Honestly, it wasn't even intended to be something I shared with the world at first. It started after a few cartoonist videos popped up in my YouTube suggestions. I found myself listening to the running commentary from cats like Stephan Pastis, Sergio Aragonés, and Mike Peters.

Hearing other artists talk about their creative process—and the raw feelings they experience while making stuff—is the exact kind of realness that energizes me as an artist. Listening to them got the gears turning again, and I knew I wanted to jump back into cartooning. But to keep things interesting, I had to give myself a brand new angle.

So, I made a deliberate choice: Sketch8 was intentionally done in the most gimped way possible.

I drew every single piece using a standard computer mouse... and I forced myself to use said mouse with my off-hand.

Why put myself through a self-inflicted handicap like that? Because somewhere along the line, I had tricked myself into thinking that I hated drawing by hand.

I don't even know where that bogus thought came from. Sure, I’ve gotten a few hand cramps over the years, but that’s just because I tend to grip the pencil way too damn hard. That’s a physical habit that can be corrected.

What can’t be fixed is how much drawing with a mouse fundamentally sucks compared to a real pencil.

(Man, I almost wish I still had one of those goofy "pen mice" from back in the day. Though let's be honest, those blew chunks too—I bought a cheap knockoff, couldn't figure out what firmware to download, and the thing never worked right anyway.)

In spite of the awkward off-hand setup, I had a blast. Just drawing out random observations, laughing at the process, and turning everyday interactions into funny little iconography reminded me why I loved doing this in the first place.

Sometimes you have to break the rules of your own perfectionism just to remember that art is supposed to be fun.