I'm almost afraid to answer that, considering how dysfunctional a lot of my characters are.

I will admit that I've implanted a lot of my personal experiences and fears into the cast of Here I Lie Awake, but with the dial cranked up to eleven and broken off. None of the characters are exactly like me, but people who know me, if they read the comic, would definitely recognize a lot of their traumas as mirroring something I've been through.

Also, in all of my comics, my characters have a tendency to either have a similar sense of humor as me or just be totally humorless. Meaning they drop terrible puns and/or make lots of sarcastic quips, and if they're humorless, then they will be the disgruntled recipient of said puns and quips. But I think that's not so much because I'm trying to write them to be like me so much as it's a byproduct of what I think would make for funny dialog. Now that I think about it, I should consider trying to write characters whose sense of humor runs counter to my own for variety's sake. The only humorous trait my characters have that I don't is that some of them have a taste for practical jokes, which I am miserably bad at pulling off in real life.

I like manga-style art, so my style just gravitates that way. Refraction's style is mostly just art evolution, though, let's be real. I can't claim I made any sort of well thought-out choices about the style. I just experimented and practiced a lot to see what I liked. The only strict "rule" is that color appears based on whatever magic is going on because the comic runs on Rainbow Brite nonsense with a shot of apocalypse.

Awake is less cartoony and uses a muted cool/warm watercolor-ish palette to give the comic a moodier feel than just pure greyscale or black and white would have. Blue and yellow are the base colors, generally symbolyzing negative and positive states of mind, respectively, with grey being the "neutral" between the two. If somebody who is normally in a specific color is shown in a different one, even shortly, it's usually to convey something about their current mood or psychological state. I do also use more distorted or abstract imagery, but that's usually saved for conveying extreme emotions, dreams, or hallucinations. Conversely, the newborn is drawn a bit cuter than a real newborn, partly because we're seeing him through the eyes of baby-adorers.

Darn, I knew I shoulda run spellcheck on my title, rookie mistake.

I forgive everyone who capitalizes my username, but you're on thin ice.

I've critiqued your comics multiple times (at your request, but still), so if you ever wanted to put me in my place with some sick burns, then this is your chance to roast me like a duck.

The Low-Key Adventures of A Narcoleptic with Healthy Family Dynamics sounds like a real winner to me.

I'm here as long as the site sticks around.

...sure, I'll bite. I have two ongoing comics you can not read, so feel free to chose between neither of them. Just pick whichever title or banner doesn't catch your eye. Between you and me, I'd say [redacted] is probably the better comic, but you can not go with whichever one doesn't suit your tastes.

This is an interesting analogy. I think most people could have a mix of traits, but still lean strongly in a certain direction.

For me, I'm a runner, no doubt about it. I am very diligent about cranking out pages on time, with the addition of hoarding buffer like a doomsday prepper so when I feel the burnout coming, I can afford to just take a week or two off. Sooner or later, the itch to keep creating always comes back, but it takes longer to come back if I don't let myself just stop working when I need to. The burnout does indeed hit hard when it hits, but learning to know the warning signs (feeling like drawing is a chore, boredom, staring at a blank page for a long time, an intense desire to do anything else, sudden bouts of hyper self-critism, ect.) before it starts can help prevent major burnouts.

At the same time, I have some hiker traits in how I approach the creative process. I experiment quite a bit and toy with new ideas to see what works for me and what doesn't. And while I start projects with the intent to finish them and update consistently, I don't mind it taking a long time. After all, once I'm done, the fun's over.

First of all, if your friend isn't asking, then it's best to keep your opinions to yourself.

If your friend is seeking to become a professional artist in any capacity, they will have to learn to take criticism from their peers, teachers, and bosses. If they can't handle that, they probably won't last long. In either case, it's not your job to teach them to handle professional criticism.

If your friend is just doing art for their own enjoyment, then...like, it's okay that you personally don't like their style or think it's not technically good. But you're gonna have to just let it go. I'm sure you understand already that people tend to not like getting unsolicited criticism about their hobbies.

If they ARE asking you directly for your opinion* and you want to be helpful, be specific on what they could work on with the piece they are showing you at that time. If they get defensive, don't dig your heels in. If they seem receptive, great. But don't get too pushy, either. Let them learn at their own pace. They'll come back to you for advice when they feel like they need it. The more often that happens, the easier it'll be to figure out how to talk to them without overwhelming them and the more they'll trust your opinion.

*showing you their art and saying "what do you think?" is not always an invitation for criticism. Start by being positive but honest. Don't lie and say you like something about it that you don't like, but don't lay into the negatives first thing. Wait and see if they press for you to elaborate on something you think could be improved, or for questions that suggest they aren't happy with the results of their work and need an extra pair of eyes to spot the problem. Otherwise, you're likely safer assuming "what do you think?" is actually them saying "I want to show you a thing I made."

Oi, si estamos hablando sobre dubs...mi español ya es mal, pero hablo japonés cómo una weeb, desu~.

I tried breathing water, but it just gave me pneumonia. 0/10 would not recommend.

Quiero decir, "ahora mi licenciatura de inglés es basura," pero...ya es basura. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Princess Chroma: Writing parodies is hard, actually, so this is now a deconstruction fantasy/drama, mind the speedbumps as I figure out how the heck to write a webcomic.

Here I Lie Awake: Fear and mental illness feed into each other, creating a self-destructive cycle that is very hard to break.

I did some crossovers that resulted in a character from another comic developing a crush on one of mine, but no "le original OC x my character" that I'm aware of. I doubt that would ever happen anyway. My comic isn't really well-known enough that people would be inclined to make fan content of it outside of exchanges and crossovers, and though a part of me admittedly would find it fascinating to see other people come up with content based on my settings/characters unprompted, I'm pretty sure the amount of internet attention my work would have to get to start reaching that point would stress me out more than anything.

But hey, if one of you wants to ship your Mary Sue with my OCs, it would be your honor. (this is a joke)

Does this make us all zombies now? Because I'm down.

In Princess Chroma? Cordelia, followed closely by Sonny. And if those two ever teamed up, they'd wreak havoc. Cordelia's got plenty of magic powders that are basically tailor-made for messing with people and Sonny is impulsive and mischievous enough to deploy them indiscriminately.

In Here I Lie Awake, surprisingly, Zoey would pull the best pranks. She hasn't been feeling like herself, but when she's sane, she's a gadfly who enjoys teasing people just to get a rise out of them.

Nah, what we gotta do is build the tower juuuuust high enough to claw our way out of the grave and back to the land of the living. Heaven is a place on Earth.

I do have a fantasy comic with The Refraction of Princess Chroma, but it's a magical girl comic that probably doesn't *quite* fit the epic high fantasy you're looking for. I for sure echo the suggestion for Marble Gate Dungeon if you haven't read that already. I'd also recommend Serpamia Flare. Both of them are longform fantasy/adventure works that will probably scratch that itch for you.

Hero of Justice would probably relish in meeting a real-life sailor, magical or not. The shanties would just be icing on the cake.

Who wants to be friends with Leopold, the depressed ex-immortal bunny rabbit trying to figure out how to save what's left of the world? Goodness knows he could use a pal.