Hello and welcome to a new video! Now... wait, that's not what this is. At least I hope it isn't. It would be pretty boring just watching me write things into notepad before deleting them and retyping their reworded forms over and over for an hour. Right? Hmm. Maybe. I'll put that one in my back pocket.
As promised a fairly decent chunk of my oh-so valuable time has been frittered away on the folly of game development. The demo is actually coming along fairly nicely, with a week or so spent focused largely on UI systems and adding animation / custom visual elements to the game. Some scribbly avatars of characters have been implemented to get a better feel of what this project might look like and, of course, how long it might take. I'm optimistic though, at least visually. My worries lie in the writing, but I suppose I can only put in the effort and see what comes out of it. For now what's come out of it is our traditional barely-readable devlog.
On an unexpected front (unless you remember the transiently-promised conclusion to the prior update) video production is back up and running! With only a couple of foggy-headed days spent at the DaVinci coal-face, my besooted form emerged having hewn the rough-cut form of a new highlight video. I say 'a', but since it currently weighs in at just under an hour (6 seconds under, to be precise) I think this is going to be yet another two-parter. Still, there's silliness to be had and frustrations to relive, something we can all look forward to I'm sure. Oh, and blood. Plenty of it.
I've spent some time in the last week wrangling some small commissions for folks and getting ready for one or two more in the coming weeks. This is just as well because drawing as a whole hasn't been my brain's strong point this fortnight, seemingly doing its utmost to resist every attempt to rid itself of inertia.
That said a variety of doodles have been successfully wrenched from the murky depths therein: With in-fiction biographical RPG pokédoodles, more bite/bark character meme doodlage and the aforementioned October game avatar doodlage, there's something for everybody! On the assumption that everybody wants something unfinished and largely self-centred.
Making up our mainstay 'miscellany', we have a smorgasbord heaping with unrelated flitterings for you. Well, for me. My hand has dipped back into the world of tailoring in which - after unsuccessfully attempting to make a new drawing glove to replace the rags that my old one has become - I've been prepping some patterns for one or two new skirts should the sadly now-typical heat-wave return. Never trust August to just calmly accept Autumn. I'm talking months here not characters, but if I ever make an 'Autumn' they'll have quite the spiky relationship with August, that's for sure.
Whilst it's still in the low plateau of summer, baking has made a welcome return. This batch brings bread, muffins, and an attempt at this recipe for Chelsea Buns which, like all of my other attempts at making soft, pillowy swirly buns, has produced frustratingly hard snail-shells. One day I'll crack those snails.
For a quick-fire conclusion I've started playing Paper Mario when the head's fully uncooperative (slow and somewhat paint-by-numbers, but has its charm), had birthday meals out with family, started a little personal exploratory art/productivity crafty thingiebob (more on that later), and added 47 new facts to the opening stream carousel, sadly none of which are about the titular Agent.
Streaming? Oh yes it is! And while it is, it produces such delights for us as the conclusion to Ace Attorney: Justice for All, and after along to its approaching replacement American Arcadia. Apparently I just can't get enough of the letter A.
Betwixt these we fill awkward gaps of high temperatures and temperamental throats with our ongoing saga to draw all of the Doctor Who villains I can pluck from memory and rank them. You won't believe where I put the daleks!! [Imagine a red circle and arrow pointing to a picture of Sil]
Grim Hollow chugs along as we sweep clean the mansion of evil-doers and nuisance-makers, before clearing the tabletop for Sunday wind-down doodlage with friends. Incidentally if anyone has any suggestions for replacement software/websites for the oncoming jank-storm that is Magma, a place we can collaboratively draw and not much else, that would be grand.
And with that we begin to part with another fortnight. The forthcoming fourteen shall be full of the joys of variety: Commissions to finish, videos to whittle, games to collage, comics to noodle, crafts to scuffle, food to wrangle; Brain permitting, a variety of at least nearly-finished things shall be found on your doorstep by its conclusion. It'd be nice if one of them was wholly complete, but it'd also be nice to have a brain that does what I say and a swimming pool full of vanilla custard, so... I'll be honest, I've forgotten where that analogy was going.
Thank you for your support one and all, it means a lot to me. Some potential financial shenanigans are forthcoming and the added layer of security you all provide me will hopefully help me weather it. At the very least it'll help temper the anxiety.
Look after yourself,
Crispy 💜