AbrokenSleep creative Journal

Marching forward

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 20:36:23 GMT

Art progress for march.

This month I hit a small milestone with my comics development and setting up a dedicated webpage for Twitch subscribers and Ko-fi Klub members. But after organizing the new pages I hit a mental barrier that was very much catching up to me for a while.

A broken down car, Job hunting and family life also got rather busy this month. Although it’s part of living, it does get hard to accept the slow production time of whatever I have going on creatively. I guess it’s just a strange feeling as the mind and body slow down but the work in front starts to pile up.

Having a second issue of the comic at the halfway mark and available for people to view on a password locked webpage here , was a big step that took a decent amount of planning to complete. But it is at least finally done and ready for the next half of the story to be finished.

You can check out the secret subscriber only video for the password on the ABROKENSLEEP twitch channel below.

Sometimes the inspiration to create gets taken over by the need to survive. I’ve learnt I can only be creative when my life feels grounded. The last thing I want to do is have my life crumble around me while my head is stuck in the clouds of imagination, so when I have enough real-life things keeping my mind occupied it takes a while to start feeling creative again.

Thank you for the support! It happens so often that I covertly give up on it all under weight of creative inspiration. Knowing there are those out there that might be looking forward to what I create next keeps me getting up for another round!

2026 Let's start another year of creating!

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 20:46:45 GMT

New year, new followers. Same path!

So, Christmas has been and gone for another year. As the dust settles after the new year’s celebration, I thought it would be a great time for an update. A Broken Sleep #1 Washed up was created and printed. A considerable accomplishment, but also the start of a long journey into creating a comic series and the realities of how much one creator can manage to create on a regular basis. A Broken Sleep #2: The Torrent Offspring was progressing nicely until a set of holidays kicked in, then Christmas happened stopping progress completely.

The pencil art and page layouts are complete, along with half of the lettering. Hopefully the inking and finishing of the pages go as smoothly as the rest of the comic when work continues in 2026. Creating the second comic has helped me to better understand the time needed for each step, forcing me rethink the creation schedule to hopefully plan something that is both manageable and productive.

More about that another time!

PAPA'S COFFEE

A smaller highlight from last year was the creation of the Papa’s coffee comic strip. An idea I’ve had since trying to manage a cup of coffee while pushing my daughter around in a pram way back when she was a baby.

The comic strip started as a silly idea to keep my Instagram posting schedule alive while working on the main comic. I also wanted to use the comic strip to experiment with simple shapes and lines, as well as testing different angles without taking too much time on the art.

The rise of platforms using art to train it’s Ai also made me hesitant to post some work with any sentimental value so using this Papa’s coffee was a way to keep active, keep it simple and keep my nicer works a little more protected from the AI thing until I got the chance to understand the AI training a lot more.

The Papa’s Coffee comic strips are created during Twitch streams on Monday mornings CET and posted on Instagram in the evenings. I will also be moving them over to collect them on the new KO-FI page before regularly posting them there as well.

TWITCH STREAM

After a long hiatus from streaming on twitch it was a daunting task to start again, keep the schedule regular and seemingly start from the ground up after moving into the direction of comic creation. I am once again not blessed with all the time in the world and must make use of the sometimes-uncooperative times I can stream. In some ways relying on EU viewers to be awake not busy working and willing to tune in, or Oceana viewers or streamers to have an early night and decide to visit the stream. While I do get a few visitors from the U.S a lot of times I am already finished streaming before some time zones start the day.

I’ve made it work before and it seems to be working again this time. But it did come with a few situations that made it harder than usual. A lot of core viewers and streamers had moved on, either to other streams or away from twitch completely, leaving me to sometimes feel alone while in search of new viewers and another broader community to be a part of.

Starting at the bottom of the view list, however, offered certain advantages. I could completely start fresh and hopefully avoid some the negative and unsupportive communities I was a part of and also avoid streamers who were “leeching/poaching” from the work and creativity of myself and others around me. A lot of my plans stopped when I realized I was being regularly used as "inspiration". Although it’s not a new thing, it very much stopped my newly found, carefree approach to sharing my in-progress work or behind the scenes content and go back to being protective of it.

While I feel the channel has been successfully rebuilt, it is still far from what it was before the break. I often wonder if it will ever be what it was, or grow to be more due to all that was just mentioned. One thing that should also be mentioned is the continual support from the loyal viewers that have been around from the beginning. They have evolved from supporters of a stream to fans of a comic and for that I will be forever grateful! It has made it easier to move away from the negativity with these wonderful people showing how positive all this can be!

FUTURE PLANS

As for the immediate future. I have the Growing Pains 2025 subscriber artwork that needs to be finished soon. I also need to get started on The Realms page of this website, something that will eventually explain some lore and locations within the comic world. And yes, the second comic is a high priority!

This was a very long update! If you got this far thank you so much for reading! Hopefully there will be more regular updates through 2026. I wish you all the best for whatever you try to accomplish this year!

Socially Awkward

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 21:05:35 GMT

Weekly GoAL COMPLETE

After my first week of pushing social media, it’s hard to feel satisfied but also wrong to feel like I haven’t accomplished anything. Directing most of my efforts into Facebook and Instagram, I joined some groups, found local artists and some local outlets connected to comics.

I was concentrating on keeping a posting schedule and trying to plan it to be manageable enough to accomplish every week. I did post a few more sketches than I would have liked but my week was very much a script writing and thumbnail sketching week.

On Instagram I’ve gained a few followers, but comparing them to the number of accounts reached is disappointing. I also have less likes per post than usual, but I am posting a lot more than I usually do as well. Next week I will be starting some larger drawings and preparing some canvas for painting, so I am curious if I see any difference in interaction.

I am hoping that if the art quality in my posts is better it might help gain more followers or at least reach a broader audience. In some way I think that the small number of viewers I have on Instagram are mostly connected to streamers from twitch. Some of which I am on friendly terms with, along with others that have not shown any love from the beginning and almost acting a group denying entry by looking the other way.

Facebook on the other hand, what little steps I made felt like progress. Probably because I have never really interacted on Facebook in the past, and everything seems so fresh and new.

My Facebook art piece titled: The Facebook! Original I know... Finally has a clear direction, so I can carry on with that too. I decided that I would write the name and initials of the first 100 followers of the Facebook page on the pages of, um the facebook. Now the follower total is 62, so comparing that to 22 from last week is the positive vibe I am hanging onto going into next week.

If you would like to be a part of the picture, please follow this link to the page , and follow.

As for comic progress. I am waiting for packaging to arrive over the next few days, then I can send out some test deliveries, so I can work out comic and shipping prices for the web store.

Thank you for reading, take care.

Being social

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:23:04 GMT

A humble bundle

So, the dust has slowly settled on the excitement of having the first comic I created arrive in the mail. I’ve shown a few people, been congratulated for the accomplishment and now sit in front of the script and page layouts for the second issue.

I’ve been asked a few times about why the first issues digital version is available to read for free . And the more I answered by saying “The first book was a test, to see if I could actually make one”, the more I realised I am very much at the next stage of this comic creation path. Promoting it and hopefully Making money from it!

It sounds strange to say out loud but the goal was not about money. The goal was to make a 22-page comic! Something I wanted to do way before I got married, had children and settled into a happy life as a husband, stay at home dad and freelance artist/designer. Making a comic has been in my mind for so long it just became part of my thoughts, so to make the comic is an accomplishment I forgot to be proud of.

I guess in a way, I try to stay humble by not being proud. By realizing there could always be someone bigger, better or faster right around the corner. Okay, maybe this is also a mentality I picked up from playing sports, but either way it encourages me to not relax or be satisfied with what I’ve done. But now being in the position of growing an Instagram , Facebook or You tube channel and starting from scratch is a whole lot of humble all at once.

Until now I’ve only really put effort into twitch streaming, having what I think was decent success with what time I had available to stream. The experience was enough to see that in the beginning there isn’t an audience just sitting there waiting to view my content. There are countless groups of content deciding if engaging in my creations help or hurt them! And a possible new fan or follower is floating somewhere in between unaware of my existence.

So, I will stay humble as I enter this new stage, try to stay proud of what I’ve accomplished so far and focus on the next step!

Washed up

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 13:33:14 GMT

Going somewhere?

Over the years, I have considered many ways to begin this adventure. Which location to use, what characters to reveal or how to best introduce you to these twisted realms, full of strange dreams and terrible nightmares.

A creative identity is something I have struggled with for a long time, taking just as long to figure out and develop as drawing or painting.

Eventually, the idea of a mysterious patient forced to explore the truth of theserealms, while discovering his own identity, seemed like a great

way to start the journey ahead.

I tried to develop an original art style that incorporates my history of design with black and white inked work, while keeping the rough “indy” vibe that originally inspired me to make comics.

As a name that is very new to comics and not being a widely known artist, I felt the added pressure of finally showing the public an interesting and original setting, while also protecting its greatest ideas and secrets from a world of copycats and A.I. The design and storytelling choices, as well as choosing which of my characters and ideas to use or protect, made this project a heavy idea for a lot longer than I expected.

Overall, it has been a humbling but satisfying experience after learning the passion and dedication required to craft my first issue of a 22 page comic. It feels like I have travelled many roads of the realms a thousand times, meeting characters that never had faces, but have constantly evolved into what we are about to discover together.

A BROKEN SLEEP Issue #1: Washed up available here to read digitally.

Printed version will be available soon!

Falling with Style

Wed, 01 May 2024 17:46:14 GMT

Testing, testing 1,2,3

When I started this blog/journal, I wondered how long it would take before the updates came to a screeching halt. Although projects have been slowly progressing, I think the final setup of this website and transitioning into an online store very much took its toll on me and my creative mindset.

The paperwork, legal requirements of having a store, and stress of trying to keep a timeline or schedule that had no chance of working felt like a giant weight that eventually became too much and needed to rest and recover.

My last update however, was November. And I did manage to do a little bit I can show off here.

I have been working with some great people designing possible clothing lines (this I cannot show here). Which was a nice change from drawing characters or creatures and working on my own “brand”.

Style test #1 I really like some of the panels completely painted. But some of the colour and panel don't work.

I think the first test went fine until blending the painted look/style I was going for because I could see that I would keep going back to a heavy shadow inked style I am much more familiar with.

I also noticed a few of the design choices I made didn’t really fit well with the final art. Don’t get me wrong, a few of the panels were nice to draw and I am a bit disappointed I won’t use them, but I did decide to draw the panels using a more comic book, inked and designed approach.

I very much tried to simplify the colour I used, and concentrated a lot more on the ink and line work which I feel is one of my strong points. I also think that keeping a high contrast approach to light and shadows will help me be more flexible when I try to experiment with simple graphic designs on a mostly empty background.

One thing I also noticed was that the letters and few sound effects I used did not mix well with the cartoony painted style I tried for my first test, and I was happy to see the word balloons over the new artwork test.

The problem I always have with creating this comic (and the world within it) is that it gets put to the side whenever a job comes up and it can be very hard to pick it up again and progress. I’m hoping that once the story is rolling on nicely and the first instalment is done it might get a little easier over time.

Well, that’s it for this update. Next update will probably be next week, and I will show off some of the TWITCH redeem or reward art that got done recently.

Oh wait! Here is a link to my latest Instagram post! A small timelapse of the current beast waiting for me on the drawing board.

Take care and thank you for reading.

After a lot of contemplating. I eventually decide to test the pages using another style.

Now it's November

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 22:43:57 GMT

Art prints, Inktober aftermath and a YouTube channel.

So, it’s mid-November. I am just getting healthy again after finally getting COVID and trying to being creative again. I was a little disappointed I got Covid after all this time. I had the theory I was immune or something. Last month’s Inktober efforts were an accomplishment, but being sick for a few weeks I do feel the stress of catching up with projects I had going, or wanted to start.

Inktobers efforts. I generally happy with most of them. But there is a few that will haunt me until I draw them again.

I’ve spent a solid week organising this website enough to add a store with art prints, a reliable print service and adjusting or reorganizing a few pages to better suit what I want to accomplish in the near future. Instead of a “TWITCH” page there is now a MEDIA page that has Twitch, Instagram, and YouTube content to explore.

My YOUTUBE channel is new so there isn’t a lot on there right now, but one of my goals is to put a heavy focus into growing it as the stories or web comics begin to take form. I don't want to just fill it with VODs for the sake of content and want the vibe just right.

I do feel however, that I’ve spent a very long time setting up this site for the future projects that my art has suffered. So much time doing tasks that have nothing to do with art or creativity has affected my ability as well as improvement so my thoughts or “spirit” is not at it’s highest right now.

I did spent a few hours using pencils this morning, staying well away from pen and inks, and it was a nice change being able to use softer blending or tones compared to the hard lines and hatching I was trying to use last month. Both pictures are work in progress.

Finally, the first web comic has been neglected for a while now. I do think about it daily and have worked out I can merge the current story or script with another short story I had planned out. This would send one side of the story down a darker path, but that is something I am willing to accept lol but will probably add to the overall page count. Which means more work, more time etc… on something that is already being neglected.

Hopefully I can get the script sorted by the end of this week and have the comic on the drawing boards over next week. At least doing thumbnails and planning the new pages.

Thanks for reading. As always if you are interested in what I’m getting up to please find me on my socials, follow. Maybe even catch me stream!

Any support helps and is appreciated.

Inktober

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 09:48:56 GMT

Pen, ink and a little bit of mess.

October, or as some say Inktober is here. So, I decided to get in on the action this time, grab a pen, some paper and complete some inked artwork.

It’s been a while since I have worked on a drawing board and not digitally using CLIP STUDIO PAINT. But the drawing board is where I started a long time ago and always enjoy coming back to it.

For some reason whenever I think of drawing a Halloween picture it tends to be a man with a pumpkin head, this time was no different.

The last piece I managed to finish was a Pokémon gift art piece of Umbreon using acrylic paints. I kept the image or pose itself simple focusing mostly on the mixing and blending of the paint and not knocking over the glass of water next to me.

One thing I noticed very quickly is the mess I made around me compared to drawing digital. But admit that drawing traditionally has a nice relaxation to it compared to working digital.

With a few pictures already done this month. I feel I must turn my attention back to the web comic. The last session was used to play around with the lettering style, font size and the color of the word balloons. The next step will be to finalize the next parts of the script before starting the panel mockups and layout sketches.

Catch me live on TWITCH to see what I am doing. And follow me on Twitter to find out when!

Creative Journal

Sun, 27 Aug 2023 22:04:21 GMT

A return to the place that knows me well.

As I sit here and contemplate what to write for my first "post". I remember how long it has taken to get to this point. How many hours I have sat in front of the computer streaming on TWITCH or leaning over the drawing board late at night.

I feel I have travelled the same creative passageways multiple times, each time collecting something new but leaving a part of me there in exchange.

I know I am one of the many creatives traveling through the same tunnels. Heads down, focused and patiently crafting a path that was scribbled on a map a long time ago. We all know where to go, but there are no shortcuts in the tunnels we dig. No map can show all obstacles we will encounter.

The path pushes my limits. The more I succeed the lonelier I become. A peculiar place where I am most creative, but forced to leave the best part of me behind when I am there. I get lost in the tunnels. Then create endless tunnels of my own until one day a light finds me. Pulls me out of that enjoyable nightmare.

I’ve been away, cleansing my heart in the sun. Now I’m sitting on that ledge, curious as to what is down there waiting for me. Wondering who will follow me this time. I already know who has given up on me. I knew it before they did. But it is irrelevant as this darkness wasn’t made for everyone.

If you are here, waiting at the edge with me. Thank you for being a light in the darkness. Thank you for making those dark tunnels feel alive.