CUPdate 23: Camping Eventure Rewrite

I want to start out this post with some personal things, since I think it's relevant to what's been going on and why I haven't been producing much for these CUPdate posts. And a big part of why I had very little to show last time.

I had about a week or two where I was extremely unmotivated to do anything. I let some things get to me and honestly had a bit of time that I truly felt like I should give up on creating art for my personal projects. I haven't been that low in years, so it sucks that I got affected that badly. But then people encouraged me in unexpected ways, which helped me out of it. And then I read the Shitaka Fireworks Eventure that I rewrote a couple of years ago, and remembered that I am capable of creating things that make me happy and are fun to me, regardless of if anyone else would enjoy it, which isn't really the point of my personal projects. So I finally got back into things and out of that terrible slump. 

A lot of what I've been doing recently has been slowly easing back in and doing more reading and writing, so still not a lot to show visually, but I'm getting better! I'm not going to even promise that I'll have more visuals to show for next time, but I will try to work on writing more at the very least.

So I decided to rewrite the Camping Eventure since that one felt kinda like a filler the way that it was originally written. I updated it a lot to add more character development and story moments. It was a great opportunity for me to flesh out some world building involving time tapes and how those work into the story. I also was able to enhance it through incorporating a cabin that I envisioned looking like the one I stayed in last year, so that was a fun addition.

Then I drew some storyboards for the Eventure afterwards. It's been awhile since I drew a lot in one day, so I slowly eased myself into it. I didn't end up finishing drawing all of them, but I spent about an hour sketching these rough boards.

And then something else I've been doing has been re-reading Eventures. I'm at Eventure 80 now in order, so over the past few months I've been progressing through and doing some copy edits and things. What I started to do recently also was rewrite a few minor parts to connect things more. For example, in the Izumi's Missions Eventure, I added in a few lines relating to Gair and Kudamono's first encounter from the Stinky Girl Eventure since I finally wrote that part now. So I was able to connect some of those story moments together better, which is always fun. Other times I'll just update some dialogue to improve it and make it sound less generic, since I've improved my writing skills since then.

So again, not a ton to show, but I do like that I'm getting back into the habit of Eventure writing, so for the past two CUPdates I've had a new Eventure written. If I can average out one every other week, that'll be some good writing progress! Dedicating Sundays to writing and mostly project work has been a lot of fun for me. We'll see how that continues.

CUPdate 22: Eventure Writing & Trailer Progress

During this time, I was mostly out of town so I didn't get a whole lot done. Also just a lot of general stress that has been weighing on me unfortunately was a contributing factor to the end half of this time. I knew some of this coming into this CUPdate though and wasn't expecting to get much done anyways.

Something I've been researching recently is soundproofing so I can start to be comfortable recording silly voice clips in my apartment without worrying about anyone listening in or disturbing other people. I've started the process and at least have a green screen hanging to cover my walk-in closet so that it's secluded. I managed to record rough sound files for about 4 Eventures so that I can start to put together Eventure trailers. I currently edited together sounds for the entire first Eventure, I just need to cut out the main parts so it's not 38 minutes long and matches the trailer length that I originally put together last time.

Then I decided to plan some Eventures more and wrote the Stinky Girl Eventure. That was one that I didn't have any ideas for a long time and I finally came up with some ideas and decided to just go ahead and write all of it when it was fresh in my mind. It's always a challenge writing those first Eventures since they're so different, but those are some of the only ones that are left to write entirely from scratch, so I do want to get as many of those done as I can so I can focus more on later parts of the story, since I rarely am in the mood for writing these ones. This was a rare case where I was though, which was good!

I wish I had more to show, but I suppose I did write an Eventure, so that was one accomplishment! Since I've been busy and pretty stressed from life things recently I'm not sure how productive I'll be on personal projects for next time, but I hope I can have another break sometime soon to catch up.

CUPdate 21: Eventure Rewrites & Video Editing

So we had a longer time for this CUPdate, but I don't have a ton more to show. Most of what I've been doing is proofreading, planning, and rewriting Eventures. So a lot of writing, but not so many visual updates! The main visual updates I have are video edits that I did towards the end.

I started by reading some Eventures and doing a lot of proofreading throughout Eventures. And through reading these, I started to think of more ideas for rewriting Eventures that I wrote a long time ago, because some of those were just really outdated and I know I could do better now. So I went back and rewrote some parts of the Timer Afterwards Eventure. I also planned out the Timer Eventure and part of the Baron Sisters Eventure, since both of those lead up to this one. There's still a bit more I wanna do with the Timer Afterwards Eventure in terms of making new parts, but I haven't fully figured that one out yet.

Then after I rewrote part of the Timer Afterwards Eventure, I drew some storyboards for the part in The Gek's World. I decided to add some grayscaling to this one to make certain parts pop more. It took a little more time, but was a good addition.

I was also editing some parts in the Ducklin Eventure and decided to revisit a drawing from 2015. Trekkon and Sarah's designs have changed a bit since then, so I drew over this drawing to update it to their new designs for this scene. I also had fun playing around with making Sarah's Dark Vaiyo markings a lot more prominent and vein-like here:

2015

2022

Then I decided to start thinking about how I want Eventure Trailers to be structured. These are going to basically be short videos that are about 5-10 minutes long to recap what happens throughout an entire Eventure. I originally made one of these for the Discovery of the Rebirth Stone Eventure using rough storyboards and voice clips to portray the story. I've been wanting to make more of these and do eventually want to make them for all of the Eventures. Since The Gek Eventure has the most finished art from the Twine story that I made in December, I decided to see what one of these would look like with finished art. I still need to record sound files for most of it and make a few more edits like zooming in on pictures, fading in music, and figuring out how I want subtitles to work. But this was a fun mini-project to take a break from reading and writing Eventures.

I've been in the mood for some video editing recently, so I decided to grab all of the "Nay a Week" videos that I recorded so far and edited them together so I can slowly progress forward on that project. This is a project I'm planning to post at the end of the year and am slowly recording footage for. Basically it's just mini-vlogs of me talking about The Nays and my progress on the project. I thought it'd be a fun project to do for the 20-year anniversary this year.

After that, I got in the mood for editing videos and realize it had been 10 months since I last uploaded a Sketchbook Tour. I was editing those consistently for awhile and kinda just stopped. But so I ended up editing 3 of them and 2 of those I uploaded already. It's fun going back and seeing my old art and memories.

And then since another month ended, I finished my March digital sketchbook page! This month I was reading a lot of Eventures, so I would often doodle a little scene from the one that I just read or characters relating to them at least.

I'll be traveling during the next CUPdate so I'm not expecting to post much for next time. But I plan on continuing with the projects I've been working on and trying to make a little progress there!