Hello and welcome to the Reconstituted Veggie Power Hour™, with your host, me, a great big bowl of parsnip soup! Today we'll be asking the question 'Has the weather gone too far this time?'
Indeed, a nontrivial portion of the dominion of this update has been marred by the inefficiencies of interminable heat, split lopsidedly between myself and my equipment. My drawing tablet's screen has taken a stronger disliking to high temperatures than last year's occasional tantrums and now begins to gibber and twitch as soon as it gets above 25 degrees. But that's absolutely fine because all that needs to happen is that the weather stays cool for the rest of my working life. Should be easy.
In the median-time I experimented using the tablet with the screen off (i.e. using it as a normal drawing tablet on another monitor, not trying to draw blind) and, whilst very awkward - I still recall how revelatory it felt using a screen tablet for the first time - it's not impossible to, you know... do some makeshift commissions to pay for a new one if needs be. 😅
Now the heat may have hopped over its zenith but that doesn't mean my lethargy's passed so clemently. Just look at how late this update is! But you know what else isn't over? August! I've still got a solid *peers distrustfully at watch* five days or so to finish their comic and, would you look at that, it's pretty much complete already. Besides, of course, the final sketching, inking, colouring, shading and dialogue.
But that's fine, because nothing else is happening right about n-Whoops, I just slipped on the realisation that October's approaching! The RandOCtober* doodles are coming along... matter-of-factly? They're existing in higher quantities than when you last asked, at least and/or most. As proof here are some limb-receipts:
* It's the fourth year of this and I still haven't thought of a less worse name
And that's not all! The editing on the mid-month and post-month videos have begun by virtue of my having snipped, cropped and shuffled all of the introductory randomisation reactions roughly into place.
Furtherfurthermore, I've continued my trail of fake logos to act as October signatures and, for reasons decided upon entirely by my erratic lethargy, have extended well beyond the portraits I've actually completed. Sometimes forgery is more appealing than art, what can I say?
Streaming is, once again, skittering along manically like a squirrel in an acorn museum: Lies of P having thoroughly charmed me and gotten one big thumbs up, alongside a second mechanical thumb up, has been replaced with the somehow more uncanny Titanic: Adventure out of Time! Who didn't want to time-travel onto a doomed cruise liner to spy-shenanigan with the most awful people you ever did endure as they inhabited haunted versions of their own faces? The sound design's excellent too!
Our friendly friend-game times have upped sticks from Middle Earth and thence crammed sticks into the soil of Tamriel with The Elder Scrolls Online. Finally our Sunday friend doodles are... well they're happening, put it that way. They're happening. 🥴
Incidentally (the name of a tiny spider's dental practise) in the quagmire of my heat-induced stupor I took some time out to finally add some new Crispy Facts into the stream rotation, so look forward to those - and in several cases don't.
So what can my gorgeously generous supporters look forward to by the next update, hmm? Well by then I shall have definitely completed the following:
August's full-colour comic and a supplementary doodle comic;
the commissions on my wait-list;
5-6 more RandOCtober doodles;
fixing the remaining bugs in Chaos Chess ready for testing;
and a doodly form of October's freshest sibling September.
Doesn't that all sound marvellous? It does, doesn't it? Shame really. On an unrelated note I'm now over 10,000 words of notes deep for October Noir, am level 16 in Elder Scrolls Online and have come up with a handy new addition to program into my personal organiser. I'm sure they won't interfere, of course, just thought I'd mention them. Also my thumb hurts. Unrelated.
Right, back to what I rather insultingly refer to as the coal-face. See you in the not-past and, if I might advise, consider during this inclement weather taking lots of little drinks throughout the day; You're much less likely to get caught than trying to take one big one.
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜