I've been pretty unwell the last few months with various chain-linking ailments, as well as working my arse off as my boss has decided that being two people short of fully staffed is "fine".

That and I've not really been into doing art of late. Or music. Or much of anything creative.

Personally, other than the comic, I think I'm done - at least for now - in regards to anything. Can't think of any song to write and playing the guitar, thanks to the shit band I'm in, now feels like a chore rather than something I want to do - and drawing any pictures that aren't gifts or comic related just feels like a waste of time. And the comic's on borrowed time if I can't get my shit straight...there's just so much I have to do, and so little fucking time to do it in.

But hey, I'm still alive...sort of. So there's that.

-Roo

I know right, first journal in months and it's a fucking meme, but hey blame Keenfox for me being bored and his posting it on his page and seeing it. Yup. Totally his fault.

• Basic
Name: Roofus
Nickname: Roofus
Location: The arse-end of Cheshire
Height: 5ft 9
Zodiac sign: Libra
Any pets: hamster - Hugo
Worst habit: Interrupting people
Fun fact: Cheese is not a food group

• Identity, Sexuality & Personality
Gender identity: Man
Romantic preference: Either
"Kinsey Scale" score: 3
Relationship status: Taken
Myers/Briggs type: ENFP
Hogwarts house: I don't have hogwarts in my house, it's been fumigated

• Routine
"Early Bird" or "Night Owl": Night owl.
First thought in the morning: I should go to bed.
Last thought before falling asleep at night: Oh fuck I fell asleep at work

• School/Work
Do you work or are you a student: Work
What do you do good well: Procrastinate
Where do you see yourself in 5 years: I don't think that far ahead

• Habits (Do you…?)
Drink: Daily
Smoke: 10 a day
Do Drugs: All the drugs
Exercise: Only to go get drugs and beer
Have a go-to comfort food: Cheese
Have a nervous habit: Don't really have one...tap my fingers I guess?

• What is your favourite…?
Physical quality (in yourself): The manliest of beards
In Others: Eyes
Mental/emotional quality (in yourself): Empathy
Food: Don't really have one...err...Pizza, yeah why not. Fuck it :P
Drink: Beer, then water...or a White Russian! Fuck yeah - that. White Russian.
Animal: Strangely enough for a furry - don't really have a "favourite" animal.
Artist/Band/Group: Guided By Voices first - all other bands second.
TV Show: Anything with a decent plot

Read my comic bitches! http://woodsforthetrees.thecomicseries.com/

So just an update on stuff.

As you know (or may not) I'm currently moving the comic from it's current Comic Genesis location to a new home at Comic Fury. There are many reasons for this, chief amongst which being the increased options available at Comic Fury in regards to domain names and HTML and the like.

The current Comic Gen site is not going anywhere, nor will it change - I'll use it more as a mirror site after getting the CF one properly set up, so for the time being at least use the CG site as the main one.


COMMISSIONS http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5001371/

I've sketched out mostly all of them so far (still have an extra slot if anyone wants one - tell yer friends) with only the detail on RJ's still needing work (it's yer damned dreads man - theys hard to get lookin right)

I'll be starting inking and colouring them over the weekend, with them set to be done by next weekend. Hopefully no-one is upset by the length of time taken, as that was one of the primary reasons for me doing the test run.

So...yeah....back to uploading nearly 500 strips manually...urg...

Ok, so I've decided as the concept of actually charging money for my art still scares me a little bit I'm going to try something - doing them for free...

Now here's my rationale - 1, it's practice for me, 2, it's networking and getting my art seen by more folk and 4, it's kinda fun drawing other people's characters.

Here are the rules/facts to know for applying - and by applying I'm assuming you'll have read below.

1 - The art can be anything from black and white lineart to full colour with background, although bare in mind that the less you want the faster you'll get it.

2 - I don't draw yiff/fetish art and am not good at it so I wouldn't bother asking for it.

3 - You can choose multiple characters, but again, the more you add the longer it will take - and I'll set a maximum of 3-4 characters.

4 - Please be patient, there's no specified "order" to how I'm doing them, I'll do the one that feels right to do at the time

5 - Please don't be offended if I turn down your request :)

If that's all ok for you, submit applications via the notes function here, DM on Twitter if you have that, or just ask in the comments.

Current list:

1 -  Conn1496 (done) http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11709446/

2 -  Mikune (done) http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11608908/

3 -  Artythewulf (done) http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11710879/

4 -  RJ-Pilot (done) http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11598336/

5 -  znickel

6 -  xolani

7 -  ambery (done) http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11776663/

8 -  dragnite

I'm bored, stuck on the comic, and am waiting for a game to download from t'internet, so with that in mind, here's a list of 10 things I want to do before I die - in no specific order.

1 - Ride a motorbike through Europe/America
2 - Fly in a helicopter
3 - Experience weightlessness
4 - Sail as part of a crew of an old-style sailboat
5 - Visit every continent except Antarctica - fuck the cold
6 - See Rammstein in concert
7 - Witness a supernova (come on Betelgeuse!)
8 - Have something in print
9 - Photobomb a BBC journalist mid-report
10 - Play my own songs in a band

There. Now you know how bored I am.

I’ve debated whether I needed to write something like this for a while, but given the number of people asking me (on my ask.fm) if I ever plan on fursuiting, what I think of it, or general type things like that, I’ve decided to just write one long boring answer as opposed to three or four little dull answers.

In short, no, I do not like fursuiting.

This is not to say this is an attack on those that do, by all means do what you want to do; I don't think any more or less about someone because they fursuit any more than I'd look down on someone for eating Marmite sandwiches. Indeed, many people I know and respect are fursuiters themselves (which I know sounds a bit like "I'm not racist, I have a black friend" but stick with me) but this is just my personal feelings towards it. I don’t like pretending. I never have. There’s a picture of me, age 4, sulking like all hell because someone’s dressed me up as Postman Pat for a play I didn't want to do. Acting, pretending to be someone else, it’s always just made me itchy – like I’m lying or being deceitful. Now, while I may have an over-active imagination, I don't spend any much time pretending I'm somebody else. It's why my fursona is just me as a wolfdog, and it’s also incidentally why I dislike books written in the first person, and monologues in films.

So that – and mild claustrophobia that’d most likely be exacerbated by wearing a large polystyrene head - is why I don’t like the idea of me personally fursuiting, but surely I don’t mind being around them, right?

Actually, no – I don’t, and for similar reasons to the reason I don’t want to do it myself. Firstly, 9/10 I don’t know who the person on the inside is. I’m a people person, I love chatting to people about everything and nothing, and someone who can’t/won’t talk back becomes nothing but a colourful annoyance to me very quickly. And the second is a personal quibble, which is that in the very few occasions I've been around fursuiters, there’s always been this kind of “everyone drop what you’re doing, the fursuiter part has started” element to proceedings that I kind of resent not being able to be the cause of. Also the same reason I envy strippers and astronauts. They turn heads I myself am incapable (and rather unwilling to pay thousands of pounds I could otherwise spend on a beer, drugs, and a car) of turning.

So there you go. A little social quirk- phobia-jealousy soufflé of reasons why I don’t like fursuiting.

Please stop asking me about it.

So it's the end of another glorious storyline and time again for my somewhat self-indulgent analysis of it.

As per usual with me, the ending shown was not the original ending written when I started the story - this is a very common thing with me, in that I do edit the scripts while I produce them. Indeed, the last three strips were rewritten pretty much a day before I started them. In the original ending, instead of the strip focussing on Jess and Reuben after Pytor leaves the story was originally going to cut to Isabel over-reacting to being shot in the tail and believing she was dying a "hero's death" until Reuben arrives and mocks her for being so dramatic, then compares her to Captain Ahab before they chastise her for being reckless.

This I changed for a number of reasons, chief amongst which being that it's kind of against Reuben's nature to gloat over someone getting hurt, even if that animal is Isabel. Also, I feel that Isabel is not the sort of animal to let any wound be the end of her – she's more like the Black Night from Monty Python's Holy Grail, constantly coming back for more despite bits being hacked off.

Also the whole side of Isabel's story is already obviously an Ahab parallel so actually referencing it would be a redundant piece of lamp-lighting so I changed it to a much more "Woods for the Trees" ending where Isabel somehow manages to avoid learning any lessons at all despite the fact that her arse will now make metal detectors beep whenever she's nearby.

So away from the storyline, this was also an exercise in how colour affects the cartoon. And all reports are good. I think I've developed a "style" now that's pretty easy to do fast (I can colour the strips in about an hour if I concentrate and don't fuck about) and personally I like the style of the later ones.

So there you go, a storyline I'm pretty bloody happy with all things told as it leaves possibilities and advances some of the characters a bit. For example, we now have the possibility of Pytor being in future strips, and we also learned about Bosco's sexuality and Jess's genuine respect for Isabel's abilities as a wild animal.

We've also learned that I write too much waffle on journals….


Like Woods for the Trees? Check the latest cartoon here - www.woodsforthetrees.com - Do it or I kill a puppy with a hammer.

So....in case anyone who saw it hasn't noticed yet, I deleted the previous journal as it was whiney, emo as shit, and totally out of order.

I have no plans on stopping uploading here, or at anywhere else - and I'm probably also going to start uploading the comic at my Weasyl account too.

Why? Well for one it gives people another place to comment on the strip (when they do that is :P) and two it's more publicity!

I might even join Inkbunny and the-other-one (SoFurry I think it's called?) but maybe not - I've heard it's mainly porn....but then I've heard that about here so whatevs.

Gonna open for commissions next week too so watch this space and sorry for the emo :D

Developments have developed, leading to me deciding that what I'm about to say is a good idea (Jaysis I hope it is) - I'm going to (In the coming weeks) open limited slots for commissions....maybe like 5-10 or something...I'm new to this so I don't really know how it works.

Also, dunno how to accept payment from people, or even how much to charge for what. So the following would be my price list based on what I've seen others doing...then deducting some money from it because those artists are talented:

Inked character with no background - £2.50 ($3.81)
Colour character (includes shading and gradient background if wanted) - £5.00 ($7.62) (additional characters +£1 ($1.52) each)
Full colour pic, with full colour background - £10 ($15.25) (additional characters +£1 ($1.52) each)

Also, just a quick point - EVERYTHING I draw is based on the rule of "Would that appear on Futurama?" - ie, I don't draw anything of a sexual nature.


So....right...there we go. I have no idea if that's too expensive, too cheap, or Goldilocks porridge territory and NO we're not open just yet.

So yeah, I'll be opening the slots themselves up soon - maybe next week.

Any thoughts?

I remember watching Star Trek: The Next Generation as a kid and marvelling at the level of their technology. Touch screens, voice commands, big high resolution televisions, mobile communicators - that sort of shit.

Well, as we all know most of that has become true. We have phones, big tellies, and our devices can even now understand what we're saying so long as we say it in a default mid-western US accent.

Problem is, I've never been cutting edge. Every console I've bought has been bought cheaper one or two years after it's initial release. Every PC I've owned was already out of date by the time I installed everything, and practically EVERY piece of clothing I have is second hand....I'm not a tramp or anything, nor am I particularly poor - I just don't spend money on myself.

What does this have to do with Star Trek, I don't see anyone spraypainting on the side of a 747. Well imaginary talking potato, I HAVE BECOME STAR TREK, OWNER OF SHINY THINGS!

I've just bought a brand new computer with the savings I saved working that piece of shit job I had (y'know the one I'd come on here crying about?) and still got over half of the money left over. My new widescreen LCD monitor arrived this morning meaning that I now get to have fun lugging my old CRT down to the dump and installing my new motherboard and processor (AMD Bulldozer FX-4100 Quad Core 3.6GHz on a Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P DVI...no, I don't know what most of those words mean either but they came highly recommended by my brother) and also some RAMs. I think I've got 16 RAMs...almost enough for a tournament (ahh, sheep humour.)

Haven't installed them yet, still waiting for my brother to bring round his Windows 7 disc, but one thing I have noticed is the colours on my LCD are changing depending on how I move my head, how slouched I am, that sort of shit....I realise this is a "thing" - it was a thing on my dad's old laptop's screen too but I honestly thought they'd have fixed the annoying colour phasing thing in the 16 years that have elapsed since I last completed DOOM 2 on that 12gb machine.

It's not a problem right now, but could be when colouring my comic....I know most people by now have stopped reading, so asking this is kind of stupid - but is there any way of stopping the colour warping or am I stuck with it?

Heelo there boys and girls, Roofus here of course. Now, you may have noticed one of two things on your daily travels to Woods for the Trees because you're obviously such an avid reader that you can't have missed them. The first is that we've started a new story (with bears!) and the second is that I did not update last Friday.

"So what?" I hear literally no-body ask before the elaborating further, "You miss update days all the time and we don't care. In fact, we love you more for it because absence makes the heart grow stronger and your lacklustre attempts at regular scheduling gives us the horn."

Well, you randy bastards, in most of those times it's because the strip isn't ready for any reason from not having enough time to complete it, to simply forgetting that I'm a cartoonist and going down the pub or playing Planetside 2....the latter happening with startling regularity that is evident from the simple fact that my comic's updated twice this year so far whereas in the same time-frame I've gotten my New Conglomerate engineer to level 21.

But NO! This time it as different! This time I HAD a comic ready to go, all inked and shit.....but my scanner (which will from herein be refereed to as "Fuck-ass") decided that it had decided that the two short months spent with me was more than enough and committed hari-kari.

Literally. Puff of blue smoke and a short. Now usually this would've made me take to Twitter in a second to proclaim the manufacturer a dick, but Fuck-ass was still well within it's warranty so I was sent a brand new scanner. Same model. Same exact everything.

Now dear reader, is when shit gets weird. I know about USB, I know about models being locked to the installation software they came with....so I decided that rather than confuse my computer (Shitboxington III) any more than it normally is just by being awake that I'd install the original software that came with Fuck-ass. I then repeated the installation but for some reason the driver wouldn't work. Tried Fuck-ass's disc....nothing but a standard "Failure to launch" cut and pasted box....I was disheartened, I was confused....I was desperate.

I RTFM.

Turned out that Fuck-ass was never supposed to even work with Windows 7. The model is XP/Vista only....so I installed the Vista driver and it works fine....I can't but wonder at why that worked....or why Fuck-ass worked on the computer at all....did Windows 7 kill Fuck-ass?

SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!!

http://woodsforthetrees.comicgenesis.com/

Hey, I'm alive and loving it - working on art, new WFTT soon promise. Now, here's a quiz I stole from a much more popular fur's journal while they weren't looking.


HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU FIRST.....

Lost your virginity? 19 (thank CHRIST I can't remember any of it)
Lost someone close to you? 9 (My dad, in the supermarket....found him again unfortunately)
Consumed alcohol? 14 (I'm northern)
Got Drunk? 16 (again, I'm northern)
Received a kiss? 17 (I'm also ugly. Ugly and northern.)
Went to the hospital? 0 (I was inside my mother, but that counts)
Had a broken heart? 25 (Cancellation of Firefly)
Lost a pet? 24 (my first hamster, Enrique....anyone that laughs at his name will be added to ze list)
Got arrested? Never (I'm that dull)
Broke a bone? 11 (school playing fields are where urban Darwinism is at it's finest)
Got a job? 23 (I know, I'm a bum)
Got a boyfriend or girlfriend? Never (Seriously, I'm 27 and what is this shit?)
Went to a concert? 16 (back in 2001, Muse supported by Hundred Reasons....that's right, touch me)
Met someone famous? 20 (Guy from Reuben....hey, they're famous to me)
Got in a car wreck? Never (why would I get inside a wrecked car? That's a breeding ground for tetanus!)
Dyed your hair? 18 (neon green....I looked like Keith Harris and Orville's love-child)
Flew on an aeroplane? Never (I'm not a fucking bird)
Went to another state? Never (I'm not Murrican)
Went across the country? 2 (holiday to Kent...yes, that Kent. Hey, it was nice in the 80s apparently!)
Went to another country? 4 (France wid me parents. I rocked Perpignon with my rendition of the Dangermouse theme)
Got a tattoo? 20 (Face to Face logo)
Had a piercing? 20 (took it out about a week later....it hurt like shitting hell)
Smoked pot? 16 (Once again, I'm northern.
Smoked a cigarette? 13 (see above)
Went to Disney Land or World? 14 (school trip. It was shit and we weren't allowed to buy fireworks)
Had A Long term relationship? Never (sniff)
Dated somebody of another race? Never (Man, I can't even get a date from my fellow pasty white fuckers, what makes you think i can score with someone interesting?)
Passed out from drinking? 16
Became a furry? 18 (or at least that's when I realised I was)
Went to your first non business / work related convention? 20 (Download....what, festivals count!)

Christmas is coming, we've started the Christmas story - same deal as last year with normal updates but double-comics on Eve and Day.

That is all. Go back to whatever it is you do when you're not reading my comic.

Here ye, here ye!

I have proclaimed, that upon this day I have opened the Woods for the Trees shop!


There's only a few designs there at the moment - and I'm still trying to figure out how to work it properly. So, have a look - buy if you want, criticise if necessary....in fact, please criticise - I have NO idea what I'm doing when it comes to making money.

http://woodsforthetrees.spreadshirt.co.uk/

Many of the adoring fans that I don't have ask me "Roofus, you've been such an inspiration to millions of non-existant people but tell us; what inspires you?"

It's a good question really. Other than, you know, my beautiful reflection and amazing humble nature, there are a few things that do inspire me, mainly webcomics, and I thought I'd let you all know that one of my faves has started back up again and that you should all definatley go check it out because it's awesome and I say so and I'll kill a kitten with a hammer if you don't.

Moondog http://moondog.tripshotpress.com/

In all seriousness, it's a great strip. It's fairly adult humour, great pacing, and a very good art style. A lot of the tone of this strip is stuff that I've sought to incorporate into my own comic.

There, fanwank over. Go check it out.

So....probably noticed I'm having a wee bit of trouble getting back into the "drawing regularly" thing. It's not that I don't want to draw, nor is it that I don't enjoy it....it's just getting started doing it seems to take ages now. That initial "let's go" seems to be the hardest thing to do especially when there's more than enough TV/Internet to watch solidly from here to eternity.

I decided last night to try doing my strips in colour. I know this is something I've been toying with for a while and the more I think about it the more I think the comic looks about 1000 times better coloured in than not-coloured in - I think most people will agree with that.

Also I've more-or-less finished writing the brief for what I want from the website I'm going to pay someone to make (again, if anyone wants to do this gimme a shout - I'll pay, I'm not expecting charity on this) and I've nearly done the first four t-shirt designs for the shop....which (fucken hopefully) will be up before X-mas....

...anyway, not really much point to this journal - just bored, needing a poo, and waiting for the dole office to ring me.


OH! And also, for those who don't know - Woods for the Trees had a Halloween strip this year...but I labelled it wrong and it didn't update on the site until yesterday. It's full colour, so you can either go look at it on the site, or wait a week for it to appear hither :D http://woodsforthetrees.comicgenesis.com/

Woods for the Trees is back, this time with added rustyness. So let me just wade through the webcomic groupies and screaming fans to get to my keyboard....

Ok, so we're back. Going for a three-a-week rotation again until Xmas, but with mainly mini-stories and solo strips and the like. Gonna add in some character development as well, but not too much - that comes after new year....and wow, it's gonna get emotional.

I'm also keeping true to my word and uploading the strips on both FA and DA in order to get more feedback (the shoutbox is a ghost town) so I can find out what you three fans actually think about it. I'll be uploading them here a week after they're uploaded on the main site because....well, because. That's why.

What else? Well, I'm still working on some shirt ideas for the hopefully-released-before-christmas-in-order-to-cash-in shop I'm planning. I'm not much of a graphic artist though so I'd appreciate ideas for that....

Also, I'm going to attempt to wrangle up some webcomicing acquaintances to do a few collabs/strip swaps in order to show them how not to draw their lead characters - so if you draw a webcomic then expect a pm at some point in the future.

Also also, I've finally decided that my website layout is too bloody awesome to remain. Figure I'll throw a bone to some aspiring web-designer and let them do it, which will cost monies so there you have it.

The comic they couldn't kill has returned, ready to infect the world again like a low lying staph infection.

Well it's the start of another new month, so it's time for another round of "excuses as to why Woods for the Trees hasn't updated yet". I know you're secretly as excited as me.

So what's new? Well, I have a shiny (second-hand) scanner that works a treat. I've also been working on some new scripts, mainly character stuff rather than zaney-antics. One problem I have encountered is that none of my current stories are short enough to complete before the myriad of winter festivities commence. This is a problem because I have a Christmas strip ready already and I don't want to break a narrative for it (I hate it when comics do that shyte). This wouldn't really be a problem but I really am having trouble getting back into drawing it on a semi-daily basis and I feel that a long story I can invest myself in would be the best remedy for that - for lack of a better word - apathy.

So I have two choices;

1 - just run a large story anyway and interrupt it with the Christmas strip or -
2 - procrastinate with mini-stories and one-off strips until Christmas and start 2013 (if we're still alive) fresh.

What y'lot think?

Ok, so Operation Recover Old WFTT Scripts From Destroyed Hard-Drive So I Can Cartoon Again Without Having To Rewrite Everything* is slowly creeping into it's 72nd hour here at Woods for the Trees HQ and I'm frankly fucking bored.

I'm sick of seeing progress bars not perceptively move, I'm sick of ETAs numbering in the 30+ mark and of just my computer's incessant high-pitched whistle (hair in the fan or some shit, I dunno) so I want to draw. I wanna draw real bad.

Now, I could draw some WFTT I guess, but without those scripts I'd just be pulling lines out of my arse, and as you can see from the last few journals my life hasn't exactly been a place of mirth generation for much of the past year....so I'm sorta stuck.

I've got a few script ideas, but they're infants I just wanna draw.

SO any ideas? Single pictures, can be my characters but doesn't have to be. Just something easy....I dunno.



*the Americans I usually get to give operations cool names were on holiday.

That's right boys and girl, we are back on semi-full burners!

Now I want to get back to 3-a-week as fast as possible - with the strips appearing both here on FA and also on DA a week later....but there are some things in the way of this happening that I will explain in length to you now.

1 - A lot of the old stuff (scenery continuity references, scripts, ideas, one-off-jokes, ect) I need for the comic are on a hard drive that has performed hardware seppuku, so that'll need to be run through the data retrieval program I've got. It's called Easus, which sounds slightly religious....like the messiah of hard-drives is going to bless my poor leper of a data-storage device....

2 - My scanner does not like Windows 7. This is something I found out only on Monday. My scanner was previously owned by Methuselah so that gives you an indication of it's age. I'm using Photoshops onboard scanner doohicky, but the settings it gives as defaults are for some hypothetical "super" image that quite simply a few ink squiggles on A3 don't need. So need to fix that.

4 - I'm still working on shirt ideas. Right now I've got three main ones and two alternates, which I think is a decent number to start with

5 - I missed the number 3

6 - I may get another job sooner rather than later....no promises, but if that happens we'll have to see what goes down. So long as it isn't a night job I can't see it conflicting with the comic - hell, I had a job fixing computers for 18 months and still kept up with the strip in that time. The only thing about the last job was the mindnumbing, back-breaking, soul-sucking hell of it that left me incapable of enjoying anything other than videos of people playing Minecraft (love you Vintagebeef!)

Do say: "Wow, Woods for the Trees is back!"
Don't say: "Took him bloody long enough!"

Hello fellows, how long has it been? I'm not even sure myself, but I'm sure I was whinging about my job or something. Well, no fear for that today, because as of last Tuesday I don't have one again.

So I now have time once again to start doing what I really love, cartooning, only this time I'm gonna do it right.

Over the next few weeks, all things going well, you should start seeing changes over at Woods for the Trees central. Number One change will be the comic actually updating, which I suppose is the very least a comic can do to be considered "alive". Number Two change will be the shop.

That's right, I'm embracing capitalism with a big sloppy hug and asking it if it'll be kind enough to give me a few quid every now and then. Nothing fancy, just doodlin' some shirt designs featuring characters - ideas for this will be welcome, I'm more of a wordy-joke guy than a funny-in-a-single-picture dude. I'm also not lazy enough to just take panels from the comic, blow them up, and charge dollarpounds for them. That's right, dollarpounds.

The other change, though I'm still not sure about this one, has nothing to do with the comic....but I've been toying with the idea of jumping on the already-overcrowded Let's Play bandwagon and stinking up the place a bit. I've recorded some vids of me playing a couple of games (Kerbal Space Program mainly) and chatting shit.

Ideas, thoughts?

Need Input.

So my job sucks, it's systematically managed to make me hate every little thing I previously enjoyed doing.

Cartooning, playing music, writing stories, playing video games, watching TV....all that good stuff? Naw, don't have enough time now.

I get 5 hours a day when I'm not working or sleeping, My body aches from standing up hauling boxes like some fucking Chinese political prisoner, my mind hurts from the amount of inanity that I deal with, and my lungs ache from the amount of cigarettes and marijuana required to not make me kill myself over the fact I work a night job for just 50p more than minimum wage.

I get paid less than people working in Starbucks and I've even started to envy people who work behind the bar at the pub I got to.

There was a guy working there who apparently is unreliable, talks back to customers, and the landlady is getting sick of him. GIVE IT TO ME! I would LOVE to work in that pub!

Maybe then I can sleep at night and actually do something worthwhile with my fucking life.

No, I've not been playing Skyrim or anything like that (if it doesn't have guns, I'm not interested) but I have returned somewhat.

So here I am, just another bum trying to make ends meet. Granted, I'm doing that while still living with my parents at the age of 26 years old...or am I 27 now? I can't remember.

WOODS FOR THE TREES!

Ok, so the news on the WFTT front is that I'm still trying to figure out a way of drawing it reliably without feeling like it's a chore. See, when I was unemployed I used the 3-a-week format as a surrogate job....but now I work nights for 8.5 hours from 10pm to 6.30am. Sort of sucks. Also it means that unless I want to stay awake after getting in and going to sleep at about 1pm that I end up spending every waking hour "waiting to go to work" - which is not a good environment for the construction of humour.

So as a result I end up spending most of my waking hours pissed off at the fact I have to even exist, but struggling through it reguardless. Must be a British thing. I've written a few new comics, and even started drawing again....but not enough to reliably update a comic even once-a-week. Now, this might be a problem for comics where I get the impression the artist does nothing else other than survive on donations (ie, JACK, SSDD) but I've never made penny-one on Woods for the Trees. Granted that's because I've never sold anything, but I digress as that is the exact reason I don't feel like I'm letting people down by not posting every week.

This is a free comic in every sense of the word - I'll never take your money or hold the comic hostage until you pay me £n - and I'll never ask anything of you in return. All I ask is this - don't ride me.

Woods for the Trees will only die when I do - of that you have my word. So take heed you three brave readers, I have heard your cries of anguish, and I am heartened by them....indeed I eat them....your words. They taste of peanuts!


OTHER ART!

Other art can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. If you want to see a stand-alone picture then I suggest following a real artist.


MUSIC!

Don't lie, you've never heard my music - but I thank you for placating me in my fantasy world where I'm "the next Billy Bragg and Bob Dylan rolled into one". Truth be told, I've not picked up my guitar to "write" a song in months. Just don't feel musical anymore. Maybe those 500+ songs I wrote were all I had and I spent them like a 16-year old girl who found £50 and spent it on shoes or iPods or whatever the kids are into now....


CONCLUSION!

I just think that I'm not a very good "fur"....I have no desire to go to a furmeet, and my first instinct when seeing a fursuit is to laugh....I pity those who are so involved in this fandom that it's their whole life, I feel sorry for those who go out of their way to pander to the "furry masses", and the more I feel like that the more I realise that they're the ones who should feel sorry for me.

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite journal on the Citadel.

So as some of the keener eyed amonst you will have noticed, Woods for the Trees actually updated yesterday for the first time since the beginning of the year. Huzzah, happy days! All that jazzy-jeff-type-stuffs!

But I've got my serious face on. You can't see it of course, but it's there. It's there because the new twinge in my back and the shooting pains up my aching hands cause it so. See my new job is shit. Total shit. But it's the kind of total shit that still manages to completely wipe you out after 8 hours despite the fact it pays minimum wage.

With that in mind, I've completely given up on "drawing" it during the week. By this I mean that I'm not going to do any sketching in the time off between shifts as what I'll sketch will most likely be shit of the highest magnitudinal plain (is that a thing?)

I'm concentrating on the sketching during my weekend, especially as my body is now atuned to working nights so I'm awake until about 6am in the morning even on my days off - leaving lots of lovely time to sketch out stuff. Inking and colouring are things I can dip in and out of once the sketching is done, but I've tried doing sketching over multiple days before - the characters/panels always come out looking different somehow....though I'm not sure if it's just my drug-riddled brain making me see things.

So there we go. Woods for the Trees. In colour and on Wednesdays of all places.

Right, off for a wee.

So as the four of my fans may have noticed, Woods for the Trees hasn't updated yet. Now, I could sit here and moan about "how hard it is" and all that stuff, but this isn't the place for it (see my livejournal if you want all that anxty shit) this is a place for FUN!

After all, this is FA right? Somewhere right this second - as you read this - someone is looking at this site and orgasming.

Think about that.

Anyway, back to the comic news. Now I work nights (10pm to 6.30am) and as such am having difficulty adjusting to my new routine. I sleep the moment I get back from work, which means I have to get everything I want to get done in a day done before I go to work....I'm not used to that. I'm used to the time before work being spent being the laziest motherfudger around.

So here's the status update and what's going to happen over the next few weeks to the characters of Duxbury Valley. I've got the first of the new strips roughly sketched out, but not inked. Now inking takes a while and colouring takes even more whiles. So I'm aiming for a Wednesday update.

Also, considering I'm only initially going to be able to update once a week it seems prudent to plonk that update on a Wednesday as it's sort of a "midweek" thing and also allows time either side for "fucking about".

So yeah, my life sucks. How about you?