I don't really remember how I first got into comics. I was drawing them from a young age, sometime in elementary school even, but I didn't become a big "comic reader" until I discovered manga in middle school. I know I had exposure to newspaper comics, would skim some archie collections that they had in the aisle of the grocery store check out line while waiting with my parents, and I owned one sonic comic issue that I really treasured, it covered part of the "Sonic Adventure 1" arc. But otherwise I wasn't big into comics because my understanding was that comics were mostly superhero related (despite all the different types I just listed... kid logic lol) and I wasn't into those. I've always liked drawing though, even from a really young age, and I have stacks of comics from that period in my collection of old drawings.
After I started reading manga in middle school, though, as mentioned already my interest in both reading as well as making comics really skyrocketed. That was the main thing that flipped the switch in my brain to start taking art more "seriously" (i.e. actually studying and practicing things instead of just doodling whatever), take more art classes in school, write more stories, & etc. I made starts to many many fan comics over time that never got too far, but were always fun to try. Around 7th/8th grade I started writing my first "original" story (it was really just a mismash of elements from other series that I liked into a frankenstein monster that didn't resemble any of them too closely) and that was my driving creative focus for... literally 10 years lol I never made it farther than chapter 2 in comic form, but I wrote out like 10 chapters in novel form, and designed and drew characters, and rebooted the comic for years. It wasn't very productive, but it was super fun! Like half of those years (5ish) weren't as productive as the initial ones because I took a pseudo art hiatus during uni, but I would still draw those characters and stuff from time to time.
The final, modern stage of my comic journey began in 2016 as I was starting to get back into art again. A friend encouraged me to try making my comic again so I spent time between 2016 and 2017 (with another gap inbetween) shaking some of the art rust off and beginning 2 new reboots of my series. I had recently discovered Tapas(tic) and had intended to post it here when it was ready, after finishing the first chapter. During the 2nd reboot at the end of 2017, however, I finally realized that I didn't have as much faith in that particular story anymore. After completing a number of pages for chapter 1, I realized that I was happy with the art, but that at the pace that I could finish pages the story pacing was way too slow. It would take ages for the plot to pick up and get going. So at that time I stopped the series again, this time more or less for good, and decided to try writing something new, while also taking advice that I had heard here on these forums to try starting out with a shorter project when you're first getting started. Thus my first completed one-shot, TreasureHUNT!!. was conceived.
Writing and storyboarding began in early 2018. I drew the first several pages in the spring but had a busy summer so I put the project down for a while and didn't resume again until September. I pushed that month to generate a decent amount of backlog and launched in the first week of October! The production went pretty well. I worked hard on the series throughout the fall, building more and more buffer as I went. In the winter I stopped making new pages temporarily to participate in a collaboration comic project here on the forums, as well as commissioned and worked together with a video editor to put together a video trailer for my comic. I started working on new pages again in January or February of 2019, although my buffer had allowed the comic to continue posting uninterrupted during this time. Said buffer quickly ran out, though, so my updates became a little less consistent starting in the spring time. I also got accepted to create a short comic for an anthology project that summer so the series took a temporary hiatus while that was in progress. When all was said and done, I was able to finish my 70 page story at the end of December 2019!
2020 was a recuperation year for me. I had intended to take a short hiatus just to take a break and also work on writing the next season of TreasureHUNT!!, but I was approached for a large bulk commission project, and so that kept me occupied immediately from that point through to February. Right after that lock down in the United States began in March and so I decided to just fully take an art break for a while. It felt better to just indulge some other hobbies and relax while adjusting to the new world state than try to burden myself with a new project, y'know? I also realized with time that I wasn't interested anymore in adding onto TreasureHUNT!! (which was originally written as a standalone piece) and would rather transition to a new project instead.
I started writing in June on another series idea I've had for a few years but ran into some roadblocks with the characterization of the Main character. While trying to work that out, a few friends invited me to start a D&D campaign with them (I've played like once before, years ago, so was interested in giving it another go) and that's how my current project was born! There was one fight in the first play session where something really extreme and kind of silly happened, and so afterwards I decided that I wanted to draw a little skit comic depicting it. Something similarly goofy happened during the 2nd session the following week and so I drew that out as well. Originally I was thinking that maybe I would do some of those just as a side project to the other one that I was writing. But a few months passed and I hadn't made any headway with that other project. Meanwhile I was having a lot of fun drawing these little D&D comics so I decided to "upgrade" them to main project status. Now I've started to make them longer and more detailed to add more context to the skits, since I have more time to work on them now~ This project hasn't launched just yet as I've been building up buffer for it (planning to be a monthly release series) but I'm hoping to finally have it ready to go either at the very end of January or, perhaps more likely, early February at this rate
In any case it's been a fun journey, and especially these last few years that I've been seriously working on projects has been an incredible experience! As for the future... the campaign that the comic is based off has ended recently so I have a good idea of roughly how long this project will run. We've started a new campaign in the same universe so there's the opportunity to continue the story later if I want to but... much like with TH!!, we'll see how I'm feeling after I get through the first part lol. I'm still eager to someday finish writing the other series I was working on last year, and it's still in the back of my mind. Just gotta work out that MC lol! The rest of the plot skeleton is pretty well laid out otherwise.