Author: Fifth Ace

I’m going to make this one quick, I’m having too much of a blast to slow down right now.

For the month of March, I’m going to be attempting to cross a box off my 2024 Art Bingo card by completing a 30 Day Art Challenge; I know my previous attempts at such things have failed, but considering how many character portraits I’ve been pumping out lately (I swear I have, you’ll see them soon enough!), I think I may just stand a chance this time. The challenge is the JLX Unlimited Amalgam Character Challenge, i.e. a mouthful; every day sees a member/enemy of the Justice League being melded with one from the X-Men, creating a series of amalgamated characters. I’ve already leapt into the challenge, intent on getting my weekend uploads ready in advance, and maybe even get a head start on some for next week. For those of you who take the time to actually read my blog, congrats! You get to see Saturday and Sunday’s entries in advance, as well as the first one today; check ‘em out:

I swear, those vitamin supplements must be doing wonders for me, I haven’t felt this motivated in ages. Once I’ve gotten another character or two out of my system tonight, I can use tomorrow to finally start catching up on Showcase pages again.

That’s all I’m going to say this time, too much stuff I want to get done. Have a great weekend!

Ciao for now.

Yes, I’m still alive, believe it or not; I just didn’t really have anything much to say last week, and inadvertently forgot to mention it.

I may have been somewhat distracted; I’ve lost count of how many times I watched this trailer:

Honestly, I was sold the moment this was announced; this series (and theme song) were an integral part of my childhood and elevated my love of superheroes from a very young age. Fingers crossed that this means we can get a revival of the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon as well; it was meant to have a dimension-hopping storyline for its final season, and the Spider-Verse is pretty much a proven concept at this point, so…? Maybe? Please?

While actual comic art has been a bit of a non-starter at the moment, I have been busy with a project that I’ve been sitting on for a while; in my spare moments, I’ve been creating character portraits as part of a 100 Original Characters challenge. It’s essentially a basic, yet expanded version of what Fifth Ace Showcase #0 is meant to be: a collection of all the characters I have plotted out to join my comic universe at one stage or another. I had selected the most prominent ones to have bios and backstories written up for the comic issue, but the 100 OCs challenge is just about getting their look down and catalogued; I’ve had the list prepped for almost a year at this point, but I never dug in my heels and started for a number of reasons. At this point, I just said “to hell with it” and hopped to it.

I’ll share a few of the pictures when I’m comfortable that I’ve got enough in the bag to confirm that I’m not going to abandon the project part-way through; I’m having a lot of fun with it, as I’m getting to draw a bunch of characters with unique designs that I would otherwise be sitting on for ages until they appear in stories. It’s also allowing me to explore the characters a little more intimately; most of them were just one-line descriptions that I intended to flesh out later, but just the process of drawing them makes me think of details that hadn’t yet occurred to me to include in their characterisation. Hopefully this will motivate me to get back to the comic pages soon too.

I don’t know if me making progress on this project is a result of that new-start energy that might burn out really quick, but it might also be due to the vitamin supplements that I was recommended this weekend past; I certainly feel like I have more energy, though it could be a placebo effect for all I know. Whatever the cause, I’m feeling more productive than I have in a while; let’s hope that I can maintain it for a while longer.

I’ll leave it there for this one; I had a whole other spiel about some of the comic book documentaries I’ve been listening to lately, but I’ll save that for another slow week. Right now I want to get back to drawing; I’ve got a lot of social interaction and meal prep to do this weekend, so I’ve got to take advantage of every moment that I can.

Ciao for now.

Maybe I should just make Fridays my blogging days at this rate, huh?

Artwork is crawling along; I’ve been doing a lot of doodling in my brief moments of spare time, trying to get back into the groove once more; I think it’s working, but only time will tell. Exercises are still being maintained, regardless of screaming underused muscle groups. There’s still a roof over our heads, there’s still food on the table, and Sparrow only seems to lose his collar once per week on average. All in all, life goes on.

I had a whole rant about social media that I was going to post with this, but having typed it out, I’m not in the mood to rile up anyone about anything, least of all myself; social media is already stressful enough without inviting more stress, so I’m just going to leave it unsaid to the world at large. That’s what my journal is for: ranting about my opinions where they can’t be used to bother anyone.

I’m going to try and get some more artwork done and listen to the new episode of The Magnus Protocol, so have a good weekend everybody; I want to keep mine as uneventful as possible.

Ciao for now.

The fact that this is a day late should already give you some idea of how this past week has been, but I’m gonna splurge some more of it at you for a bit, anyway.

I still haven’t found the energy or motivation to get anything done around here, and it’s down to the usual suspects; the mounting workload at the day job means I have had no free time to get comic art done during the day. The massive burst of productivity that I was riding at the beginning of the year no longer has room to expand in the ever-growing deluge of “real” work that I have to do to keep the roof over our heads. I have to make do with the little nuggets of writing that I can squeeze in when I’m at least 20% sure that an email isn’t about to land in my inbox within the next three minutes; that is literally how I’m typing this up right now. So let’s just consider any future comic updates as TBD and “when they get there,” yeah?

At least I can say that I’m keeping up with my exercises; I got through the first 30 day workout program and am three days into the next one. The first month was more about settling into the routine of getting up at a certain time and doing something first thing in the morning, ideally before it gets too warm; this next month is about cranking up the intensity a little. It’s still nothing huge, but the fact that Day 1 left me gasping for air in a shower-worthy sweat means that I’m definitely on the next rung up the ladder now; the residual ache in certain muscles is another indicator that I’ve come to appreciate as a physical feeling of progress. I’m making it a point to not check my weight, as I know these minor exercises are not going to move the needle very much; any real change is likely only going to happen around the fifth or sixth month mark, if anything. At this point, I’d settle for getting more energy out of it; if fitness is directly proportional to energy levels, and I increase my fitness, then I should have more energy to get other stuff done, in theory. 

What I’m saying is that I want to get fit so that I have more energy to actually do what I want to do i.e. write and draw more comics; I don’t know if that kind of energy can translate into creativity, but it would still be nice not to be completely burnt out by the time I get home in the evening, so I’m doing what I can. I guess running would probably be the ideal thing, but I don’t care how many joggers I see going past the house in the morning: I am not going outside before the sun comes up where people can see me; say what you like, but I do NOT look good in running shorts, and I haven’t shed enough of my dysmorphia to not care about that. Hopefully that can start to change with enough exercise as well.

Anyway, back to the grindstone; going to drown out what passes for “music” on the radio with the new episodes of The Magnus Protocol and some YouTube video essays while I get through whatever happens to ooze into my inbox for the rest of the day.

Ciao for now.

I did say the comics wouldn’t be interrupted in any way, right? Right…

So yeah, no comic uploads this week; between the increasing workload/frustrations at the day job and the debilitating heat, I have had zero energy to get anything done either at work or at home. The pages that were to go up this week have been scripted and pencilled out, but getting into the inking/colouring process has been tough; hopefully I’ll work myself up enough this weekend to push through it. 

I’ve been slipping a little in my journaling endeavours as well; I need to start doing it earlier in the evening, because I feel the need to fall asleep a lot sooner these days. I blame the extended work commute; spending that long on the roads both in the morning and the afternoon do not put me in the mood to do anything except pass out. I’m hoping to resolve this by finding a new job soon; I’ve been keeping an eye on job offers closer to home or remote working opportunities, but given my limited qualifications, I might as well fall back on the plan of writing a fantasy novel series and the hope of becoming the next Jim Butcher. The odds are about equal, I’d say.

Despite slipping on the creative side, I’m still holding strong on the physical stuff; I haven’t skipped a morning workout session yet (though I might leave off the additional yoga stretches if I’m strapped for time), and the meal preps have been working well. This week has been battered chicken and egg fried rice, supplemented by mini chicken pies; I did say last week that I had a hankering for chicken, after all. Not sure what I’ll have lined up for next week, I’ll make a decision on that after payday. The website from which I get my workout routines now has a sister site that does healthy recipes; they’re primarily vegan stuff, but even as an avowed carnivore, I still thought some of them looked good, so we’ll see what happens.

Still no luck in capturing the factory floor kitty (I’ve nicknamed her “Pandora,” since she’s a vicious lady that won’t stay in a box), not for lack of trying. I’ve given up on leaving food out to bait her, as it clearly wasn’t working before, and she’s been spotted roaming all over the building, not just the one storage room. I’m still keeping the cat carrier in my car, just in case we happen to opportunistically snatch her up, but Pandora’s been extra cautious ever since my first attempt at catching her; the scratches are healing nicely, thank you for asking.

Think that about covers everything for this week; fingers crossed for some comic pages come Monday.

Ciao for now.

So much for maintaining a buffer… I’m going to have to put some work in this weekend to build up again.

That being said, the comic uploads should not be interrupted in any major way; I already have next week’s pages plotted out, so if I get the inking done by the end of Saturday, I can at least have Monday’s page ready to go in time, and then build up from there. It’s not like the day job has been particularly gruelling this first month back; on the contrary, it’s been dead as a dead thing, but I’ve found myself being preoccupied with other stuff instead.

Chief among the preoccupations is the appearance of another stray cat on the factory floor. She (I think it’s a she, I didn’t get a thorough look) has taken to hiding in our Receiving storage room, as well as some extra-dimensional secret space that makes her impossible to find before 3pm most days. She’s somewhat skinny, but not 100% feral; I managed to get close enough to pet her the other day, which she accepted; she was less accepting of being picked up or held in place, which is why my right arm is a mass of scar tissue right now. Subsequent attempts to catch her have failed; I’ve brought in a carrier, some calming herbs and a bowl of food to try and tempt her out, but no luck yet. Unlike the situation with Sparrow, there is no debate in my mind about keeping this cat if we catch her: the answer is no; in our current space and financial state, a third cat is out of the question. 

That said, I still want to wrangle her up somehow so that I can get her to an Animal Anti-Cruelty League depot, where she can be looked after and hopefully adopted one day. The problem with this lies in the fact that anywhere that I could take a stray cat either doesn’t accept uninjured animals, doesn’t send out responders on the same day, or closes too late in the afternoon relative to when she shows up; it’s frankly ridiculous how hard it is to get a stray cat to a qualified safe house after 3pm. If I do manage to catch her later in the afternoon, I’d have to make a plan to house her for the night before taking her elsewhere the next day; I just want her to have a chance at a good life, like how I’ve been able to give a good life to my own cats. 

Being the obsessive, ADHD-coded worry-wart that I am, my concern for the cat has kept me from focusing on a lot of things this week; it’s a good thing I’ve been prepping and packing good lunches, or I might have resorted to buying stress-food from the petrol station again, which is on my list of resolutions to not do this year. I intend to keep my credit card free of frivolous charges, and my trash bin at work free of snack wrappers. With that in mind, the burrito-style beef wraps were a rousing success, and I have zero issues with eating them all week. The only complaint I can voice about them is that they’re very more-ish; I always want seconds after I finish one. Maybe next time I’ll make bigger wraps and pack them with more stuff, perhaps some rice like a proper burrito to make it more filling. Next week will likely be something different though; I’ve got a real hankering for some chicken again…

Not much else worth mentioning this week; anything I could properly angst over these days is still going directly into my journal so that I don’t have to inflict it upon the internet. Fingers crossed I get my buffer reestablished by Sunday’s end, and next week will start to introduce a new face or two to the Fifth Ace Showcase.

Ciao for now.

We’re almost two weeks into 2024, and I haven’t crashed and/or burned yet; I’ll take it as a good sign.

I’m happy to say that the Fifth Ace Showcase has returned and is trucking on well so far; I actually had enough of a buffer that I could schedule the uploads for the whole week, which is not something I could say since the beginning of the series. I don’t know if I’ll be able to maintain the buffer at such a rate forever, the day job kind of puts a crimp in the already-slow colouring process, but considering how much I’ve been able to get done so far, I’m feeling optimistic. Issue #0 will be running all through January and February; we’ve already seen some familiar faces, we’ll be seeing a few more, but by the end of next week there will be a slew of new characters being introduced. They may or may not feature in the next upcoming stories, but if I waited to introduce them naturally, it would take years, and I don’t want to wait that long before showing them off. I’d rather whet your appetites for the wider universe by showing you what may be on the horizon rather than just telling you about it.

On the home front, we have more or less settled into our new residence quite well; all the essentials are in place, now it’s a matter of seeing how we can improve. A few natural decorations in the form of some pot plants wouldn’t go amiss out the front and back, maybe some astroturf, a few veggies and herbs growing out the back if we can manage it. The cats are getting acquainted with the area; Silver doesn’t go much further than the garden for fear of the sprinkler system, while Sparrow has already started taking his explorative expeditions beyond the perimeter fence. We were a little worried about him at first, and we still want to get a tracker tag for him just to be sure, but he went out early this morning and came back before I left for work, so he clearly knows where home base is. It’s just as well; if we tried to keep him exclusively inside for much longer he might have exploded; the little guy feels the need to roam down to his bones. Plus it means that even if I have to get up early to let him out, I can go back to bed and get an extra hour or two of sleep, which I’ve been needing for a while now.

Exercise is still being maintained; my routines would be the equivalent of a warm up to anyone else’s workout, but it’s not about bursting onto the scene and wearing out my body. So far, it’s something to get my heart rate up, and get me used to doing something in the morning; by the time the workouts start to ramp up, I’ll have gotten into the groove of being physically active before 6 a.m.; it’s all about routine building. I’m also going to be expanding my meal prep this weekend by finally making those homemade tortillas I was looking at last year; filling those with some ground beef mince, some black beans and a few onions and bell peppers… I’m making myself hungry just thinking about it, which is not hard to do, because most of my between-meal snacks have consisted of apples, lately; I need to crack out the popcorn again.

Other than that, life goes on. My fiance starts her new job next week; lucky her that she can roll out of bed and be right where she needs to be. I’m still hunting for a new job, fingers crossed that something comes along soon; in the meantime, I’ll just do what I can to keep us afloat. See you all back here next week, where I’ll hopefully have more stuff to talk about; journaling in the evenings has seriously cut down on how much I need to vent here.

Ciao for now.

Happy belated St. Patrick’s Days, or whatever that holiday that just passed was; my brain has been broiled inside my own skull for the past week, so I have no idea…

Unbearably hot weather aside, it’s been a productive first week of 2024 so far; I’m keeping up with a lot of my goals, making significant progress on others, and generally trying to do better in all things compared to last year. I did my traditional New Year’s tarot draw, and this year’s card is the King of Swords.

This card is all about intellectual clarity, decisiveness and discipline, taking the best route based on the most logical choices and holding true. In a year where I plan to better myself creatively, physically and mentally, nothing could be more significant for me right now. I’ve got a lot of things I want to accomplish this year, and shying away from them due to illogical reasons is not going to help. Though I maintain that almost melting from the heat is still a valid excuse for not getting as much stuff done as I want; I’m almost looking forward to going back to the day job next week just to hang out under the aircon.

On that note, I’ve been busy getting the first pages of Fifth Ace Showcase Issue #0 ready for upload; I’ve been putting last year’s practice to good use, rendering the illustrations in greyscale and then layering colour on top. By doing it this way, I can have a print-ready version of the page done at the same time as the digital version; if I ever get this stuff in print, greyscale is the cheaper option. The drawback is that this does take a lot longer to render than just straight colouring, especially since I’m still experimenting with the style; I didn’t get nearly as many pages done today as I would have hoped, and as I said before, the heat wasn’t helping. Despite it all, I’ll still have the first page ready for upload tomorrow, and I want to have the next three pages done before Monday; I want to get a buffer out ahead of time for a change, and this free week before I go back to work is prime real estate for building it up.

Over to the physical side of things, I have started my exercise routines for the year, and so far have no real complaints; my thighs aching is to be expected, I shouldn’t complain about that. The program I picked out is pretty simple, nothing too hectic for the first month or two, and it doesn’t wear me out first thing in the morning when I do it. In the moment when I work out, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing that much, but the fact that my thighs are aching means that something is happening. The routines will get more intense as the year goes on, but I’ll work my way up to that. Similarly, my meal prep is also going well; I currently have a freezer full of premade meals for the upcoming week. It’s mostly stuff like curries and pasta dishes, which are usually quite carb heavy, but they are also smaller portions than I usually eat; I don’t think I could ever cut carbs completely, so this is the compromise. I still feel the need to snack a lot, especially since my main meals are smaller, but once I’m out of the house again, there will be less temptation towards that.

Mentally speaking, I want to maintain a better attitude this year; I want to channel my negative emotions to productivity, and let my positive emotions colour the rest of my life. Hopefully this will result in more art and less angst in my online posting. To aid in this, I’ve started journaling again for the first time in years; it worked when I was still in therapy, so no reason it shouldn’t work now. I keep my journal next to my bed, and every night I fill a page with my thoughts on the day, some positive affirmations about what I’ve accomplished, and what I want to get done the next day; if I happen to have an inspired thought after I get into bed, it’s also on hand for me to jot it down as well. I started the journal a few days before the end of last year, just to see how it felt, and I think it’s already helping a lot; by getting the thoughts out of my head, I can see more plainly where I’m going, and get a better night’s sleep without them weighing on my mind.

So with all that, 2024 has begun on a good note, if not a terribly loud one. I’m going to keep building my momentum as the year goes on (fingers crossed), and will hopefully be all the better for it. Once I’m no longer feeling like a strip of crispy bacon, that is.

Ciao for now.

This is going to be my last blog post for the year; let’s sum it all up as best we can.

2023 has been something of a rollercoaster, physically, mentally, emotionally, and all the other -allys as well. Many highs, more than few lows, bursts of progress and lengthy roadblocks, artistic expression and artistic burnout; it’s been the full package of the good, the bad, and the less-than-attractive. But the thing about a rollercoaster is that, once it’s done speeding you along, turning you upside down and making you want to throw up, it comes to an end; the cart slows down, you lift up the seat brace, and make your way on toward the next one. But you can always stop for ice cream and a visit to the gift shop before you climb into another death-defying contraption of evil; the holiday period is my path towards the next rollercoaster.

In terms of life and living, this year was full of uncertainty. The house hunting began almost as soon as 2023 did, and we had hoped to wrap it up by June; obviously that didn’t happen. I emotionally detached myself from finding a new place to live and resolved to let whatever happened happen, since it was out of my hands and I wasn’t looking to get said hands dirty. I had enough other things on my mind and less time on my hands than others; the detachment kept my anxiety down and my spirits… I won’t say “higher” but at the very least moderately elevated in comparison. Fortunately, even if we didn’t find a new house, we at least found a new living space thanks to the efforts of my wonderful fiance; she lucked out in finding the ideal spot for the next stage of her own journey in the coming year, and I’m so grateful to still be able to share a home with her and our cats.

Artistically speaking, I accomplished more this past year than I have in a long time, even if it wasn’t as much as I had planned. Of a potential three or four issues of the Fifth Ace Showcase, I only finished two, but I’m still proud of what I was able to do with them; I tried a lot of new things, most of which worked out well, and I had fun doing so. Outside of the website, I’ve experimented with various other things, but have not kept as consistent as I would have liked; with an ever-changing sleep schedule and the inconsistency of workflow in the day job, completing things in a timely manner has been difficult. This could change if/when I find a new job, but in the meantime, I want to use my pockets of free time (at home and at work) in a more productive manner; I need to be less lenient with my deadlines and commit myself to getting specific things out at specific times. By breaking down my creative goals into smaller, manageable goals, I can skirt between them to finish the overall task more efficiently. I already have a bingo card with my art goals for next year laid out; next step will be to tackle each one, one bit at a time.

As far as my mental state goes, I’ve been improving over the course of the year; despite starting to feel cramped in our small home and stressing over several things at various times, my brain has more or less balanced out, except in one area in particular. This ties to my physical state, so let’s lump them together, “lump” being the appropriate word. I am not happy with my body; I’ve never really liked my body in general (which is probably why I also dislike having pictures taken of me), but considering that I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been and running out of notches on my belt, it’s time I did something about it. Having a bigger living space means that I can’t use the excuse of having no room to move anymore; I have to get some exercise in. I’ve been looking into workout plans, similar to what I did earlier in the year, but starting off with easier exercises and building my way up. At the same time, like I mentioned last week, I want to look into meal prep strategies so that I can eat healthier without having to cook every night; I fell asleep at 7pm last night, I was so exhausted, so having a ready-made meal for when I get home in the evening will be an absolute blessing. Combining the healthier food and consistent exercise, I may just be able to make my body lighter, and hopefully not my wallet.

So, all that being said, what does the year boil down to, and what does it mean for 2024? Well, it’s all much the same really: thank FRICK this year is over, let’s make the next one better; it’s the usual bevy of New Year’s resolutions: eat healthier, get in some exercise, work harder, find a better job, improve life all around. Hardly original, but still highly relevant, perhaps now more than ever; it’s going to take some commitment, more than I’ve ever managed to muster in the past, but commitment to goals is how you get through life, even if the goal is just to live.

With that, I’m signing off for the rest of the year; the next Bottom of the Deck post will be on January 4th, and hopefully the next issue of the Fifth Ace Showcase will begin on the 5th. Happy Holidays to those who celebrate in your preferred manner, best wishes for the New Year, and I’ll see you all in 2024; I have several ice creams I wish to consume before the next rollercoaster.

Ciao for now.

I’ve officially deleted my TwitterX account! It’s a total shitshow over there, and I don’t intend to go back; Bluesky all the way for now.

While the day job tends to slow down somewhat in December, it doesn’t halt completely, and I can only devote so much time during the work day to stuff that I’d rather be doing instead. To keep it low energy, I’ve primarily been doodling, but also working on getting some writing done; if I want to leap into the thick of it in the new year, it’ll help to have some scripts ready. I’ve laid out a bunch of things that I want to accomplish in 2024 in terms of art, and a lot of them are comics (naturally). The Fifth Ace Showcase will of course be making a return, and I’m also aiming to work on a few one-shot greyscale zines that I can print for cheap; there are conventions on the horizon, and I’d like to have a few small things to sell, even if I don’t have a table of my own.

How much of anything I’ll get done also depends on what kind of schedule I’ll be able to construct; it’s always the same thing with New Year’s resolutions: you hold up the life-changing schedule for two or three weeks and then it all collapses. In my case, I’m going to be taking into account a bunch of things that will arise with the new living space. For a start, with my longer commute, I’ll have to leave the house earlier in the morning, and I’ll be getting home later, so that will chew up a potential extra hour of my time (at least until I find a new job closer to home). On the other hand, I tend to be waking up at around 4am these days, so that leaves a little extra time to do stuff in the morning; the cats have trained me well. It’ll be a chance to potentially try some exercise challenges again, maybe get a little bit of extra artwork or writing done before breakfast; the only reason I’m not doing it now is because of lack of space. Once I have my own desk again and some room to move, the possibilities are endless.

Additionally, I’ve been looking into meal preparation strategies to cut down on time spent making food; we don’t have the biggest fridge/freezer, but with some proper stackable containers we could store quite a few ready-made meals, so I may start taking Sundays to whip up a few large meals that I can divvy up and pick from throughout the week. I don’t have any major meal plans in mind yet, but the main reason for doing this would be to discourage impulse snacking and take-aways; a lot of nights I come home and just don’t feel like cooking, so having something ready and waiting in the fridge would prevent me from spending money that I don’t have. I found a great instructional video for homemade tortilla wraps that would provide me with a week’s worth of lunches; I also learned that I’ve been folding my wraps completely wrong for years, it was a full blown epiphany! Plus, with less time and energy taken up by cooking, I can (hopefully) find it in me to spend my evenings more creatively and get more art done.

All of this is just planning, of course; no plan survives first contact with procrastination, so we’ll see how long I’ll be able to hold to it come January. In the meantime, we still have to move into the new space before all this can happen. Some team of ours won a Sportsball trophy of some kind, so in recognition of that, we have the day off tomorrow; we’ll be using the long weekend to get some cleaning done and start moving the non-essentials out of our current space. We’ve been slowly emptying out our cupboards and freezer of long-forgotten foodstuffs so that we’ll have less perishables to cart away, and once some of the stored furniture is in place, we can clear out the rest of our hoard, starting with the board games and ending with the cats. With any luck, we should be home by Christmas… nothing bad ever came of anyone saying that, right?

Anywho, wish us luck; next Thursday will likely be the last blog post for the year, as I’m planning on using the week between Christmas and New Year’s to spend time with family and not think too hard about anything else while I still can.

Ciao for now.