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ToxicToothpick

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So I've been pretty quiet on nearly all my platforms for the greater part of last year and even longer on here, my old stomping grounds of DeviantArt. I don't really have an excuse for that as I'm just pretty terrible at juggling multiple "spinning plates" as it were.

medium.com/@iamdavidbelton/100…

The link above is to an article serving as a general sweeping update across all my platforms for all my followers in regards to where I'm at in regards to art and my ideas moving forward. For those who don't really have the time or want to read through the thing to get the jist of if I'll just throw the "TL;DR" version below for your convenience: 

"The uncharacteristically long art drought that's plagued my platforms is going to have to unfortunately continue into 2020 in order for me to leverage all my available free time into finally creating the longer form comics story content again that all of you my followers deserve"

I appreciate everyone who's hung in there with me and been patient enough to stick around while I get my life in order but I'm excited for big things this year and I promise to make the ride worth it!
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So yeah I've pretty much been dead on here for god knows how long and it's because I'm terrible with juggling multiple web presences and uploading consistently and evenly to all of them day-by-day. So I'm making a effort to change that at least a little here. 

So first things first I'm not dead, anyone who follows me on Twitter and Tumblr will tell you that. But I've currently crawled my way out of nearly a year or two of just churning away on commissions and doing small works for ideas in-between. Though this was a lot of time the money was important to help me do things like purchase a new cell phone, replace my defunct cintiq unit (that was the biggest hit, clocking in at over 2 grand), purchase a new mattress, and some smaller investments like new running shoes for the gym, a better microphone, and accessories for my vehicle. Without this secondary income stream to dip into most of the money from my full-time job I'm trying to save up right now would have been absolutely wiped out. 

So honestly a big thank you to everyone who helped me out by commissioning me during that run, you helped cushion a LOT of expenses and costs for me while keeping my savings in tact and I can't imagine what a less stressful situation that is for me than the alternative. I don't know when I'm going to be opening commissions again publicly but it probably won't be until sometime mid to late next year. I need to use my time for more important things at the moment. Money comes and goes, but once you use time, you can't earn anymore of that back. 

As for the comics front the situation currently stands as this: How It Ends isn't going to continue at the moment and if I do bring it back I'm going to reboot it with a better plot and some revamped character designs. It was a valiant effort and a fun endeavor but I've come up with so many other much more compelling story ideas that I wanna do (and will honestly take less time than the length of that one) that it's best to just shelf it for the time being. It's not gone, it's not getting trashed. I just want to focus on some other stuff. 

Step-Monster on the other hand is still on the table with my returning to work on it now that the commissions aren't hogging the majority of the time I have outside my job anymore. I'm aiming for late this year to get it done as I wanna try and do the entire second volume all at once to get it finished. This volume like the first will consist of multiple chapters. I'm going to try and give more updates for it as the months go by this time around so everyone will more "in" on it's happenings but this journal is the first step towards that in regards to just reestablishing my presence on here again. 

I really can't say anything other than thank you for everyone who's been so patient. Honestly things here are far past the point of kinda ridiculous in terms of how long I've gotten side-tracked and no one owed it to me to stick around but for those who bothered to I really do appreciate you and I promise great things are about to happen!

For those of you who don't know I'm going to just shoot up the other couple of places I can be found on the internet these days bellow just so they're all in one spot. 

My Tumblr: getdestroyed-staydestroyed.tum…
My Twitter: twitter.com/ToxicToothpick
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So currently I’m typing this from my new i7, 64-bit, 3.60GHz computer, with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB Hard drive. 

Ladies and gentlemen the eagle has landed. Instead of being woefully outdated I’ve gotten myself back up to a high level of performance that’ll help me expedite my work-flow and projects in the near to far future.

I officially am fully accessed to the internet again and moving forward with continuing commission work and other related things I need to get sorted out. 

I’ve secured all the major components other than the PC, like the screen/keyboard/speakers/ect. but I’m still going to be slowly acquiring the workstation materials like a new desk and what-not. The only thing now that’s from the old way technology-wise is my phone! (I’ll probably get to that within the next month or so). 

I really wanna thank all the folks who have been hanging around so patiently and all the other folks who have followed me in the past couple of weeks while this whole situation was shaking down. I’m gonna be trying to hop back on the train with everything amid everything else I’m still trying to get done so BEAR WITH ME. I still got some reserve art left in my Sta.sh to tie us over so I’ll start to loosen the pipe on that too soon.

Lots of things on my plate still, but lots of things on the horizon! Hope you guys will all be right there with me! Things are gonna get crazy this year now that I’ve got the gear!

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So I haven't done a journal entry here in quite some time, and I apologize for that.

Mostly in the recent months I Was simply coming here to make sure I dumped whatever art was going up on my Tumblr account just as faithfully as it was there. I know this was the first website I was on and I wanna make sure that the people who are still only on here don't get left out of the loop!

Onto the situation. My laptop of about 6 years has unfortunately bit the dust for good after a decorated service. I was hoping to get another couple of years out of the thing maybe, but I suppose that just wasn't in the cards this time. STILL, things could have been way worse, and stuff like my data and hard-drive are perfectly safe so I'm having all that transferred to my external temporarily. This means no art or information has been lost on my end!

I'm currently typing this from my family's computer (which in all honesty is probably more dated and slow that my former laptop was) and I'll just be using it sparingly until I get my "2.0" set-up rolling.  

The main part of this journal is to say that, even though thankfully I was moving towards getting money together to make a desktop purchase like this anyway, I was hoping like I said, that the laptop would last me another year or two. This is going to leave me with a slight issue. I'll have a home work station, but nothing mobile to take with me to work. Now the desktop is the priority but eventually I'd like to bring a new (if not cheaper of course) laptop into the fold. This is where my commissions come into play!

getdestroyed-staydestroyed.tum…

That link above is to my Tumblr post that I made a little ways back regarding these. I got a healthy response from Tumblr, and as the client base from there has now slowed down to a steady trickle, I wanted to take the opportunity to open the floodgates on here for anyone who wasn't already aware of them! 

Now currently I'm only taking slots to fill as without a decent computer, let alone with Photoshop I'm left a bit "in the wind" as to what I can even do right now until I get all this sussed out. But thankfully when I do get everything back in order the first "wave" of 10 slots that's up on deck still has openings in it! So if you want to get yourself one, read up on that post link up above and shoot me an e-mail! I'll be sure to go ahead and mark you down!

I only do commissions once in a blue moon when I need to make big financial pushes like this folks, so who really knows when one's gonna roll through again in the far future?! I thank everyone for their patience and understanding!

(P.S - As for those diligently wondering about Step-Monster. I currently now have all the final 5 chapters of Volume II planned out along with the thumbnails of the first one finished, so I'm gonna move forward with those once I finish these commissions.)
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The...Return!?

4 min read
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

After uploading a more recent Step-Monster picture on my Tumblr, the reactions and comments I recieved was 5 times what I was expecting. All the feedback from people who had been patiently waiting and the wonderful comments from new people who found the comic and read it through the post made me come to a heavy realization: This hiatus has gone on for far too long.

Now, while How It Ends is still in the body shop of my mind being retooled and crafted for a full reboot, Step-Monster Volume II has been broken ground on and I intend to officially now bring the series off hiatus and continue it!

I'm writing this second volume and thumb-nailing it in between the free time I have left over after my day job and my professional job hunt (so I can hopefully move by the end of the summer). I'm probably going to produce it in the same manner as Volume I: I'll work and finish the entire chapter and then upload it rapid fire about 2-3 days per week and then there'll be a break while I work on the next chapter.

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THERE ARE HOWEVER, TWO BIG THINGS I WANNA GO AHEAD AND TELL YOU FOLKS RIGHT NOW:

1) I can already foresee there's going to be an intense difference in style/skill level when it comes to my drawing between these new chapters and the ones of the last volume (mostly due to the time that's passed during this hiatus and my natural growth as an artist). I'm also going to try and up the quality level and writing game in these as well. Because of this, and to avoid a very jarring transition between the two volumes I'm billing all of Volume I as a sort of prologue of sorts to the actual story of the Millers as a whole family now (Matilda, Roy, Suzette, and Mikey). This doesn't change anything in Volume I, it all happened (and some characters might even make a return!) but its simply going to be labeled as a big prologue.

2) I know despite Tumblr and other web-comic art outlets a TON of people still use Deviantart all the time so this comic WILL continue to upload on here when Volume II hits. However, I will be making a website primarily where Step-Monster will upload on its own and run exclusively with a cast roster, archive for pages, and might even include bonus comics or sketches not see on my Tumblr or Deviantart (so there'll be incentive for going to the site to read the pages!). I haven't yet decided on how or what format this will be done yet but it will have its own domain to operate off of. I'll announce when this up and running so you don't have to worry about bookmarking it till the near future!

Once again thank you to everyone who has been soooooo patient with me, there's a lot of artists who I respect and look up to who are just as excited about this as everyone else and that REALLY PUMPS ME UP! An especially big HELLO to all you new watchers and followers! I really hope you all enjoy what I've got cooking for Volume II as much as what I had in Volume I!!!


~D.E. Belton: Human Skeleton

CHECK OUT ALL THE PLACES ON THE INTERNET WHERE I DARE SHOW MY FACE:

My Tumblr (Pure 100% art blog. Sorry! No cat gifs or fandom reblogs here!):
getdestroyed-staydestroyed.tum…
My Main Twitter Feed (Watch me stress about everyday life, quote my co-workers, and make bad jokes: IN REAL TIME!):
twitter.com/ToxicToothpick
My Joke Twitter Feed (A fake Illuminati news account I run, complete with made-up headlines!):
twitter.com/SecretHeadlines
ThisIsMyJam (See me update with new music once in a blue moon, cause I always forget about this site):
www.thisismyjam.com/ToxicTooth…

(I have a Facebook but I like never go on that site so don't even bother haha...I'm serious...ask anyone who knows me.)
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