Bi-Weekly Report #36 (and Drawpile #6)

Still a bit down, but trying to fight it. The results have been mixed (just look at this Drawpile canvas lmao), but we got some things done around here regardless.

Also, Patreon changed the post editor. Let's hope I didn't mess anything up! I can do my own preview cutoffs now?? That's cool. That means I can give everyone teasers for Thralls chapters and such but lock the actual download specifically for paid backers, or all sorts of other nonsense. That's evil in a way I can actually get behind, because it's pretty similar to the sort of promo I'd need to be doing on social media anyway, just... on here. Sure! Why not?

Anyway let's look at what I've been up to. It's a bit scattershot.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

I have officially set up and broken in the Twitch. My first couple streams of playing Phasmo weren't saved as VODs because apparently you need to manually turn on VODs. I do not know why VODs are not on by default, but I did manage to catch that in time for my first go at doing JRPG Wednesdays. I have chosen to subject anyone willing to sit through my nonsense to Star Ocean 4! It's fun when cutscenes happen, mostly. There's a lot of game between those sometimes though because I'm me and I like to stroll around and find hidden baubles and such, but that's a great time to shoot the proverbial shit, so I'd love to see more folks come hang out and chat with me while I Edge across the universe.

On which note, I'm trying to get back to having these again:

Eventually, I'd love to develop the confidence to actually put scheduled hours on these. I think that would help me a lot, mentally, but things are still pretty chaotic around here it feels, and I'm not sure it's going to get any better for me with a temporary roommate around for a couple months. Or maybe that's the exact kind of help I need, we'll see.

And, since a lot of people haven't gotten the message yet somehow, my art streams have been on Piczel.tv for... several months now? I've honestly been debating going back to Picarto, and recent technical issues with OBS when trying to (I think?) handshake the stream server and actually get started aren't helping. It seems to work a lot better for viewers, but the benefits to me as streamer are basically non-existent over there. I'm sticking with it for now, but it's on thin ice.

WRITING

Finally sat down and got Chapter 14's edit pass done and slapped that up for backers, and then went through and did the same for Chapter 7's public release on ScribbleHub. I haven't bothered with Wattpad yet because honestly Wattpad hasn't really had any engagement happen for me, lacks annotation support, and is generally just kind of a big dumb waste as a whole it feels like. Sorry to all like two people who were reading on Wattpad I guess? I might get to y'all's platform of choice eventually, but it's hard to argue it was made for what I'm doing.

Anyways, I'm doing the Hare Moon-style public release schedule of one chapter publicly for each two in the completed document behind the paywall. It keeps y'all well ahead, but also gives me a nice chance to step back and do a final edit pass and provide any translation work for the conlang stuff for the nerds. Consider it an extra incentive to do a refresher read once in a while!

GAME DEV & ANIMATION

I'm making this one banner this week because the overlap here is immense.

First off, while progress on Slime Forest has been a pittance, I have done some minor work on the leaderboard UI, primarily in the form of adding these little goobers as a loading indicator while waiting on server responses and such. Watch 'em bounce!

It's simple, it's cute, and people with a solid connection might literally never see it, but hey it's there and I'm fond of it. Figuring out how to center it in the adaptive frame of the UI container was... interesting... but I did eventually get that all pinned down, and it wasn't all that complicated. As a bonus, I learned a fair bit about Rect2s and what you can do with them, so that's neat.

In preparation for future things (and as a direction to feel like I'm getting somewhere with something in spite of myself), I've gotten back to my modelling coursework and have entered the UV unwrapping stage. This isn't all that interesting - been there, done this - but it leads into texture painting, which is new to me and hopefully won't make me make horrified faces in practice because in theory I'm very excited to play with it. For now, though, this bitch has a test texture slapped over her body and looks like an absolute freak. Hooray!

As for the manor YCH, I am continuing to chip at it about half as often and at a tenth the pace I'd like to be, but it's coming along bit by bit. The gal hanging from the banister has hair now. I think I grossly underestimated how involved animating that position would be, but it's looking incredible as it comes along, so hopefully it'll be worth the effort.

COMMISSIONS

I am presently trying to focus more of the non-skeb days into the overflowing general queue, 'cause I've got folks asking questions and honestly my skeb turnaround is still pretty solid overall comparatively. Skeb boxes still get Tuesdays any way about it, though, because that's like the one consistency I've managed to cling to fairly reliably lately and I'm not letting go of it that's mine it's MINE!!

Completed:

• Surprise Box x6

In Progress:

• Rip It Off for Aist (present general queue focus; lines mostly done. Trying to push this one as I slowly beat back the depression.)

• Haunted House YCH (Sundays, usually. Maybe some make-up days at this rate. Mia is a little more Mia every time! It's been almost a year good lord I'm sorry)

Upcoming:

• Sketch-A-Thon x 2 still somehow oh no

• Adopt Reward for Spritz

• Surprise Box x 7 (Number down from last week! I'm doin' it, pa! next stream: Tuesday)

• Vale Trading Card

Commission Me Here | Check the Queue

AND THAT ABOUT DOES IT

I'm still really anxious about the developing payment processor situation and whatever new executive orders and heinous laws are getting shotgunned into reality on any given day. I feel like most of my work could become illegal overnight for no valid reason besides "rich old fucks don't understand you," which would be pretty punk and metal and whatnot if not for the whole "needing their cooperation to make a living" thing.

No, the job hunt isn't going well, on that note. Thanks for asking. Tired of being ghosted about as much as being denied, but the ghosting hurts worse. It's exhausting and hard to feel like all the time and effort spent applying for work is worthwhile. Time is money and I've spent literal hours on some of these apps and their various evaluations just to be left hanging in limbo for weeks on end. It increasingly feels like I just need to find a way to make this shit work.

On the gaming front, I'm back on my Phasmophobia shit again for some reason (comfort food between tasks, I guess) and have moved on to Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage as the latest attempt to find something nice to have on my phone that doesn't psychologically assault me with bullshit but also lets me actually play it. The balance of rhythm game and VN storylines is nice, and the weird choice of making both of those things utterly optional and independent of each other is welcome when some days you just aren't feeling on point but do want to have an upsetting wave of emotions push a good sob out of you. Nightcord at 25:00 are my new blorbos.

Oh, and as one last bonus, (link is NSFW!) Sea got a lovely piece of fan art from Potoo that I got to wake up to today. That was very nice! Go give the artist lovin's and such. Do it!!

Anyway, back to scraping myself off of the ground with a spatula.

• Sera