normal occurrence.

I was sidelined for the last three weeks by the most challenging finals week(s) I have ever experienced, helping my parents move and clean while I did the same, and witnessing a terrible car accident early on Friday morning that has left me with survivor’s guilt (I don’t want to talk about it much; all that I will say is that the police have informed me that I did everything correctly, the other driver was at fault).

A Decaying Realm page 2-4 does not exist yet. I will begin work on it later today after I eat, may even stream if I feel up to it. I was granted Winter Break Housing, so I am free for the next four weeks to focus on art, music, and programming. In this time I intend to iron out a work schedule and prepare an update buffer.

As much as I want to go ahead and spam missed updates as I complete them over the break, I feel that I cannot keep up such a pace; I think it would push me to my limit and leave me unable to make art (and I do not want to go on another hiatus). ADR will return to it’s Saturday update schedule, with ADR 2-4 set to go up this upcoming Saturday.



Long Story Short:

I suck at scheduling (nothing new here) but am actively working on improving

ADR is back to weekly updates; 2-4 goes up Saturday, Dec. 23.

As the title says, the comic is delayed. Moving is taking more time than I hoped (who would've thought? XD). A Decaying Realm 2-4 should be up no later than Monday night.

BUT I have good news! I was approved for winter break housing, so I will be able to resume regular Saturday updates starting next week!

If you need a fantastic comic to read in the meantime I recommend What Nonsense! It's one of my favorites, and it just updated today! Go give it a look!

EDIT: Fixed links!

Welp.

I need to apologize for the delays in ADR 2-3 and 2-4, and to prevent myself from future mistakes like this I need to adjust the update schedule for the foreseeable future. It'll shift to biweekly updates, once every two Saturdays. I feel I need to share the reasons why

The reasons behind this are several things. I am currently in my senior year of college, and I just wrapped up an honors thesis. Finals start hitting next week, and I am working to catch up on assignments before the end of the semester. I should be fine, but it has severely hindered my ability to do art (even when I have allocated time to work on the comic, I was too nervous about upcoming due dates to actually produce anything).

The second major thing is, my family is moving. One of my parents was promoted at work, and the company is relocating them a couple of states over. At Christmas time. And while the company is hiring a group to pack and move everything that my parents are taking, I plan on moving to my college town after graduation next semester. So I have to have all of my belongings sorted and packed and moved into storage before Dec 11. I have spent my Thanksgiving Break packing stuff when I had hoped to catch up on the comic (which, in hindsight, was optimistically stupid of me) and here we are now.

Hopefully, this next update will be the only one that is spaced out for two weeks. But I've learned about being hopeful multiple times this semester.... so I don't exactly count on it.

The third thing weighing me down right now is the fact that because my family will be without a home over Christmas, I will either need to travel with them and stay in an apartment over the break while my parents look for a new house, OR, if my college hurries up and tells me (I had hoped to hear back a week ago), I may get to stay on campus. If I'm with family (one member of which knows I do a comic, and nothing else) I won't be able to update much. If I'm lucky enough to have campus housing, I intend to work on art and C++ (gotta relearn for a computer science minor) the entire time. I'll be a bit lonely physically, but the comic will update and I'll have more time to interact with people online. And I'll be removed from the stress of my parents looking for a new home to replace the one they thought they would retire in.

Additionally, I need to assure myself that with this update change I am keeping the comic going. Not only do I refuse to punish ADR by going on hiatus again, I tried to stop drawing two years ago when life overwhelmed me and dropping art made everything worse. Art and the comic have become the constants in my life while everything else changes; I cannot afford to forget that.

Truth be told, I should have changed the update schedule a long time ago; we found out about the promotion several months after I decided the comic would relaunch on Oct 21, and I stubbornly assumed I would still be able to juggle moving, schoolwork, thesis, and comic. At least it's a lesson learned.



SO, LONG STORY SHORT
- ADR is now updating biweekly (every two Saturdays)
- I'm busy with moving, schoolwork, finals



How are all of you wonderful people doing?

Sorry y'all, ADR 2-3 will be delayed until about Wednesday. 2-4 should be up next Saturday though!

Sorry y’all, the page will be delayed until tomorrow night. Life is really busy at the moment.

Check it out! https://picarto.tv/ManuelMaz

EDIT: Stream done! The page will probably go up tomorrow afternoon.

Sorry for the delay, took care of some family issues. Catch it here! https://picarto.tv/manuelmaz

EDIT: Stream is done for the night, page 20 will be up sometime tomorrow afternoon. I'm a bit tired from the last couple of days, so I'll finish the strip tomorrow. Night y'all.

Hey y’all, the trip ran a bit long so I had to delay the start of the stream for a bit while I get some stuff put away. I’ll post the link to Picarto when the stream goes live!

Hello! How are you guys doing?

I wanted to drop in and let you all know that the posting of page 18 will be delayed by about 6 hours tomorrow, going up at 6AM instead of 12AM, and page 19 will be delayed by 19 hours on Friday, going up at 7PM instead of 12AM. However, if you don't want to wait for the postings on here, you can hop on over to Tapastic and catch the pages there since they are scheduled to go up at 2AM both days!

The reason for the delay is a college field trip that spans all of Thursday and most of Friday - it's a Paleontology course, so we're going to go look for some fossils. I might share some of what I find from the trip if anything cool comes from it. :D

Once our class gets back on Friday, I plan to stream the rest of the work on page 20 over on Picarto. I'll post more info once I'm back from the trip.

Thanks for reading!

Along with rewriting the story for A Decaying Realm, I've also been remastering the first 19 pages!

They're still a work in progress; at the time of this journal, the first 8 are finished; 9,10, & 11 still need shading; 12, 16, 17, 18, & 19 still need color and shading; and 13, 14, & 15 (the last traditionally drawn ones) still need to be digitally inked (for lack of a better term), colored, and shaded.

I've been spending a ton of time doing art these last three weeks (instead of schoolwork oops); I hit 18 hours spent on art for each of the first two weeks and passed 20 this last week. And the only regret I have is not working ergonomically the first two weeks (I've fixed that now though!). The comic is on schedule (for the first time EVER), as long as nothing catastrophic happens in the next month.

I also now have a Tapastic, a Tumblr, and a Twitter! I'd recommend going to my Tapastic because I can schedule pages to post, whereas the others (to my knowledge, I'm not very savvy with these sites) I have to upload them manually (I know DA does scheduling, but I don't think I need Core at the moment; Tumblr might too, I haven't investigated it fully yet). The fact that I can schedule pages on Tapastic means that even though the pages may be delayed on the other four sites, they will still go up on time during the weekend of Oct 19-22; I have a research field trip where I likely will not have Internet access, so I'll be digitally dead for that weekend.


So, how is everyone's day going?

I finally got to work today laying out a new ADR page, the first one I've planned in nearly two years. I was becoming insanely frustrated with Krita (this is the first time that I will be making the page completely digitally) but it was a calming sort of fury; I felt at home again.

It's wonderfully relieving to finally feel like I'm back in the thick of making comics XD

New pages start on October 21st HOPEFULLY. There may be a delay, I have a research field trip that weekend and I don't know if I'll have Internet. Because even after all this time I just couldn't keep my damn update schedule lol. However, Saturdays should be the consistent update day from then on out!

After the new page on the 21st, I should be freed from this reclusive spell. I don't like being silent like this, but it's a bout of busy-ness that I think you guys will approve of.

Also, there's gonna be a bit of surprise here pretty soon. KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED FOR THIS SUNDAY! ;D

I forgot that the brush I like to use is in Krita and that I haven't made a similar one in FireAlpaca yet, so I ended up skipping straight to the (poor XD) ref sheets. The connection started to drop, and that sweet tea did nothing to wake me up, so I ended up calling it a night.

Thanks again for hanging out with me through my slow process  FurOnFire!

I'm running on little sleep and sweet tea. LETS DO THIS!

I'm going to have Sodom playing in the background, but I'm going to put the volume down real low for the stream so that you guys don't have to experience the...."uniqueness" of their sound unless you want to. Just figured I'd share the type of terrible music I listen to while doodling in real time. XD

I'll be working on ADR stuff, refs of characters from the two one-off comics (I'm terrible at writing brief things so the comics are actually a bit longer than the few pages I imagined I would be dedicating myself to; one I'm even considering to maintain as an infrequently updating series (but that's probably years out from now)).

Also, FREE DOODLES! I'm not the best at most creatures, but hit me with what you got and I'll learn on the spot! RULES: Done in-stream in order of when you join the stream. Can be a suggestion of my characters or your own (SFW only). At least one per person (i.e when someone new joins they get first dibs on a suggestion over people who have already received a sketch).

Let's have some fun! I'll be streaming until I can no longer stay awake (hopefully a handful of albums into the night).


https://picarto.tv/ManuelMaz

My family finally made it home early this morning, and I've just sorta been preparing for moving back into college. Jetlag is a brutal beast.

I have a bit of free time tomorrow, so I may stream some comic work. It will be stuff for A Decaying Realm as well as character sketches for the first one off comic, which has a script but hasn't been thumbnailed yet.

If I have time, I'll be streaming Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday just for the heck of it. I'm considering a Picarto subscription just as a hopeful step for maybe streaming with other artists, but that will likely be a ways off. I don't know when the 24 hour comic will be happening, so it is shelved once again (my friend and I have wanted to do one since mid-2015 but stuff keeps getting in the way).

I just wanted to give an conclusive update to my furious rambling over the last two journals. I hope you are all doing well, and have a wonderful night.

Just over 100 cancelled flights and 15,000 displaced fliers later I find my family lucky to have been among the first few flights cancelled on Madeira (I didn't want to say where but screw it it's on the news). People are sleeping on the ground in and around the airport because the island ran out of hotel rooms (the airport isn't open 24 hours a day, but they now have to leave it open because people have nowhere else to go). Airport employees apparently started to walk out when it became apparent that they couldn't get anybody on flights.

The weather is expected to get better by late Tuesday/early Wednesday, so hopefully we will be moved out quickly as the airlines cycle through the people in the order of time spent waiting. It's looking like (conspiracy theory warning lol) Iberia initially "experienced a data error" about our flight (they said it had arrived and left, which it didn't) to avoid paying money as designated by passenger's rights agreements, but now they may ultimately get their wish because such an outpouring of money (imagine somewhere around 300 to 400 euros per person) would devastate the airlines and badly damage Madeira's tourism economy. Officials are now arguing about if the airlines may be forgiven the payments just avoid the repercussions.

You all stay safe out there, and if any of you are stuck in this with my family I wish you the best of luck.

Because apparently 50-100 people missed the nonexistant plane that, according to your systems, left on time yet at the same time was cancelled due to weather.

Apologies to anybody looking forward to the 24hr comic, it will not be happening yet because my family and I am stuck somewhere where it will take around 23 to 26 hours (damn long layovers) to get home. And the airline has yet to contact us at the hotel they dumped us at two days ago. They didn't even take down information about us at the airport; no, the damn hotel did the work of documenting who was here.

And we can't do anything other than sit here because the airline might show up at any minute with a bus and say, "Get on!" while they have just kept on pushing the possible travel dates back more and more. My senior year of college starts in a little over a week, and I have no idea if we will be back in time for me to attend the first few days.

In summary, thanks Iberia. I've always dreamed of being stressed out in a foreign country with no end to the stress in sight. Also, stay away from Expedia, too.

Hey guys, I'll be on hiatus from tomorrow (June 20th) until August 6th. I'll be overseas visiting family and will likely not have consistent Internet access and no laptop or drawing tablet, so I won't be uploading anything for the next three weeks.

Once I return to the states, my friend and I are going to do a 24 hour comic. It will be on August 8 and 9 (a Tuesday and a Wednesday), and we will likely set up a discord server for anyone who wants to hop in and add stuff to the ridiculousness that will likely result. I figured out how to stream on Picarto, so we may stream the comic pages as we work on them.

I'm writing up the final chapters of ADR as I type this, and I will be bringing the draft with me on the flight so that I can continue to tweak the story. I also have the the first two one-off comics drafted and I will be working on creating thumbnail sketches for all three comics. I'm tempted to pack Bristol board so that I can even start drawing them during the flight!

I hope you are all doing good, and take good care of the country while I'm gone!

I think I have figured out how to stream to Picarto and will streaming from now until 11PM (roughly the next hour and a half) if anyone wants to swing by and offer up doodle ideas!

EDIT: I went ahead and called it a night. I had fun, but I think I need to plan out what I'll work on instead of coming up with it on the spot lol
Thanks for stopping by  FurOnFire!

END OF AN ERA
This has been, to me, the summer of tying up loose ends. Rather, this past year. And I'm actually feeling happy again.

1. I rediscovered my passion for art. I was lost for a bit about what I should focus my life on, and I've decided to go the cliche YOLO route and try to achieve my dreams with comics and music (within reason XD I'm not going to try being a freelance artist and musician tomorrow, I hope to work up to it). Even when I told myself to abandon it, creativity kept weaseling its way back into my life.

2. I shook lingering emotions that kept me hooked on two relationships that cannot happen. I will always love both of my good friends and I will always look back on the good times of the two relationships with fondness and a respect for the learning that we shared.

3. I even got a second chance to leave my job - I work each summer break between college school years at the same place; I worked there for a year during my senior year of high school, and left on unfinished terms last summer with no intention of returning (to my surprise, I came back). The place is still crazy and crumbling, but I feel like I have concluded my saga of effort in a nice, unexpected way. I hope the next people can maintain the place, but I am now no longer emotionally latched onto the survival of the place (I told my coworker/replacement that I had finally passed through the five stages of grief XD. I also realized how depressing the place was (kinda pushed me into the acceptance stage XD) when my new coworker joked about me claiming to be happy without a hint of a happiness, and I told him, "I don't get happy like I used to.") I will always cherish the good times I spent there, but I refuse to let that place break me.

4. I will be moving - at some point next year. Probably to the college town where I live 8.5 months out of the year. It is a surreal, frightening feeling that my childhood is officially ending - but I welcome it. Stagnation is sickening, and I have been feeling pretty sick taking the backseat to life. Time to fix that!

I'm jittery and frightened but life is exciting again!

The comic is coming along - I added a special surprise to the planned relaunch of A Decaying Realm. The new pages will start appearing weekly on Saturday, October 21, 2017, but keep your eyes peeled for October 1!


QUESTIONS FOR WATCHERS!
(Figured I'd bold the sections so that people can skip my jittery rambling XD)

1. How are all of you doing? I am terrible at communicating, but I am trying to improve and I do care about how you guys are doing! If you ever want to chat/vent/gush about a topic you love, note me for my discord!

2. What kind of art do y'all want to see? (aside from comics XD those take some time and are on the way) I've kinda devolved into doodling busts of my characters. I am interested in horror/gore stuff (even have a short-ish comic planned for it), but I've been a bit nervous about exploring that sort of stuff because I don't know how y'all will react.

3. How would y'all feel about me possibly streaming at some point? I won't be able to stream A Decaying Realm because I hope to have a buffer, but maybe the pages of the one-off comics and standalone images like my music-inspired art and fanart? I also kind of want to do speedpaints (but I don't digitally paint properly yet so speed-drawings XD) and upload them to YouTube

4. Music? Would you guys care if posted samples of the music I try to compose with: currently no metronome (I need to learn to play to one), barely a sense of scales, a budding learned relative pitch, and a guitar? I've been told its not that bad, but I think that's out of pity lol

5. 24 HOUR COMICS!! A friend of mine and I want to do a 24 hour comic, but I think it would be cool if y'all had a chance to hop in on the sleep-deprived madness that should ensue! If people are interested, I'll make a discord chat and we'll all descend into madness together! It'll be sometime in early August (he and I haven't nailed down a date yet) but even if you don't want to contribute, hop in and throw weird stuff at us to give us ideas for the comic!

*6. Anybody have hair care tips for handling long hair? I've apparently been doing EVERYTHING WRONG when it comes to my hair for the last several years (I'm actually amazed I still have hair lol) and was wondering if y'all had any words of wisdom that may allow me to keep growing my hair out XD

That's all I got for now. Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful day/night/existence!

*Apparently not all I got, I forgot to add this XD

Sorry about my last journal, I was kinda steamrolled by life for a little bit and I should not have posted it.

BUT I do have good news! I am going to finish the draft/rough outline/story plan of A Decaying Realm in the next couple days, I am in the middle of typing up everything I have written down and stashed in places to organize the story plans. And I am currently attacking it with the mental equivalent of chainsaw. Once I have it fully planned in writing, I will begin to build a buffer for the relaunch in October. Sorry that it has taken this long for me to get things straight, but I think the comic will be much more enjoyable this time around with an actual story plan in place!

Like I said before (I deleted the last journal if you missed it), I will be on a hiatus from the middle of July to early August during a trip in which I will have no Internet connectivity, so there will be no updates. Sorry!

I will be discontinuing the Music Review Mondays since they are rather unnecessary for me to be doing and I would rather draw scenes from songs I find awesome to share with you all. These music-inspired pieces may become a weekly thing starting June 26.

Also, ONE OFF COMICS - little short stories that have no long, drawn out plot and simply exist for the heck of it. I have a handful of ideas, but I have felt like I cannot devote time to trivial little comics like these with ADR still waiting for my attention. Hopefully I can begin to pump out a few of these once I have ADR fleshed out.


NOW if you made through all that, note me a character reference sheet OR species & gender suggestion and I'll doodle you a thing for practice! (personal characters only - I don't think I'll get anybody suggesting a character owned by someone/something else, but just in case)

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful day!