State of the Badger
Hopefully I will be doing these blogs semi-frequently, at least yearly but probably quarterly? This first one is going to be a little big, and moving forward they’ll just be if there’s updates on any projects, interests, what I’ve been consuming, etc.
Starting with personal stuff, I’m coming out of a cold (thankfully not the plague), and have been Oh So Sick and Miserable. I’m a terrible whiny baby when I’m sick and desire comfort and everyone's attention even though I'm wheezing and barely conscious. I’m feeling better though! It’s been a great year so far at the school I work at. Great kids this year, even if it is going to be a bit of a challenge. I’m still working with the same kid as last year, so it’s just a continuation of that for me!
I have been finding it difficult to get into ‘fandom’ stuff lately, but I have been consuming Media anyways. I just finished up binging Frasier from start to finish. Yes the 90s sitcom about the radio psychiatrist. I could do a whole post on Frasier and maybe I will. I also recently watched Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the Netflix Anime. I found it really pretty and fun and it reminded me I can just watch stuff because it's pretty and fun and not have to worry about it. I finished up the audiobook for Rhythm of War a few weeks ago, after taking literally two years to listen to it. Another fantastic addition to the Stormlight Archive series and I’m just frothing at the mouth for the rest. I backed that kickstarter for the secret projects and I’m Waiting Patiently. I’ve been listening to a lot of Ska lately, mostly JER/Skatune Network. And Zach’s got me listening to MF DOOM, who I never really listened to while he was alive but I’ve been into it. I’m also slogging my way through Beyond: A Queer Sci-fi/Fantasy Comic Anthology edited by Sfe R. Monster. I don’t know why it’s taking me so long to get through but hey at least it’s on my nightstand. Lastly, I fill my nonsense brain youtube time with Hermitcraft and Sharpest Knife In The World videos. I like watching people play Minecraft, on account of all the autism I have in my head, and find them to be really enjoyable to watch. Most of the people on that server are over 30, a lot over 40. Most are parents and just seem pretty chill and not shouty tumblr sexyman types. I recommend them if you’re wanting to watch some Minecrafters but don’t really want to watch anyone who usually trends on twitter. GTWScar is my favorite, as he also occasionally vlogs about his disability. Go support disabled artists! I’ve been playing Littlewood lately, it’s a farming sim kinda like SDV but with WAY less stress. It’s nice to unwind after work with it.
Onto My Stuff:
This section is going to be broken into two parts, mostly My Stories (works of fiction I have talked about) and My Crafts (arts and crafts projects I’ve been working on). Unfortunately, I’ll rip the bandage off here: a lot of my stories are dead in the water. Either I’ve felt uninspired, or had something else come up. Don’t expect to hear I’m dropping a new comic next week or anything here.
Technical Difficulties: This is a story about a cast of magical creatures called Fae who run a community theatre. The main character is Alan, my darling favoritest OC of all time. I’ve written a lot of TDC in the past. I have about 12 new reboot pages thumbnailed/scripted. I have some character designs updated and redrawn. For all intents and purposes this one should be good to go, but I don’t really know where to go after 12 pages. I don’t know what big arc I want to start with. I don’t know how to write slice of life very well. Maybe I need to consume more slice of life comics to kind of teach myself how to pace and tell these stories. After disastrous webcomic launches in the past I’ve decided I’m not launching anything until I have 55 pages READY TO GO. A whole year of updates ready. I’m not fucking around this time.
Casting Beyond the Moon: This one… is a little heartbreaking to me. It’s a story I’ve told in a few different mediums and finally, finally, finished scripting and thumbnailing as a comic. It’s all there, ready for editing and pencils and the works. It’s done. Its about 250 pages iirc (it’s been a while since I’ve checked, it’s all just in a binder in a trunk in my bedroom). But here’s the thing, it’s about necromancers consulting on murders for the police (kinda adjacent to Pushing Daisies or Psych). But with my general politics of “don’t give cops even room to breathe” I almost feel like politically I can’t publish this story. It’s set in the 90s, sure. It doesn’t particularly make the cops look competent, but knowing how people reacted to Reno! 911, that doesn’t mean anything. It’s kind of sad because this story was my baby for so long, and it’s the only story I’ve ever finished in its entirety. But it just… isn’t the climate I want to tell this story in. Maybe in another life. Maybe if I give it a big overhaul and make it more of a vigilante thing? I dunno. Maybe someday.
Yellow Sands: This one’s an old one. It’s a retelling of Shakespeare’s the Tempest but with a lot of little twists. It takes place on a fantasy planet covered in sand in a small oasis town. I think I could do more with this one. I’m really into the ConLang I wrote for it, a language that was signed first and then written and then given phonetics. I don’t know really where I’m going with it. If the bug bites maybe I’ll pick it up again.
Salt the Earth: Fun story, fun setting. The world, after an apocalypse of some sort has made plants and fungi take over, including a sentient race of fungi that infect humans and have a hivemind. I invented this story as a setting to make concept art for, not anything I really truely planned to tell. Maybe I’ll do more for it. I’ve been doing some character design stuff that I didn’t like (I tried to push the fashion design more cyberpunk and didn’t like it). Thats the point of concept art babey!
Puck Will Be the Chosen One!: Another one I sort of wrote to mostly do concept art in, but also planned some comic pages. I think this one could be really fun to visit again. Centered around Puck, a small witch who has a curse of Cowardice, but decides she wants to force herself into a prophecy. I have a lot of fun with the design of characters in this setting, taking a lot of inspiration from Adventure Time and other cartoons. This one has potential.
[Untitled- Hodden and Damask]: Story I whipped up that was mostly about these two characters who use textile based magic. Hodden, who has studied very hard their entire life to become very good at textile magic, and Damask, a prince who has a prophecy that he’s the savior of their kingdom. The royal family task Hodden with teaching Damask the textile magic, while Damask tries to find a way out of the prophecy altogether. I just like these OCs. I don’t think I’ll ever tell their story but they’re fun to look at.
[Untitled - Toren and Aerus]: Kind of the same deal, just OCs I have that I don’t feel like telling a big story about but I like to think about them. Toren is the royal scribe to the prince, Aerus. Aerus hates being a prince and wants to go on big adventures and train and make it into the history books, and he is in love with his scribe. That’s it. Lol.
Linocuts: I haven’t been too inspired to work on linocut lately, but I am intrigued with making patches with stamps so… maybe sometime?
Scrapbooking/BuJo/Papercraft: I stopped bullet journalling/planning because, shocker, I have ADHD and can’t do it. I just can’t. I can, however, do a nightly reflection page in my diary and use cute stickers and washi tape to separate the entries. I’m really good at that. Been doing it nearly nightly for a month and a half. I am very interested in making my own paper sometime, or recycling paper. I follow an artist who makes paper canvas pucks and paints on them and I think that’s cool.
Furbies: I’ve been sewing hair into a kinda gift furby I’ve been working on for a very long time but it’s becoming a sunk-cost fallacy almost but I genuinely do want to finish it so if you read this and know I’m talking about your furby don't feel guilty I just forgot I had it as a wip. I’m really interested in working on furbies right now. I just bought new needles for sewing so its a Go!
Minecraft block minis: I have a bunch of sculk blocks as wips, not sure when I’ll get to them. I need to buy some makeup sponges because they have the perfect fungal texture but it’s hard to catch them in stock. And I haven't decided if I’m going to use ink or paint to dye them, both have merits. I did some tests.
I think that’s where I’m at? I don’t really have anything new to add, I just wanted to have this as a touchstone blog entry.
Because this is my website and I can do what I want, if you have any comments on this you can email them to me here, subject line: State of the Badger and if you have any questions I can answer them privately or in my next blog post :*