Mhm. Yeah, no, you see the older I get the more convinced I am that time is an illusion. It just disappears faster and faster. Yeah, exactly. Uhuh. Yeah, that's why I made The Device. Yes, it's ready to go when you are. Yes sir, on your word I'll flip the switch and reality will shatte-Oh hey, I didn't see you there!
Did you know that I made videos? Could've fooled me! But fool or otherwise, part 2 of the Dead Island Highlights seems to have rocketed out the door and, presumably, right into a tree!
I confess that I don't have much of an excuse as to why this part took as long as it did: All of the doodles were made in the past couple of weeks and the editing was mostly completed months ago at the same time as part 1. Granted I made an animatic in between, but that doesn't account for most of the interregnum. For the next highlights video I think setting a deadline might be a good idea. Also choosing the game, that'd be a good idea too.
But hey, Deadles!
Between my incredibly important, ground-breaking work on Dead Island Highlight research, I have ensured to keep a healthy perspective and take some time out for myself and work on personal projects too. Things like commissions.
At long, wide and surprisingly girthy last I've gotten around to making a solid commission-rolling-out plan, one in which I offer a variety of choices, have examples to show, a workflow I understand and can predict, and all in such a way that I don't burn out. The corkboard helped, it seems.
By means of research and preparations for advertising I took it upon myself to make demonstration commissions of some of mine and my friends' OCs. And wouldn't you know it, I'm pretty pleased with them! I'll be opening up similar such sketch commissions foremost and then dishing out decidedly more detailed tiers as I deem. Partly this serves to wallop something out the door sharpish but also staggering these announcements is a cheap and guilt-free way of consistently advertising in the long term! 😅
Of course if any of you have a hankering to get your foot in the door early and want to commission such a sketch, do feel free to message me! They range from £15 to £25 per-character depending on complexity 💜
And now for the Magpie Manager™ portion of the update where we take stock of my freshly-pilfered shinies.
Demonstrating uncharacteristic levels of preparation, I have been experimenting in the hidden art of stencil painting! Why, you rightly scream, is this preparatory? Well one of my 2025 goals was to print this year's Seasonal Winter Festival Greetings Card™. Feeling neither confident nor comfortable enough to use linocut or woodblocks for this, I was inspired by this post to have a crack at stencils.
After a few suitably garish tests I found it to be a generally quite pleasant experience with enough control to play around a little in a way face-down printing doesn't quite allow. It's a limited medium, but limitation breeds creativity. Sometimes. Sometimes it breeds primary colours smeared on printer paper.
In the slightly harshly-lit domain of digital-shinies I've bolted a few improvements and bug-fixes to my (it transpires really rather useful) corkboard app from the last update.
Chaos Chess has also gotten a little love in its new home as my Saturday project, garnering both a fresh marimba-laden soundtrack and the ability to smoosh your face right close up into any card you fancy. Two bug fixes and a couple of small quality-of-life features remain and it's ready for testing! When have you heard me say that before?
Streaming has also endured some behind-the-scenes tinkering. Beside the addition of 91(!) new !locked sounds from Sherlock, Dracula and Hitman games, I've also gotten myself a Stream Deck! Sort of. Not a real one, naturally, they're very expensive and I am those church mice from Disney's Robin Hood who only have one farthing hidden under their mattress. But it transpires that there's a free app version which, whilst limited to 6 buttons at a time, is very handy for me to be fiddling things mid-stream without having to jump around 7 or 8 windows. Tis nice! I'm not paying £25 per year for more buttons though. 😤
Streaming of speaking, we've fallen (at least twice) feet-first into the epic saga that is Dracula 3! Epic in the sense that it's transpiring to be far longer than anticipated, and saga in the slightly sarcastic 'This is becoming a saga now' sense.
Dying Light continues to happen to myself, Cheeb, Dark and Kiro, now with more dying than ever! Fortunately our resurrective chill Sunday doodles scribble onwards, with a surprising proportion of instances in which I zoom out from struggling to draw a cartoon elbow only to discover that one of my friends has just rendered an entire painting.
That's it for the past, but what of the future? One of several hopes is to get this month's Newsletter up and ready by the following supporter update. Jokes, word-searches, comic ideas and picross are already in the bag!
The aforementioned commission examples all ought to be complete before next we meet and the acquisition and production of them well under-way. Assuming anybody is interested, of course. More work on Chaos Chess is to come, perhaps a little stencil testing, perhaps work on the next video, perhaps eating the banana bread I made yesterday. With chocolate spread. Mmm.
Regardless of whatever the fortnight holds for me, I wish even better for you. Thank you all for your bafflingly enduring support, it means a great deal as I press onwards into a world where I, all being well, won't have to rely on it quite so much. Fingers crossed. Then uncrossed, because I can't draw like that.
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜