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It Doesn’t Matter - Zone 01: It’s About Time - 2024-1...
General | Posted a year agohttps://youtu.be/hTOEriKO02o
When "Amy" and family are sent by their parents to a militia training camp, they are less than pleased. "Amy" quickly makes friends with some of the other campers, and together, they work to make the best of it. But one of the camp's staff looks so much like Eggman that the trio of Sonic fans HAVE to check him out. One night, they sneak into his basement lab and discover campers in cages sporting cybernetic implants. They NEED to leave the camp, but...are they starting to grow...fur?
...the answer is yes. Yes they are.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Emeralds are waking, chaos is rising, and the world is changing. We have to fight for our hearts and health. They are going to try to kill us. We belong. We are meant to be. We won't let the fascistic fuckers destroy us.
Trans rights, black lives matter. Down with fascists.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zone 1 is finally done! Holy fucking hells! I started storyboarding this episode in 2018, and have been writing this project since 2009! Chaos, it's been a minute getting even this far! I'm so, so damn excited. Fuck, I've had, like, 5 moves since we recorded the audio for this zone! So much love to my amazing cast!
^_^;; I'm gonna change my approach so I can actually tell this story more than once every six years!
When "Amy" and family are sent by their parents to a militia training camp, they are less than pleased. "Amy" quickly makes friends with some of the other campers, and together, they work to make the best of it. But one of the camp's staff looks so much like Eggman that the trio of Sonic fans HAVE to check him out. One night, they sneak into his basement lab and discover campers in cages sporting cybernetic implants. They NEED to leave the camp, but...are they starting to grow...fur?
...the answer is yes. Yes they are.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Emeralds are waking, chaos is rising, and the world is changing. We have to fight for our hearts and health. They are going to try to kill us. We belong. We are meant to be. We won't let the fascistic fuckers destroy us.
Trans rights, black lives matter. Down with fascists.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zone 1 is finally done! Holy fucking hells! I started storyboarding this episode in 2018, and have been writing this project since 2009! Chaos, it's been a minute getting even this far! I'm so, so damn excited. Fuck, I've had, like, 5 moves since we recorded the audio for this zone! So much love to my amazing cast!
^_^;; I'm gonna change my approach so I can actually tell this story more than once every six years!
Arts and Stuff and Events
General | Posted 2 years agoMan, it's so easy to freeze up. Or maybe, it's so hard to keep from freezing. But fuck. It's hard. I've been doing good about making art the past couple weeks, but I've been hesitant to post it, for some reason? IDK. Part of it is definitely me putting pressure on it again. Like, "If this is what I want to do with myself, I gotta make it work," and all that. Then just...not super loving what I'm making. Which could also just be from pressuring myself, because I could not point to what I'm not liking about the things.
I finally started painting again, for the first time since college, and for the first time for myself since probably middle school. It's nice. It's weird, familiar and really strange at once, nerve wracking and relaxing, giving me a really cool experience and feeling like I'm still falling short, but it's good. One of the things I really like about physical media is that it helps push me towards keeping moving...at least as long as I can get through my initial block of anxiety and start. And I've been good about not letting it get in my way, not letting myself tense up over "ruining" my supplies. The fact that I'm making sure to not spend a lot at a time, and that I'm also making sure to only get supplies I want to use is definitely helping. Springing for a small range of a higher reputation set of acrylic paints, instead of the Liquitex Basics I had the last couple times (and HATED) is def paying off. The fact that the set was both a more expansive palette than I wanted, and is missing some colors I consider essential (like a nice, dark purple. You gave me 3 dark blues, two of which that are nearly identical, and no dark purple...though I am getting WAAAY too much use out of that light violet!), is also nice for encouraging me to pick and choose what I replace and what I expand to and don't (ultramarine, my love, you are already nearly gone...!)
And then, like. I want to do events. I know I want to do events. Which events? Obviously furcons. And then I really like the picture in my head of vending at Ren Faires, and the like. And I really want to do the regular, local shows, especially as I get my legs under me for booth setup. All of those seem to have fairly broadly different, if intersecting enough, niches.
My current plan is to expand my Printify and Etsy, utilizing Printify's print on demand services for stickers, wearables, and any other kinds of merch that seems cool (I've been needing a new full zip sweatshirt, why not make a cool design for it myself?). I intend to continue making my Astral Deer series of paintings to keep working with the medium and getting myself comfortable, and to have a good place to experiment, and also branch into pet portraits and the like. I also want to make stall plaques for horses--their names and portraits painted on them, and also a slot to slide in a 3x5 index card for feeding instructions and such. And if that weren't enough I also want to start getting into leatherwork, making some kink items, like wrist and ankle cuffs, ponyplay things like bridles and halters, even harnesses and stuff, as I grow in skill and confidence. I want to make things.
I also still really love my job as horseback riding instructor, and I think my current mad plots synergize really well...well. Except for one thing: I'm down to working only weekends and Mondays...the same days of any events I'd want to plan to play in. So that sucks.
I'm pretty sure things will change with my schedule again soon enough. But also, it doesn't feel like something I have as much control over. It's frustrating.
Anyway. Current stage is to utilize the 4 days a week I'm not going out and busting my ass working with the horses and kids to make arts.
I finally started painting again, for the first time since college, and for the first time for myself since probably middle school. It's nice. It's weird, familiar and really strange at once, nerve wracking and relaxing, giving me a really cool experience and feeling like I'm still falling short, but it's good. One of the things I really like about physical media is that it helps push me towards keeping moving...at least as long as I can get through my initial block of anxiety and start. And I've been good about not letting it get in my way, not letting myself tense up over "ruining" my supplies. The fact that I'm making sure to not spend a lot at a time, and that I'm also making sure to only get supplies I want to use is definitely helping. Springing for a small range of a higher reputation set of acrylic paints, instead of the Liquitex Basics I had the last couple times (and HATED) is def paying off. The fact that the set was both a more expansive palette than I wanted, and is missing some colors I consider essential (like a nice, dark purple. You gave me 3 dark blues, two of which that are nearly identical, and no dark purple...though I am getting WAAAY too much use out of that light violet!), is also nice for encouraging me to pick and choose what I replace and what I expand to and don't (ultramarine, my love, you are already nearly gone...!)
And then, like. I want to do events. I know I want to do events. Which events? Obviously furcons. And then I really like the picture in my head of vending at Ren Faires, and the like. And I really want to do the regular, local shows, especially as I get my legs under me for booth setup. All of those seem to have fairly broadly different, if intersecting enough, niches.
My current plan is to expand my Printify and Etsy, utilizing Printify's print on demand services for stickers, wearables, and any other kinds of merch that seems cool (I've been needing a new full zip sweatshirt, why not make a cool design for it myself?). I intend to continue making my Astral Deer series of paintings to keep working with the medium and getting myself comfortable, and to have a good place to experiment, and also branch into pet portraits and the like. I also want to make stall plaques for horses--their names and portraits painted on them, and also a slot to slide in a 3x5 index card for feeding instructions and such. And if that weren't enough I also want to start getting into leatherwork, making some kink items, like wrist and ankle cuffs, ponyplay things like bridles and halters, even harnesses and stuff, as I grow in skill and confidence. I want to make things.
I also still really love my job as horseback riding instructor, and I think my current mad plots synergize really well...well. Except for one thing: I'm down to working only weekends and Mondays...the same days of any events I'd want to plan to play in. So that sucks.
I'm pretty sure things will change with my schedule again soon enough. But also, it doesn't feel like something I have as much control over. It's frustrating.
Anyway. Current stage is to utilize the 4 days a week I'm not going out and busting my ass working with the horses and kids to make arts.
Well THAT Was Fun
General | Posted 3 years agoQuick general update, because I LITERALLY COULDN'T until now:
1) Hi, I'm alive.
2) My account was suspended due to the Tails and Vi BDSM post. Fairly tame BDSM, but still violates FA's terms of use, so whatever, not gonna fight it. BUT this was done with literally no contact or warning to me, and the wall of text mentioned something about a "FINAL WARNING NOTICE". IDK. So, in effort to NOT get banned, I guess I'm gonna only post censored versions of NSFW Sonic art, with links to the uncensored versions. Wheeeee.
3) The entire time my account was suspended my most recent NSFW post which was mis-marked as General instead of Adult was just...out in the wild. Whoops. GLAD FA DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THAT! IDK, guys.
4) I'm sorry I've been so bad about ghosting Notes and Comments. My anxiety has been really spiking about PMs in specific for pretty much the last 10 years, and it's gotten increasingly debilitating, so...yeah. I promise I'm not ignoring You Particularly, or mad at you, or anything. I just don't really have the spoons to online interact outside of my polycule and a few particular groups. I'm working on it, but yeah. Slow going.
1) Hi, I'm alive.
2) My account was suspended due to the Tails and Vi BDSM post. Fairly tame BDSM, but still violates FA's terms of use, so whatever, not gonna fight it. BUT this was done with literally no contact or warning to me, and the wall of text mentioned something about a "FINAL WARNING NOTICE". IDK. So, in effort to NOT get banned, I guess I'm gonna only post censored versions of NSFW Sonic art, with links to the uncensored versions. Wheeeee.
3) The entire time my account was suspended my most recent NSFW post which was mis-marked as General instead of Adult was just...out in the wild. Whoops. GLAD FA DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THAT! IDK, guys.
4) I'm sorry I've been so bad about ghosting Notes and Comments. My anxiety has been really spiking about PMs in specific for pretty much the last 10 years, and it's gotten increasingly debilitating, so...yeah. I promise I'm not ignoring You Particularly, or mad at you, or anything. I just don't really have the spoons to online interact outside of my polycule and a few particular groups. I'm working on it, but yeah. Slow going.
It Doesn't Matter Progress!
General | Posted 4 years agoHELLS YEAH! SCENE 9 IS DONE AND SCENE 10 IS WELL UNDERWAY! ^_^ I am the excite. And also tired. So, sooo damn tired.
Scene 9: https://vimeo.com/670094798
Scene 10: https://vimeo.com/692878335
Everything all together so far!: https://vimeo.com/379934017
Scene 9: https://vimeo.com/670094798
Scene 10: https://vimeo.com/692878335
Everything all together so far!: https://vimeo.com/379934017
Watch Your Step, Don’t Fall
General | Posted 4 years agoYanno what? Let’s talk about the OTHER reason I’m changing my project schedule. Which, to do that, I think I need to talk about WHY THESE two projects…which is honestly something about which I’m not sure how transparent I’ve been. WHEEE!
So yeah, we’ll start top-down: I’m a transgender Otherkin guy, which means my body HELLA doesn’t match who I am inside, the who and what I’d consider to be my real self.
Actually, first let’s define some terms real quick, since hey, you can never go wrong with establishing a baseline understanding up front, and I’m intending to post this one on several accounts and don’t want to assume just everyone has the baseline working knowledge on subjects that have a lot of misinformation around them. Plus then I get to lay out my own working definitions.
In short, “Otherkin” refers to someone who believes they are in some way not, or not entirely, human. I tend to default to assuming “spiritually not human,” but that’s not by any means the only way people experience their non-human-ness. For me, I identify as/experience myself as/am a non-MLP alicorn and also Sonic the Hedgehog, and spiritually I shift pretty fluidly between the two forms (I’ve had others come up, but these two have been my primary and most persistent forms for most of my life).
I don’t usually think it’s really worth it to get into the whys and hows of how someone being Otherkin happens. I think there’s a lot of possible causes, even just looking at it from a spiritual perspective, and once you add in other perspectives, like the psychological perspective, you get even more possibilities—and I assume that every single one of these possibilities are probably true for some individuals…but there’s literally no way to know what’s true for who, and all trying to figure it out does is tie us up in knots. Like, a certain amount of speculation is inevitable, chaos knows I have my own pet theories and ideas for what I think is going on with me—but the ACTUALLY IMPORTANT part is how it affects us in the here and now, what we’re experiencing, who we are, and what we can do to mitigate the adverse realities we find ourselves experiencing—like dysphoria. Fucking hell, does it absolutely suck to be in a body that feels so fucking alien to you.
Sooo, yeah. It Doesn’t Matter and New Normal are both born directly out of that complicated morass of experience—they’re both projects designed specifically to address my species and gender dysphoria. Cuz hey, I can get hormone replacement therapy, I can get surgery, but my body’s still gonna be human shaped, and most of my dysphoria is still gonna be here, always. It absolutely sucks, it hurts, and there’s approximately fuck all I can do about it.
It’s hard and it’s scary to talk about this stuff. I hate opening up these vulnerabilities, because everything I’ve learned in this world is that people LOVE to use the things that are important to you to hurt you. I honestly don’t understand it—I get lashing out in a moment, I reeeaaally don’t get the premeditated, targeted, malicious stuff. But whatever, that’s how some people choose to act, and I really do think that being open about my weirdness will help others out there. You’re not alone.
So It Doesn’t Matter (/especially/ IDM) and New Normal are ways to combat my dysphoria. They’re both explicitly ways for me to get into the headspace of one of my two main forms and just be in that for awhile. IDM especially is pseudo autobiographical, where I use the act of writing the thing itself as a focus for being in the moment, projected over to Home. Which yeah, is heckin’ unusual, and there’s a lot of personal stuff going on in that phenomenon. It’s not a one-to-one translation, stuff is edited, streamlined, all that Good Shit. Chaos knows I’ve nowhere near written down everything, and there’s definitely shit I’m more sure about the broad strokes of than the details, but yeah. That’s the deal with that.
New Normal isn’t that sort of project. It’s its own thing built of characters scrounged from scrapped projects, plot threads that couldn’t stand up on their own, ideas I just want to see played out in a visual medium, and some of my own weird, random experiences. It’s my “more commercial” project—and it’s BARELY commercial at all. But it does scratch the itch of letting me think about being a unicorn here in this world, and how navigating that while physically A Unicorn would look and feel. Plus, a lot of unicorn TFs end directly post-TF, and we barely get to see any of the adapting to their new life stuff, and that’s a major shame!
So yeah. That’s “Why These”. That’s why these projects in particular, instead of Thus Spake, the silly write-as-I-go from a quick and dirty what-if premise, or Anything But Ordinary, with a ton of interesting ideas already written and waiting to be adapted.
Which brings us alllll the way back around to The Point. I was just alternating these two by update, and now I’m gonna be going by week. Hell, before I started explicitly alternating between the two projects in January I was mostly just sporadically bouncing around interspersed with long periods of inactivity.
But needs change—they’re constantly fluctuating, actually. I don’t know how well my “Alternate by week,” plan will work, or for how long before I need to switch it up again. That’s normal, and to be expected, even if I wasn’t actively in the process of working through a lot of trauma. But yeah, I am, and it sucks. And as always, now that I’ve patched myself together enough for it to even be possible again, I’m starting to use making things to help myself heal.
A huge part of that process for me is the act of writing—in immersing myself in the life or situation, and explicitly feeling it out. It’s nice to be at a point where it’s possible to touch that, to be able to reach outside myself, and to have enough energy to make something with again. It’s been really hard, and it was hella scary to be messed up enough that doing so wasn’t an option, especially for so long…
So yeah. I say it all the time, but it’s usually faster to write something than draw it. I’ve had a pretty sizable backlog to work from for IDM and New Normal (it’s ESPECIALLY faster to write than animate!)…but on New Normal I’m finally at the end of the script for issue one…which means it’s time for Writing Time.
Buuut given the need to get into the right headspace TO write, and my own need to balance my two main forms, I was struggling. I wasn’t really having much success carving out explicit writing time with my project schedule as free-form as it was, and it was quickly turning into a situation where I was forcing an alicorn shift waaaaaay too frequently—for me, I can force a shift a few different ways, from doing a few things to encourage it to happen more easily to just jamming myself there by sheer force of will…but that’s neither healthy nor sustainable. And since my hedgehog form is usually my main form—to the point where I’ve joked about being a were-unicorn—shoving myself in that direction long term was gonna be a bad idea.
Sooo yeah. We’ll see how well this works for the moment, I’ve been in places where things like this work well, and in ones where it doesn’t work at all. I’m a little nervous about needing to be kinda strict with my shifting to coincide with this schedule. But yeah, needed to try something different! We’ll see how well it works for the time being!
So yeah, we’ll start top-down: I’m a transgender Otherkin guy, which means my body HELLA doesn’t match who I am inside, the who and what I’d consider to be my real self.
Actually, first let’s define some terms real quick, since hey, you can never go wrong with establishing a baseline understanding up front, and I’m intending to post this one on several accounts and don’t want to assume just everyone has the baseline working knowledge on subjects that have a lot of misinformation around them. Plus then I get to lay out my own working definitions.
In short, “Otherkin” refers to someone who believes they are in some way not, or not entirely, human. I tend to default to assuming “spiritually not human,” but that’s not by any means the only way people experience their non-human-ness. For me, I identify as/experience myself as/am a non-MLP alicorn and also Sonic the Hedgehog, and spiritually I shift pretty fluidly between the two forms (I’ve had others come up, but these two have been my primary and most persistent forms for most of my life).
I don’t usually think it’s really worth it to get into the whys and hows of how someone being Otherkin happens. I think there’s a lot of possible causes, even just looking at it from a spiritual perspective, and once you add in other perspectives, like the psychological perspective, you get even more possibilities—and I assume that every single one of these possibilities are probably true for some individuals…but there’s literally no way to know what’s true for who, and all trying to figure it out does is tie us up in knots. Like, a certain amount of speculation is inevitable, chaos knows I have my own pet theories and ideas for what I think is going on with me—but the ACTUALLY IMPORTANT part is how it affects us in the here and now, what we’re experiencing, who we are, and what we can do to mitigate the adverse realities we find ourselves experiencing—like dysphoria. Fucking hell, does it absolutely suck to be in a body that feels so fucking alien to you.
Sooo, yeah. It Doesn’t Matter and New Normal are both born directly out of that complicated morass of experience—they’re both projects designed specifically to address my species and gender dysphoria. Cuz hey, I can get hormone replacement therapy, I can get surgery, but my body’s still gonna be human shaped, and most of my dysphoria is still gonna be here, always. It absolutely sucks, it hurts, and there’s approximately fuck all I can do about it.
It’s hard and it’s scary to talk about this stuff. I hate opening up these vulnerabilities, because everything I’ve learned in this world is that people LOVE to use the things that are important to you to hurt you. I honestly don’t understand it—I get lashing out in a moment, I reeeaaally don’t get the premeditated, targeted, malicious stuff. But whatever, that’s how some people choose to act, and I really do think that being open about my weirdness will help others out there. You’re not alone.
So It Doesn’t Matter (/especially/ IDM) and New Normal are ways to combat my dysphoria. They’re both explicitly ways for me to get into the headspace of one of my two main forms and just be in that for awhile. IDM especially is pseudo autobiographical, where I use the act of writing the thing itself as a focus for being in the moment, projected over to Home. Which yeah, is heckin’ unusual, and there’s a lot of personal stuff going on in that phenomenon. It’s not a one-to-one translation, stuff is edited, streamlined, all that Good Shit. Chaos knows I’ve nowhere near written down everything, and there’s definitely shit I’m more sure about the broad strokes of than the details, but yeah. That’s the deal with that.
New Normal isn’t that sort of project. It’s its own thing built of characters scrounged from scrapped projects, plot threads that couldn’t stand up on their own, ideas I just want to see played out in a visual medium, and some of my own weird, random experiences. It’s my “more commercial” project—and it’s BARELY commercial at all. But it does scratch the itch of letting me think about being a unicorn here in this world, and how navigating that while physically A Unicorn would look and feel. Plus, a lot of unicorn TFs end directly post-TF, and we barely get to see any of the adapting to their new life stuff, and that’s a major shame!
So yeah. That’s “Why These”. That’s why these projects in particular, instead of Thus Spake, the silly write-as-I-go from a quick and dirty what-if premise, or Anything But Ordinary, with a ton of interesting ideas already written and waiting to be adapted.
Which brings us alllll the way back around to The Point. I was just alternating these two by update, and now I’m gonna be going by week. Hell, before I started explicitly alternating between the two projects in January I was mostly just sporadically bouncing around interspersed with long periods of inactivity.
But needs change—they’re constantly fluctuating, actually. I don’t know how well my “Alternate by week,” plan will work, or for how long before I need to switch it up again. That’s normal, and to be expected, even if I wasn’t actively in the process of working through a lot of trauma. But yeah, I am, and it sucks. And as always, now that I’ve patched myself together enough for it to even be possible again, I’m starting to use making things to help myself heal.
A huge part of that process for me is the act of writing—in immersing myself in the life or situation, and explicitly feeling it out. It’s nice to be at a point where it’s possible to touch that, to be able to reach outside myself, and to have enough energy to make something with again. It’s been really hard, and it was hella scary to be messed up enough that doing so wasn’t an option, especially for so long…
So yeah. I say it all the time, but it’s usually faster to write something than draw it. I’ve had a pretty sizable backlog to work from for IDM and New Normal (it’s ESPECIALLY faster to write than animate!)…but on New Normal I’m finally at the end of the script for issue one…which means it’s time for Writing Time.
Buuut given the need to get into the right headspace TO write, and my own need to balance my two main forms, I was struggling. I wasn’t really having much success carving out explicit writing time with my project schedule as free-form as it was, and it was quickly turning into a situation where I was forcing an alicorn shift waaaaaay too frequently—for me, I can force a shift a few different ways, from doing a few things to encourage it to happen more easily to just jamming myself there by sheer force of will…but that’s neither healthy nor sustainable. And since my hedgehog form is usually my main form—to the point where I’ve joked about being a were-unicorn—shoving myself in that direction long term was gonna be a bad idea.
Sooo yeah. We’ll see how well this works for the moment, I’ve been in places where things like this work well, and in ones where it doesn’t work at all. I’m a little nervous about needing to be kinda strict with my shifting to coincide with this schedule. But yeah, needed to try something different! We’ll see how well it works for the time being!
Schedule Change
General | Posted 4 years agoOkay, I've explicitly not had a schedule, technically, but rather, "Alternate between IDM and New Normal," but...gonna change that a bit. Alternating between the two update-by-update was working really well for a while there, but less so at the moment. I've been trying to work ahead a bit on writing New Normal for the switchover to a prose format after Hiding is finished. Given the more mentally intensive process of writing and needing to allot brain resources, and just...wanting to not let It Doesn't Matter get shunted off to the side again, I'm going to switch weeks between the two.
So yeah, this week is gonna be an It Doesn't Matter week, next will be New Normal, and we'll do that until it doesn't make sense to keep going with it, either because something interrupts or it stops working! Good times, working with ADHD brain needs.
So yeah, this week is gonna be an It Doesn't Matter week, next will be New Normal, and we'll do that until it doesn't make sense to keep going with it, either because something interrupts or it stops working! Good times, working with ADHD brain needs.
Year of...
General | Posted 4 years agoLet's try a new thing. I like CGP Grey, and I like his "Your Theme" video from...chaos, January 2020...timing, yo. ^_^;; I did incidentally do it that year: 2020 was my Year of Intentionality. It actually worked out surprisingly well! With "Intentionality" being such a malleable goal/theme, even when things went to shit with the pandemic raging, I was still able to have an actionable theme for the year to pursue. It helped to have something like "Intentionality" to work towards, or with, or whatever. I could intentionally choose to go for safe walks and runs around the neighborhood. I could intentionally work on time tracking, and understand how I was using my day: something I'd intended to do anyway. It was a theme that ended up working particularly well in a year where nothing could be taken for granted.
So yeah! After that did gangbusters for me in 2020, I promptly didn't choose a theme for 2021. Buuut...that's actually fine, too. 2021 was such a year in flux for me. My cat almost died of her chronic kidney disease in January, the close friend I'd reconnected with over the pandemic and I became mates, I sold my house and moved across the country (drove the 30 hour trip twice, actually! There and back before I did the house selling, and then there after it), changed my career, and started the harrowing job of recovering from trauma. It's been a bit. So yeah. I’m okay that I didn't put a label on it before I started. Frankly, none of the amazing stuff was possible alone, if I hadn't had my amazing friends' help, and my amazing mates to run to...I'd probably still be trapped in the same situation that had been killing me for years. If I had to retroactively backdate a theme, I'd probably call it the "Year of Recovery", or "Year of Escape". Either way, it was hard, but it was good, and I'm amazed to be where I am now.
So yeah. Let's do a theme. I want the theme for this year to be hopeful. "Wonder" pops out at me from a list I ran into, but I'm not sure how to work that. My salient goals at the moment are to get my legal name change and to get underway on earning a certificate for my new career, so yanno. That's a thing. "New Beginnings" is a possibility in that case. I'm trying to leave behind the guilt from leaving (ain't that a concept).
Aw shit, "Wander and Wonder" was literally a suggestion just now on this list. That's a pretty fuckin' me sentiment, though I don't think it necessarily jives with what I'm feeling for at the moment.
Maybe something more aggressive, like "Year of Fierceness"?
After thesaurus-ing "beginning," I think I'm gonna go with "Year of Opening". A Year of Opening up, of doing these blog posts. Of opening to new ideas and opportunities. To being more open to outsiders about who and what I am, and being more myself in situations I've been playing safe and hiding.
So yeah! Here's to the Year of Opening. Let's take it for a hell of a ride.
So yeah! After that did gangbusters for me in 2020, I promptly didn't choose a theme for 2021. Buuut...that's actually fine, too. 2021 was such a year in flux for me. My cat almost died of her chronic kidney disease in January, the close friend I'd reconnected with over the pandemic and I became mates, I sold my house and moved across the country (drove the 30 hour trip twice, actually! There and back before I did the house selling, and then there after it), changed my career, and started the harrowing job of recovering from trauma. It's been a bit. So yeah. I’m okay that I didn't put a label on it before I started. Frankly, none of the amazing stuff was possible alone, if I hadn't had my amazing friends' help, and my amazing mates to run to...I'd probably still be trapped in the same situation that had been killing me for years. If I had to retroactively backdate a theme, I'd probably call it the "Year of Recovery", or "Year of Escape". Either way, it was hard, but it was good, and I'm amazed to be where I am now.
So yeah. Let's do a theme. I want the theme for this year to be hopeful. "Wonder" pops out at me from a list I ran into, but I'm not sure how to work that. My salient goals at the moment are to get my legal name change and to get underway on earning a certificate for my new career, so yanno. That's a thing. "New Beginnings" is a possibility in that case. I'm trying to leave behind the guilt from leaving (ain't that a concept).
Aw shit, "Wander and Wonder" was literally a suggestion just now on this list. That's a pretty fuckin' me sentiment, though I don't think it necessarily jives with what I'm feeling for at the moment.
Maybe something more aggressive, like "Year of Fierceness"?
After thesaurus-ing "beginning," I think I'm gonna go with "Year of Opening". A Year of Opening up, of doing these blog posts. Of opening to new ideas and opportunities. To being more open to outsiders about who and what I am, and being more myself in situations I've been playing safe and hiding.
So yeah! Here's to the Year of Opening. Let's take it for a hell of a ride.
Where I Been
General | Posted 5 years agoHey guys, sorry I fell off the planet with no warning... ^_^;; I've really been trying to not do that.
I'm in the process of selling my house and moving from Illinois to California, which is really, really fuckin' awesome, and I am SUPER EXCITE, but has also been taking up allllll my brain space and time as I pac, sell off furniture, and take a ton of stuff to thrift stores. I lied to myself that I could get the next New Normal page done last week but...I couldn't.
So that's where I've been and what I'm currently up to. Things will start to calm down again at the end of April, and I'll start churning out the rewards I owe and get back on track on New Normal and even *gasp!* It Doesn't Matter!
I'm in the process of selling my house and moving from Illinois to California, which is really, really fuckin' awesome, and I am SUPER EXCITE, but has also been taking up allllll my brain space and time as I pac, sell off furniture, and take a ton of stuff to thrift stores. I lied to myself that I could get the next New Normal page done last week but...I couldn't.
So that's where I've been and what I'm currently up to. Things will start to calm down again at the end of April, and I'll start churning out the rewards I owe and get back on track on New Normal and even *gasp!* It Doesn't Matter!
It Doesn’t Matter - Zone 01: It’s About Time - Scene ...
General | Posted 5 years agohttps://vimeo.com/474481476
Well, this took too long to finish! I was trying to work in a lot of time-saving work-arounds, and not limit myself so hard to working in ToonBoom and Illustrator. Soo, it's a little rough visually, as I try new things, and abruptly switch from backgrounds built in Illustrator to backgrounds made in Procreate on my iPad! It was also hard working on this narration-driven scene, rather than a character interaction-driven one, since I find those a lot more fun to work on!
Plus, the next scene is where the party really starts! Buuut we gotta set it up so the fun stuff actually matters! Ah, the hazards of pacing.
This scene brought to you by narration and walking! -_- I've been having so much trouble getting into working on this scene, partially because of other things taking priority, but also largely because it's a narration-driven scene, rather than a dialogue-driven one.
GEE. I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M ON FIRE TO WORK ON THE STORY WITH THE EVIL MILITIA PRETENDING TO BE A LEGITIMATE POWER. STRANGE, ISN'T IT.
Well, this took too long to finish! I was trying to work in a lot of time-saving work-arounds, and not limit myself so hard to working in ToonBoom and Illustrator. Soo, it's a little rough visually, as I try new things, and abruptly switch from backgrounds built in Illustrator to backgrounds made in Procreate on my iPad! It was also hard working on this narration-driven scene, rather than a character interaction-driven one, since I find those a lot more fun to work on!
Plus, the next scene is where the party really starts! Buuut we gotta set it up so the fun stuff actually matters! Ah, the hazards of pacing.
This scene brought to you by narration and walking! -_- I've been having so much trouble getting into working on this scene, partially because of other things taking priority, but also largely because it's a narration-driven scene, rather than a dialogue-driven one.
GEE. I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M ON FIRE TO WORK ON THE STORY WITH THE EVIL MILITIA PRETENDING TO BE A LEGITIMATE POWER. STRANGE, ISN'T IT.
It Doesn't Matter Progress, January 20, 2021
General | Posted 5 years agohttps://vimeo.com/379934017
PROOOOGREEEESSSSS ON IT DOESN'T MATTER, with Sequence 6 so far! AHHHH! We're getting to the end of sequence 6 and I'm excited to get to 7!
Maybe I /should/ crosspost to YouTube? Even though it'd be the same thing with only a few seconds more footage each time? I feel like that's a thing YouTube would be hostile to, since it's a vlog environment, and those can be cheesed out like poo.
YES, I'M THROWING SHADE.
This sequence brought to you by narration and walking! -_- I've been having so much trouble getting into working on it, partially because of other things taking priority, but also largely because it's a narration-driven scene, rather than a dialogue-driven one. Very happy that I started scheduling in specific time for it again.
I have a Patreon, now! Join up to see pages early!
PROOOOGREEEESSSSS ON IT DOESN'T MATTER, with Sequence 6 so far! AHHHH! We're getting to the end of sequence 6 and I'm excited to get to 7!
Maybe I /should/ crosspost to YouTube? Even though it'd be the same thing with only a few seconds more footage each time? I feel like that's a thing YouTube would be hostile to, since it's a vlog environment, and those can be cheesed out like poo.
YES, I'M THROWING SHADE.
This sequence brought to you by narration and walking! -_- I've been having so much trouble getting into working on it, partially because of other things taking priority, but also largely because it's a narration-driven scene, rather than a dialogue-driven one. Very happy that I started scheduling in specific time for it again.
I have a Patreon, now! Join up to see pages early!
UPDATE SCHEDULE!
General | Posted 5 years agoALL RIGHT, LISTEN UP, CUZ I'M GONNA GIVE MYSELF A SCHEDULE TO STICK TO WHETHER I LIKE IT OR NOT!
Between one thing and another, I've been having trouble keeping a consistent update schedule for New Normal and It Doesn't Matter. Believe it or not, I keep trying to increase the post frequency for New Normal to weekly, which isn't quite working for my current workflow on the comic, and also means that It Doesn't Matter gets shafted. Soo, since I don't want to suddenly change my workflow on New Normal mid-scene (I do have an idea for how to speed things up, but it will lead to a visible lighting change), and since It Doesn't Matter is essentially a self-care project for me that I've got no intention to bench, it's past time to balance these out again. Especially since I also need to make sure to balance my time between them and commissions and rewards.
So I'm going to go back to rotating between New Normal and It Doesn't Matter by week, where this past week was a New Normal week. I'm going to continue with posting what I have for that week's New Normal page or It Doesn't Matter update on the weekend as I finish it, and then having the page or footage go live everywhere else Wednesdays. Which makes the planned update schedule for the next month as:
New Normal Page 40 - Patreon: weekend of 12/25 (woo-hoo!), Public: Wednesday, 12/30
It Doesn't Matter - Patreon: weekend of 1/2-3, Public: Wednesday, 1/6
New Normal Page 41 - Patreon: weekend of 1/9-10, Public: Wednesday, 1/13
It Doesn't Matter - Patreon: weekend of 1/16-17, Public: Wednesday, 1/20
New Normal Page 42 - Patreon: weekend of 1/23-24, Public: Wednesday, 1/27
It Doesn't Matter - Patreon: weekend of 1/30-31, Public: Wednesday, 2/3
New Normal Page 43 - Patreon: weekend of 2/6-7, Public: Wednesday, 2/10
I'm always skittish about publishing schedules--accountability is great, but only so far as it helps rather than hurts, and my anxiety and baggage tend to make releasing stuff like this a bit more fraught--I'm a bit prone to self-sabotage. But, I think I'm developing enough regulars now that I absolutely need to be transparent and make sure you guys know what to expect and when! Alternating by week has worked well in the past, and I should still be able to take time to tackle commissions and rewards!
It's kinda insane how much work I've managed to get out this year. Going by my Inkbunny pools, this year I'll have 143 pieces of art. 2019 had 38, 2018 had 29, and 2017 had 29, so that's an insane amount of growth! It's been great to be able to start having more art to share with people!
I have a Patreon, now! Join up to see pages early!
Between one thing and another, I've been having trouble keeping a consistent update schedule for New Normal and It Doesn't Matter. Believe it or not, I keep trying to increase the post frequency for New Normal to weekly, which isn't quite working for my current workflow on the comic, and also means that It Doesn't Matter gets shafted. Soo, since I don't want to suddenly change my workflow on New Normal mid-scene (I do have an idea for how to speed things up, but it will lead to a visible lighting change), and since It Doesn't Matter is essentially a self-care project for me that I've got no intention to bench, it's past time to balance these out again. Especially since I also need to make sure to balance my time between them and commissions and rewards.
So I'm going to go back to rotating between New Normal and It Doesn't Matter by week, where this past week was a New Normal week. I'm going to continue with posting what I have for that week's New Normal page or It Doesn't Matter update on the weekend as I finish it, and then having the page or footage go live everywhere else Wednesdays. Which makes the planned update schedule for the next month as:
New Normal Page 40 - Patreon: weekend of 12/25 (woo-hoo!), Public: Wednesday, 12/30
It Doesn't Matter - Patreon: weekend of 1/2-3, Public: Wednesday, 1/6
New Normal Page 41 - Patreon: weekend of 1/9-10, Public: Wednesday, 1/13
It Doesn't Matter - Patreon: weekend of 1/16-17, Public: Wednesday, 1/20
New Normal Page 42 - Patreon: weekend of 1/23-24, Public: Wednesday, 1/27
It Doesn't Matter - Patreon: weekend of 1/30-31, Public: Wednesday, 2/3
New Normal Page 43 - Patreon: weekend of 2/6-7, Public: Wednesday, 2/10
I'm always skittish about publishing schedules--accountability is great, but only so far as it helps rather than hurts, and my anxiety and baggage tend to make releasing stuff like this a bit more fraught--I'm a bit prone to self-sabotage. But, I think I'm developing enough regulars now that I absolutely need to be transparent and make sure you guys know what to expect and when! Alternating by week has worked well in the past, and I should still be able to take time to tackle commissions and rewards!
It's kinda insane how much work I've managed to get out this year. Going by my Inkbunny pools, this year I'll have 143 pieces of art. 2019 had 38, 2018 had 29, and 2017 had 29, so that's an insane amount of growth! It's been great to be able to start having more art to share with people!
I have a Patreon, now! Join up to see pages early!
Let's Stream!
General | Posted 5 years agoI'm gonna be streaming on https://picarto.tv/SonicSpiritwith https://picarto.tv/SINPUKESUPART! I'm planning to stream from 1:30-6:00PM CST! Join us there!
It Doesn't Matter Update, and Scene 5!
General | Posted 6 years agoI'm still not sure the best way to go about posting updates for It Doesn't Matter, but I guess since I'm changing how I approach it, it might be easier, now! SO, IDM is a big, dumb, one-animator animation project, which is fine...except I actually really want to tell the damn STORY, and I'm dying at the slowness. SO! I'm gonna try something else.
I kiiinda was gonna do this in scene two (you can see where I started not actually animating, and then where I started again), but this time, I think I'm gonna COMMIT, with deadlines and everything. Eh, I'm way faster now, so it's suddenly possible. So instead of fully animating a shot each IDM week (or a scene, in animation language, because apparently it has to be cool and not use standard film language), I'm going to try to pump out a scene/sequence each month. We'll see how it goes, since this is A LOT more than just doing a shot in a week. Like, I've gotta do my sound editing, backgrounds, shot set-up, any extra character designs, and the more-limited-but-still-at-least-kinda-animated-work. So yeah! We'll see how it plays out! But I'm excited. Also I have a lot of nice, short scenes lined up ahead of me, so this could be manageable. Or I could die, whichever!
Anyway, Scene 5, which I completed last night (okay, I still have some sound design stuff to do...there's supposed to be gunshots from the AK-47s happening, and I haven't plonked them in, yet), is below!
https://vimeo.com/407854574
I kiiinda was gonna do this in scene two (you can see where I started not actually animating, and then where I started again), but this time, I think I'm gonna COMMIT, with deadlines and everything. Eh, I'm way faster now, so it's suddenly possible. So instead of fully animating a shot each IDM week (or a scene, in animation language, because apparently it has to be cool and not use standard film language), I'm going to try to pump out a scene/sequence each month. We'll see how it goes, since this is A LOT more than just doing a shot in a week. Like, I've gotta do my sound editing, backgrounds, shot set-up, any extra character designs, and the more-limited-but-still-at-least-kinda-animated-work. So yeah! We'll see how it plays out! But I'm excited. Also I have a lot of nice, short scenes lined up ahead of me, so this could be manageable. Or I could die, whichever!
Anyway, Scene 5, which I completed last night (okay, I still have some sound design stuff to do...there's supposed to be gunshots from the AK-47s happening, and I haven't plonked them in, yet), is below!
https://vimeo.com/407854574
Sunday Stream!
General | Posted 6 years agoI'm gonna be streaming with my buddy SINPUKESUPART at 1:30! Join us there! https://picarto.tv/SonicSpirit
Doop, Doop, It Doesn't Matter Update
General | Posted 6 years agoOkay, below are the links for scene 5 and the full IDM Zone 1 so far. I added two shots to it this week! Ooooooh!
It Doesn't Matter Zone 1, Scene 5 (so far)
It Doesn't Matter Zone 1 (so far)
I was gonna link the two shots themselves, but that would mean making them visible in my Vimeo gallery, and my dude, that thing is SOOOOO clogged with these short shots from uploading them through Patreon for early releases. Ain't no one got time for that, and I'm not gonna subject anyone else to it! Even I can't be fucked to dig through it, I access the important files through the embeds on my own website! So yeah, we don't need to start showing all those shots as visible to all.
Hilariously, I've been thinking of clogging my YouTube with them, though. I have no shame.
The point is shooting AK-47 at straw bales is dumb. I guess that's one of the next lines. - Sonic
Posted using PostyBirb
It Doesn't Matter Zone 1, Scene 5 (so far)
It Doesn't Matter Zone 1 (so far)
I was gonna link the two shots themselves, but that would mean making them visible in my Vimeo gallery, and my dude, that thing is SOOOOO clogged with these short shots from uploading them through Patreon for early releases. Ain't no one got time for that, and I'm not gonna subject anyone else to it! Even I can't be fucked to dig through it, I access the important files through the embeds on my own website! So yeah, we don't need to start showing all those shots as visible to all.
Hilariously, I've been thinking of clogging my YouTube with them, though. I have no shame.
The point is shooting AK-47 at straw bales is dumb. I guess that's one of the next lines. - Sonic
Posted using PostyBirb
Gonna get my stream on! https://picarto.tv/SonicSpirit
General | Posted 6 years agoGonna get my stream on! https://picarto.tv/SonicSpirit
Stream? Stream! https://picarto.tv/SonicSpirit
General | Posted 6 years agoStream? Stream! https://picarto.tv/SonicSpirit
It's an "It Doesn't Matter" Week!
General | Posted 6 years agoLET'S DO THIS! For everybody who doesn't know (which seems like most peoples), I have two main projects right now, the comic The New Normal, and It Doesn't Matter, my big stupid Sonic TF animation...that still hasn't gotten to the TF yet, cuz I'm setting up the story and animating is slow. The way I've been doing it is I alternate weeks where I put out a page of The New Normal and a shot (in animation terms scene, but yanno, confusing) of It Doesn't Matter! So here's this week's update of It Doesn't Matter Zone 1, Scene 5 (so far) and the full It Doesn't Matter Zone 1 (so far! I hope you like it so far!
Oh, and I haven't put sound effects in on scene 5 yet, and kinda not dialed in all the sound period just yet.
I have a Patreon, now! Join up to see comic pages and animation shots early!
Posted using PostyBirb
Oh, and I haven't put sound effects in on scene 5 yet, and kinda not dialed in all the sound period just yet.
I have a Patreon, now! Join up to see comic pages and animation shots early!
Posted using PostyBirb
STREAMING! WHOOOOOOO!!!
General | Posted 6 years agoIt Doesn't Matter Zone 1 WIP March 17, 2020
General | Posted 6 years agoOh hey! The big dumb montage-like scene four of IDM is done and stuff! Have a link! Next up, MOAR ANIMATING, and characters talking to each other again. I write A LOT of conversation. Whoops!
It Doesn't Matter Zone 1 WIP March 17, 2020
It Doesn't Matter Zone 1 WIP March 17, 2020
“Alteration” is a Pretty Generic Name, Help Me Do Bet...
General | Posted 6 years agoSo, I need a better name for a cyberpunk nanobot-driven “bodymod” TF setting/story, and thought it’d be fun to ask for suggestions!
Long story short, I wrote a short story TF going into FurSquared that I’ll be tossing up here, (just need to finish an illustration to go with it), and I really enjoyed it. I like the setting and the characters, but their arcs are pretty complete...which makes it perfect fodder for TF sequences.
So yeah! Thoughts on what I should re-name this cyberpunk nanobot TF setting, site unseen?
Long story short, I wrote a short story TF going into FurSquared that I’ll be tossing up here, (just need to finish an illustration to go with it), and I really enjoyed it. I like the setting and the characters, but their arcs are pretty complete...which makes it perfect fodder for TF sequences.
So yeah! Thoughts on what I should re-name this cyberpunk nanobot TF setting, site unseen?
Obligatory It Doesn't Matter Update 2/11/2020
General | Posted 6 years agoBecause it's a It Doesn't Matter week, have an update! Yeah, I'm still working out how to go about posting that I did a thing. You can see the isolated shot on my Twitter here: https://twitter.com/sonic_spirit/st.....20372698824706, and if you're interested in any behind-the-scenes shots and seeing the shots as I finish them, check out my Patron here: https://www.patreon.com/sonic_spirit
It Doesn’t Matter Zone 1
It Doesn’t Matter Zone 1
It Doesn't Matter Zone 1 WIP January 28, 2020
General | Posted 6 years agoOH HEY, GUESS WHAT? I added another 4 seconds of animation for this week to It Doesn't Matter! Yeah, still figuring out how to go about posting about that on here. I throw up the shots themselves on Twitter (@ Sonic_Spirit), but, yanno, 4 seconds of animation is...underwhelming to watch alone. And don't get me started about watching each shot on a loop! OOF! it's a THING. Yeah, showing progress updates for this beast is...interesting. Anyway, below is what I've got so far!
Watch the thing here!
Watch the thing here!
January, February, and March Schedule
General | Posted 6 years agoOkay, let’s do this! I’m gonna try this “Actually laying out a schedule,” thing, and see how that goes! First up, I’m gonna put Anything But Ordinary and Thus Spake the Gods: Humans Suck on hiatus.
Thus Spake’s reason is easy: after Bipsy passed...it’s hard to look at or work on. Also I was kinda writing it on the fly, so I don’t have anything that had been plotted out or waiting in the wings that I’m really desperate to get to. I have a few comics penciled that were fun jokes with Wynn and Taryn, and a couple that were trying to bridge the gap and introduce Taryn, and...yeah. Not much else. I’d originally cannibalized Wynn’s design from some half-started ideas I’d been playing around with, and might bring him back in some capacity down the line, cuz I do have a couple fun one-off jokes written...but right now I wanna re-focus on The New Normal...and It Doesn’t Matter.
That kinda leads in to why I’m benching Anything But Ordinary...especially right after starting Chapter 2. I like working on it, it’s a lot of fun and has been a great place to experiment, and I dunno, maybe it can still be that...? But how depressing an idea is that? “This comic is the gulag for whenever I want to try a different approach?” Blurgh. I don’t love that idea. But anyway, Anything But Ordinary is good and fun, and I like working on it...but time is limited, and I kinda want to pour more of the time I’m working on it into other projects...namely projects I’ve written myself. Plus, 36 pages in 9 years? That’s embarrassingly low.
...Which is kinda why I want to refocus on the two projects I pretty much can’t imagine cutting. The comic I don’t know if it’ll even have an audience, and the ridiculously bloated Sonic TF animation story that takes forever to get a couple of seconds of footage finished. Clearly, I am the best at decision-making. Buuut, yeah...these projects are the ones closest to my heart. The New Normal is a long-form comic story built of so many ideas and thought threads that’ve percolated in the back of my head over years that embraces TF, unicorns, mythical creatures, magic, acclimating to new forms, and finding strength through community...it’s fun, and dramatic, and gives me an outlet for the unicorn part of myself when it rises up strong and fierce. It Doesn’t Matter...is the worst idea I’ve ever pursued so hard, because if you strip away all pretension, it’s just me. I break every stipulation and storytelling rule I have for myself with it, from concept to execution, because It Doesn’t Matter. And honestly if I could work on only one project for the rest of my life (which would be awful, I am an Idea Factory), it would be this one...despite the fact that that’s probably the worst possible choice I could possibly make. But It Doesn’t Matter, I’d work on It Doesn’t Matter anyway. Even if that makes me a hack.
Okay, well, that’s a lot of words. So what does all that mean? Before...November, really, when Bippy passed, and then the holidays hit with a deluge of familial obligations, I’d been working to update a comic per week, releasing on Patreon on the weekend upon completion (be that Friday, Saturday, or Sunday), and then here (and everywhere else) on Tuesday. That was good. I liked that. Buuut it basically meant that each comic was updated once per month, and IDM happened whenever I squeezed it in and sometimes took over space in the rotation, even though I didn’t have it scheduled there...I’d just previously been pumping out a shot a week for IDM and had tried to plaster the comic schedule on top of that...yeah, that didn’t work.
So! In an effort to have a consistent, dare I say “predictable” schedule, and to get some movement on the two projects I’ve chosen, The Plan is to rotate weeks between It Doesn’t Matter and The New Normal, with the idea being that I’ll finish It Doesn’t Matter shots on its weeks, and the next page of The New Normal on its week. Also I want to throw in mid-week illustrations, or design swag, because I really want to have more to show for myself than what I do, and yeah.
So yeah. Current week is set to be an It Doesn’t Matter week, with the goal of posting the current shot I...honestly spent way too much time backgrounding already this weekend on Patreon, and then making it live everywhere else Tuesday January 14, New Normal would be the next week and go live everywhere January 21, then back to IDM, and so on and so forth. We’ll try that ‘til March, and I can even lay out a concrete schedule to actually hold myself to with dates and everything...that I will promptly probably fuck up, but whatever, we’ll try anyway!
Thus Spake’s reason is easy: after Bipsy passed...it’s hard to look at or work on. Also I was kinda writing it on the fly, so I don’t have anything that had been plotted out or waiting in the wings that I’m really desperate to get to. I have a few comics penciled that were fun jokes with Wynn and Taryn, and a couple that were trying to bridge the gap and introduce Taryn, and...yeah. Not much else. I’d originally cannibalized Wynn’s design from some half-started ideas I’d been playing around with, and might bring him back in some capacity down the line, cuz I do have a couple fun one-off jokes written...but right now I wanna re-focus on The New Normal...and It Doesn’t Matter.
That kinda leads in to why I’m benching Anything But Ordinary...especially right after starting Chapter 2. I like working on it, it’s a lot of fun and has been a great place to experiment, and I dunno, maybe it can still be that...? But how depressing an idea is that? “This comic is the gulag for whenever I want to try a different approach?” Blurgh. I don’t love that idea. But anyway, Anything But Ordinary is good and fun, and I like working on it...but time is limited, and I kinda want to pour more of the time I’m working on it into other projects...namely projects I’ve written myself. Plus, 36 pages in 9 years? That’s embarrassingly low.
...Which is kinda why I want to refocus on the two projects I pretty much can’t imagine cutting. The comic I don’t know if it’ll even have an audience, and the ridiculously bloated Sonic TF animation story that takes forever to get a couple of seconds of footage finished. Clearly, I am the best at decision-making. Buuut, yeah...these projects are the ones closest to my heart. The New Normal is a long-form comic story built of so many ideas and thought threads that’ve percolated in the back of my head over years that embraces TF, unicorns, mythical creatures, magic, acclimating to new forms, and finding strength through community...it’s fun, and dramatic, and gives me an outlet for the unicorn part of myself when it rises up strong and fierce. It Doesn’t Matter...is the worst idea I’ve ever pursued so hard, because if you strip away all pretension, it’s just me. I break every stipulation and storytelling rule I have for myself with it, from concept to execution, because It Doesn’t Matter. And honestly if I could work on only one project for the rest of my life (which would be awful, I am an Idea Factory), it would be this one...despite the fact that that’s probably the worst possible choice I could possibly make. But It Doesn’t Matter, I’d work on It Doesn’t Matter anyway. Even if that makes me a hack.
Okay, well, that’s a lot of words. So what does all that mean? Before...November, really, when Bippy passed, and then the holidays hit with a deluge of familial obligations, I’d been working to update a comic per week, releasing on Patreon on the weekend upon completion (be that Friday, Saturday, or Sunday), and then here (and everywhere else) on Tuesday. That was good. I liked that. Buuut it basically meant that each comic was updated once per month, and IDM happened whenever I squeezed it in and sometimes took over space in the rotation, even though I didn’t have it scheduled there...I’d just previously been pumping out a shot a week for IDM and had tried to plaster the comic schedule on top of that...yeah, that didn’t work.
So! In an effort to have a consistent, dare I say “predictable” schedule, and to get some movement on the two projects I’ve chosen, The Plan is to rotate weeks between It Doesn’t Matter and The New Normal, with the idea being that I’ll finish It Doesn’t Matter shots on its weeks, and the next page of The New Normal on its week. Also I want to throw in mid-week illustrations, or design swag, because I really want to have more to show for myself than what I do, and yeah.
So yeah. Current week is set to be an It Doesn’t Matter week, with the goal of posting the current shot I...honestly spent way too much time backgrounding already this weekend on Patreon, and then making it live everywhere else Tuesday January 14, New Normal would be the next week and go live everywhere January 21, then back to IDM, and so on and so forth. We’ll try that ‘til March, and I can even lay out a concrete schedule to actually hold myself to with dates and everything...that I will promptly probably fuck up, but whatever, we’ll try anyway!
It Doesn't Matter - Zone 1 - Sequence/Scene 3
General | Posted 6 years agoHokay, let's bump that last journal about how I fell behind on updates with another work-in-progress video of scene 3 (sequence, if you wanna be pedantic and actually use animation terminology) of It Doesn't Matter, my big stupid animation project that is just...I have so much of this shit written, you guys. So much. I just wanna spend all my time churning this fucker out, but nooooo I have to do things like go to work, and sleep, and shit! Travesty, I know.
Man, I can't wait to get into the meat of this story.
Oh! Also! Strip 13 of Thus Spake the Gods is live on Patreon! So, yanno, early access and stuff!
Man, I can't wait to get into the meat of this story.
Oh! Also! Strip 13 of Thus Spake the Gods is live on Patreon! So, yanno, early access and stuff!
