#I'm really digging pixel art!

[nopecho]

Putting way too much effort into a rape game pt.2

This took me the whole week.

[yeleltaan]

Here we are– you are the first of the 4 in which I completed. MSpaint spooky/thoughtful Cayin doodle. It was fun deciding on what to do. Hope you enjoy, Croc. Hope you don’t mind that I was feeling BB Cayin <3

// AAAAAAAAAAAHHH this is so lovely!! You nail his style perfectly, this came out so cool. Thank you Cat!!

[deadghosy]

Can you do more Hazbin Hotel x enderman reader? I'm obsessed with it. I love the idea.

Credit to the person who made the art, this is just how I imagine Enderman!reader to look like as a human. 🦆✨

MORE HAZBIN HOTEL X ENDERMAN! READER IMAGINES/HEACANNONS

imagine how reader is when they get pissed…they would just straight up punching shit just like the Enderman hits you in Minecraft 😭

I Imagine Charlie trying to make you do a eye contest with Alastor only for you to start tweaking and punch Alastor into a wall as Alastor only gives up a thumbs up while you sweatdrop putting on your blindfold as you try to pull out Alastor from the wall

I headcannon reader to always pat everyone’s head when they are at their full height. But at 6’5 they just pat their back like “good job buddy😐✨”

Imagine Lucifer and you wearing matching shirts that say, “if lost return to big boy” as your shirt says “I lost big boy”

Headcannon that Angel is your cuddle buddy because he likes how your arm is basically a pillow for you. And husk is your second cuddle buddy because of his fur and you like to pet him.

I imagine Angel trying to make you wear pink only for it to turn black when it fits your body. Angel gave you a “🤨 are you fuckin serious?” Look as you just shrugged with a “😐” face. I mean shit, if it fits. It fits.

I headcannon Enderman!Reader’s suit to be like the art but instead of those black things on it. It’s just slight purple sparkles on it to represent the purple pixels around them.

But definitely their second fit is a black vest and a white dress shirt with black slacks and black dress shoes. 🤨☝🏾 W FIT YOU GOTTA ADMIT!

Yk how Angel made that Snapchat post about you and you got death threats? Yeah well Valentino was the reason as he got mad that Angel “wasn’t paying” you as you were just working on the hotel

I imagine Enderman! Reader to be black coded just like how the art is above as the reader’s hair is always in dreads, cornrows, and twists. But never in an Afro state as it takes time to get the hair nice and soft (coming from a black writer….it literally takes an hour…)

I imagine you once teleported during your cuddle session between husk and angel. They were so confused they even searched your room only to find out you teleported on the top roof of the hotel during your sleep.

I imagine Valentino at least trying to ambush you to see why Angel is so happy to come to the hotel to see you again. Only for you to teleport out of his view every second. And the moth dude is like “shit! He’s onto me…” but really you are just bored asf and need some fresh air from the hotel air.

I can see nifty just minding her business when you lifted her up and croaked softly petting her head and sitting her down.

I headcannon Enderman! Reader’s room to be built from those block in the end so reader can feel the presence of his home in the hotel💗🦆

I imagine Velvette actually getting able to like post you on her fashion account as a mysterious person with your blindfolded looks. The girls dig for guys who seem mysterious.

Imagine Lucifer and you making each other building hobbies, like he makes you build him a duck as he makes you a sleeping mask just incase you don’t want to stare at someone’s face without your blindfold.

Headcannon on how fat nuggets like to cuddle against reader’s legs as reader was making a bed for fat nuggets to have a heater installed if the pig is cold.

Like…bro IMAGINE READER BENG SO PISSED THEY SUMMON THE MOTHER OF ALL…THE GUARDIAN OF THE END…THE ENDER DRAGONNN (dun x3 dramatically) maybe they would summon that during the battle between the angels and absolutely destroy their asses

I headcannon Angel once seen your mouth glowing purple when you unhinged your jaw to screech. He definitely asked before checking out your mouth which he could see in the back was glowing.

Since I headcannon enderman! Reader is black coded. They have a bonnet that was shipped from Velvette as they put it on and felt more comfortable sleeping ‼️💗

Who would be the first one to respond to you calling them: Lucifer, Charlie, Angel dust, husk, nifty, Alastor. And specifically in that order 🦆

I headcannon for Vox to try to always have you on his night show so he can show off his new “guest” being a new specie of demons.

I imagine sinners asking what ring (7 deadly sins) you came from and you are just like. “The end….i came from the end..” and now they are more confused than you when they asked where you came from

I headcannon reader’s nickemame is like, “ENDY, tall one, handsome, [actual nickname], weirdo, cutie, dad, fucker, bestie.” You can imagine who called you who which is kinda obvious…

I imagine Adam to make a lot jokes about you saying how freaky you are and how weird you are for not liking eye contact without your blindfold as you just stand there like “what’s for dinner…😐”

I can see you showing the egg boiz a picture of a ender dragon egg making them think they can have someone like them but also just like you

I can see you just standing there as everyone argues in the court because Charlie wanted you there since you don’t seem like a demon or angel. She tried to get answers but no one knew what you were.

Imagine modern au! Angel dust and you do tiktoks….because Angel dust forced you to be in his tiktoks as the others just watch trying to enjoy their summer vacation

I can see Adam hating how you aren’t pressed about what he says about you as you just stand there ignoring him.

Imagine you being sick and everyone stopping to make sure you are okay. (except for Alastor as he knows you will be better soon) Like the whole crew just starts to baby you and try to fix things you can fix but only fail.

Imagine reader with a baby ender dragon as a pet as reader whistle for the dragon to land on their shoulder or appear more bigger for it to protect you and the crew

I headcannon reader’s singing voice to sound decent with a little bit of deepness in it to mask out some things.

I imagine your full form if you were a demon or angel obviously an ender dragon lol 🦆

Imagine Pentious just pure on slithering around your body as you just sit down after a rough day of complaining by residents and their rooms.

I headcannon Lucifer to get on your shoulders to feel bigger for fun which make it seem so cartoony as one has a derpy smile while the other has a thumbs up and a “😐” face just staring blankly into people’s soul

[leidensygdom]

well @voidsteeth has given me the power to ramble a bit more. PLEASE ignore the cat in that picture, for some goddamn reason it's the only way tumblr let me post this goddamn picture. it's a nice kitty, mind you

Up above, some really loose logo/main pic ideas for it! Excuse my terrible handwriting. Let me do it bullet-point format since it helps my adhd pin down stuff

So, it's gonna be a RPG. I wanna figure some fun gimmick and I surprisingly have a bunch of that well fleshed out! (Part of it revolving the elemental system, concerning Flesh/Memory/Mind/Matter/Soul). I'm not a huge fan of the repetitive encounter "smash everything in front of you" format. I'm going to be using RPG Maker MZ. My partner has a lot of experience with that, which should help a lot!

Inspired by a bit of a mix of classic JRPGs and more recent indie RPGs, specially Rpg Maker stuff. I've been raised watching my dad play the old Final Fantasy games (which I love dearly, specially IX, X and VII), but I've ended up loving the more recent indie scene myself (OFF, Oneshot, Undertale/Deltarune, Everhood)

(I'm gonna be playing more RPG Maker games to help with inspiration and knowing how much I can bend the system- Please feel free to recommend me some!)

Set in a sort of high fantasy setting, and it takes a bunch of stuff from the one I run my current DnD campaign in. I think it will feel familiar to DnD/PF players, but I'm going all in with my own worldbuilding! I wanna set myself apart from these.

I want to have a sort of in-game illustrated encyclopedia because I really dig that. I liked the way OFF used images here and there to add to the lore. I just love the idea of being able to collect pages and learn more on the way. I've sketched the ones for the elements already!

Themes will spin around friendship and human connection, eldritch horror flavoured stuff, and some temporal shenanigans too. It will also tackle on the importance of understanding the past- The story will put some focus on how people are too busy pillaging a ruined city to understand what actually destroyed it in the first place. Which, well, it's the kinda thing to have consequences.

I'm planning to work on this on my free time, and once it has a nice shape (and perhaps a playable demo), I may consider having a Kickstarter to complete it. I'm fairly confident I can handle (with enough time) most of the parts of it. I just need to get a bit familiar with pixel art (for the maps). I used to do that ages ago! I'm also familiar enough with programming and have done small web-games in the past.

The one thing I am absolutely not qualified enough for is music. I wanna try honing my skills but- Oh boy. (on that note, if you know of small musicians that are open for commissions, do let me know! Just as a very preliminary view)

also you can bet this is gonna be really LGBTQ+ themed. I wanna also take the chance to maybe sprinkle in some of my heritage's stuff, I've wanted to do that for ages!

I'm of course always open for specific questions about this. I'm really excited to work on it and help my mental health on the way. I'll do my best to share some concept art, mock ups and such as I get it more fleshed out! I have some enemies pinned down and I think people will really enjoy these designs : )

[tbcanary]

Hi! Do you happen to have basic/simple/easy tutorials for editing comic panels to recommend?

i do not actually have one to refer you to, but i’m happy to write some things up! i’m assuming this is just for removing backgrounds and creating icons; if you want a how-to on the way i animate panels, that lives here.

i use photoshop cs6, but the same general principles should work in other editors. also, there are probably easier or faster ways to do the things i do. i like my methods and i’m comfortable with them, but i’d recommend experimenting to find what works best for you.

and... yeah! let's get into it.

step one: finding a panel

i save panels as i’m reading comics. they all live in one PSD file named “panels,” and i make a new one for each run. anything that seems pretty or thematically resonant gets copied and pasted in there. this way, i don’t have to dig through endless comic issues to find a specific image that stuck with me. i usually save the full page just so the edges are clean and everything is included.

let’s go with this page from birds of prey:

step two: cropping

the way i crop the image depends on two things: what i’m hoping to make, and what the image looks like. here, i’m just doing a basic portrait, and helena is taller than she is wide. that makes it easy; let’s crop it so she takes up most of the frame.

(my preferred ratios are 4x6 for smaller panel edits like this; for banners, i usually do 2x1, but if the framing works better as 3x2, I have done that, too. just feel it out. actual pixel sizes depend on the size of the original image.)

step three: removing the background

this part is, I think, the area with the most room for personal preference. we need to erase the background, and there are a LOT of tools to do this. each one varies depending on what the image itself looks like. there’s the magic selection tool, the eraser, or the lasso or magnetic selection tool. 

(i don’t use the lasso or magnet because they’re evil, to me, but they work reasonably well when you have a character on a mostly solid background and art with thick, defined lines. i have no real advice other than that.)

here, we can mix and match some things. i’m going to start by using the magic selection tool to grab all the white or solid colors and remove them with the delete key, like so:

surprise! gone.

after that, for the more finicky areas, i am a perfectionist and i go in and erase pixels using the eraser tool at 4-5px width. i start by outlining the character, like so:

from there, you can use the lasso tool to select all of the remaining background and delete it. i usually hide the white background layer at this step, too. (i'm also going to color the smoke and the man in the foreground black and redraw the crossbow string with the paintbrush tool. this ain't about him.)

you should end up with something like this:

step four: cleaning the linework

this part is mostly using the layer style stroke and the tool refine edge.

so, because of how selection tools and erasers work, there are a bunch of hidden pixels throughout the image you can’t really see. this drives me absolutely bonkers. at this point, i combine all the layers of the paint i've done so far -- everything except for the transparent background. select the layer with the character — Helena — and apply the layer style stroke, set to “outside” at 3px.

those little black dots are what we're after. there aren't too many right now, because this was a fairly clean edit; sometimes, it looks scary and messy, but that’s okay. the layer style has just outlined all those invisible pixels. i go through and erase them — especially in tight places like corners. for example, this pesky area between strands of hair:

(before vs. after)

once you’ve erased all of those pixels and cleaned up the image, you can go back into the stroke layer style.

you’ve done a lot of erasing and feathering and cleaning up, so chances are, the line work is not nearly as crisp as it looked in the original panel. that’s fine! shift the settings to “inside” and 1px, like so:

sometimes it’ll need to be 2-3 px, sometimes it’ll need to be center-aligned, and sometimes you might even decide it looks better outside or without the stroke style at all! this is all personal preference. do whatever you like.

once it's where you want it to be, i like to duplicate the layer -- to save the one without the new outline in case anything goes wonky. then right click the copy of the layer and "rasterize style" to get a flat image with new linework.

your workspace should look something like this:

if it happens to feel like the edges are a little harsh — which happens sometimes! especially when using selection instead of eraser — you can select the whole image and use refine edge. this softens it. you don’t need to do much; i usually do 2-3px of feathering, a couple pixels of smoothing, and some contrast, depending on how it looks. see below:

you'll have three layers now. it gets confusing, so try to keep track of which one is your active layer. you can delete old ones, if you want; i generally don't, just in case.

there isn’t a hard and fast rule for this part. do what you think looks good. and if you want to refine the edge before you add the new linework, that can work! do another stroke layer style after the first round! test things out and find out what you like. most of the time, it depends on the image and your preference.

after all that, this is the helena we now have:

step five: creating a new background!

this part is easy. create a new layer, pick a color you like — i tend to pull from the actual background using an eye dropper tool, or if it’s for a multiple-part edit, I use the swatches i’ve decided on for the color scheme of the whole thing — and paint bucket that thing right on there. this is some of the blue that was behind her originally:

i don’t like flat colors, pretty much ever, because they feel harsh to me. so i go back and add artistic touches and mess around with the filters a lot. sometimes i pull text or accents from other panels and follow the same steps as above to incorporate them into the edit; sometimes, i don’t. no rules just vibes.

in this case, i want it to be pretty simple. so i’ll make a new layer, then fill it in with a gradient tool. i usually make a custom gradient; one side is the color of the background and the other side is either black or white, depending on the vibe I want.

i do an orbital gradient most of the time — circles are your friend — and focus the center on something that I want to draw the eye to. here, i’m going to do helena’s face.

then i mess around with the opacity until it looks the way i want it to. like this:

step six: final steps

congrats! you have an edited panel! you’re perfectly fine to post/share/use it at this point, but there are a couple other things i like to do to give it that final polish:

if you want to jazz up your edits, try messing around with outer glow, or drop shadow. both of those layer styles can add some emphasis to your focal point. (i prefer those be kept at a low opacity, when i use them, which isn’t often.)

i'd also recommend messing around with gradient maps if you want to superimpose a larger silhouette over the background. that would take more room than i have left in this already far too long guide, but it does add something to have it in there.

i dislike having text bubbles in my edits unless i specifically put them there, so i do have a process for removing them, much like the smoke or the man in the foreground. again, we are running long already, so i won't get into that here. my recommendation if you don't want to deal with entirely removing a bubble is to just paint over the text inside with white so you have an empty text box or speech bubble instead. it's simpler, quicker, and honestly the more common practice based on what i've seen.

that being said, if you want to know how i paint over them -- or how to do anything i didn't get into here -- feel free to ask. i don't mind writing these up.

i have a guide on how i size my images here, which walks through the exporting process. it’s not strictly necessary, but i like for my edits to remain consistent in size, so i do usually follow it.

and that’s it! you’re now ready to edit comic panels to your heart’s content. happy cropping and so on, and thanks for asking me. <3

[wirewitchviolet]

Wire Witch Hex - Wearing Many Hats (Font Design)

Lately most of the traffic I'm getting on this blog has been people stumbling onto my multipart series on how a computer works. Glad people are enjoying that as much as they seem to be. My reason for teaching myself all of that (besides just the joy of learning) is I'm very slowly working on designing a new video game console that anyone sufficiently motivated can build for themselves as a neat little DIY project. There are so many moving parts to this project that for now I'm focusing mainly on just the controller and its unique features. To avoid having to make a whole working console, with software, to test it, and make sure I have something to show for all this if the rest doesn't pan out, I'm designing the controller to also be more or less compatible with the NES and SNES (which secretly use the same input standard, just differently shaped plugs at the end of the cord).

This means all I'll need to test and demo my controller is an SNES ROM that knows what to do with my scroll-wheel outputs, a setup where an emulator accurately handles those signals, and later a cart I can slap a couple EEPROMs into and test on real hardware. Oh and I also need to teach myself enough about SNES development to actually create every demo I want to run, do all the art, code it up, and compile it. This is a big job, and I'm not getting paid, so maybe consider throwing me a little money before we dig into this?

Since... really the last time I reported in on this, I've been studying away trying to learn all this, and hey, have a compiled ROM image that'll display a blank screen in any color I want, and a third party program that IN THEORY with a bit of massaging will convert a 256x256 image into an SNES character ROM image. AKA the file with all the graphics. My ultimate goal for this demo cart is to cycle through several very simple games, showcasing how my controller works with each. So I need to cram every image any of these are going to need into my one big image file, which I'm slowly picking away at, but the one thing I knew from the start that I'd definitely need is to throw some text on screen explaining the controls for each demo. And since it's not like there's a built in font in in the system, I had to make my own.

This is not my first font-making rodeo. For this one, my thinking was, I'm going to be in a fixed 16x16 resolution per character (because I forgot the specifics of how the SNES actually tiles graphics), some built in spacing so I can slap them all right up against each other or some border and still be readable, and I wanted a nice little shadow built into every character in case they end up on a low contrast background. Let's zoom in on what I have here so far, in case you don't feel like downloading the file and blowing it up to something more readable.

The first thing I want to note is that after finishing the first 4 rows of characters here, I double checked, and while the SNES CAN break backgrounds into 16x16 tiles, the absolute minimum is 8x8. If I were really trying to be space efficient, I should have designed around that. Several of these characters would easily fit into a 16x8 space, that level of compression would also let me have just the period and comma and be able to build a colon, semicolon, or apostrophe from those, and most importantly, I rendered this with all of the lowercase letters exactly 1 pixel too tall to fit into a 16x8 space and let me double up there. Since I'm rather happy with this font so far and I'd eventually like to make some version of it available for, if nothing else, other people writing software for my eventual console here, I will likely, at some point, make a more space-optimized variation. I'd also like to cover a wider range of characters. At the very least, have some accent marks, wouldn't be too hard to add support for Cyrillic. Pretty sure I can get Japanese and Korean text in keeping with this look. Maybe some other languages. Anyway though, let's talk about what I've got.

My general design rule here was, where possible, make lines 2 pixels thick, and have each white pixel cast a black pixel shadow immediately below, to the right, and the diagonal between them. This gives a pretty convincing relief effect in my opinion, and keeping the shadows this thick keeps a nice firm edge there so it's even generally readable on a pure white background. Within each 16x16 tile, I was extremely strict about keeping a 1 pixel margin clear at the top and bottom of each image, and 2 or 3 on the sides (often 3 on the left, 2 on the right. With capital letters, I went with a generally rigid and blocky style, trying to stretch things to my arbitrary margins. Lowercase letters I restricted to just 8 pixels tall, and those featuring tails are given special permission to drop down an extra pixel, leaving the shadow right on the edge of their true bounding box.

While it wasn't an intentional move at first, several lowercase letters ended up with a decidedly rounded, squashed look, particularly g and q. I found that to be both kind of cute, giving the whole font a real unique character, and eventually started to actively lean into it (which may not be super obvious, I started with W as it's kinda the letter than needs the most breathing room and worked outward from there), and did my best to distort all the rounder shapes and in particular the highly mirrorable b d p q set, as I seem to recall once reading the more you avoid identical shapes with those, the more legible the font becomes for people with dyslexia. Similarly, I made a point of distinguishing the shapes of the Ms and Ws, and added a little whimsy to the numerals. Overall I'm super happy with all the lowercase letters (except for e and s being too thin, but that was an inevitable compromise), and if I ever have the time to kill it's very likely I'll revisit this someday and apply this squishy rounded aesthetic to the capitals too.

Your eyes were probably drawn really quickly to the parentheses here, where for at least the moment I'm breaking my rules about blank space and shifting them inward quite a bit rather than centering them. That's going to look really bad if I use them in a sentence (like this), but the main reason I'm including them right now is so I can list button prompts with both the icons representing what's actually going to be on my controller, and the SNES buttons sharing the same signals. So something like: "GO (A) Jump" and I think the half-spacing and closeness to what they enclose will look pretty nice in this one specific case.

As a final note, the particular hardware I'm working with absolutely supports the ability to mirror any image horizontally or vertically, as well as change the palette. If I truly wanted to cram letters in as efficiently as possible at this font size, I could, for instance, have an 8x8 right-angle segment, build a whole H just from mirroring that, also use it for the legs of the A, P, F, the left side of the D, etc. This however is incompatible with the shadows I'm using for extra readability. And of course for other projects I HAVE made a perfectly legible 8x8 font before.

I'm pointing this out because hey, if you do the math, JUST these characters I've set aside for having arbitrary on-screen text, as is, are consuming 5/16ths of my total graphical memory, and I'm probably never even going to display most of these anywhere. Again, not a huge problem for the simple demo pack I'm making, and that 256x256 drawing space isn't a hard limit. Spending an extra processor cycle to change an index value and access a whole other page of image data is a pretty common practice on the hardware, but especially with older computers and racing to get things ready to draw before a screen refreshes, it's good to at least be mindful of the tradeoffs with that sort of thing.

And again, my sole source of income at the moment is patreon donations, so if you're excited about seeing updates to this weird project of mine or you're learning useful things from any of it, maybe consider throwing me a little support?

[normal0person]

Saw the ask thing and I thought I'd give my 2 cents. I dig your style and your pixel art has this really fun charm to it. Like, I can see it being in a cute little GBA game where you beat the bad guy with the power of friendship. I also like your lines. They're thin but capture the weight of a character pretty well, something I sadly can't nail down. Keep at it, I'm happy to support your art!

Thank you for the nice words, MightyRay. I dig the traditional art style that you deliver along with your outstanding slug designs. I do enjoy the vibrant colors mixed with the dynamic line thickness. I am very glad that you support me, and I am happy to support you art!

[drac-onion]

"I made this!"

So I have a bit of an unhealthy relationship with art.

I would never call myself an artist, but I would never disparage someone for doing the exact same thing I do and then call themselves an artist. An artist, to me, is someone who makes art. Simple as. Sure, you could more minutely define it as someone who makes a living from art, but you could also argue that the specificity of that would fall under whether or not someone calls themselves a professional artist. Meaning that they do it as their profession. (IE: a paid occupation, usually involving prolonged training and/or formal qualification.)

So, by that rule, I'm an artist because I make art (sometimes), but not a professional artist, because I don't make a living from it.

I suppose I could call myself a writer, too, but let's not get too into the weeds on etymology and labels. I'm some rando that makes art (sometimes) and writes (sometimes, and I even post sometimes too! [keyword: sometimes])

I'm pretty apprehensive about posting things I've made because of weird vulnerability I feel around it. Cuz like, I tried my best (or maybe its just a quick n dirty something or other for a laugh) and now that thing is going to be out for anyone to see? Spooky.

Well, I'm going to try to change my mindset and post things that I made cuz I made them, and if other people see them, great. If not, then it's for me to look back on anyway. It's not about likes or reception or anything. Just for me to look back on. It's just a scrapbook that I just so happen to put somewhere for others to look at if they want.

I recently went through my PC and located everything I've ever made and put it one spot. It's organized by year, and it was kind of wild to see how far I'd come in some regards.

There's some pictures I took of my sketchbook from when I was following Mark Crilley's art tutorials. Some attempts at pixel art (some of which aren't half bad, tbh) and some sketches I made in that old Sketchbook app for android. I actually had to hop on my old deviantart for some of it (oof) since I couldn't find the original files. They're probably on an old laptop somewhere, but I couldn't be bothered to pull the hard drive and dig for it.

I can really pinpoint my artistic motivations and pursuits in each year.

2013: Pixel art (just the worst pixel doubling and uniform outlining, yikes!)

2014: Traditional art and youtube tutorials, along with some pixel art here and there)

2015: I could only find one drawing from 2015 (had to grab that one from facebook...YIKES) and its a not-too-shabby drawing I did from reference.

2016: Following along with a Bob Ross episode in Mario Paint. This one actually looks really good. Maybe I'll post it one of these days, cuz it's kinda neat.

2017: Bought a drawing tablet with the money I made from working. Downloaded Sai and tried drawing from figure references. Some of it is really bad, but some of it shows an understanding of figure, which is kind of impressive in hindsight.

2018: Some more Bob Ross pixel art. I followed along with the same video as in 2016, but in Aseprite (the demo, so I only have a screenshot of the finished product because you can't save in the demo) and damn, it's still one of my favorite things I've ever made in Aseprite. Especially for only being 4 colors (GB green palette)

2019: Some more Sai stuff. Probably all done in the same session, but it's not the worst I suppose. I'm pretty inconsistent when it comes to focusing on art. I tend to get pretty distracted when I'm not immediately good at something. (And now I know why, although hindsight is 20/20)

2020: Uh? Couldn't find anything from 2020. Given what occurred that year, that's not all that surprising TBH.

2021: Some music I made and a doom level I made. This was sort of my intro to making levels for games. We had to make a game pitch for a school project and I went all out on making a demo. I think I clocked my hours and it was well over 40 hours put into the level alone. Made a custom weapon sprite any everything. It's pretty cool.

2022: My intro to working in 3D and making youtube videos. I started in Gmod, making simple animations, before eventually swapping to SFM for stills. Then a friend asked why I didn't just learn Blender instead, so that's what I did. If you know me from twitter, then you've probably seen these. They're NSFW, so maybe don't go digging if that isn't what you're into. That was sort of where my unhealthy relationship with social media and art began, because I started focusing a lot on views and likes and reception for things instead of just making things I wanted to make. (Mostly because I was surrounded by and learning from actual professionals, who do it as like, a job.) Sure there were things I made because I wanted to make them, but for the most part, I was going for the popular thing and wanting to "get big" at the time. Cringe, I know. Such is life. You live and you learn. Some of the best I made during this time was cuz I wanted to make it, and those are the ones I'm most proud of to this day.

2023: Burnout city! Unemployment will do that to you. Sure I worked on some stuff here and there, but I really burnt the hell out. Ended up working on some Doom levels and some little things here and there. Making a titlecard for a friend's youtube video, a cover art for a HM2 level, finishing my second reload animation, and a couple blender things. 2022 felt so productive in comparison, where did it all go wrong? (Oh yeah, the weird obsession with views. Right.) Then I got into writing that summer and I've sort of kept up with it. AO3 says I wrote 93k words that year, so that's not nothing. (I promise I'm working on another big project. It's just...hitting some creative snags. Again. Such is life.)

2024: The current year. I'm...trying to get back into making things for me. Writing things because I would read it. Drawing things that I would look at, or that I find interesting. Once again, I'm sort of trying to game my attention problems by not focusing TOO hard on one thing at a time. Otherwise I'd never finish anything, and while I'm not concerned about having things to post to social media, it does feel good to look back and see things you've actually finished. It's better to finish something and have it be like 50% of what it could have been than never reach 100% and then it just lives on as a reminder of your inability to finish things. I'd rather call something done and move on than obsess for ages over "what could have been." Or maybe I'm just waffling because I'm still trying to shake my weirdness. Bah. Some stuff I make might never see the light of day, but that's kind of a shame. I like making things and sharing them with other people. It's fun.

That's really the operative word of this whole ramble.

Fun

I do things because it's fun. I should want to do things because they're fun. Of course that's easier said than done when you have my specific brand of brain problems, but ya gotta catch the wind in your sail when it blows, right? (If that even makes sense.)

So yeah, here's hoping that this weird ramble convinces me to post things. Not because I want to get clicks or likes or engagement. But because I want to remind myself of how fun it was to do.

Like that Kolibri doodle I posted yesterday was something I did for fun. I though it'd be fun to do, so I did it. Simple as.

So here's to fun. Let's do stuff for that, and forget about clicks. I'm doing it for me. If you happen to like it, then more power to you. But I wanna have fun for me.

Yeah.

(Watch me then never post anything because my interests have waned and I hyperfixate on something else and then have to look at this post in a few months and cringe at the thought.)

But hey, nobody else is reading this anyway.

Right?

[dorenarox]

There were a lot of really good scenes in the FNaF movie, but the most important one...the Springtrap...it was...underwhelming.

Maybe if the guy had the head on it would have looked less...comical. I'm (not) sorry, but he overacted it.

I will criticize this scene in particular because the pixel art original version of the Springtrap scene is absolutely BRUTAL and has been one of my favorite scenes in gaming since years. You can FEEL the pain! You can feel the animatronic parts digging into him, immobilizing him, making him shake with sharp pain that turns into uncontrollable spasms and the pressure and coldness of the steel digging into his muscles and organs, crushing his bones, replacing most of his organic matter with steel. All through pixel art! BIG pixels!

The aftermath of this scene in the movie was more brutal than the scene (in the movie) itself.

[spacevixenmusic]

Pour one out for every time my heart skipped a beat while watching Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai (1991) and thinking I was finally about to see a DQ4 character but got juked.

See, part of the reason I put this anime on my list oh so many years ago now is because I grew up with the Dragon Warrior games on NES, and 4 in particular was one of my world-reshaping JRPGs (I feel like most everyone has at least one JRPG they played in their childhood or teen years that completely rocked them to their core; this was one of mine). In the early 00s when I learned what Google Image Search was, I got really into looking for fan art of characters I had only seen previously as pixel sprites. And while looking up DQ4 characters (I only knew their early NA translation names, not the modern ones they have today), I saw an image of what I THOUGHT must have been a screenshot from an anime featuring two of my favorite characters from DQ4. I only saw that one image by itself and nothing else like it, so I figured if it was a screenshot it must have only been like one scene in one episode, so it probably wasn't a big deal, but it was still cool and stuck in my memory for years.

Eventually, I found out that there was in fact a Dragon Quest anime, about original characters and an original plot with no direct ties to any of the games I grew up with. But it sounded like it could be fun nonetheless, and hey, maybe it still did have that screenshot after all! So now here I am in 2023, finally got around to watching it and keeping my eyes peeled for that so-called screenshot, just in case. This is also a big reason I watched the 91 anime instead of the new 2020 one, even though the 91 version doesn't cover the complete manga series. I've been catching all the little references to DQ trivia and monsters that I know along the way, but it's been mostly centered on stuff from DQ 1-3, with 4 mostly only reflected in the background music (which in hindsight makes sense, given that the game debuted around 1990, and the anime aired in 91-92, adapted from a manga that started in 89).

Anyway, I'm 99% positive now that what I saw back then was not, in fact, a screenshot of Mara and Nara (oh sorry, guess I should use their modern names now - Maya and Meena Mahabala), but just a really cool fan art. A mild disappointment, but I can't fault the anime for that. Now I wonder if I can still dig up that fan art to show what I was talking about...

[ghost-in-the-hella]

Game-rec anon here again, I’m not the biggest fan of horror game but can definitely appreciate it in moderation! I’ll definitely check out both Dredge and the Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, thanks! If you do have any recommendation in the story-driven, light-on-horror but kind of investigatory mysterious vibe (kind of like the first Life Is Strange) I’m all ears! Thank you so much for taking the time!

I'm the same way about horror ^_^ I'm not a horror aficionado, but I appreciate it in moderation.

Oooh, so many ways to go here... I mean, Night in the Woods jumps right out if you're looking for a story-driven game with a bit of mystery and investigation to it that scratches a lot of the same itches as Life is Strange. The art is lovely, the characters are fantastic and relatable, the story is engaging, the gameplay is smooth and satisfying, the dialogue is on-point, and the music is phenomenal. If you haven't played it yet, I highly recommend.

I also recommend checking out Purrgatory. It's free on Steam, and it was shockingly good. More visual novel and/or point-and-click style than LiS or NitW, but it's very much story and character driven with some investigation. More digging for backstory and helping characters find closure than solving a mystery, but it scratches a similar itch. I really loved the characters and dialogue. I like the art style, but some may find it an acquired taste. I didn't expect much from it with it being a free game, but I ended up really, really loving it.

I haven't played it myself yet, but I remember watching my partner play Gone Home a few years ago and it being really good. Story-driven and investigatory/mysterious vibe for sure. I really need to get around to playing that one for myself.

We haven't streamed it in a while, but we were really enjoying Chinatown Detective Agency. Point-and-click mystery/crime-solving game in a futuristic setting with interesting characters and stories. Not as deeply character-driven as LiS and similar games, but it's engaging and has a lovely pixel art style.

A VERY different vibe from LiS, but if you want some mystery-solving fun my partner and I have been enjoying Murder By Numbers. It's more of a visual novel style where you solve nonograms to find evidence to solve mysteries. Again, very different energy from LiS, but it's a fun time. We played a little bit of it in our first Indie Game Speed Dating stream and decided to continue playing it off-stream because it's too much pressure to solve dozens of nonograms for an audience ^_^'

Also a very different vibe from LiS, but we really loved the Frog Detective games. Lots of mystery and definitely story-driven, but also very, very, VERY silly. All depends on what you're in the mood for!

I hope one or more of these recs speaks to you ^_^ Let me know if you end up playing any of them and what you think!

[leam1983]

My EDC for Work

I mostly work remote now, but there's still some days that see me head back into the office. My EDC tends to vary depending on what's on my schedule.

Constants:

a Google Pixel 4XL w/ 128 GB in storage space. Basic comms, mobile file storage, music player, notes.

a Flipper Zero module, which is attached to my keychain and allows me to wipe and clone office-related RFID tags. It saves me on having to walk down to the locked and secured actual cloning machine, with Management having needed a while to come around to my using it. I also use it to control our conference room's projector, seeing as the actual remote is always misplaced. It lets me into my office and allows me to spook my non-tech-savvy EV-using colleagues seeing as Toyota doesn't individualize keyfob NFC signals. I also use it to control our garage door and to head inside the apartment. Oh, and it's also my dedicated IR remote for the media center.

two SanDisk Compact UltraFlash USB drives at 128 GB apiece. One is my Ventoy drive and is crammed with every single OS the office needs, from Linux Mint for the Call Centre to Windows Server 2020, as used by the Art and Production teams, with several variations in-between and a few bootable utilities, such as GParted, Hiren's Boot CD, FreeNAS and Proxmox. Both of them are molded to my keychain using little Sugru putty hoops. The Executive pool being beyond all salvation, I also pack a hacked Windows 11 image file that I've modded to be just a little bit more flexible than the commonplace Tiny11 ISO that's accessible online. Allowing sixteen year-old computers running on spinning rust to function off of a modern operating system has at least allowed us to acclimate the older ends of the Accounting department to modern standards. Unlike the actual Tiny11 ISO, I've kept the authentication suite because y'can't really run homebrew Windows images in an office setting legally if the resulting installation can't phone home...

Admin Days:

my Razer Blade 14 laptop and its associated dongles, running off of Windows 11 Pro. I edit campaign-related documents, review project files and sign off on our dealers having fully-assembled digital care packages packed with everything they'll need to get their sales off the ground. I also confirm the proper placement of documents that will need to be accessible for our Printing associates later. Everything IT takes place there, except for what relates to the Call Center. My laptop allows me to Term into our four server stacks if our checklists detect that something's missing, and to visually report on what needs to be transferred. To do all this, I also pack...

a TP-Link USB-C to RJ45 adapter, which is foldable and takes about zero space in my laptop's bag. It works like any other built-in hardline access point.

a no-name collapsible Cat5 Ethernet cable

a small bean bag. This one actually stays in-office, but I take it out from underneath my desk when I know I'll be watching the local network or mothering file transfers for more than twenty minutes. I am not spending half-an-hour standing up in the hot aisle, no sir.

Call Centre Admin Days:

my 512 GB Steam Deck. It's a couch gaming platform at home and a Linux Terming station at work. Going Linux-to-Linux is much more intuitive for me than loading Windows' Linux tools, seeing as it gives me a complete GUI I can use to guide less computer-savvy call agents through common procedures. It virtualizes a barebones-basic Linux Mint install that I can boot up and peer through if some colleagues report weird bugs or VoIP-specific issues, and I can use it for remote takeovers if things get too complex and require that I actually dig in to fix an issue.

my Steelseries Arctis 9 headset and USB emitter. I'm technically obligated to use wired audio peripherals at work, but Management soon realized I had too many side-jobs to take care of at work to really make the use of anything wired practical on the long term. They're plugged in if I have to lend a hand and make a few calls, but typically operate wirelessly. Everyone at the office knows to ping me on 3CX if I'm working within range of my desk, and to text or message me if I'm not.

On-Site Implementation:

my Google Pixel Slate. This old croaker's really useful when I'm dealing with non-tech-savvy salespersons who need a walkthrough of a campaign's documents or who want a demo run of some of our VR and WebGL content offers. It's a decent notepad on its own, and it comes with its own dongles. It's the PC I'll use to access any dealer's infrastructure and confirm with their Sales Director and Financial Controller that everything's above-board and ready to go.

That last one is the least-frequent of my tasks, seeing as Management knows not to send a cripple halfway across the province on his own. They let me implement campaign materials and check for head offices' go-ahead only for local dealerships, some colleagues of Walt's are scattered across the province for the rest.

All of that sort of informs why I took the Brain Gremlin as a persona, as I'm technically able to crater the company that employs me if I so desired, and could do so during personal or business-related trips.

Failing that, I get to fuck around with our presenting hardware if I'm bored, I can wreak havoc with my fellow geeks' radio-powered desktop toys, and have been known to pull an April Fools on my boss by using my Flipper Zero to put his shelf-mounted radio receiver on his least-liked station without opening the door.

FAQ:

WHY U NO USE LINUX ON LAPPY?

Because Razer are incompetent buffoons that long ago made it clear they had no vested interest in supporting the use of Open Source operating systems, and who made it a requirement to use Windows Update in order to get absolutely anything to work on the Razer Blade 14.

If it's any consolation, I use WSL to run Kali Linux on top of my Windows 11 install on my laptop. The way it's set up, you'd swear it's just a productivity and light gaming machine up until I mouse over to and click on a blank spot in the upper border. Kali's own GUI then drops down.

As to why I'd want to attack or breach my own employer's resources? Having an in-house pen-tester is a lot cheaper in this economy.

[thefinestwaifu]

I'm really digging this new color scheme! It's so comfy feeling! ☺️

Have some really cute pixel art I found!

[postgamecontent]

'Drova - Forsaken Kin' Switch Review

Well, this is neat. Homages to Japanese turn-based RPGs and tactical RPGs are pretty common these days. Games inspired by Bioware's old Infinity Engine computer RPGs also aren't terribly uncommon. But Drova is something else. It's a 2D game from an overhead perspective, I suppose coming off like Diablo with a bit more of a pixelated look. Hearing someone describe it as "pixel-art Gothic" helped the pieces come together for me. Yes, that's pretty much the feeling here, in more ways than one.

Dire world full of moral ambiguity and little in the way of joy? Check. An open-but-not-too-open world to explore, full of interesting detours that are almost always worth taking? Yes. Action-based combat where you're likely to get shredded until you know which fights not to pick? Mm-hm. Lots of interesting systems to dig into if you feel that-way inclined? Naturally. Jank? Oh goodness, you bet. Drova is a big game with a lot to do, and it's one that rewards those who prefer their video tourism to be dangerous and unguided.

Chasing a couple of druids on their stupid quest, you end up in a hostile world where the survivors are doing their best to stay alive. Naturally, there is some disagreement among them about how to go about things, leading to two opposed factions. Your choices and decisions will see you throwing in with one or the other, and that will affect the narrative and which quests, skills, and other things are available to you. Basically, there's enough here for two playthroughs. Each one is going to take you more than twenty hours, so that adds up to a lot of game.

It's a game that more or less leaves you to your own devices once it teaches you the basic ropes. You are free to wander and die, and you will. It autosaves often enough, but you'll probably want to make your own saves just to be sure. The interactions with NPCs are interesting and the overall plot is compelling. The combat is a bit awkward on the Switch, and you can tell it was designed around a mouse-and-keyboard interface. You don't get a ton of real options in battles, despite how many appear to be there on the surface. It's more about making sure you don't get in the wrong fights, don't get outnumbered, and whether or not you're strong and well-equipped enough to go the distance.

It took me a while to get into Drova. It was really buggy at launch, which probably didn't help matters. It's had at least one big patch since then and that got things into a far more stable state. Setting that aside, this was a slow burn initially. I couldn't quite figure out how the game wanted me to proceed, and it took some time to get the lay of the land. I'm glad I stuck with it through the teething pains, though. I don't think this kind of experience is for everyone, but there's something to an RPG that will let you be an idiot and pay the price for doing so. There's a solid atmosphere here, too.

Drova - Forsaken Kin has its share of rough edges, with some clumsy control and UI choices, and more bugs than I'd prefer to see, even post-patch. I think a lot of its choices (and they are indeed intentional design choices) aren't going to go over well with some players, as well. If you can stick with it through its awkward early hours, I think you'll find this to be a really good game to hunker down with. It rewards exploration, and its swift punishment for excessive bravado only makes it that much more satisfying when you get away with it. On top of that, you get an intriguing story set in a well-realized world. I'd probably advise playing this on PC over Switch, but if a Switch is all you have and this sounds interesting to you, I recommend giving it a go.

Switch Score: 4/5

[windsails]

i'm finally teaching myself pixel art animation!!! i am trying to create my first 2D character in godot and animate their walk cycle! it's easier than I thought, but also I have no idea what i"m doing lol. so there is a lot of experimentation still. hoping to figure it out soon! i'm actually getting really excited to dig into a nice game project

[doktordismemberment]

Weekly Roundup: Dec 3, 2023

Couple days late on this week’s roundup cos I’ve been injured and busy recording but I had a minute today so here ya go.

Blah Blah:

Well, my foot still hurts but I’ve been a bit more “up and around” over the past couple days. Mostly because I had to hobble over to the post office and mail our rent check. It sucked, but it’s done now.

Other than that? We’ve honestly just been holed up in our studio and doing a lot of recording. Got a bunch of tracks in the “finish carpentry” stage of recording so hopefully the labels will have them soon and they’ll be out early next year. -

Muzak:

Elend - I’m usually pretty allergic to classical music, especially anything that falls under the general heading of “neoclassical”, but Elend popped up on shuffle after a soundtrack I was listening to and caught me in a receptive mood.

So yeah, my first impression is that this stuff sounds like Bloodborne boss fight music filtered through Cold Meat Industry style dark ambient/ death industrial and arrives at a place that kind of sounds like Gnaw Their Tongues with all the “metal” parts pulled out.

I don’t love every track I’ve listened to but the heavier, more dissonant, ones are pretty cool, especially when they’re backed by huge drums.

-

Skrol - Really digging a couple of the Elend tracks that had heavy drums inspired me to dig through my CDs and pull out Skrol’s “Insomnia Dei” which does a pretty similar thing with the dissonant neoclassical elements but welds them to really pounding anti-rhythms that are equal parts Swans, Neubauten, and super early Laibach.

I’ve always had a real soft spot for this album since I got it as freebie in a package I ordered from RRR ages ago… So much so that I’ve picked up multiple backup copies over the years in case I ever lose one or one becomes unplayable.

-

Lysergic Rites of Sadopriest - Dirgey industrialized goregrind/ noisecore that reminds me of the heaviest Mortician riffs being violently reconfigured by cEvin Key/ Chu Ishikawa. I think the guy behind this project used to be in Enemy Soil and Jesus of Nazareth, two of my all-time favorite weirdo grindcore bands.

-

Gored - Gored “Human” is one of the heaviest albums ever recorded. Period. Sounds like early Carcass on steroids.

-

My Dad is Dead - Imagine Joy Division with Big Black’s drum machine and a guitar tone that’s equal parts Husker Du and Mission of Burma and that’s pretty much what was happening with My Dad is Dead. 1987s “Peace Love and Murder” is one of my favorite things Homestead Records ever released.

Bitch Magnet - Late 80s “indie rock” (In the “Our Band Could Be Your Life” sense of the word). Think Swervedriver, Husker Du, Squirrelbait, and “Siamese Dream” era Smashing Pumpkins and you’re on the right track. Great drumming on this album.

Video Games:

Astebros - Not deep into this yet, but there's a real particular style of early 90's Sega Genesis pixel art that I'm really, really into and this game looks like it has a lot of that happening so I'll probably really dig it. -

Mushihimesama - Lots of bugs firing lots and lots of bullets. -

Reading:

Tales of the Dying Earth - Jack Vance -

Tube:

The Nun The Nun II Three Fantastic Supermen Killing In Istanbul Samson in The Wax Museum Bloody Pit of Horror