I'm very excited to share with you guys tonight the announcement of my very own new original long-running comic series SplinterHoof, a project that I have been incubating and iterating over for the past several years. As the sole author, writer and artist in this project, I cannot stress enough how great I feel to finally take the step from making fanart, and even fanart of fanart, to actually work on my own stories and characters without having to worry about crossing any boundaries or encountering creative differences with my peers.

Click here to check the actual comic.

Now, onto the synopsis: A powerful deer of The Supreme Druid Establishment is tasked with the protection of a new Tree of Life located in a world ravaged by war.

The story and the setting are heavily inspired by diverse fantasy and sci-fi universes such as Warcraft, Starcraft, Warhammer 40k and Fallout Equestria among many others. I like to think of the SplinterHoof universe, as Warcraft 40k with MLP-like characters. As such, despite having a deceptively cute and funny exterior at first glance, the comic will be very action-oriented and have grimdark undertones. I know everybody plus their dog goes PG rated these days, but for those who know me, you know... well you know! This is definitely M rated. Profanity, extreme violence, gore, politically sensitive stuff, sexiness... it'll all probably be there at some point. In other words, I'm gonna make it a point to make sure there are scenes that are metal as all fuck! =)

Now while I mentioned that there's indeed a story, and in fact several arcs are already planned, the format of the comic is actually non-sequitur, which will allow me to easily make adjustments and improvise as needed.

That said, I'm a very simple deer with very simple needs, thus I'm not over-complicating anything here. No 200iq gags filled with obscure pop culture references that only the author gets, nor are there any extremely complex overarching plots of conspiracy and betrayal among hundreds of characters whose names nobody remembers.

This is a comic series about straightforward slapstick humor and graphical violence, where cute whimsical critters brutally murder each other with increasingly powerful weapons for no good reason. This is SplinterHoof, and I hope you'll have a blast reading it, as much as I have making it!

Now, onto a quick FAQ:

- Are you quitting the pony fandom?

LMAO, when the fuck did I join? It's not like my whole life revolved around ponies for the past few years. I've always been casual as all fuck about producing any fanart as it is. If inspiration strikes, there will still be fanart and requests and commissions or whatever of any franchise, I guess, just gonna be mainly focused on SplinterHoof for the foreseeable future.

- What's with all the art style variations in the SplinterHoof comic?

I'm being cost-effective so I don't burn out too quickly, and just picking whatever art style I think will make the most out of an scene. You don't need hyper-realistic detail nor dramatic shading if you're just telling a joke, in fact, they might actually be distracting.

- How often will the comic update?

I'm still just a hobbyist so I can't make any promises and thus I'm obliged to say: Whenever an update is ready. That said, unlike my previous comic projects that had... embarrassing update frequencies and untimely endings for their very own reasons... I'm not only a MUCH MORE experienced artist now, but this is my baby, so I'm definitely tripling efforts here while cutting some unnecessary middle men. Not to mention all of my previous fancomic projects were never meant to be long-running, but either means to practice the craft or just random displays of appreciation towards the authors of the fanfics they were based on.

To put things in perspective, I spent over two hundred hours iterating over the first page of The Conquering of Love because I had no fucking idea what I was doing and was obsessed with getting it just right, on top of investing too much effort seeking validation from the author who would had been fine with whatever and was just glad he'd gotten fanart. All that inevitably leads to burn out. In contrast, working now on my own comic seven years later with all that experience under my belt, a single six hour sitdown later of me just doing whatever I want without giving a fuck about following a rigid script or pleasing a third party or about anything really and I'm pretty much done. Never mind that working on comics based on stories that are publicly available is just a mood killer for me because everyone already knows what's gonna happen because they've already read the story. Being the only one in the whole word who knows what's gonna happen next, is really empowering to say the least.

- Why publish an original comic in deviantArt, or in your pony account even? Why not make another account or website?

I gave it some thought, and simply put, because I'm a hobbyist and still a filthy casual when it comes to art. This is a passion project with no aims for profit. However, if my production power and quality really take off to a point where I could see it viable to make actual money out of it, I'll consider moving to another platform. Then while I never became horse famous by any means, I'm still kinda satisfied with the brand I built around zoarvek, so I'm not really thrilled about starting over, plus I think the art genre of SplinterHoof is similar enough to what I've been posting here thus hopefully I won't harshly alienate most of my current audience. Finally, there are plenty of other original comics which are mainly published on deviantArt, so I'm confident I'll be able to reach enough people here.

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That's all for tonight. Have a good one, and remember to always fight for the greater good!