2026 Let's start another year of creating!
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!