Month: October 2022

Alrighty, I’ve officially been back on this site for two weeks now, what have we got to show for it? To be honest, more than I expected, which wasn’t much.

As I mentioned last week, we kicked off Fifth Ace Comics’ new weekly strip, Magic Beans; while the audience is still small, the few people I’ve been able to get direct feedback from were very positive about it, which makes me happy. Might have to actually work on a sizable buffer if it takes off the way I want it to…

The new miscellaneous gallery that I theorized about previously, will likely materialize sometime next month; between the day job and keeping myself functioning, my projects tend to move a little slowly. This was to be expected; I’m still building up momentum again, after all. Somewhere along the way, we’ll get up to the level of production that I’ve always dreamed of, though in order to do that, I’m going to have to lay out a plan of both space and time. By which I mean I need to clean up my nightmare of a desk, and draw up a proper timetable.

One thing I have been managing to work into my schedule quite seamlessly has been a workout regime that fits neatly into my morning routine; I started it the day after I put up my returning blog post in a fit of revived optimism, and I’m proud to say that after two weeks I haven’t skimped on it yet. It’s a 60 challenge from darebee.com called The Hero’s Journey, so naturally I was attracted to the literary reference when deciding on what program to choose. What I like most about it is that the exercises are different day to day; one of my biggest obstacles in the past when it comes to exercise is the mundanity of a boring routine. With this program, I’m doing something different every day, with a fun fantasy flavour on top, so I’m never bored. Out of breath, collapsing to the floor and feeling like my heart is about to burst, sure, but never bored. In a total of 60 days, I’m on track to finish the challenge before Christmas, and come 2023, I’ll be ready to try something different (or even start over with a higher challenge level).

All this to say that I think I’m on the up and up. Won’t lie, there have been a few bad days here and there; the day job can really grind my gears at times. More than ever, it makes me think about how much I want to be a content creator, someone who produces what they want, and puts it out there with the hope that others will enjoy it and want more. But that’s never going to happen if I don’t actually put in the work. Sure I could be doing more, but more will come soon. Step by step, I’m rebuilding my power base and slowly bringing myself back to where I was, and hopefully further beyond. I’ve certainly got a couple of ideas about how to do just that…

More on that next week; keep reading Magic Beans, you bunch of cards.
Ciao for now.

Okay, second consecutive week blogging; that’s a good sign, let’s gooooo!

So, some of you may have seen the new comics that were uploaded yesterday; you’re probably wondering “What is this? A new series? What about the Showcase? Are you really abandoning it again?!”

Fret not, you bunch of cards; the Showcase is not over, I’m still hard at work on the current story, and others besides. However, due to the time and effort required to get full comic pages done, alongside the day job, I don’t want to push myself to crazy extremes and burn myself out again.

As such, I have decided that Fifth Ace Showcase uploads will only return in November. Which means we’ll be back from Monday 7th, and rounding off the current Agents of A.R.M.O.R. story by the end of the month. This will allow me to build up a buffer, and not sacrifice quality to rush the pages out.

But what to do for the rest of October? Let the site lay quiet with nothing happening but the weekly blog post? Perish the thought! Instead, in order to keep a little traffic flowing on Wednesdays, I’ve decided to upload something smaller, simpler, and quicker to create that I can reliably put out every week. Hence the new comic strip, Magic Beans!

I’ve had this idea kicking around for a while, and I’ve got several strips drawn and ready to go; I’ve uploaded the first three in order to introduce all the primary characters, and give you a little taste of the humour that is to come. Once the Showcase starts up again, Magic Beans will continue to run, a little extra nugget of content alongside the main stuff for you all to enjoy.

In addition to this, over the next few weeks, I want to add another gallery or two to the site, featuring some of the other stuff that I get up to in my spare time; I’ve got several projects that have been on the back burner for a long time, and while progress on them is still slow and sporadic, I’d like to show you what I’ve got going on. This will include stuff relating to animation, character design, traditional mediums, fan art, writing etc. Yeah, I have a lot of ideas rolling around in my head.

Any other new galleries that show up will also be updated sporadically; I don’t want to throw everything at you if there’s a chance they won’t stick, but eventually (next year, maybe?) I hope to be uploading something every day of the week, even if it’s just a doodle of some kind. Again, don’t expect it all to start churning out tomorrow or anything; this is just a direction I’m starting to vaguely saunter towards.

That’s all for this week; I hope that you enjoy Magic Beans, keep an eye out for the Showcase next month, and I’ll have some more stuff for you on here soon.

Ciao for now.

Wasn’t sure if I was even going to post this, but here we go.

It’s been a while.

My unsuccessful attempts at blogging in the past notwithstanding, it’s been pretty quiet on this site for a little over a year. No news, no comics, not so much as a peep. Even my other social media posts have been sporadic at best. To be honest, I was hesitant to even look at the homepage myself; it’s been sitting there this whole time, a testament to one more unfinished project that I let myself start and abandon.

Except this project isn’t over; not by a long shot.

I won’t lie, there were moments in the past year when I wasn’t so sure about that. My creativity and motivation suffered a major blow last year; I lost my day job due to a company restructuring, and the idea of losing my livelihood and possibly my home sent me into a tailspin; having been retrenched before in the past, it was an old trauma brought back with a vengeance. 

I was fortunate enough to get my job back a month later, but I had fallen a long way in that time, and crawling my way back out of the pit was not easy. I was unsure of my position, feeling that at any moment they might turn around once more and change their minds again, and the constant paranoia added to a fresh wave of responsibility. It was a torrent of fear that threatened to flush me back down into the pit, and I struggled to maintain my grip on the ever-slick sides as I slowly forced myself back to the surface.

I think it was Comic Con Africa that was the final handhold that I needed to pull myself back out. Returning to the convention scene after all this time was like drawing back a curtain and seeing everything that I had been missing out on: the creativity, the passion, the joy for the characters and stories that we all love so much. I was even able to sell some of my art there that people liked and appreciated; it was a major boost to my self-confidence that I hadn’t felt in so long.

It made me remember why I wanted to do this in the first place.

I kept this website functioning because I fully intended to return to it one day; I didn’t know when, I didn’t know under what circumstances, but I knew I’d be back. There is far too much stuff that I want to put out there for me to give up on Fifth Ace Comics completely. I have so many characters I want to share with the world, so many stories I want to tell, and the only way I’m going to be able to do that is if I start posting again.

It’s going to be a gradual process, but consider this post my first step back on the road. This is a marathon, not a sprint; I’m going to be taking things slow and steady, and I hope that the work you’ll be seeing from me in the near future will be all the better for it.

Keep an eye on my socials for some miscellaneous art pieces, and (fingers crossed) I’ll be back next week with some official content.

Ciao for now.