Mondays, huh? They keep happening to us and nobody seems to be trying to mitigate it. We all know of the dangers that Garfield himself warned us about. I am naturally referring to the US president James A. Garfield who died of a gunshot wound on a Monday. We really should outlaw them you know, they're deadly.
So first up, where's that newsletter that I bet my very soul on having produced for you by this update? Well jokes on you, I sold my soul years ago for a particularly nice cheesecake and an accordion I don't play any more. Much effort has been shoe-horned into it (the update, not the accordion) but it stands not quite ready to walk out the door just yet, at least as far as my standards are concerned.
There's still much to be scribed and scribbled on the character spotlight (I wonder who it could be!) and perhaps a little recommendation (I wonder what it could be!). Already raring and ready to charge out the door though are a tight platoon of spooky-themed puzzles, a great giggling garrison of gags, and an elite company of comics ready to entertain the enemy.
Indeed, in an act of very-belated box-ticking one of these comics was physically inked! The text is a bit wonky and some of the speech bubbles don't quite line up, but it's certainly not a bad start for a random fine-liner, some wrinkly printer paper and a dream. Secret sausage time: the original intent behind making small newsletter comics was always to physically ink them, thence garnering more practice in non-digital media. Only five months in and I'm half-way to achieving that initial idea. They don't call me Flash for, uh, for um... for the... thing.
Besides this, work has been trucking along on video production. Three videos, to be precise!
The next stream highlights video is fully time-stamped and all usable (and much unusable) footage has been chucked haphazardly into my editor. Plenty of wrist-grease is necessary to curtail it from its current 1hr 18m running time, but that's on future Crispy's docket.
I've also started production on a video documenting the making of this year's festive greetings card, for which I am invoking the age-old art of stencil-painting! I've recorded the timelapse of the initial digital proof, and shall be printing off the colour separations some time this week to get ready for a little light stencil-cutting. And hopefully I'll remember to film it.
Finally I've recorded, uh, some of the footage for a new music-making video. It was an attempt at re-scoring another video game cutscene but... it didn't go very well. However, never one to stare a highwayman's horse in the mouth, I think I can recoup the losses and, perhaps, per-simply-haps, it might end up being all the more interesting for it.
Oh, we also got another cat. Say hi to Bobbi.
Chaos Chess is slowly boring its way towards the bright lights of release. Most programming has been focused on fixing a bug stifling a UI convenience that's only relevant for the combination of one of exactly two move cards with exactly one modifier. This fix involved rewriting a large chunk of the move-generation script for the whole game, because I plan ahead like that. Outside of this I've cleaned up (read 'bodged') the connectivity code for multiplayer, revamped the in-game instructions so that they hopefully make sense, fixed some disconnection warnings not triggering and added on-screen lines to help visualise pieces that move by 'mirror' rules. My to-do list for the game is now only 4 entries long, and the last of those is 'Test'. So we are, in fact, unbelievably, without many shadows of even fewer doubts, getting there.
More drawing comes in the form of finishing up sketch commission examples, actually working (slowly, between brain-static) on an ongoing commission project, and doodling silly shenanigans from a Monster of the Week one-shot Halloween RPG. Jay got to see spooky things and they're very pleased about it.
Streams occur! Prove me wrong! And boy, this fortnight has contained a veritable plethora of activities for the audio-visual-vol-au-vent enthusiast in you. Single-player gaming has seen us finally bury Dracula 3, before being haunted by the ghosts of The Ten Bells, consoled by Tracks and finally reinvigorated by Alone in the Dark (2008). It's been a exhilarating rollercoaster of highs and lows. And that's just Alone in the Dark.
Friend streams have seen us gremlining across borders with Euro Truck Simulator 2 before returning to the familiar landscape of Dying Light. That is before Dying Light decided to completely change its landscape. Stream doodles with friends stand stalwart on the precipice of the new weeks, although whispers of forthcoming Gartic Phone shenanigans have begun to foment.
And so we conclude this update. Or more accurately I do, you can conclude reading it whenever you fancy, you're your own person, take some accountability for it. Forthcoming ought to be a newsletter (hopefully within the next few days), the opening of sketch commissions, more video and comic work, and, uh... no that's probably it really.
I hope the onset of autumn is treating you well and that you can, at will, bore beneath a bursting batch of blankets. Thank you so very much for your support, it's always appreciated in ways I fail to provide adequate variety of explanation for.
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜