*Emerges from steaming cockpit of a tomato-shaped time machine*
Holey tamale, what day is it!? Tuesday!? That's not my normal
Patreon update day at all! The crowds will be gathering bepitchforked and
wailing outside my tower within the hour, how lost and upset they must be
without my enrichment to their lives!
*Crickets chirp for slightly longer than is funny*
Okay, so this lateness of an update was telegraphed on Sunday's stream thus excusing me, but yesterday I had to make a very wobbly, impromptu birthday cake for a family member in time for their birthday the following day. Of course when I handed it over and received the response "This is wonderful! Do you think it'll still be alright by Thursday?" I realised that I don't know what dates are and could've left it until later in the week. Still I made someone smile with something silly and I'm probably still 7-8% icing by volume so it's not the end of the world.
Here's a picture of the cake, along with a bunch of other baking I've been doing over the past couple of months. I'd intended to make some do-alogue drawings of these misadventures for the newsletter but, eh... time.
Right, now I'm back to work I'd better explain what on earth my work has been. Commissions. Unsurprisingly. I've been cracking on with a variety of commissions for people, including another 'Style Roulette' Ko-fi commission (available here for those who fancy) as well as some more RPG NPCs.
Our progression in streaming Grim Hollow RPGs permits me to show off more of my prior work thereon, including the various buildings of The Lodge and some tokens and UI elements thereabouts.
I've also undertaken a little style challenge I've had on my desk for a good couple of years, but that was another present for a friend. It's for their eyes only, or whatever that James Bond film was called. The man with the golden eyes lives and lets die twice upon a spyfall royale. The lesson of this paragraph, kids, is don't do icing. Not even once.
The hypothetical torch-flailers outside my castle are hounding me with calls for the comic as promised in the prior update. Whilst progress has begun on it, a variety of personal factors have stood in the way of it making any decent progress.
I've pushed myself into writing up a bunch of alt text for socials posts, having not really advertised any of my work for a good few months. I'm told being a freelancer is facilitated by potential clients knowing you exist, so that's something I suppose I ought to prioritise.
I've also updated all released comics on my website, including adding a section for Avonvale. These, coupled with personal commitments and bad head-times, have rather put comics on the back-burner. But hey it's a new(ish) week so let's see if we can't get something out by its passing.
You may have suspected that my long-teased game demo is sat among the bulwarks stopping above comic progress, slowly leeching away it's time like a, uh... leech. But this time it too has been the victim of misdirection. I've added a few visual flourishes to the game, which is now at least at the state I can show you something, but generally it's suffering as much as anything else. Still, zubat's cousin is in there now, so we should count our blessings.
Since I have some space between that gjif and the next png, I might as well summarise my Bad Head Time™ activity of playing and finishing Final Fantasy II with a quick review: Weird, weird game. Unbalanced in so many ways, awkward in progression and storytelling, introducing new and frustrating elements throughout... probably my favourite of the NES trilogy. A mess, but a fascinating mess. 6.5/10
I may not have streamed my time with FFII (thank gourd, since I played on 1.5x speed for most of it and the sped-up music would've driven us all nuts) but you know what I did stream? Medal of Honor: Underground! That's right, we finished our sojourn through the hyper-realistic endeavours of a resistance member in nazi-occupied France, it's true, that's definitely what that game was about. And following that vein of realism we have leapt into the world(s) of Viewfinder, a nice simple game about taking pictures and petting cats. Not much more to it than that, I assure you.
Our initial instalment of mini-RPG shenanigans in the form of Grim Hollow has now concluded, and we'll see ourself leaping back into the distract-o-thon that is Elden Ring """"""Seamless"""""" Co-op once again. This all before settling down for chill doodles with friends to round out the week.
And so that's it for another update. This one was actually an update this time, who'd've thunk? Thank you as ever for your extraordinarily consistent support, it means more to me than my sarcastic English brain can express earnestly. Next time I will have a comic for you, cross my hearth and hope to fry. Video work is still slowly a-trundlin' and new ideas are a-brewin'. All that remains is for the spirit to be a-willin'. Fingers crossed. Then un-crossed because it's tricky to draw like that.
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜