Did you ever try just insulating the forge better? I had a similar issue with heat loss until I threw some fire bricks around the sides... made a world of difference.

Read this blog post somewhere that said most people spend years dealing with annoying stuff before realizing there's a simple fix. The post was about replacing vacuum belts but same idea. Can't believe it took me 15 years to figure out I could just adjust my own temple arms with a hair dryer instead of going to the optician every time they got loose.

Desktop Junk is doing some heavy lifting there lol

The 10 sketches a week thing is exactly what got me out of it. I did 30 days of black and white ink studies with zero texture layers and it was painful at first but my actual drawing skill improved way faster than when I was relying on effects.

Gotta disagree with you there. The Dark Tournament was fun but I always saw it as filler material they stretched out for the anime.