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Description
So yeah... Wow. I've wasted 10 years of my life here, haha.

I think I joined this site somewhere around beginning of high school. Back then I didn't really have a lot to upload since I thougt it was super annoying to scan my things. It was only around the time I got involved with a certain group of animators back on YouTube that I started to realize that I could actually use digital programs and upload them directly. Yes, I WAS kind of an idiot.

Back then, I kind of drew whatever I felt like at the time. Lots of gifts for friends, some (admittedly very pathetic) attempts at getting the attention of people I wanted to be better friends with even though I was kind of a stoopid kid, and even some early drafts of a comic idea. Back before I started working on Dreams, I was working a lot on a handdrawn comic named "Girlsquad 2k" (kill me...) which was about a group of girls who fought monsters and supervillains. The comic took a lot of inspiration from Time Stranger Kyoko and Tokyo Mew Mew, but overall lacked a clear storyline and was basically just a teenager's attempt at recreating the best parts of his favourite manga.

As I entered senior high school I had already begun drawing Natsu, but no plans were made for a comic with her yet. Instead I focused a lot on an animated series which I called "Pointless Comix", a remnant from a small group of people (there were only three of us) back in high school that spent more time during classes drawing silly stick figure comics than actually learning anything. Characters such as IG (a stick figure who blew up his school because he was late. Probably very controversial today.), Michael McNorth (A muscular doctor with sunglasses, Elvis hairdo, bare upper body and who took every single opportunity to do shameless plugs for Colgate), as well as a collaborated work we called "The Sweet Water Pirates", which was essentially a "what if us and a few of our friends were in a One Piece setting?" kind of comic. It was mostly for inside laughs.

Anyway, Pointless Comix was a series of animated shorts (made through paint and moviemaker) which were either straight up short clips of random silly crap, or the entire episode centered around its own dumb storyline. I do believe my absolute favourite episode was one that Alphine collaborated with to write a script. (Video found here )

In my second year of senior high school I had started thinking of a concept for a comic starring Natsu, but instead I began drawing "Kaibutsu Gakuen" (yes, Japanese. Sue me, I was like 18.), a comic inspired by PhD - Phantasy Degree, a Korean manwa. The comic revolved around four kids, whose names were taken from a few friends from an old RP site: Xinky the vampire, Sacrist the demon, Cerec the mummy as well as Ryouta, who managed to escape the fridge where I placed all my other old ideas on ice. He later emerged as one of the main cast of Dreams! Somebody else who did so but hasn't gotten any screentime yet is actually his mother, Amaya Lupus, who was planned to be a PE teacher in Kaibutsu Gakuen.

Around this time, my good friend drew a picture for another friend of ours, . Ben replied with a picture of his own, and cue the magnificent to join the fun with a reply on his own. I of course wanted in on the action, so I shamelessly wrote myself into the series and everybody else just rolled with it. This resulted in what we came to call "Indiana Ben", which you can start reading here:
The interesting thing is that since everybody was so terrible at updating, there were often several months between updates. This meant that by the time it became somebody's turn, so much time had passed that their artstyle had improved, which is why almost no page looks like the previous one by the same artist. (Yes, even you Heem, no matter how much you try to deny it).

As I graduated, I had completed a full crew of main characters.
Natsu, catmom extraordinaire. Nachi, her naive crybaby of a daughter. Khaali the snakewoman, named after the fire demoness Kali from Final Fantasy 1. Ryouta, the werewolf boy who somehow managed to suffer from separation angst and be completely impervious to Nachi's affection at the same time. Feria, who was just added for the heck of it and named after a guineapig my dad used to have, who in turn was named after a certain soccer coach's lover.
I am almost completely convinced that Squee (who used to be named Chu after the Japanese word for kiss) was born from a doodle I made in school, but I can't remember its true origins. Come to think of it, Nachi was also born from a doodle. Huh.

Ryouta's twin sister Shiki was originally meant to be his little sister, and would have the trait to be protective of her big brother but also fall in love with boys at a single glance. I decided to tone down the protective part and completely remove the second trait for the final product... Over time, she had also grown more ruthless and found a love for setting things on fire. This trait was actually thougt up on the spot during comic #8, where she is first introduced to Squee.

Over the years a lot of attempts were made at starting a comic with this cast, but everytime I scrapped the idea after only a page or two since it didn't feel like the type of comic I had planned. Instead, I picked up Nuzlocking and drew myself and my adventures in Pokémon Emerald. The comic was meant to have no emotional value whatsoever, and was basically just an excuse to draw funny stuff. Of course, since I'm a horrible writer, it soon became edgy as all heck and I stopped working on it out of embarassment.

The second attempt at a Nuzlocke was the original Necrolocke, which was supposed to be less funny and more dark, since I had grown tired of the basically storyless type of Nuzlockes everybody seemed to be doing. I wanted to do something unique, and with 's Apocalypse Johto as my inspiration, the idea of a necromancer raising travelling through Kanto and raising the dead began to take form. I thougt that since the entire concept of a Nuzlocke was about how pokémon would die if defeated in battle, the idea of the pokémon being already dead would be an eyecatcher. The Nuzlocke recieved some moderate support, but since that run was eventually ruined to heck by el horrible storywriter Serastroph, my own interest was lost and I stopped working on it.

The Necrolocke redux is basically my attempt at salvaging a perfectly good idea, but since Dreams is a main priority I only work on the Necrolocke when I feel like it. That is to say, not very often since the Necrolocke has a more complicated artstyle than a silly 4-panel gag comic. But it IS being worked on, slowly! I promise! D:

Anyway, time to round this up I suppose.
If you ignored the wall of text above, have some heart and at the very least read this segment. Thank you.

During my years on DeviantArt, I have made a lot of friends and art, but above all I have made mistakes. Projects have begun and failed, but every time I gained a little experience and used the new knowledge in my next work.
I also know that over the years I have been a needy twit. At some point my work started being less about what I wanted to do and more something that I thougt might get me fans and attention. This is the wrong way of thinking, and one of my biggest mistakes. It was only very recently after a talk with my boss that he gave me the very mindblowing advice to stop thinking about what you didn't achieve, and focus on what you actually enjoyed.

I can't believe how stupid I've been. I realized the very instant he said that why I had kept trying for so many years. It wasn't for the attention, but simply because I actually fucking enjoy to draw. Pardon the French, but my limited vocabulary didn't have any better ways to express just how much I actually love creating art. It doesn't matter if it's a 10 second doodle or a 10 hour painting, I love taking ideas from my head and putting it on paper (or a png. file as I mostly work digitally, haha.)

So, here's to ten years. To the things I've learned, to the people I've met and to the friends I've made (you guys are freaking awesome, every single one of you!)

To the mistakes I have made, and to the mistakes I will make in the future: Stay true to yourself and follow your dreams.

Cheers!

//Linus Hansen

Description
So yeah... Wow. I've wasted 10 years of my life here, haha.

I think I joined this site somewhere around beginning of high school. Back then I didn't really have a lot to upload since I thougt it was super annoying to scan my things. It was only around the time I got involved with a certain group of animators back on YouTube that I started to realize that I could actually use digital programs and upload them directly. Yes, I WAS kind of an idiot.

Back then, I kind of drew whatever I felt like at the time. Lots of gifts for friends, some (admittedly very pathetic) attempts at getting the attention of people I wanted to be better friends with even though I was kind of a stoopid kid, and even some early drafts of a comic idea. Back before I started working on Dreams, I was working a lot on a handdrawn comic named "Girlsquad 2k" (kill me...) which was about a group of girls who fought monsters and supervillains. The comic took a lot of inspiration from Time Stranger Kyoko and Tokyo Mew Mew, but overall lacked a clear storyline and was basically just a teenager's attempt at recreating the best parts of his favourite manga.

As I entered senior high school I had already begun drawing Natsu, but no plans were made for a comic with her yet. Instead I focused a lot on an animated series which I called "Pointless Comix", a remnant from a small group of people (there were only three of us) back in high school that spent more time during classes drawing silly stick figure comics than actually learning anything. Characters such as IG (a stick figure who blew up his school because he was late. Probably very controversial today.), Michael McNorth (A muscular doctor with sunglasses, Elvis hairdo, bare upper body and who took every single opportunity to do shameless plugs for Colgate), as well as a collaborated work we called "The Sweet Water Pirates", which was essentially a "what if us and a few of our friends were in a One Piece setting?" kind of comic. It was mostly for inside laughs.

Anyway, Pointless Comix was a series of animated shorts (made through paint and moviemaker) which were either straight up short clips of random silly crap, or the entire episode centered around its own dumb storyline. I do believe my absolute favourite episode was one that Alphine collaborated with to write a script. (Video found here )

In my second year of senior high school I had started thinking of a concept for a comic starring Natsu, but instead I began drawing "Kaibutsu Gakuen" (yes, Japanese. Sue me, I was like 18.), a comic inspired by PhD - Phantasy Degree, a Korean manwa. The comic revolved around four kids, whose names were taken from a few friends from an old RP site: Xinky the vampire, Sacrist the demon, Cerec the mummy as well as Ryouta, who managed to escape the fridge where I placed all my other old ideas on ice. He later emerged as one of the main cast of Dreams! Somebody else who did so but hasn't gotten any screentime yet is actually his mother, Amaya Lupus, who was planned to be a PE teacher in Kaibutsu Gakuen.

Around this time, my good friend drew a picture for another friend of ours, . Ben replied with a picture of his own, and cue the magnificent to join the fun with a reply on his own. I of course wanted in on the action, so I shamelessly wrote myself into the series and everybody else just rolled with it. This resulted in what we came to call "Indiana Ben", which you can start reading here:
The interesting thing is that since everybody was so terrible at updating, there were often several months between updates. This meant that by the time it became somebody's turn, so much time had passed that their artstyle had improved, which is why almost no page looks like the previous one by the same artist. (Yes, even you Heem, no matter how much you try to deny it).

As I graduated, I had completed a full crew of main characters.
Natsu, catmom extraordinaire. Nachi, her naive crybaby of a daughter. Khaali the snakewoman, named after the fire demoness Kali from Final Fantasy 1. Ryouta, the werewolf boy who somehow managed to suffer from separation angst and be completely impervious to Nachi's affection at the same time. Feria, who was just added for the heck of it and named after a guineapig my dad used to have, who in turn was named after a certain soccer coach's lover.
I am almost completely convinced that Squee (who used to be named Chu after the Japanese word for kiss) was born from a doodle I made in school, but I can't remember its true origins. Come to think of it, Nachi was also born from a doodle. Huh.

Ryouta's twin sister Shiki was originally meant to be his little sister, and would have the trait to be protective of her big brother but also fall in love with boys at a single glance. I decided to tone down the protective part and completely remove the second trait for the final product... Over time, she had also grown more ruthless and found a love for setting things on fire. This trait was actually thougt up on the spot during comic #8, where she is first introduced to Squee.

Over the years a lot of attempts were made at starting a comic with this cast, but everytime I scrapped the idea after only a page or two since it didn't feel like the type of comic I had planned. Instead, I picked up Nuzlocking and drew myself and my adventures in Pokémon Emerald. The comic was meant to have no emotional value whatsoever, and was basically just an excuse to draw funny stuff. Of course, since I'm a horrible writer, it soon became edgy as all heck and I stopped working on it out of embarassment.

The second attempt at a Nuzlocke was the original Necrolocke, which was supposed to be less funny and more dark, since I had grown tired of the basically storyless type of Nuzlockes everybody seemed to be doing. I wanted to do something unique, and with 's Apocalypse Johto as my inspiration, the idea of a necromancer raising travelling through Kanto and raising the dead began to take form. I thougt that since the entire concept of a Nuzlocke was about how pokémon would die if defeated in battle, the idea of the pokémon being already dead would be an eyecatcher. The Nuzlocke recieved some moderate support, but since that run was eventually ruined to heck by el horrible storywriter Serastroph, my own interest was lost and I stopped working on it.

The Necrolocke redux is basically my attempt at salvaging a perfectly good idea, but since Dreams is a main priority I only work on the Necrolocke when I feel like it. That is to say, not very often since the Necrolocke has a more complicated artstyle than a silly 4-panel gag comic. But it IS being worked on, slowly! I promise! D:

Anyway, time to round this up I suppose.
If you ignored the wall of text above, have some heart and at the very least read this segment. Thank you.

During my years on DeviantArt, I have made a lot of friends and art, but above all I have made mistakes. Projects have begun and failed, but every time I gained a little experience and used the new knowledge in my next work.
I also know that over the years I have been a needy twit. At some point my work started being less about what I wanted to do and more something that I thougt might get me fans and attention. This is the wrong way of thinking, and one of my biggest mistakes. It was only very recently after a talk with my boss that he gave me the very mindblowing advice to stop thinking about what you didn't achieve, and focus on what you actually enjoyed.

I can't believe how stupid I've been. I realized the very instant he said that why I had kept trying for so many years. It wasn't for the attention, but simply because I actually fucking enjoy to draw. Pardon the French, but my limited vocabulary didn't have any better ways to express just how much I actually love creating art. It doesn't matter if it's a 10 second doodle or a 10 hour painting, I love taking ideas from my head and putting it on paper (or a png. file as I mostly work digitally, haha.)

So, here's to ten years. To the things I've learned, to the people I've met and to the friends I've made (you guys are freaking awesome, every single one of you!)

To the mistakes I have made, and to the mistakes I will make in the future: Stay true to yourself and follow your dreams.

Cheers!

//Linus Hansen