Hello NG,

I was very busy the past couple months and neglected sharing my works here.

This will soon change, as I will gradually update the gallery over the next weeks.

My apologies.

If you want to stay in touch with my comic project, consider following Ko-fi

It will likely be finally published at the 25th of November.

Hey hey everyone.

It took a very long time working on it but it is finally finished.

An action-packed glimpse into the science-fiction world of KERKA.

CLICK BELOW TO READ

very soon (tm)

Hello everyone.

The first line of official prints is now available!

Check my store and see what you like.

Prints are offered in many different sized and mediums, including canvas and metal print!

Get to the shop

Hello everyone,

what a weird month it has been. Between commissions and working on smaller private paintings, I am glad to report that KERKA made actual progress in the meantime!

Now, I don't just want to leave you with that little, so lets talk substance:

The comic is at this point a deal bigger than initially planned. This happened less because of content bloat and more as the result of providing a proper story with good pacing. Keeping both print and webtoon format in consideration, I had to plan and write out the story beats and plot points in a fashion that would allow them the "time" they need to really connect with the audience reading KERKA. As a consequence, the "book" version of the comic is currently aimed at 3 books of the first arc, with ~100 pages each. The webtoons would consists of about 17-20 strips/arc. This is a lot of work going forward, but I am looking forward to getting to work on it. I want to provide readers with a reading pace that allows them breathing room, to take in events and ruminate on the developments, as well as take in the world of the hollow strata. 

Speaking of: Story and world building have made a lot of progress as well. Much of it was "clamping down" on the beats and ideas that work the best for the kind of story I want to tell. Over the past year, KERKA went through a lot of general rewrites and do-overs, all having a very similar core idea, but experimenting with different directions, characters, plots and even formats. At one point, it was aimed to be a collection of loosely connected short stories. Some ideas, events and characters found themselves in the final version of KERKA, but many more didn't. Where things are now is the result of a long iterative process of trial-and-error.

Currently, the first book is mostly done in writing, with the whole first arc outlined. Much of the writing work left is literally writing it, preparing a proper script to begin story-boarding from. With the pace things are processing, story-boarding may begin as soon as next week. I will inform you all about the moment the first line of the storyboard is laid down.

I aim to keep the script somewhat "loose" to allow the storyboards to become the main "script" for the final product. Seeing how things will pace out in a visual panel-by-panel, page-by-page format gives a better impression of how many panels you need and how you need to adjust story beats to the visual medium. At least it feels so to me, having worked with storyboards and hard scripts before. Even if the end result is that I will have to redraw and readjust a lot in the story-boarding process, I feel like it will help a lot pinning down how KERKA will work best as a visual story.

All in all, I am glad to report that I am still very much within my schedule, even a little bit ahead. Suppose I didn't get to the 3D asset goal I had in mind, however I prepared a lot more 2D tools and textures to help expedite the painting process.

Now, to some unfortunate news:

KERKA will take up virtually all of my time from here on out. I will keep working on other smaller things at the side, but in order to make good progress on the comic, I need to dedicate as much time as I can towards working on it. With my free time already stretched very thin, I need to make an unfortunate and difficult adjustment. Commissions will be closed, and will remain closed for the foreseeable future.

Note that anyone that has already commissioned me will have their order delivered, but I will not accept new commissions for a while.

You will be informed when commissions are open again. I am looking into livestyle and work adjustments that would allow the allocation of time towards commissions and still leave me with a healthy degree of free time. Until then, as KERKA will become the main focus of much of my time, taking commissions is simply no longer viable. Some jobs already take a lot of time to deliver, and I would not be fair for you if I had to stretch them out for too long because I lack the time to work on them.

And that is it for the update. Thank you very much for your time. We are moving closer and closer to KERKAS production proper and will get started very soon.

Till then

"Fanart" (?) by a discord associate (they don't have a public account ●︿● )

Hello everyone,

over the past year, I have been working on-and-off on a comic in the background, making and publishing illustrations for a "science fiction" story that "isn't quiet there".

Well, if you were asking yourself if they went anywhere, you can finally stop wondering. That science fiction story is real, and it is time to talk about it:

A dark science fiction story and my debut comic "KERKA".

KERKA takes place in an alien machine of unparalleled proportions, a marvel of engineering bordering on the divine. With technologies incomprehensible its many arcologies have provided a home to uncountable myriads of people. The heart of this world, the central nexus, has mysteriously gone dormant, causing the megastructure and its systems to fail. Thousands of years later, within the withering and infested guts of what is now only known as "the labyrinth", one of the last remaining caretakers by the name of "Mono" has been activated to find the cause of this error and reactivate the nexus. 

The story will take you through the mysterious world of the labyrinth and find out about its odd inhabitants and its many terrible secrets. It is a world of lost histories, purposes and meanings, where it is sometimes arguably better to remain ignorant of the nature of ones troubles.

KERKA is intended to be a comic for mature audiences. While it will never revel in the grim parts of its world, it will also not downplay them. The story in all its wonder and horror would be painted in full color from beginning to end, to provide the best possible reading experience.

The comic is planned to release FALL 2022.

It is planned to be available as a free, traditional webcomic and a vertical canvas comic on WebToons. The "episodes" will be released in seasons, with new pages available every week until the seasons end.

Additionally, there will be bound releases, featuring a full season in a single PDF in highest quality, with additional art, commentary, sketches and covers. Like a hard-bound comic, except digital. Proper print comics are planned as well, but remain in the open until further into development.

Currently, there is still a lot of work to be done

With my employment situation leaving me relatively little time for creative projects, much of my efforts will move towards comics from here on out. Currently, the plot of the first arc is already outlined, with the second in the drafts. Going forward, the first arc would be fully penned out for storyboarding towards late April, with all due preparations for the production proper be ready at the beginning of May. The release of the first half of arc 1 is aimed to be released in Fall 2022, with about 80 pages worth of story. It may become more, but this is unfortunately mostly a subject of time available, not funds or energy.

For transparencies sake, I will provide a roadmap the coming days, and will provide updates on the development of KERKA through a "dev-blog" on Ko-fi.

Thank you a lot for reading through all of this, and I hope to see you along for this journey.

Stream is about to begin!

Working on an important painting. Come by and enjoy the process

https://picarto.tv/BonsaiDraws

Stream time again!

Its gonna be a special, streaming Saturday, Sunday and finally Monday with my comic reveal!

Its gonna be big, so try not to miss out!

Hello everyone

To say that the year 2021 was unusual would be an understatement. Everyone has their own collection of insane stories to tell, good and bad alike. It wasn't much different over here and for me.

2021 was a year of many trials and changes for me. The beginning of the year was likely the lowest point I have ever been in life and over the course of the year, thanks to the help of many good friends, I not only managed to climb up from the hole I found myself in, but came out stronger and better than ever before.

It was also this year where I have once again found my own creative "spark", of which i didn't even realized I have lost before. It made me see just how low I was, and for how long. The drive to create as natural and light as breathing has returned to me. With it also came a newfound confidence that I can push my work further than before, and weather whatever trouble comes. More importantly: If I can't there will be people helping me get back up.

How does this year look exactly for me?

Well, I an go back and forth about feelings, but lets look as NUMBERS instead:

ART

2021, I created more artwork than during the past 3 years COMBINED. If you only take Newgrounds as the measuring stick, it'd be more than in the past 5 years.

This is particularly surprising since I have less free time than I probably ever had.

Through 2021 alone, I not only created more than I ever have before, but I also (almost accidentally) found my creative handwriting. One big issue I had over the years was anxiety over every artists bane: the pursuit of ones "own original style". 2021 was when I finally stopped worrying and just did what came natural to me. I like to think my recent work reflects that authenticity. It is a lot like the pros say: Don't worry about your style, practice, draw inspiration from artists you love and it will come to you naturally.

I have some big plans for 2022 in respect of this development that I cannot wait to share with you at the end of this review.

SOCIALS

Maybe an odd one, but still.

This year, I reopened my Patreon. I have also opened a Ko-fi page and began revitalizing my Picarto streams.

Needless to say, I also became properly active on Newgrounds as well once again.

Twitter saw a growth of more than 100% from the beginning of the year. Meaning that I gained more followers in one year than the previous 7 combined.

(My account exists for longer than 2017, but socialblade doesn't seem to keep track beyond 5 years.

My work has also seen a lot more engagement overall. After Summer many of my posts began to fluctuate between the two and three digits in likes, which is a massive jump for someone who got mostly a couple clicks with each upload.

I tried to find data about Newgrounds, but I will have to go on my hunch, where I saw similar absurd growth. From something like 200 followers to 452 (by the point of writing this). No doubt because I hit Frontpage so often (am still debating as to why though).

I have also recently begun running an Instagram. Its way too early to speak about its performance though since I launched it mid-November.

Somewhat relating to this:

I also opened commissions this year. They started as an emergency fund to help make ends meet (and a massive thank you to everyone who helped out with this) but carried on throughout the year. Around September I opened my Ko-fi shop, from which I have continued to receive commissions going forward. Within this year, coming largely out of the blue, I made more than a thousand Euros worth in earning in commissions, about 3 times as much as I expected to get from the fundraiser alone.

Again, a massive thank you. I don't speak much of my problems, but your support pulled me out of a big one.

Where to from here?

I am looking towards 2022 with excitement. Not in a "wow, thankfully 2021 is over, Im sure 2022 will finally be my year" kind of affair. An earnest excitement of whats to come. If someone were to tell me 2021 would turn out the way it did I'd call them naively optimistic, but here we are.

I have some exciting things to look forward to come 2022. With the last batch of commissions nearing their completion I will open up new slots very soon, along with the "Full Illustration" slot.

On the creative side, I am in the process of drafting a science-fiction painting series, blending inspirations from dark and urban science fiction. It is projected to feature 8 paintings total, with 3 more "abstract" pieces along and variants for all pieces. I continue my commitment to not paywall any of my finished work, which is why every piece will be publicly available. For those who want to support my work (and have some cool merch on the side), I plan to prepare art packs featuring the variants (as well as timelapse recordings, brushes, project file and commentary) for purchase, as well as prints of every piece. I am still looking into which printing service would work best for this and would provide you the best quality. I am particularly eyeing Displate so far, but I will have more info once I get there.

Unfortunately I cannot 100% say when it will be done in the year, but promise to keep you updated. I project the series be done around May.

Lastly, the big one: I have said on and off that I was working on a dark-science-fiction comic. I think my first "announcement" proper happened during my first BONSAI talks stream. Well, the pre-production has finally wrapped up and I will be able to work on it proper now. I spent a lot of time during the year brainstorming and spit-balling different ideas to figure out what story I want to tell exactly before committing to it. After all, a comic is a massive commitment. However, the wait for answers is almost over. Expect a proper announcement of my comic around early February.

Upon announcement, I will go on to publicly show concept art, information, lore and progress on the comic as we go towards the eventual release. Right now, I am seeing the comic be ready for publication around Fall 2022.

Mind you, a lot of these projections are based on my current employment situation. While I do not expect it to change for the worse, things may change through the year. Depending on the way they go they will either improve or worsen things.

With the comic in particular I am aware that it looks far away. I tried making a comic before and my biggest mistake was trying to rush it out of the door before it was ready. I want to provide you with the best work I can deliver, and that will require some time. If its done sooner, its released sooner.

Thank you very much for your time, and joining me on this insane year.

I am not good with closing words, so just know that I am extremely excited for 2022 and can't wait to take you with me on this insane train.

Commissions are open once again!

It's taken a while to get everything set up but we are finally ready to go. Thanks to everyone that helped me set everything up.

Select your kind of order from my selection and we can get going!

https://ko-fi.com/thebonsai