Tag: Blog

Fears at Work 2 – The WordPress update

LittleFears86 Comments

Have you tried the WordPress update yet? I notice a lot of people in comments are saying they’re scared of it but haven’t tried it yet. 

Well… Go try it. It’s an update that’s been coming for well over a year. We’ve had nearly a year to try Gutenberg, the new editor, to see if we like it or not. There are options for returning to classic editor, but ultimately, the new editor is coming (or here if you updated this weekend) and it’s here to stay. make a new account or if you self host, create a subdomain and use a fresh install of WordPress 5.0.

If you don’t like Gutenberg you can always try Medium.com for a brilliant writers website. From fiction to politics to lifestyle. It’s a social media built for writing and reading. If you need a homepage, try Squarespace, Wix or Weebly. 

In my opinion, the WordPress team are trying to make an editor that can in some way stand up to Squarespace’s and Wix’s website editors. It has a block functionality that allows you to add new and different things to your blog posts without the need for plugins or HTML. For some people, this new way of doing things is completely awesome. For others, it’s going to really mess with peoples workflow.

The old editor was pretty dated. Squarespace, Wix and Weebly have made website creation very accessible, WordPress was going to start losing a decent lump of new bloggers to the more modern website builders. Not everyone wants to learn HTML or website building to run a blog. Even if it’s just five minutes of their time. WordPress has always lagged behind in that respect.

The downside to this is you get people like me. I’ve been using WordPress to blog since 2004’ish. I’m well stuck in my ways. So the new editors an issue for me. I used WordPress because it was WordPress. Not a block-based web builder.

The reason my own website broke so completely is partly my fault. This website has broken numerous times over this last year and hasn’t even been fully fixed when I’ve done complete re-installs. So when updating to WordPress 5.0, it was a catalyst that blew up every bug, issue, code error and media problem I’ve had this last year. I back up once a month so had access to a folder with my media library, but when importing the websites XML it didn’t want to accept my media library was there. Even using plugins to re-attach all my media, I’m still having to go through and manually edit every single post.

I also have an issue with inline images no longer working unless made with the Gutenberg editor. So that little line of icons at the bottom of every post exploded across my screen and made a right mess. Again, every post on this site needs that edited out. 

My old theme also spat the dummy out and won’t function with WordPress 5.0 so I’ve spent a lot of today figuring out a new layout for the website. Almost there.

The amount of work I need to do on this website is going to take me weeks. It’s a horrific pain in the arse, that’s partially self-inflicted. I could have been far more prepared for this.

So, the thingy of this post. Don’t panic. There are good reasons why my website died so catastrophically. Gutenberg is coming. Like it or not. Go try it now. Don’t fear something you don’t understand. You might like it. You can revert to the classic editor through a plugin, but eh, Gutenberg is the way WordPress want things done now. Reviews on Gutenberg are pretty split. As is often the way with the Internet, it’s easier to rant than to praise.

One last thing. If you hate Gutenberg or find bugs, let the devs know. But have some humanity with it and don’t go abusing, threatening and being a dick to the developers. The internet doesn’t need any more abusive rage.

Stepping Sideways

LittleFears26 Comments

For the last forty-five days, I have been posting stand-alone doodles rather than my old panels. I’ve also been lacking videos. Mostly Inktober experimenting on what else can work for the Fears. I’ve come to the conclusion, mostly, it doesn’t.

I have really enjoyed doing them and I hope to post some of the larger pieces now and again. I think the smaller simpler pics would work better with a punchline on them. Like Modern Toss. A classic strip I love. It would also make the medium far more Internet shareable than my current image plus story text. I definitely need to sort and compartmentalize the Fears website before I start mixing them in though. They would out of place among the panel doodles.

Speaking of which. My old panels had a unique look and feel to them. They were a huge part of the Little Fears identity. The Fears all began with me doodling monsters on newspapers images. It’s a strong visual style I’ve really missed this last month. They’ll be making a return this week along with the videos.

I really didn’t do enough with the videos or work YouTube. As such, they never gained the following or views they should have. Now I have an office of sorts and a bit more time in the day I want to get back into making them. But, we can add in a few things. Sounds, some basic visual effects and with the longer stories, me. Sitting in a chair, a dog at my feet, a dog on my lap, biscuit in one hand, a cup of tea in the other and a book in the other hand. Narrating the tales via moustache movements. It’ll be awesome.

The last time I mentioned chair and dog based moustache narration I was asked if I’d narrate other peoples stories. Yeah, as long as it fits with what I do, I’d be up for that. Horror, humour or weird stuff. I’ll do a couple of my own first of course. Once I’m in the groove I’ll be up for narrating other folks stories.

After October, I was meant to begin a new story following Copper and Iron on a road trip through desolate Little Fears world. Filled with all the usual puns and a smidge of drama and horror. But I’m not sure if that’s going to work now. I ran some loose seven-story long arcs for Grey Moons days and then three thirty tale long story arcs for Lily and Sally. I think that was my limit on what I can get away with for longer narratives. The Copper and Iron road trip was penned at ninety stories long. Posting five a week that’s one story that’ll last four months. Would anyone follow the tale for that long? I doubt it. I’m not sure I would and I’m the one that posts them. So I’m going to go for some shorter stories and one-offs instead for a while. At least until I can separate stuff up on the website into storylines.

Oh god, that means tampering with the website again… Last time I did that I blew it up for 3 days and had to re-install everything. It’s still not working right either. Sigh I’ll get there. First things first though. Let’s see what Lucy’s been up too since visiting the Grey Moon bar all those months ago, in this weeks story, Levels. We’ll start with part one tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you love what I do, please consider clicking the links below where you can buy my books, art and tees. Or, drop a $1 into my tip jar on Ko-Fi or poke me on Patreon.

Fear filled books: amzn.to/2rVYXpC
Scary arts: etsy.com/uk/shop/LittleFears
Spooky tees: littlefears.threadless.com
The illustrators’ teacup: ko-fi.com/littlefears
Patrons to fear: patreon.com/littlefears

Thank you so much for following along on the Fears journey with me. I do hope you continue to enjoy seeing, reading and hearing my stories and doodles as much as I enjoy inflicting them upon you.

I mean telling them… Telling them to you… Kinda…

Cheers!

What people think

LittleFears20 Comments

“She called me a cretaceous throwback with a head as bobbly as a Necroraphidia,” moaned Bugly.
“That’s what all this sulking is about?” sighed Sprite.
Buglys eyes widened and his top mandible quivered.
“Ok, listen, don’t worry about what humans think,” said Sprite. “They don’t do it very often.”

~~~

Howdy, all. Trying a new title picture and hopefully image inserts for WordPress reader and email subscription today. Paws crossed. Might make image shares from this page a bit more interesting too.

Planned theme change didn’t happen because a plugin broke my website for four days. Apologies to any deleted comments, I had to cobble together a six week old back up. Thank you, as always, for sticking about everyone.

Door

LittleFears26 Comments

Introducing Door for this weeks #Colour_Collective. A cute wee missy, known for guarding a door. This weeks colour is Auburn.

The Little Fears website will be getting an overhaul this weekend. I adore my theme, layout, look and feel. But unfortunately, in Automatics infinite wisdom, their reader has never displayed featured images in their own WordPress reader. Baffling. Our largest followings can’t view our posts in full. This is a rather large job for me as it means I have to manually edit every post on the Little Fears to move the featured image to the first image in a post. 842 posts to be exact. Cripes. Wish me luck!

With special thanks

Weekly shout out to my $10 patron, Warren from IWrite. Without people like Warren, I wouldn’t be able to wake you all with my little fears and you’d probably cry a lot less in the morning than you already do. So please do check out Warrens blog.

Ibex

LittleFears4 Comments

Introducing Ibex for this weeks #Colour_Collective. A lovely lady really. Big on climbing and biffing people up the butt. Small on collectable frog toys. This weeks colour is Scheveningen Orange.

With special thanks

Weekly shout out to my $10 patron, Warren from IWrite. Without people like Warren, I wouldn’t be able to wake you all with my little fears and you’d probably cry a lot less in the morning than you already do. So please do check out Warrens blog.

Scrapps

LittleFears5 Comments

Introducing Scrapps for this weeks #Colour_Collective.  This lovely lady was originally going to be my Scorpio. She does have a curly tail but it’s just not prominent enough for what I wanted. I am still quite fond of her though. The colour for this week is Deep Mahogany.

With special thanks

Weekly shout out to my $10 patron, Warren from IWrite. Without people like Warren, I wouldn’t be able to wake you all with my little fears and you’d probably cry a lot less in the morning than you already do. So please do check out Warrens blog.

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare| Threadless

Tiny Fears

LittleFears25 Comments

 

We’ll be having a wee break from the Lily and Sally stories this week for five tiny Little Fears horrors. A teeny bit of experimentation with my art style and storytelling. Like Floofy, up there above this text. 

Lily and Sally will return for their last case next week, Finding Leads. In which we find our intrepid duo hot on the heels of a serial killer.

Until then, I hope you enjoy this week’s micro horrors.

 

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare| Threadless

Aquarius

LittleFears13 Comments

‘He steadied himself against the tiles. He’d been here for twenty-three hours. Stuck at a public urinal. Releasing an endless stream of urine. He wondered whom he’d pissed off to deserve this fate. She stood quietly behind him. Wondering how much longer he could stand here before his legs gave.’

Steady on Aquarius. That’s a harsh punishment for laughing at astrology. Harsh punishments aside, she’s been drawn onto 240 gsm acid-free acrylic paper for some lovely texturing. She weighs in at a size of 7 inches tall by 5 inches across. Pens included in images for size reference only. They do not come with the illustration. Neither does the wood table. It’s pretty minging. Also lopsided if I’m honest… She comes with free first class shipping within one business day so will arrive on your doorstep in a speedy fashion.

If there’s a Little Fear that you’d like made to order, please do let me know.

Etsy shop linkage: etsy.com/uk/shop/LittleFears

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare| Threadless

Paper Fears

LittleFears13 Comments

Now, you may not have noticed this, but I’ve been putting a ton of original art on my Etsy store this week. It’s working out quite well as a creative horror outlet while my daily tales are running the current ongoing story.

A couple of things have occurred this week though. The main one being I have run out of the smaller paper I have been using. That’s not much of an issue right? Just go buy more. But I have a larger pad of the same stupidly thick, 240gsm card that I have been promising to use once the smaller pad ran out. That’s a fear for me. Use big fancy paper? Heck, the current 5-inch by 7-inch paper is the biggest scale I have ever drawn at. I have made bigger prints, but my actual illustrations are usually tiny. So yeah, this week, I have a fear of big paper.

Something else has occurred. I have been reunited my fancy paper that I left behind in London and the printer. So I can return to art prints again. Awesome. BUT! There’s another but… But I am pricing up a Moo.com order for the future of my art prints. Why? Well, I love my current canvas effect paper. But ordering the paper in batches of 50 then using official HP ink costs far more money than it ever should for something as simple as my prints. There’s also no difference in quality between my prints and the Moo prints. It’s just a different paper type. Moo use flat matte instead of canvas paper. By ordering 500 or more prints at a time through Moo I can bring down the costs to me and start hitting the markets up in Scotland. Though this is of course once I have a house and space to separate and organize 500 prints. Eesh. Nearly there. So, yes, if you still want to order my prints on fancy arse canvas effect paper, you have a couple of months at most before I’m ready to move onto bulk orders and new paper for my prints.

One last wee thing. I’ve mentioned ACEOs a great many times to fellow artists. Never done them properly myself. So this week I’ve put in an order for 200 or so cards of different paper types, and I’ll be having a go at them myself. What’s an ACEO, I hear the uninitiated cry? Well, it’s an original art piece on a canvas, card or paper the size of a playing card. You get fancy frames and sleeves for them. They only sell for about £6. But (another but? Really?), I think they will work well with what I do. Compact and quirky. The perfect creative outlet for the Little Fears. Keep your eyes peeled for them, they’ll be about in the coming weeks.

Now I know after all this, you’re busting to see my Etsy store right? Well, you’ll need a link, just like the one below.

etsy.com/uk/shop/LittleFears

I have another suggestion for you creatives while you’re here. It’s a Skillshare class by one of my favourite teachers. Melanie Greenwood. How To Sell Your Art Online With Etsy.

As always, my Skillshare sign up links offers 2 months of premium subscription for free. There’s no obligation to carry on past 2 months, you can cancel any time before your 60 days are up and you won’t pay a penny. It’s well worth it. Thousands of courses by creative lords and ladies. From photography and art to blogging and marketting.

Skillshare sign up Linky: https://skl.sh/2kvcAJi

 

 

Migrations

LittleFears77 Comments

So, obviously, I did it. I made the ride from London to Scotland. About 960 km. In one run. Got up at 2 am, loaded my life onto the back of my bike, and whoosh. Off I went. Made it to Newcastle by 9:30 am. Smashed it! Then remembered the second half of the journey takes twice as long as the first half. On top of that, Scotland gave me a very wet and very windy Scottish welcome. So I lost 2 hours sitting in cafes waiting for the rain to feck off. I arrived in the Grampian mountains around 8 pm.

My house sale actually went through in the end. Two years… The whole sorry saga still cost me way-way-way over £100,000. My life savings are gone. The stupidity, evil and greed of humans eh? Seriously had to scale back on what we wanted to buy. Good news though already put an offer on a house up here and hopefully completing early September. Get in!

Until then, I have the option of the missus mum and dads wireless internet. Slower than the old dial-up connections. Literally, cannot play a video. Or using my phone as a 3g hub. Possible, but as you can imagine, the middle of the Scottish mountains has some seriously shonky reception. I can also pop into the closest town cafe and sponge the wifi as much as is possible over a cuppa tea. Now that option works for me! Haha.

In the meantime, I can keep creating, writing, drawing, finding new clients and getting ready to take over the world from a new home.

I gotta say. Big thanks to everyone who’s continuing to support me while I’m barely active in the community. The visitors, the commenters, the post sharers, the patrons, the Ko-Fi buyers, the art purchases and book readers. It all helps. Thank you. You’re a wonderful audience.

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare| Threadless