So last week I mentioned I was working on a special new project that would finally let me make another YouTube video. At the same time, I was going through another phase of feeling disappointed with my current ability to produce artwork. So I should have known that it would result in me starting up two more projects within the week. These two are more short-term in terms of scope, so I’ve decided to postpone my larger projects for now to work on them. As is normal, I can never tell when new inspiration will strike, so I have to be wary about taking on too many long-term projects. All I can say is that I’m glad I shelved my simulator for now, as having that on my plate as well would definitely be overkill.

I’m on-track to getting my aliens on my site by the end of the month. Looking back at my old designs that I’m using for these next 10 has me really questioning some of my old decisions for alien design, but it’s also letting me put my new design to the test and see how well it holds up with my own alien powers. Once I get these added, I’m going to spend the rest of the year looking into indexing and trying to get these powers more organized and searchable. Speaking of organization, I’ve completely reworked my commissions page to be much more readable and look way nicer. I didn’t even check to see how it looked on mobile before, but it was a total mess. Now it should look much nicer on all fronts, with better references too.

So one of my new short-term projects is to review comics and stories on the tapas forums. I used to review stories a few years ago. I found it helped in my understanding of what makes a good story from a bad story. Even if I’m reading the lowest quality story imaginable, it adds to my literary library of what I should strive to avoid in my own writing. When I give people advice on how to fix it, I can apply that same advice to my own work. I’m also finally getting around to doing another art challenge, in a similar vein as last year’s Hat Kid art. I wanted to get some more practice drawing Neal and Yaki, so I’m doing a “20 art styles” challenge with them. It should be good practice in drawing them, while also helping me to make sure their designs work in styles other than my own.

I don’t have too much free time for gaming at the moment, but I recently picked up Inscryption. It’s like a mix of Hand of Fate and Five Nights at Freddy’s, combined with a roguelike deckbuilder. Really liking it so far, despite dreading the idea of an inevitable jumpscare. Hopefully the game will get by with its foreboding atmosphere alone. Very interested to see where it goes. Anyway, back to work! Make the most!