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Ryviryn

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Hello World.

2 min read

It’s been a while. Too long if I’m being honest. And I’m really sorry for that. The truth is that these past few years haven’t been easy. I had to endure some rough living situations and spent most of my time living in a constant state of anxiety. I spent most of my time holed in my room so it was easier to throw myself into my art and writing then. 


Somewhere around last November, I finally got my own place. After all the furniture was put in place, and the last picture hung on the wall I didn’t really know what to do next, and that feeling of uncertainty has stayed with me for the past 10 months. 


I have an awesome new job. I filled my home with some awesome animals. and I go hiking every week.. I’m going to therapy regularly again, but there’s just still so much I need to work on. I still carry trauma and fear with me wherever I go; I don’t socialize or leave the house much. I’m working through it, but it’s a long slow processes, especially when you’re alone.


So that’s been my big project this year: Learning how to human again. I’ve been frustrated with myself for not being creative, but honestly, I needed to take a step back and focus on other things for a bit. The good news is that last weekend I spontaneously started drawing again. It’s not much, but it’s a good sign that I’m improving. I’ll post the new pictures this weekend, and hopefully I can start incorporating art back into my life again, this time in a healthier way.

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Here's my latest speedpaint video! 
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New Speedpaint is up! 
This was all done is Clip Studio Paint which has so far proven to be a great software. There are few things I'll need to get used to, but I highly recommend it.


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I Got a Job!!!

2 min read
I did it you guys! I totally did it! I got a job!

About a week after my last journal entry one of the temp agencies I was working with set me up with a temp-to-perm job. As it turns out the position was an amazing fit and a few weeks into the job they offered to hire me on permanently. Not only that, but my boyfriend also got a full time job about a week after I got mine.

All of that happened back in early November. Since then we've found a really nice apartment, got some IKEA furniture (IKEA stores are both amazing and terrifying), and are now enjoying the relative peace and quiet of our new place. 

The only really bad thing that happened was that my computer broke during the cross country trip, but even that wasn't all bad because the thing was going on eleven years old and I was planning on replacing it anyway.... Soooo that means I now have an Uberpowerfulbrandspankingnewcomputer!!! Yay!!!!

Well, that's what's been going on in my life. Now that we've got the new computer set up, I'll be uploading some new artwork in the weeks to come. Hopefully I can snag some stuff off of my old hard drive because I had some pretty good stuff on there that I hadn't uploaded yet....
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[Warning: This post has tons of rambling. If you just want information about the future of the comic, please scroll down to the page break. Thanks!]

Hi Guys!

So, wow…

It has been an obscenely long time since I've posted something on here and I apologize deeply for not keeping in touch like I should have been. Things have been...complicated as of late and unfortunately I can't say when they they'll start to become uncomplicated again.

I suppose I should start by explaining where I've been; and the answer is, well, everywhere. I know in my last post on tumblr I said that I was settling down and looking for an apartment, and that was true...at the time.

See, although my life was starting to fall into some semblance of normality, the truth is I was miserable. I don't want to go into too much detail here online but there were significant things in my life that were affecting me negatively. As a result I started to gain weight, closed a lot of people out and at one point things got so bad that I had a mental breakdown.

The worst thing though, was how I changed as a person. I became angry and spiteful, in a way I never thought possible. I stopped writing and drawing. I stopped being creative. I stopped caring.

It took me a long time to admit to myself how bad things were, and once I did I knew I had to do something. After some soul searching I decided that the best thing to do was to leave. Connecticut just wasn't the state for me. I had spent the majority of my childhood in New Hampshire where I could escape into the mountains when things got too stressful. While I was in New York City, the anonymity and privacy kept me from going insane. Connecticut had neither of these things, and it was part of the reason I felt so suffocated.

But if I couldn't stay in Connecticut, there where would I go? As much as I loved New Hampshire I didn't want to go back, and New York City was just too expensive. So I did a ton of meticulous research and made my decision.

The city I chose was far away. It wasn't as big as New York, but not as small as Hartford. It had a dense population, but plenty of surrounding wilderness. It was expensive, but not nearly as expensive as Brooklyn. I chose a city and a state that fit my needs as well as my boyfriend's needs. I also chose a city that I had never been to before.

When I expressed my interest in leaving, almost everyone was supportive. People said that I was brave and wished me good luck. At the same time they would ask if I was really prepared to go through with it. “It's okay to back out,” they said. “It's okay to be scared.” Only I wasn't scared. I had spent the past year living in a state of constant fear and anger and I was determined not to feel that way again. Besides, this was my choice. What did I have to fear from my own decision? So, on August 30th 2015 I packed up my car with anything and everything that would fit. I pulled out of my parent's driveway and my boyfriend and I began my long uncertain trip out west.

I'll spare you the intimate details of our two and half week trip, only that it was amazing. I saw so many different things. We took detours on a whim. We visited memorials, hiked mountains, ate new foods, wandered metropolises, explored canyons. And with each mile I felt all of that anger and sadness and frustration fall away behind me. For the first time in a long time, I felt like myself again.

So here we are in Seattle. We've been here for just under a month now. We don't have permanent jobs just yet for a full fledged apartment but I'm not too worried about it. I open the door in the morning and on one side I see the Puget sound and the Olympic Mountains, on the other I see the Cascades. On really nice days I can see Mount Rainier. With all of that at my doorstep, it's hard to feel discouraged. I have plenty of leads and plenty of time. I'm happy here.




Okay so that was an overly long explanation as to where I've been…onto the comic!

For those of you who skipped ahead, I just moved across the country. I don't have access to my main computer which has most of my digital artwork including the comic. Luckily we did some shuffling and added Photoshop to the laptop, so I can at least keep working on my digital artwork.

I probably won't be posting pages anytime in the near future, and when I do start posting pages again it'll more than likely be rebooted pages. I'm really sorry guys, but I have been doing a lot of world building and plot planning lately and I'm starting to realize that the current pages are becoming more and more obsolete as the universe develops. Since this isn't the only story arc in the Beyond Fire Universe I want to make sure that everything is consistent. The overarching plot and premise will stay the same but a lot of the other details have changed. Right now I have about 80% of the first volume planned out as well as 15% of the second volume. The next step will be scripting and story boarding the pages. I plan on making myself a thirty to forty page head start before I go ahead and start posting pages to the site again (that's storyboard pages, not colored ones).

I'll try my best to let you guys know how I'm getting along. In the meantime I'll keep posting little things here and there. I did a lot of traditional sketches on the trip so you'll be seeing those first. A lot of what you'll see will be concept art and sketches, but I plan on moving on to more full colored paintings in the near future. I'll also be uploading some of my best photos from the cross country trip on Deviantart for anyone who's interested in that sort of thing.

As for the main website, I've been working on improving it as well. I got a lot done, but during the process I was forced to redo the archive page. The prologue is up and running, but chapter one still needs work done. It should be up by the end of the week.

That's it for now guys! I deeply apologize for the long hiatus, and I really hope I can get the comic back up and running again soon!

All the best.

Alex

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