Warning, there's a little bit of text below, so just scroll to the bottom for the TL;DR if you want the gist.
Hi everybody. To say "Long time, no see" would be an understatement.
So I'm guessing that you may have been asking some questions for the last 4 years.
Questions like:
- "Are you ever going to keep going with the comic?"
- "Why did you stop?"
- "But seriously, are you ever going to keep going with the comic?!"
I saw that many of you that messaged me over the last few years asking about the state of the comic, some even asked if I was doing ok, which I appreciated. I replied to some, but I usually didn't because I didn't think I had a good response.
I'll start by saying I stopped making the comic for a two main reasons. The first is because I started taking classes at an art academy to improve my art and someday make a career out of it, as being an artist is pretty much the only thing I've ever really wanted to be. The classes are pretty high intensity with a lot of outside work and I didn't want to have to juggle doing both. The second reason is because, honestly, I was getting sort of burned out on doing it. I felt like I was running out of ideas and everytime I started to think about that week's comic, it seemed like I had already done something like it before (or someone else had already done it better).
Now, before you ask: No, currently I'm not intending to start up the comic again. If any of you are dissapointed, I really am sorry, but I still have the whole "feel-I've-run-out-of-ideas" problem going for me in terms of the weekly strip format.
But would I ever start it up again? If I get the inspiration and ideas flowing (and have the time), it's extremelly likely. I've considered doing a longer story format starring Lucius and Abraxas with an actual serialized story, and while I really like the idea of that (and I even sort of have ideas for it), I'm not much of a writer and planning out a semi-long story seems intimidating and there's no guarantee of its quality. So for now, no comic, but maybe in the future if I figure my shit out.
With that out of the way, there may be some of you that are interested in what I'm doing now. Probably not a lot, but some. Now that I've been taking classes for 4 years I've (hopefully) improved and I've sort-of-kinda-maybe started working as a freelance illustrator and am taking commissions!
So it's shameless plug time!
I just made a new tumblr blog, it's at [ https://benweemanart.tumblr.com/ ]. I also have an artstation [ https://www.artstation.com/artist/benweeman ], instagram [ https://www.instagram.com/thatbenweeman/ ], and portofolio website [ https://benweemanart.myportfolio.com/ ]. If you're ever looking for a commission for your rpg character, or have freelance work, please feel free to email me at [ [email protected] ] or just message me directly on artstation, instagram, or tumblr.
I know this post is not what some of you were expecting or hoping for. And I don't mean to bum anybody out, but I felt like it had been long enough that if there were any people that still cared about Dummies and Dragons, you deserved an explanation for why I stopped.
Well now that I've said pretty much everything I wanted to say (and rewritten it like 5 times), I'll sign off by saying thanks. Thank you for messaging me to ask about the comic and thank you for following the comic when it was active. As someone who is always self-conscious about myself and my art, it was really encouraging and uplifting to see people enjoying what I was making. So to quote myself from 4 years ago: "Until you see me again, keep your 20′s natural, your dungeons grimy, and your alignments chaotic."
TL;DR I stopped making the comic cuz I got busy with shit and ran out of shit to write about. For now, I'm not starting the comic again. In the future, who knows, it's possible if I have a good enough reason.
I'm doing illustration commissions, so if you're interested check out: - My illustration blog at [ https://benweemanart.tumblr.com/ ] - My portfolio [ https://benweemanart.myportfolio.com/ ] - My Artstation [ https://www.artstation.com/artist/benweeman ] - My Instagram [ https://www.instagram.com/thatbenweeman/ ] - My email [ [email protected] ]