Hey guys!
Just wanted to put out a little rant and update you guys about what’s going on here. So yeah, I’ve kinda hit a snag right now.
Allow me to explain what’s going on.
So, as many of you know, life isn’t really kind to yours truly.
(If you didn’t know then you’re probably new here, in that case, welcome aboard!)
But hey, who IS it kind to? I’ve always made jokes about how life shits on me and all that, and recently things have been a lot less messy here. I’m grateful for that, I really am.
However, it does not change the fact that a LOT of time was lost (but not wasted, I’m grateful for that too). Randowis was consistently being pushed back for months, but I can finally start to catch up. Or so I thought.
Things still do pop up from time to time, forcing me to delay my shit, but I tell myself it’s alright and just work harder to finish it on time.
However, doing that too often has its toll and recently I’ve not only been feeling them, but also seeing them take place.
In other words, I’ve been working too hard to catch up on time which can never be recovered, and my health and ‘family time’ is taking the hit.
I’ve never really had peace and quiet here on my end, so I’m used to rushing work and tanking all-nighters. The irony now is that, since life has finally settled down a little, Rando decides do mess it up on his own. Because of my paranoia of when life will send me another box of cuss-shaped lemons, I didn’t really plan ahead and just did as much as I could for as long as I could in this rare time of peace. Boy was I wrong.
By doing so, my priorities became inconsistent, projects we’re being juggled around everytime a sliver of progress was made, and things were barely meeting the days they were meant to be released. I ended up not making any artworks or animations, and even struggled with making doodles this month.
I was being too ambitious, I’d say.
In all honesty, MMO’s Chapter 4 could’ve been released last month, if I’d just plan myself a little better. Even now, this month’s issue of MonthlyWis (Nov) is not even complete.
So last night, before kicking it in at around 4am, I was thinking to myself about all the things that I wanted to do for Randowis, the animations, the comics, podcasts, livestreams, videos, EVERYTHING that I’d love to make for you guys, but at the same time, how I’m unable to reach any of that the way things are right now. So I raised a white flag and I told myself, that I can’t do this anymore. (No I’m not stopping Randowis! Don’t be too quick to assume, dumbass! And no, I didn’t actually have a flagpole next to my bed, it’s a figure of speech. Sheesh. WHO AM I TRYING TO CORRECT ANYWAY?!)
What I mean is, I’m gonna need a break. A short one. I’ll use this time to recuperate, physically and mentally, and reschedule myself to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
Simply put, I’ll be taking things a little slower from now on, meaning to say I’ll still make stuff, they’ll just take longer to upload. I’ll also be pushing this month’s MonthlyWis (Nov 30) to next month (Dec 31). To those who were expecting all sorts of bullshit from Amirul and me, I apologise for the delay but I hope you understand why.
I love you guys, and I can’t thank you all enough for loving my work back.
A lot of you guys send me messages about how I made your day better, or how you haven’t felt this happy in a long time, and I wanna keep doing that. Bringing a smile to both our faces.
But to be honest with you guys, I have this fear that if I don’t upload anything or don’t create enough stuff or even upload frequently, I’m not being good enough and that I’m failing you as an artist.
On the other hand, the same lot of you who know this are telling me to not be such paranoid pussy and to just keep doing what I do. I AM trying dammit!
I believe that this will help me take the first step, by not being too ambitious, going slow, and getting my shit together.
I’m not gonna be the best artist, but I want to be the best Randowis I can be for you guys, just a little bit slower now.
I hope you guys are okay with this random rant that literally came out from nowhere. It’s just something that’s been on my mind for quite some time and I thought I’d just let it out.
Another way to look at all this, is that you’re only gonna be missing this month’s MonthlyWis (Nov), and everything except comics will take a longer time to upload.
I hope that isn’t too much for any of you.
As always,
Love you much much.
I’ll see you again soon. (Like, this Saturday.)
Randowis
30 Responses
Heyah Rando, if you are willing to read my little story here goes: I bought a PC 3 or 4 months ago. Adding everything together cost me around 2k€ and things started nicely when all the parts were arriving i got the message “too bad bro, we suddenly ran out of motherboard, tough shit” and i got a french keyboard for whatever reason (i live in austria so not really useful). After some sorting out I had everything i needed and asked my techy little brother who knows this stuff way better than i do to help me assemble the parts and get the right drivers and everything.
After building it first start was launched and it started turning itself on and off until shut down. Lovely. Checking all the parts, everything is fine, checking every detail, everything should work well. I imagine the pic of you when life squats over the fan with a big grin…
Aaalright, off to another techy friend of mine who took a 4 hour look at the machine and then figured out “This is the first time i have seen this but apparently your RAM doesn’t need to be placed at the slots 1&2 like it says in the manual but rather at 1&3”
Cool story, everything started working now and what a relief too, i was getting nervous. Gaming PC is online now it is time foooor an unexpected meltdown. And at the very day where this young and expensive PC rolled over to die my car’s brakes shut down for 900 bucks and my phone’s screen cracked while it was inside the pocket of my jeans.
Weell if this was fun wait till you hear the rest of the story. Gave my PC to this techy friend again, let’s call him Patrick.
“Something went wrong with the BIOS, no idea how” fixed it back up, good to go again. Except that after a few days of peace the PC started shutting itself down for no apparent reason and i just bought skyrim for the first time…
Back to Patrick, he analysed it for 4 days (he has a lot of work right now and hardly any time) and the result “Some real high quality stuff” Me “What, my PC?” Patrick “No the virus. Got into the BIOS, extremely hard to track, give me till monday. Maybe that’s what caused the meltdown a fortnight ago”. Do you see it? Patrick is wrestling with life who, very succesfully, wants to take a dump on me. This is the closest real life example of the thing that is called a “sysiphus chore” in german. Idk if it exists in english but it’s an unsolvable chore with only one point: to punish somebody.
To sum this up: Take all the time you need Rando and stay away from life’s many fans so that a stronger you can come out of it
You do you, bro.Take care of yourself. I don’t know about other people, but we don’t need fancy extra crap or gimmicks to get me to pay attention to your work. I love your content and I’m happy to get it at whatever pace you can reasonably provide it. You’re already in my list of favorites to visit. You’re doing dang well good enough and honestly, you’ll do better work if you take care of yourself. You’re also awesome and worth taking care of too. Anybody who says otherwise can go fuck themselves. They don’t deserve to laugh at your awesome crap anyway.
I think it’s one of the hardest things to admit to yourself when you’re trying to hard, and you can’t commit to everything you want to do. That being said, everything you do has been consistently great, so if anyone deserves a break it’s you. and besides, any comic artist (normal, web, manga) goes on hiatus all the time, and people still love their stuff. Just look at Hunter X Hunter (or Hiatus x Hiatus as they call it)
Man you sure care about your “fans”, you could have just take your break, come back and say “Sorry, I got almost dead of overworking, had to take a looong nap” :p
In the world of entertainment, we don’t always notice when you’re not here, but boy we’re happy when you are ! And no, that doesn’t mean you can be “replaced” by some other artist in our long days of surfing.
Anyway, what i say may be confusing, just… have some rest to do you best o7
My advice to you is to stop putting dates on things. Let projects finish when they actually finish. By putting a date on it you are now forcing yourself to rush it and that’s fun for no one. I know some people are going to butt hurt and constantly asking “WHENS NEXT EPISODE WAAAAAH!!!” but don’t give in. At most just give progress updates like, “I’m almost done with ___”, “___ is taking longer than expected”, “I’m about halfway done with ___”, and so on. For now take that break, you earned it man.
Wow everyone said a lot more than I was gonna say… I was just gonna tell you that you’re doing the right thing. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Randowis in the future. Thanks for making me laugh so hard that it sometimes brings me to tears. You’re a true artist.
I do understand your situation. To be honest, you’re not the first one to hit a snag. I’m not saying this to be rude like “Oh you hit a snag? yeah whatever everyone does it!”, I mean that I’ve seen people who’ve become famous, like small content creators on youtube, and have hit some form of snag. Ether by being burned out of the content they making, overestimating themselves or both at the same time.
Most of the time it’s their own mentality that takes the hit, for various reasons. The main thing that most people forget, from my fair share seeing other small creators, is that they are just one person. Often focusing on creating instead of focusing on themselves, which can lead to less satisfaction on the things they make.
What i’m trying to say is that you should take care of yourself first and not only focus on creating just because of the fans. Do what makes you happy. If you feel that you need a break, then do so without feeling guilty. You are the machine that needs oil. So stay oily(oh god that sounds out of context).
You once said in a Q&A video that you usually don’t force yourself to draw since what comes out of it usually ends up looking like crap. But did it cross your mind that forcing yourself against circumstances might end up doing the same thing by-proxy?
You may haven’t noticed, but your recent work took a little hit too. It appeared as if it was slightly forced and as a result duller – not bad or anything, but indeed less sharper than what was seen from you before.
I thought something like pressure IRL may have had something to do with it, but now that you said it i guess i wasn’t far off with my theory.
So anyhow, go ahead and take your break, learn from your little snag, renovate and remember not to put yourself into an unnecceray crunch like this again. Least it will take a toll not only on your health but also on what you’re trying to create by making those compromises you mentioned.
Bitch, you’re awesome! Your comics have gotten me in trouble at work because I laughed out loud at one of the panels in MMO (the one where you’re hurtling at Amirul giving him the finger).
Your art style, humour and creativity are worth waiting for. I’m patiently waiting for Chapter 4, and I’m willing to wait as long as it takes so that the project is awesome and you’re not making yourself sick over this.
I’m going to support your ass on Patreon, you majestic bastard.
Dude, just do it, take a break. Doing a heads up is a responsible thing to do, but you don’t have to be apologetic. I had similar approach for years and it’s not worth the damage to psyche. Care, be responsible, don’t apologize for being a real human being with needs. Do what you feel is needed, what makes you want to create more. Running on fumes is not worth it.
Sometimes pushing hardcore is needed – you’ve gotten on the current level like this, because when you start, you need to push. But now you’ve shown what you do, you’ve shown how you improve as an artist, you’ve shown your caring and responsibility. Don’t try too hard now. If you run into a situation when you make a comic just cause you feel like you HAVE to – perhaps you won’t make a truly cool comic and it’s not worth it.
Just, chill, get yourself together, look back, think how you want to do things from now on. And do it. Don’t worry if some people drop (they always do), worry only if a lot do. And they won’t. Unless you start acting like an ass. 🙂 And there’s higher chance of you doing that if you overwork yourself, let’s be honest. Happy people don’t act like assholes.
Don’t be such paranoid pussy and just keep doing what you do!
I mean… haha. I love your work, and I don’t mind waiting for it at all. Take as much time as you need and don’t beat yourself up over it, you’re doing great and you’re an amazing artist! Just know your limits and take care of your health.
Get better!
Thank you Rando for all the work you have done and it really is awesome. Me and my friends always discuss about you comic when it’s out.
This game of Life can be really shitty and tough but is okay to save your game and rest up, when you have enough rest, come back and fight again(just no too long to the point that you forgot how to life).
Good Luck
Michael hit the point… Can’t say more than this ^^
Love your work Rando. Will happily wait for your art to be released. I hope you have time to recover and shit. Will support you as long as I’m able because your comics and artwork always put a smile on my face