Journals160
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Hello people who might follow me. I've been sort of absent for a while now. Not only am I in my second year of my PhD, but I also started a tutoring and a teaching assistant job this semester. So, on to of everything else that has happened, briefly dating, and some keen fluctuations in mental health, I've had little time to create.
But what I have created has gone up on my instagram: www.instagram.com/ashenroc/
Say hi if you're on there.
I will post some of the things I have made. I have temporarily come to stay at my parents' house dueing lockdown, and so I only have pencils, pens and watercolours. But I am comfortable in traditional media and I am enjoying playing with watercolours.
Bringing Down the Sky: some were waiting for a summary you be posted. I will not be putting it up, and I believe I have a good reason. The story itself, the stuff behind the gyms and pokémon, works very well inside my worldbuilding project.
I have begun to turn BDtS into it's own story, sure it's missing my sweet baby Orm, but I am excited to be able to play with Cass' character again. I am unsure if this will be a written story or a graphic novel, but I am excited to get the story finished and see what happens.
I've been doing a lot of world building for the world of Ura, and it's pretty exciting to see the world transform and for history to take shape.
That's it from me, probably still low level activity from me, but one day I want to look at getting a tablet display, like a cintiq. I think that would bring my digital skill forward a lot because I find I have a strong disconnect between my hands and the screen.
Anyway, I hope you are all well.
Please stay safe, and check on your vulnerable. Be kind to one another and yourselves.
But what I have created has gone up on my instagram: www.instagram.com/ashenroc/
Say hi if you're on there.
I will post some of the things I have made. I have temporarily come to stay at my parents' house dueing lockdown, and so I only have pencils, pens and watercolours. But I am comfortable in traditional media and I am enjoying playing with watercolours.
Bringing Down the Sky: some were waiting for a summary you be posted. I will not be putting it up, and I believe I have a good reason. The story itself, the stuff behind the gyms and pokémon, works very well inside my worldbuilding project.
I have begun to turn BDtS into it's own story, sure it's missing my sweet baby Orm, but I am excited to be able to play with Cass' character again. I am unsure if this will be a written story or a graphic novel, but I am excited to get the story finished and see what happens.
I've been doing a lot of world building for the world of Ura, and it's pretty exciting to see the world transform and for history to take shape.
That's it from me, probably still low level activity from me, but one day I want to look at getting a tablet display, like a cintiq. I think that would bring my digital skill forward a lot because I find I have a strong disconnect between my hands and the screen.
Anyway, I hope you are all well.
Please stay safe, and check on your vulnerable. Be kind to one another and yourselves.
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Life is doing that thing where A LOT is happening ALL AT ONCE
Some is like, not the greatest (grandparents -> hospital, mum -> stressball, otherthings -> other stuff)
Other stuff is better. I'm looking to move closer to uni at the moment, so my silence is likely to continue for a while.
It's coming out in September and I would be an idiot friend if I didn't plug this person who I am so proud of (:
Other than that, I am still doing my PhD. Programming sucks! The work that people have put into FreeCAD is amazing but I just wish I was better at it :""""")
And I have a bit commission that I am working on, and need to work harder on to finish off.
That's all folks. Thank you to people who actively check out my stuff for you patience.
And thank you to those people who have commented recently and haven't heard back from me, I will stop being a bellend and respond to you asap!
Some is like, not the greatest (grandparents -> hospital, mum -> stressball, otherthings -> other stuff)
Other stuff is better. I'm looking to move closer to uni at the moment, so my silence is likely to continue for a while.
In the meantime: my friend is getting published!!!
This amazing woman is a beacon of perseverance and passion. She has written like it is her second job while working full time, and another job on Sundays. The fruit of her ambition is Relic, the first of a trilogy of books.It's coming out in September and I would be an idiot friend if I didn't plug this person who I am so proud of (:
Other than that, I am still doing my PhD. Programming sucks! The work that people have put into FreeCAD is amazing but I just wish I was better at it :""""")
And I have a bit commission that I am working on, and need to work harder on to finish off.
That's all folks. Thank you to people who actively check out my stuff for you patience.
And thank you to those people who have commented recently and haven't heard back from me, I will stop being a bellend and respond to you asap!
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2019-2 ending Bringing Down the Sky
5 min read
This has been a pretty hard decision, but one I am also feeling pretty confident in.
Bringing Down the Sky, the Nuzlocke comic I have been working on since 2014, is going to be discontinued.
How will I tidy it off? Will I leave it as is?
I will finish posting this chapter, and the few pages I have on the next.
Ideally, I will then write a quick summary of each chapter, along with some sketches, to close it off.
(don't want to read a bunch of words? Skip to the bottom to 'some last words')
Why stop?
A few reasons:
I'm not enjoying creating it as much anymore.
I can't do anything with it once it's created.
I have other projects that are starting to develop.
I have limited time and need to invest it more specifically in hobbies so that I can actually progress and develop.
And I've gotten out of it exactly what I set out to do.
It's starting to feel like an obligation, which adds stress when I do not meet it, and I'm not about adding more cortisol to my system. I have enough.
What did aim to accomplish?
I had a few goals. I wanted to do something over a long time to track my improvement. I've done this, and the improvement is marked and it is really nice to look back on earlier pages and see just how much better the later ones are. I like that I have gotten a little better at writing dialogue. I've improved in page layout. Comic pages don't terrify me anymore haha!
I have also improved in my ability to not fret over making everything on the page perfect. Fuck up an expression? That's fine! Not the end of the world.
One of my absolute biggest aims was to also end up with a story that has a beginning, middle and end, makes and then ties up all the loose ends, develops the characters and then sets them free. And I did actually achieve this. I have a OneNote document that has all of Bringing Down the Sky planned out, chapter by chapter. I have notes on plots, sub plots and the like. I have the conclusion, and repercussions and all of that written down. So, even without having drawn the comic pages, I have done the thing I set out to do. Which is a really big thing for me, I have never had a story properly planned out, in all my years of writing. The only thing I never made concrete was the relationships that the characters developed between each other outside of major allegiances, those developed a little more organically when I decided to write the characters with motives and personalities rather than a story pigeon hole that they needed to fill.
I have learned so, so much. And I am very grateful that I have met people within the Nuzlocke community as well. I have received excellent critique from other artists, guidance and support as well.
What am I moving on to? What will I do with the extra time?
Some of you may have noticed some more posts for Beyond the Sun, a personal project that I have been developing for a while. There are elements and characters that I have been developing since I was 16 years old. This project will be my creative world magnum opus, or so I hope. It will let me construct a large fantasy world that I can explore through art and writing. I am not limited to a single time period or culture. I can just keep building and writing as I go. Beyond the Sun itself is a particular story that takes place in this world, but I could write about anyone anywhere, and that really excites me. World building also gives me a lens though which to explore, examine and learn about our own world's geography, history, politics and culture. Which is sick, because I love learning about this stuff.
Other parts of the extra time will simply be spent pursuing non-essential parts of my career.
Some last words:
I would like to express my absolute gratitude to those of you who have read my comic, to those of you who commented, to those of you who made fan art.
I appreciate your time, your effort and your consideration.
I will probably still do occasional art of the characters, because they are pretty dear to me at this stage.
As I post up summaries, please still feel free to ask any questions! Feedback and critique are also appreciated, the good and the bad, all of it will be used to keep improving.
I hope that you continue to enjoy my art projects, regardless if you started following me for my soul silver nuzlocke comic, or not (:
Bringing Down the Sky, the Nuzlocke comic I have been working on since 2014, is going to be discontinued.
How will I tidy it off? Will I leave it as is?
I will finish posting this chapter, and the few pages I have on the next.
Ideally, I will then write a quick summary of each chapter, along with some sketches, to close it off.
(don't want to read a bunch of words? Skip to the bottom to 'some last words')
Why stop?
A few reasons:
I'm not enjoying creating it as much anymore.
I can't do anything with it once it's created.
I have other projects that are starting to develop.
I have limited time and need to invest it more specifically in hobbies so that I can actually progress and develop.
And I've gotten out of it exactly what I set out to do.
It's starting to feel like an obligation, which adds stress when I do not meet it, and I'm not about adding more cortisol to my system. I have enough.
What did aim to accomplish?
I had a few goals. I wanted to do something over a long time to track my improvement. I've done this, and the improvement is marked and it is really nice to look back on earlier pages and see just how much better the later ones are. I like that I have gotten a little better at writing dialogue. I've improved in page layout. Comic pages don't terrify me anymore haha!
I have also improved in my ability to not fret over making everything on the page perfect. Fuck up an expression? That's fine! Not the end of the world.
One of my absolute biggest aims was to also end up with a story that has a beginning, middle and end, makes and then ties up all the loose ends, develops the characters and then sets them free. And I did actually achieve this. I have a OneNote document that has all of Bringing Down the Sky planned out, chapter by chapter. I have notes on plots, sub plots and the like. I have the conclusion, and repercussions and all of that written down. So, even without having drawn the comic pages, I have done the thing I set out to do. Which is a really big thing for me, I have never had a story properly planned out, in all my years of writing. The only thing I never made concrete was the relationships that the characters developed between each other outside of major allegiances, those developed a little more organically when I decided to write the characters with motives and personalities rather than a story pigeon hole that they needed to fill.
I have learned so, so much. And I am very grateful that I have met people within the Nuzlocke community as well. I have received excellent critique from other artists, guidance and support as well.
What am I moving on to? What will I do with the extra time?
Some of you may have noticed some more posts for Beyond the Sun, a personal project that I have been developing for a while. There are elements and characters that I have been developing since I was 16 years old. This project will be my creative world magnum opus, or so I hope. It will let me construct a large fantasy world that I can explore through art and writing. I am not limited to a single time period or culture. I can just keep building and writing as I go. Beyond the Sun itself is a particular story that takes place in this world, but I could write about anyone anywhere, and that really excites me. World building also gives me a lens though which to explore, examine and learn about our own world's geography, history, politics and culture. Which is sick, because I love learning about this stuff.
Other parts of the extra time will simply be spent pursuing non-essential parts of my career.
Some last words:
I would like to express my absolute gratitude to those of you who have read my comic, to those of you who commented, to those of you who made fan art.
I appreciate your time, your effort and your consideration.
I will probably still do occasional art of the characters, because they are pretty dear to me at this stage.
As I post up summaries, please still feel free to ask any questions! Feedback and critique are also appreciated, the good and the bad, all of it will be used to keep improving.
I hope that you continue to enjoy my art projects, regardless if you started following me for my soul silver nuzlocke comic, or not (:
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2019-1 +bdts improvement meme update
2 min read
Look! It new year!
So, now that things have settled down a bit, I may open some commissions, wasn't sure if I would be able to. But there will only be certain types available, but feel free to shoot me a note if you have something specific in mind. More on that later.
Bringing Down the Sky
Chapter 12 is started!
And I updated the improvement tracker (:
This was nice to go back through and assemble. Even on my 'bad days' where I just pump out the page as fast as I can because I hate it, it's not as bad as the first few chapters.
:') And the writing has improved as well. And the backgrounds, when I do them. The later creepy vision dreams are also better than the first (:
Hurray improvment!
So, now that things have settled down a bit, I may open some commissions, wasn't sure if I would be able to. But there will only be certain types available, but feel free to shoot me a note if you have something specific in mind. More on that later.
Bringing Down the Sky
Chapter 12 is started!
And I updated the improvement tracker (:
This was nice to go back through and assemble. Even on my 'bad days' where I just pump out the page as fast as I can because I hate it, it's not as bad as the first few chapters.
:') And the writing has improved as well. And the backgrounds, when I do them. The later creepy vision dreams are also better than the first (:
Hurray improvment!
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2018-9
2 min read
I think I have to turn my art world a little on its head and re-evaluate my priorities. Hahaha oh no!
I am going to keep plugging away at Bringing Down The Sky, somewhere in the background I will keep writing notes on Beyond the Sun. I've worked out a way to adapt Cass (her character rather than her appearance) into it, which is exciting. And I am getting more ideas of the world, and more courage to not fixate on making the whole thing make sense.
I have one private commission left. It may perhaps be my last. This is a bit sad, I've had a lot of fun, and learned so much, and grown even more as I have worked with other people to bring out their ideas.
I am trying to get into a PhD. If I can, much of my faffing about time in art and games will be redirected to rockets, spacecraft, atmospheres and modelling. It feels a little like losing my childhood that I have clung to. My escapism. A community into which I delved and dug and made a little place.
A reframe of this is so:
Space technology, space ships, the future of humanity, the worlds beyond our own have been in my dreams since I could remember. And this is chasing my deepest dreams.
But it is very scary. I feel like I am sleep walking that this is not real, and I will wake up. Or that it is a nightmare and the dark turn is just around the corner. Or that people will notice that I really don't know what I am doing. It is very scary to chase a dream.
Oh well.
You cannot be the 1% who succeed if you don't try.
I am going to keep plugging away at Bringing Down The Sky, somewhere in the background I will keep writing notes on Beyond the Sun. I've worked out a way to adapt Cass (her character rather than her appearance) into it, which is exciting. And I am getting more ideas of the world, and more courage to not fixate on making the whole thing make sense.
I have one private commission left. It may perhaps be my last. This is a bit sad, I've had a lot of fun, and learned so much, and grown even more as I have worked with other people to bring out their ideas.
I am trying to get into a PhD. If I can, much of my faffing about time in art and games will be redirected to rockets, spacecraft, atmospheres and modelling. It feels a little like losing my childhood that I have clung to. My escapism. A community into which I delved and dug and made a little place.
A reframe of this is so:
Space technology, space ships, the future of humanity, the worlds beyond our own have been in my dreams since I could remember. And this is chasing my deepest dreams.
But it is very scary. I feel like I am sleep walking that this is not real, and I will wake up. Or that it is a nightmare and the dark turn is just around the corner. Or that people will notice that I really don't know what I am doing. It is very scary to chase a dream.
Oh well.
You cannot be the 1% who succeed if you don't try.
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