Hello and welcome to the fortnightly Crispy Parsnips update, in which I, the titular snip, regail you wi-AGH! December!? Really!? Already!? Ugh... I'm going to go back in time and break the hands of whoever invented the clock. Probably won't change much, but maybe the hands on a clock-face will be called feet now.
Righto, enough daymaring, we begin with the now-traditional excuse as to why this update doesn't contain all that much. I think it's a good one this time:
✨ Family Medical Emergencies ✨
So without going into too much personal detail someone close to me had a brief trip to the hospital to get rid of what was left of their appendix. This, naturally, led to an up-tick of me stepping into their shoes and thus force them to actually rest for once in their life. This meant much cleaning, cooking, pet-wrangling, washing, power-cuts (unrelated, but also work-stopping) and the making of a lot of millionaire shortbread. It's important for the healing process.
This, I hope you understand, has placed rather an embuggerance upon my workflow. Thus the November comic is still in the sketch phase and many of the other things I had hoped to get to work on have either progressed or even started. But the family member is doing okay, and if that's not good enough for you then, uh... shove off, I guess? If it is then thank you very much, you're lovely. 🥰
So in the glimpses between the slats of the blinds of life, what light has shone upon our work? Well, before everything went literally belly-up, I finished the commission I'd mentioned previously. It still hasn't been posted publicly but as soon as it is I'll gladly show you because I'm rather proud of how it turned out.
Work on November's comic is still very gradually trudging along, still in the sketch phase even now the month is over. Lucky for me December's quite a patient character, but you'll see them soon enough. Possibly sooner than you might think because...
I've also set up an impromptu Advent Calendar! This wasn't really planned prior to the 1st of December so it's a bit cobbled-together, but the idea is that to coincide with some other work I'm readying for the end of the year I can make a bunch of little emotes of my Calendar characters! It being the 2nd of the month we have acquired both OctoHug and JanSleep to cosy your way into the dregs of the year.
As aforementioned I've been trundling through a heap of work for the year's close, none of which I am permitting myself to yet show.
Streams! Gosh, they're happening. I'm fairly certain they are anyway. We're beginning to wrap up Resident Evil 4 and its various addenda on Tuesday and Wednesday evening streams, soon to be supplanted by Hitman: Absolution, the last of the classic Hitman games.
Having beaten the boss of the Valheim ashlands over a brief 17-and-a-half hour fight, I believe we shall be noodling with RPGs on Saturday evening streams with the new brief Grim Hollow play-tests. Sundays, as ever, are reserved for self-indulgent (and occasionally TOS-stretching) friend doodlage.
Morning streams are devoted, as the year foretold, to Calendar comics. I swear November's comic will be completed by the end of the year. December may have to wait until next year. 😅
An idea was floated on stream in relation to drawthroughs. For reference we occasionally dabble in a style of stream in which we draw our way through a game: This has taken several forms, such as the from-memory drawthroughs of existing games (Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Bioshock, etc), drawing through chat's playthrough of a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' RPG book (Forest of Doom, Citadel of Chaos), or group-writing our own game as we go (16 Symbols, Project Via).
An idea was proffered for a new type of drawthrough, the 'Original Flavour' as it were; Having a bunch of different stories for my characters flying around in my head and no real time to commit them to a solid form, perhaps it would be possible to tell some of these stories in the form of a drawthrough, still keeping the element of chat suggestion and improvisation as ever. I'm not sure what form this would take quite yet but if we can prove it'd work on a smaller tale, perhaps I might throw the idea of an 'October Noir Drawthrough' into the ring. Something to think about, at least.
Righto, that's all from me this time. Hopefully next update I'll have a shiny new November comic to hand you, as well as perhaps some sneaky peeks at the end-of-year shenanigans to come. For now though I need to get my head down on comic work, commissions and festive shenanigans, whilst also probably making more shortbread. If you were here I'd give you some, promise.
Thank you so much for your support. Hopefully next year I'll be more consistent at giving you something to show for it. 🥴
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜