Burnout is insidious. I’m on the mend, and doing well now that I successfully have diagnosed the problem and begun to address it in earnest. I’ll explain.

For 19 years I did freelance illustration work. I did all sorts of nifty art for lots of nifty products, but I was really focused on being a comic book artist. At the time that seemed important to me, although now I can’t really see why. I admired my comic artist heroes so much, greats like John Buscema, Gil Kane, John Byrne, and John Romita Jr. What I didn’t see was the excessive hours of work, no days off, no vacations, no health care, poor page rates, etc. I always got the prices I charged, and customers kept coming back for more, but it was a punishing career choice. I never broke in with Marvel or DC, but the situation there would have probably been similar.

Around 2004, I got fed up with drawing other people’s properties, so I dreamed up Johnny Saturn. For the most part, an exciting decade followed, I garnered a lot of attention in the comic world, made a lot of fans, did a lot of conventions, and really opened up to my inner salesman and promoter. It was a heady time, and I don’t regret it, but It didn’t end all that well.

By 2012, I was producing the Johnny Saturn webcomic twice weekly, and penciling, inking, and coloring two pages a week for a vampire comic for another publisher. The vampire job paid decent, the owner was easy to work with, and it kept us afloat financially. But, burnout was building.

First, I blew out my wrist and needed carpal tunnel surgery. Then, my thumb wore out, and my right shoulder. Spending hours and hours on a computer every day was taking its toll, and it became excruciating at points. Probably because of the pain I was developing a serious hate for making digital art, and that’s not a good thing for an illustrator, I can assure you. I’m sure that my avoidance issues was due to pain and long-term, serious exhaustion.

To alleviate the issue, I began hiring different digital colorists to lesson my burden. I had talented people from all over the world working for me, even some Marvel comics colorists, and at one point I had seven different creators working for me. I probably could have leveraged this into an illustration agency of some sort, but managing that group of willful creatives was a full-time job in its own right.

I limped through 2012, trying my best to work through the pain, but by 2014 I was done. I ended Johnny Saturn, ended working for other publishers, and ended my punishing schedule of doing anything and everything I could dream up to promote my work. Promotion had become frantic and exhausting in its own right, and I easily could have kept a full-time promoter busy. Like I said, in 2014 I was done. I still did book covers for publisher/writer friends, but I already hated digital art, and I just couldn’t do it anymore.

Be sure to come back for the next post, the Aftermath. Happily, the story does turn around for the better.

Hello! I know this new iteration of my blog boils down to me writing to myself, but that’s okay for now. It’s been a while, but I’ll learn how to promote this and make it easy to find soon.

After some technical issues, I have begun my Artstation page. I once had a Deviant Art site, but there were issues with updating it, so I decided it was time to migrate my work to a more modern platform. This will be the home for all my paintings, illustrations, cartography, icons, templates, and textures. If you go there now, then you’ll see only the bare beginning of my efforts, but as the week ticks by I plan to flesh it out.

My WorldAnvil site, aka www.aorlis.com, continues to grow. At last check, I had over 167K words written there, and so much more to add. That’s what happens when you take a beloved world that you’ve worked on for 40 years and try to condense it down to a manageable form. An unexpected benefit is that I have been posting some solid historical guides, under Background Material. If you are a fan of history, or medieval gaming, or writing fiction for medieval settings, there are articles there that may grab your attention. For example, a lengthy Arcane Glossary for in-period magic terminology, Medieval Technology and Advancement by century, and much more.

Indeed, I currently updating my old article on medieval horses with lots of new information, and I’ll be posting it there. My writings on maille armor and its uses and history probably will follow soon.

Scott.

I’m working on something new for Aorlis. The citizens of each of the 18 countries in Aorlis have their own distinct outlooks, I’m heading up each country with a “worldview listing.” Here’s an example:

Blackvale’s Worldview

We are the trees, stoic, patient, and we only say those things that need to be said. We are vigilant, for the forest is our heart. Our eyes are the owls, wise beyond words, forever observing, the guardians of ancient magic. Our will is the hawk, the perfect predator, with fleet wings and keen vision that misses nothing. We are the bow, resilient and deadly. We are the arrows that fight our battles and feed our families. We remember the Others from the Bright World, and their blood still pumps in the veins of our oldest families. We bless each other in the fae’s names, and we honor the spirits of oak, and recall the wild dance of remembrance.

Here’s another:

Orlois’ Worldview

Historians claim the Jotuns of old were destroyers, a ravening scourge to the civilized world. The historians sadly are misinformed. It was Jotuns who tore down the old world and built the modern age with all its wonders. Our detractors write about ocean-born reavers, of berserkers who feel no pain, of the Hidden God of our grandfathers and the mysterious power of runes. Those things are outliers, and historians are grasping at history’s low-hanging fruit.Jotun ships were technological wonders that could sail the Known World via ocean, sea, river, and creek. With these vessels, we established the trade routes that crisscross the planet and interconnect Kainded’s vast expanses.Most Aorlisians treat their women as property. Not us. In Orlois, we have shield maidens, fighting women who can vote alongside the men in the Allthing. We have the Volva who command magic (seidr) and advise our leaders. Our women are not servants, but warrior, witches, and healers than can hold their own with any men.Now, living in the little tract of Aorlis that we have claimed as ours, we Orloisians still burn with the energy to bring a new, more connected future to Aarthus.

They are a bit easier to read on the site because I’ve broken them into bullet points and nestled them into quote boxes. So far I have about 12 of 18 of these posted, and I think these vignettes will help both game masters and players access the mindset of the people in question.

One reason I did this was because in popular role-playing games there are humans and then assorted non-human lineages (elf, dward, etc.) Those are handy because each species comes with a given set of expectations for players to latch onto. Aorlis, however, is a primarily human world, and it focuses on cultures, not species.

Scott.

Just to remind everyone of my love for medieval imagery, here are some of my favorite collaborations with “my” art and Benita Story, all for sale in a variety of formats on Spoonflower.

https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/thefiberpusher

I put parenthesis around “my” art, because these are loving recreations of medieval art. I inked, cleaned up, and colored these drawing. So, I guess you could say that I was also collaborating with the nameless artists of bygone centuries. I’ve learned a lot as an artist by working with these long-ago masters.