#featuring one of my new characters I've introduced on Patreon

[artharakka]

🩸 XXI Mermaid 🌊

[idolomantises]

Wasn't sure when it would be the best time to discuss this, but since the ending is drawing near... yes, Bugtopia is ending.

It was a decision I really wrestled with myself for months over it, before finally concluding that letting it end after 40 episodes was the better option. Just to be clear, webtoons did not force me to end the series. They even offered to give me a pay raise to continue the series. It was my decision due to a multitude of personal factors. I'll just repeat what I said on my patreon:

I just want to say, first of all, thank you all so much for patiently waiting for my series to release and for supporting my work as I began developing the series. Bugtopia was a series I genuinely loved and adored and it made me feel so incredibly happy that people were turning their heads towards a series about weird bugs and their natural lives.

However, as you can probably guess, it pains me to say that I am concluding the series after season 1. I had 4 seasons planned with new characters to introduce, but unfortunately, I cannot see myself continuing to work with Webtoons and I want to pursue other projects.

This decision was due to a compiling number of issues with the company, the final straw was when they had a mass layoff, fired my editor that I've been working with for two years, and did not inform me for a week, leaving me in the dark until they randomly assigned me with someone else. My new editor is great and I'm glad I'm working with someone so patient and understanding, but this decision to fire my previous editor, the one who got me the job to begin with, without prior warning made me feel disrespected and disregarded, and it killed all motivation I had for properly completing the series.

I also felt incredibly overworked, I was spending vacation days working on comics and avoiding time with family just so I could get something done for webtoons once I come home. I feel like so much time was being wasted away for a company that paid me so little that I had to work twice as hard building up funds on my patreon. Bugtopia just ate up so much of my time. The pay also didn't make up for it. It's commonly assumed that webtoons authors make about $800 for the episodes they do, but that's not true. In fact, you can make far less depending on the amount of panels expected for your contract. It doesn't help that the artwork i did for banners and promotions were all things I had to draw and didn't get paid for, and the work I gave was either tampered with or scrapped, making me feel like I spent more hours of my day wasting time. There were also comics I had to censor and scrap, likely due to another series being in hot water for its racially insensitive content. But it was just extra work I wasn't being paid for. It also frustrated me because I was seeing other series with far more explicit content getting away with a slap on the wrist (turns out you can't say "fuck" anymore without it being hit with a mature rating, disappointing!)

In all honesty, it just felt like webtoons needed me more than I needed them. I was making more money from patreon in a week than I was making from webtoons in a month.

Personally, while I don't really regret my time with Webtoons and met some great people along the way, I honestly don't think any artist should work with them. You will be severely overworked and underpaid, and will barely be featured in ads unless your series becomes an instant hit immediately. It doesn't really matter how successful you are, you're just a product to Webtoons, put yourself above the corporation.

I have tried my best to provide you all with a satisfying conclusion to Bugtopia, even if some episodes may feel rushed or incomplete, but I completely understand if the conclusion isn't to your liking and I do apologize, but I could not continue working on this series if this was the mistreatment I was going to continuously get. I owe a massive thank you to my editor and assistants for helping me complete the series, I truly don't think I could have ever finished it without them.

Though I am done with Bugtopia, that does not mean I want to stop projects entirely, so please don't feel bad for me. I have a lot of upcoming projects and ideas in the works, and I'm still continuing the Monsters and Girls series.

Will Bugtopia ever return... possibly. I retain complete ownership of the series after a few years, and I wouldn't mind continuing the canvas series (or possibly starting over). Unfortunately I don't think I can continue the Webtoon Original as it belongs to webtoons now, but never say never I suppose!

[llamagirl28]

Hello folks! I'm back with good news!

First off, let me get the development update out of the way. These past months writing has been difficult due to health issues regarding my hands, but I've still managed to get some work done and make progress on the demo. The updates have been Patreon/Kofi exclusive so far (since they have early access perks) and I've been waiting for content to build up for a public release. Now, I finally bring you something to sink your teeth in!

I also wanted to let you know that I've read the feedback you left me and I've taken it all into consideration. I have made plans for changes, some major, some minor, but I've yet to implement them. Here's a list of the future changes:

I've received feedback that chapter 4 feels slow, overly-descriptive and filled with scenes of tasks and chores; looking back on it, I do admit I've gone overboard with these things. I'll be cutting down on superfluous bits, altogether removing some scenes or changing them into something more interesting and relevant.

Also regarding chapter 4, as well as 5: I've...info-dumped quite a lot, and it slows the pace. I'll be going over the game and try to spread out information better, or withhold it till later.

Guinevere will be introduced earlier, in chapter 3. Really excited about this change :)

Instead of having one main trait for Mordred's dragon friend to choose from in chapter 2, the option will be between four archtypes. These will allow me to better flesh out the character (I've found the current system restrictive and one-note). I'll elaborate more on these new choices when they're added (which I've started to work on) but know that they incorporate the existent personality traits. This change will also come with not just edited, but entirely new scenes featuring the draconic companion.

Adding an alternative route to showing Elaine around in chapter 5, so Mordreds not interested in her can still do something fun

Alright, now let's talk demo update!

What's new?

More of chapter 5 (it's a big one)

Greet the wedding guests. Reunite with Nimue and catch up, meet Merlin for the first time

Talk to, insult, or ignore Galahad

Get on the dancefloor! (with a RO or friend of choice!)

Edits made: some bits of Nimue's conversation in chapter 1 have been reworked and a new dialogue option has been added, a couple of edits done to Morgana's first POV in chapter 3

Demo link:

[larkingame]

so, i don't usually crosspost these posts, but this week's update on patreon is available to everyone and I know I have a bit of a larger following on tumblr, and I'd really like everyone on the same page so I'm dropping all I have to say here too.

good evening friends!! i hope you're all doing well! welcome to the first update of 2024. momentous for me personally, because this is the year we finish larkin. i am making this post available to all patrons, (paid or not) because I'd really like to start 2024 on the right foot with everyone aware of the road ahead. i am so determined to get it done you have no idea. this is my year. 2024, i christen thee: the year of the vampire cowboy.

okay, so big things ahead, lets talk about the update, explore some of the features we have in the game, plans for this weekends release, the schedule and a couple other things.

so, if you've played at all with the new version of the game, you'll take notice that it's a little bit different than my first image of the game. at first larkin was just a straight interactive fiction following the likes of cog like games, with choices and avenues and split stats and the like. but now, as of 2024 (crazy) we're seeing a game that is more reminiscent of a ttrpg, like dnd or cyberpunk, with stats, classes and dice rolls. admittedly, the very first encounter of the game is well (it's a little rigged) the game, of course, could not really get started if the preacher gets cooked before they've even made it to nevada, so, the odds are a little bit stacked in the players favor this round, but at least, it gives you a little bit of a taste of whats to come. to dive into the specifics of what's important with this first encounter (or just, how to avoid getting your ass really kicked) these first few rolls give bonuses to players with high dexterity and athleticism—-but that's not to say you need to make your character beefed up in these departments. each stat will get their time to shine later down the line.

but let's talk about what i'm really excited to discuss: classes. so with the new version of larkin, i've introduced a system of classes that operate somewhat like your standard dungeons and dragons class, but with a little bit more of that classic background from the original ttrpg mixed in—coloring the way your character sees the world of the game, sort of how a race might effect a dnd character--(a dwarf player is going to have a much different worldview than say, an elf.) for this i was heavily inspired by games like dragon age origins and baldur's gate, and while I do have those original background ready to be dropped a little bit later on the game in relation to your character's perspectives on the abrams family, I really like how these have come to form.

in total there are seven new classes: con-man, outlaw, healer, thief, gambler, showman and slayer. each of these classes warps the perspective of the player character, giving them new motivations, dialogue options, and affects their relationships with the other characters in the game and the world around them. to illustrate this, I'm thinking of making a little bit more of an in depth explanation screen to be added to saturday's update to really get that point across, but I'm still toying with how I want to phrase the specifics of it. what i might do is something similar to baldur's gate with little pop-up tutorials that can be turned off/on depending on how you'd like to play.

to give an example of some of the more in depth motivations/choices each class offers lets talk about the thief and the outlaw classes. the thief class i am especially excited for, because like the con-man class and similar to a few others, it really allows your character to be very money/materialistically motivated. it opens up routes later in the game, like romancing one of the sokolovs—with motivations reminiscent of gold-digging (hehehe very excited for that—i think it will be very fun to write—because you have this idea of a cold hearted player who is entering into a relationship with them strictly for business, versus a cold hearted player who is in it for the cash but also. might be falling in love with one of the sokolovs? ((a lot of fun dynamics afoot here.)) the outlaw class is also one i'm excited to work with because it really puts something of a strain on the preacher and wyatt's relationship—-mostly because you see a strong division in terms of their ethics—the preacher in that case is very 'do what you gotta do to survive,' whereas wyatt believes (key word—believes) he's living by some sort of moral code—that he's failed to instill in the person he views as his child. so like there are layers here boys. layers of resentment, failure—to connect, to teach, to bond. a final tidbit about the slayer class before I move on: if you would really like to play into the enemies to lovers trope with one of the vampires, I would highly recommend giving your player this class ((that's all I'll say))

so: saturday, that takes us to the bar, where each class will get a unique scene, similar to how the scheming tactic section worked in the original game. we're gonna finish up the encounter with the first vampires, meet our guild pursuers and move to the bar. I'm planning also to implement the character customization here—(sort of a way to prep before the player heads out to the bar.) most likely won't get to all classes by saturday's code, but after that, I'm planning to release again on next wednesday, so we're keeping on track. I'd really like to give a full picture of customization for the player character, with all the original options for physical appearance (i might keep clothes vague for now though and let you dress your character later on, until you get a taste of the inventory/bartering system-—you have to deal with MY poor fashion choices for a little bit.) but that being said, about character customization, if there's something that's lacking here and you'd like to suggest an addition I'd be all ears. This is what I'm planning to implement so far:

skin tone

body type*

hair color

hair texture

hair length

hair style**

height

skin details (acne, scars, vitiligo, rosacea)

facial hair

make-up

piercings

eyewear (glasses, no glasses, eyepatch, prosthetic eye)

gender-affirming customization (for ex. use of binding)

* a note on the body type section, I kind of had this idea of digitally drawing some silhouettes of different heights, shapes and sizes, and allowing the player to click through arrows to select a rough estimation of what their body-type might look like. I'm going to do an art dump later this month, and I have a few sketches of what I'd kinda like to do with that, but I'm still toying with it, because even that could be a little limiting in terms of options. if any of you had thoughts on that, I'd love to hear them.

**I think it might also be cool to kind of have drawings of different hairstyles available to the characters, arranged in the card formats like the previous gender options in that same red colored sketch format.

speaking of art though--and this is purely tangential so I apologize, I'm sure you've taken notice of some of the art being repetitive--for the moment that's purposeful. I'm planning to commission some work for the cards to be implemented in a later update--so what you're seeing are just placeholders for now.

okay! with saturday's notes out of the way, plans for the rest of the week. I need to finish the timeline and then I need to make it readable to people other than myself. it is currently incomprehensible and of the few people that have gotten their eyes on it only one (1) could make sense of my mad ramblings. (shout out to friend of the game bianca from exiled from court if any of you are familiar with her or her stuff, we are  big bianca fans here.) After that I need to do some edits with the new update and such, and poke at the code.

Tonight after I post this, I'm specifically working on sending a few more emails to betas (know that sending emails is. my personal hell because of intense social anxiety. BUT we must persevere. emails will be sent tonight.) after that, I have to work on the phillip/kc/sam schedule + calendar for this month, just to keep the three of us on the same page. I'm in the process of looking at some stamps.com printers for sending out packages with this next round of physical rewards and ordering the merch (hehehe)

okay. super long update for our first one of the year, but I am so excited to get to keep working with you guys :) i'd like to thank you all for your continued support and I can't wait to show you more of the little universe i've crafted :)

until friday! i'm gonna be posting some cyrus asks/scenarios for you all to enjoy, so look forward to that! <3

[whatavery]

In the Spirit of Defiance

Ah, welcome, welcome. What’s this, you might wonder. Avery, don’t you just post almost decent fanfiction about Lackadaisy? And the answer is yes, that’s usually what I do. However, for my latest story, I settled upon writing a compendium to go with the story. What initially started as a bit of ramblings about the Funeral Home itself, I instead decided to turn into a more detailed piece on my creative process, my ideas, head-canons and the like.

Now, perhaps you’re wondering why someone – anyone at all – would care about the Arbogast Funeral Home this much. Well, allow me to formally introduce myself, in case you don’t know me. My name’s Avery, I’m an avid(-ish) Lackadaisy fan-fiction writer and I've been working on a major story that predominantly features the Arbogast Funeral Home and its residents.

So what is this story I’m speaking of?

Ordained Defiance is a story following Abelard Arbogast and my OC Cainan Wirth. This compendium will also go into detail about him, his creation and the motifs I chose to play with. With no future spoilers, of course. This will be a breakdown of the first story arc, which consists of chapters one through five, which I titled In the Beginning…

In the name of defiance, while writing and conceptualizing the story, I actually went out of my way to go against a lot of conventions when it comes to OC and canon ships.

For one, if you’ve read the story, you will have noticed that the story is primarily from Abelard's perspective – it’s his story first and foremost and Cainan is just another player within his world.

A lot of ship media tends to put all the focus into the OC to the point where they get all the development and care, often to the point where the canon character they’re shipped with gets reduced to being little more than a mannequin for them to hug and kiss when needed. One of the easy trappings is to not allow the canon character to retain their sense of autonomy and agency.

It’s not always the case, of course, but it’s an easy trap to fall into. As of writing this little think piece, I’ve written nine chapters of which only a single one is entirely focused on Cainan.

It’s so easy to give in to the temptation of making one’s shiny, new OC the star of the show, the proverbial sun with all the canon characters orbiting them. But I think it’s especially important to retain focus on the canon character when it comes to a ship. And doubly so when it’s someone with less screen-time in the main medium of the series.

Abelard is only featured on a small handful of pages and one of my other goals with this story was to expand on him as a character, primarily utilizing head canon and ideas of my own. It’s one of the fun aspects of writing characters you like, when they’re not the head-lining acts; you can add your own ideas and project them onto the character.

I likewise didn't give Cainan an overly detailed backstory that would require a timeline or compendium of its own. I purposefully left in blanks and some things will remain unspoken. After all, isn't that what's so enticing about many of the main characters in Lackadaisy? We know Rocky went on the road for years, but we don't know everything he did or experienced; we know Zib and the band met in New Orleans, but we don't know what their time on the road entailed either. I could go on... filling in the blanks and guessing is half the fun; it's why people are so eager to ask Tracy lore questions on streams - it's fun!

-----

Next, let us talk about the primary settings within the story, namely the Arbogast Funeral Home. My inspection of this house took me to some weird, weird places and nearly broke my brain. However! The good news is that it was all worth it. Note that there shall be a few instances of guesswork and head-canon in this.

The Arbogast Funeral Home was confirmed by Tracy to be the childhood home of Abelard and Elsa, hence the place being named for their family. This was confirmed on a Patreon stream that took place on February 29th 2024. The Funeral Home is located in Defiance, Missouri, a small unincorporated community that was settled by German immigrants. The name Arbogast itself is derived from old germanic and contains ‘Gast’ which in modern German means ‘guest’. Arbogast itself carries a similar meaning, according to several etymology websites; ‘inheritance’ and ‘guest’ are the key interpreted meanings behind the name. In case it wasn't already obvious enough, Abelard and Elsa's heritage/ancestry was indeed confirmed in the February 29th stream.

So now that we have that out of the way, first things first: how did this start?

Quite simply, I started with the embalming room where a certain fender bender got his head fixed up by Elsa. As you can see in the picture above, my overthinking actually works out quite nicely.

Elsa can be seen entering from a wooden door with a large frosted window, which is connected to a separator wall with similar wooden construction and frosted windows. The door can be seen being open at the bottom of the frame in Lackadaisy Medicament and it’s even more visible in Mortuary where the other panels aren’t blocking the view. However, in Morphia we get the clearest view of this side of the room.

Similarly, my overthinking has further been proven to be a valid method for figuring out this house by the fact that you can see two windows near the ceiling in the embalming room. When looking at the outside of the Arbogast Funeral Home as seen above, you can see the windows near the ground clearly line up with the ones in the basement.

Now, let us delve into the tale of the impossible window.

This is the part of the funeral home that nearly broke my brain. In Lackadaisy Scrutiny when Elsa sees Wes and Fish walking up to the door to the side of the funeral home, she’s glancing out a window. First to establish how and why I know this is that door, the main thing is that the front doors to the funeral home’s parlor (as mentioned by Bobby to exist in Lackadaisy Undertaker) is a large double door with windows, as can clearly be seen in establishing shots of the place. Meanwhile, Elsa stands by a single, fully wooden door, which has porch lights on either side of it. This is also the door where there’s a swing seat as can be seen in Lackadaisy Bygones.

So how come I refer to a supposed impossible window? Well, I’ll tell you. If we look at the type of window and match it to the ones on the front of the house, none of them fit. The main issue is there’s no stretch of uninterrupted wall where the window could possibly be, based on the first shot we see of it. Furthermore… no wind chimes to be seen. We can see the chimney in the establishing shot of Lackadaisy Sendoff.

If we look at Wes and Fish leaving, we can see they walk along a path leading away from what is clearly the left side of the house (when looking at the two establishing shots we see), but they’re walking to the right (our POV). How do we know it’s supposed to be the left side of the house? Namely the absence of a chimney, which we see in establishing shots as part of the wall on the right side of the house.

Am I nitpicking over details no one else would see? Yes.

Am I trying to justify how long I spent trying to make sense of this house? Also yes.

To briefly go into the established layout; front door leads into the parlor, which connects to the turret in front; to the right of the parlor is a foyer, beside it a living room with a fireplace. Above is where bedrooms would be, which is an assumption. To the left is a garage or a shed, which I have assumed to be where bodies are brought down into the embalming room via the other door leading there as can be seen in the scenes taking place there.

And that is all I have so far on the layout.

-----

The first thing a lot of people ask me when they learn that I’m one of the very few, very vocal Abelard enjoyers in the Lackadaisy fandom is simply: why? Why Abelard? And to an extent, I get the confusion. Abelard isn’t a main character, he’s not someone you immediately think of when you think of the series; he doesn’t appear much in the comic, but he made an impression on me when I decided to reread the comic following the release of the pilot.

Say what you will about the man, but you can’t deny that he’s one of the most expressive characters and that his dialogue is amazing, honestly. Hamfisted, dramatic, over the top in the most perfect way. So that was of course something to take into account while writing Abelard, though for the first mini arc of the story, there hasn't yet been much reason for him to really get vocal just yet, but odds are it will happen in future chapters.

The prime examples of Abelard's defining dialogue – or rather his monologues – can be found in his confrontation with Ivy as well as his card game with her in Lackadaisy Sendoff.

Actually writing for Abelard seemed very intimidating at first, though I’ve been doing my best to keep up with his colorful language and his very wide vocabulary. Granted, I’m not entirely convinced I’ve got it right quite yet, it’s likely my personal biggest weakness, but I like to think I at least have his characterization down, even if it’s written and conveyed in a less smooth way than the comic.

So… Cainan Wirth, eh?

Yeah, Cainan Wirth indeed. Former resident of Defiance, who left home in his early teens to attempt to carve out a life on his own, perhaps making friends with some not-so-nice people. Yes, indeed, I’m pairing him with Abelard, thank you for asking. Why? Because I love Abelard, duh.

When I set out to create Cainan, I decided to make someone who would very violently contrast with Abelard; a white-furred, young, snarky and remarkably lazy atheist paired with a golden-brown, older, serious, no-nonsense reverend. What could possibly go wrong? I did go out of my way to try and distinguish Cainan, taking visual inspiration from Wick and Ben. I took the healthy, slightly more healthy body type from Wick seeing as many other male OCs are built like twigs. Like, let’s be real here. I also wanted to make sure his eyes weren't blue, as blue seems to be a common eye-color for white cat OCs. And I also gave him some good, old forehead fluff to give him a more youthful appearance, much like Calvin, Mordecai and Joey, for example. And of course, can’t forget those lynx-like ear tufts.

But I know what you were already thinking of, before I even started talking about his design; Cainan and Abelard? Not very subtle.

And you’re right. Though it took me a while to settle on a name after I started creating him, this was entirely intentional,. Not just because I thought it was a cute name pairing, but also because I wanted to further contrast the two; Abelard as a religious man to whom religion is important; the biblical Abel was favored by God; Cainan as an agnostic (at best) man to whom religion is a sore subject; the biblical Cain lost God’s favor and was cursed as a punishment.

Furthermore, Cain’s punishment in the bible was to be cursed to become a wanderer, not unlike Cainan who spent his youth and part of his young-adult life as a drifter. Oh, and I also decided to give Cainan a moon motif, which leads us into…

Moon Spirit might seem like a very strange ship name at a glance… and it is. Its origin is really clunky, but I think it works… and I’m not changing it now. Portmanteau ship names really don’t work; Cabelard just looks like Abelard with a C in front; for a while I went for Cainard, like ‘canard’, but I wasn’t really happy with it.

The origin of Moon Spirit as a strange one, but in hindsight it works. The ‘moon’ part I took from the term ‘moonshine’, for obvious reason, and an old myth states that Cain was sent to live on the moon after killing Abel in the bible. This was a coincidence, however; I’d decided on giving Cainan the moon motif before I even learned that this was a thing.

The ‘spirit’ part is twofold; it references the Holy Spirit, referencing Abelard's unwavering faith, and also just… spirits, as in alcohol. So you see, both words reference an aspect of each of them, and also reference booze.

Cainan's moon motif also ties into one of Abelard's most iconic lines, speaking of the “Wicked, troubled sea in every soul” (Lackadaisy Brimstone). As I assume most people know, the moon’s magnetic pull affects the sea and the tide.

Returning to the world of etymology, I also chose the name Wirth for the sake of being the opposite of Abelard. Whereas the name Arbogast, according to several etymology websites, stems from the old germanic words for ‘heritage’ and ‘guest’, ‘Wirth’ is an old germanic form of ‘Wirt’, which means host or innkeeper.

So, what else is there to know about these two? That’ll be in the story as future chapters come out. For spoiler reasons, I won’t disclose more beyond what can be learned in the first part of the story.

And now I will briefly mention a couple of minor characters, starting with Cainan's parents, Harold and Gabriela Wirth. I chose their names for a very specific reason. Being devoutly christian, I chose Harold after Harold Bluetooth, the king of Denmark who made Christianity the predominant religion of the country in place of the old Norse religion.

I decided to name the store owner of Defiance General Mr. Weaver as a tribute to John Weaver who ran a store near a different Defiance in Missouri, one that used to be located in Worth county. Not implying that they’re one and the same, but I figured it to be a fun little reference to that.

---

And so this brings us to the very end of the first story arc of my story. Was all this insanity worth it?

Absolutely not, but hey, what are you gonna do?

[pine-niidles]

2024 August Monthly Updates

It's a very text heavy update this month, I'm... working on getting back into the habit of regular art. My art muscles have grown stiff and it's slow going training them back up. It is going though - I've even been doing some sketching in my physical sketchbook this week.

Doodling fish makes for a good warm-up

Website/Blog

I've been wanting to set up a proper art blog for a while. Social media has always been hard for me to keep up with, I've never really had fun posting art online ever since deviantart stopped being good. Figuring out what, when, how to post & keeping up with constant changes... it's been said a million times so I won't get into it, and at the end of the day even if it's frustrating it's still worth it for the connections I make and the art I get to see because of it. Still, I don't want to rely on social media to be the only place where my art lives (it's a sad thought!). That's why I've been compiling art pdfs, it's why I've been looking into physical print making, it's why I started these monthly updates in the first place.

So if you're reading this on my new blog welcome! (if not - it's here) I'm planning to eventually move to hosting it myself but so the moment I'm relying on wordpress, I apologize for the banners. I'm still deciding how I want to do monthly updates from now on - I'll be posting all of them on the new blog for sure but I'm still undecided if I want to continue to cross post them on tumblr & kofi. I have a poll just for that running right now if you have an opinion (or if you don't - it's a nice motivator just to see that people are actually reading these).

Other than monthly updates I'll be posting process breakdowns on here, and more in depth looks at individual projects at various stages of their process. Maybe doing some features (or even reviews?) of other artists/projects. We'll see how it goes! I won't be cross-posting those, thought I'll probably post links to them when I write them (you can also sign up to the email newsletter for this blog at the bottom of the page - though you'll have to make a wordpress account). I know a lot of people use patreon for this kind of thing but I like the freedom of not having an expectation of consistency (or quality).

Fanzines

I've started taking part in fanzines again, there's a couple in particular I'm very excited for! Not much more to say on that topic as I'm not allowed to announce my participation yet but that's something I've been working on this month.

All in Good Time

I've done very little (read:none) art for my own projects this month, but I have done some writing for a couple I've yet to introduce publicly.

The first is a short (12-16 page) self-contained comic featuring a friend of mine and my ocs. I've written a rough script for it and will be working on character designs and art for it when I have a little more free time :)

They Say There is a Monster in These Woods

The second project I was doing writing for is much longer term - I've been toying around with the idea of doing a solo visual novel for some time now and I finally came up with a story idea for one.

The game starts with you in the woods, injured. You stumble across a clear where a lone manor stands and collapse in front of it. When you come to the Lady of the manor greets you, and invites you to stay as her guest for some time while you recover from your injuries and to attend her birthday celebrations in two weeks. You spend this time in the manor getting to know the inhabitants, maybe finding the sparks of romance with one among them, and maybe even figuring out the source of the mysterious rumors that there is a monster in the woods...

\o/ I hope that intro sounds fun to you! I'm certainly excited about it. This will be more of a long term project - both in the fact that it'll be a lot of work to make and because I have other game projects I want to prioritize first, some collab work and some of my own games that are only a couple steps away from completion (Don't Wake the Sleeping Dragon I've not forgotten about you...)

--

And that's all for August! I'm looking forward to Summer ending and the start of Fall, maybe I can do some plein air watercolors of the leaves changing color when that time comes :)

[skullamity]

Today is update day at endcomic.com! Have had an unexpectedly busy week while the kiddo was in Florida, so here's what I never posted about from last week AND what's new this week!. Patreon posts that are public and free to see/read for everyone will be highlighted in ORANGE! New on my patreon:

✦ Reveal for the 5th e-book cover, as well as a downloadable wallpaper of the art for it! ✦ READ A MONTH'S WORTH OF PAGES EARLY! ✦ I just moved my work-space, so I snapped some photos and did a walkthrough tour of my office set-up! Bonus picture of all three of our cats!

Other recent things I've added:

✦ A character I have yet to name put in different outfits like a paper doll, and then made into a wallpaper. Non-comic art! ✦ Reveal for the 4th e-book cover, as well as a downloadable wallpaper of the art for it. ✦ Another collab art with my 11 y/o featuring one of her designs! ✦ Introducing my side project, remastering older pages of The End! Includes some side-by-side comparisons of my favourite updated panels to date. ✦ Reveal for the 3rd e-book cover, as well as a downloadable wallpaper of the art for it. ✦ Behind the scenes look at how we "script" that made my friend @atlastalos ...I don't want to say irrationally upset? Because this is definitely a rational reason to be upset... ✦ A look at my current REMASTERING PROJECT with side-by-side comparisons for some of my favourite panels so far! ✦ Public post, no subscription necessary: EYYY MY CO-WRITER, @femonologue IS TRANSITIONING! She is my WIFE now! Here is why we are going to temporarily pretend that's not currently happening on our main website for the time being! D: ✦ Read the first 4 pages of Chapter 23 ✦ Cover reveals for two ebooks and downloadable desktop wallpapers of each! ✦ How bullet journalling factors into my productivity ✦ Step-by-step process walkthrough on making Chapter 23's cover ✦ Thumbnails for all of chapter 23 ✦ Cover reveal and downloadable desktop wallpaper for Chapter 23's cover!

I didn't have the time to do any comic remastering last week because I spent the entire time shoving furniture around, and now I am working on a new short batch of 3 pages. I start inking those today, and as soon as I finish those up, I FINALLY get at least a week of remastering. I did, however, get to research how to ebooks by myself, so now I have acquired Affinity Publisher 2 and will be on that asap!

[artmindmachine]

Another month full of art is coming to an end! This month has been packed with so much things. I'm working on the huge Korvex community lore piece - you will find a lot of work in progress from that one - from 3d modeling the background, sketching to painting. It features 17 characters from the community and honestly is the biggest picture I've ever worked on! Kalda won the pin up poll, so you can enjoy multiple version Minds favorite assistant. Another Acrador joins the ranks which expands Taals lore and introduces the Cult of Blades to the world. (We also made some silly memes...👀 )

Jacktor fans rejoice, too! I finally made a new reference sheet for Rela (I know - again) BUT Renu finally got a new reference sheet! It was so overdue. But not only that...I started working on a reference sheet for Jacktor Mind. ...to celebrate all that there's a piece from Renu and Jacktor Mind.

So yeah, pretty packed month! If you're interested in any of that and would like to support my work please consider checking out my patreon! Thank you all for your support <3

https://www.patreon.com/Mindmachine

[maul-of-shame]

🔮 Exciting News for All Patrons! 🔮

Hey there peeps!

I have some thrilling news to share with you all! As you know, I have a patreon where I share my spicy drawings and writings, but I’m expanding my creative horizons to bring you even more awesome content. Instead of creating a second Patreon for it, I’ve decided to integrate my love for Dungeons & Dragons right here on the same platform! I'm a Dungeons Master and I have a LOT of homebrew content (classes, subclasses etc) ready for you peeps!

✨ Introducing New D&D-Themed Tiers! ✨

Whether you're already a fan of my NSFW art or you're here for the first time because of my D&D content, I've got something special for you. Here's why I'm adding these new tiers:

1. Unified Community: By keeping everything under one Patreon, I can create a more vibrant and unified community. Whether you’re here for the spicy content, the epic campaigns, or both, you’ll be part of a diverse and engaging group of supporters.

2. Streamlined Experience: Having all my content in one place makes it easier for you to access everything. No need to juggle multiple accounts or platforms—just enjoy all the exclusive content in one convenient location.

3. Enhanced Creativity: Combining my passions allows me to cross-pollinate ideas and offer unique content that blends both worlds. Imagine D&D-themed spicy art or story-driven campaigns inspired by my NSFW creations!

4. Exclusive Combined Tiers: For those of you who enjoy both my NSFW art and D&D content, I’ve created a special combined tiers. Get the best of both worlds with this tiers: 🧛‍♀️ Eldritch Sovereign - $20/month

The ultimate package!

Enjoy all perks from the Vampyric Elite and Archmage of the Arcane tiers.

Access to both exclusive NSFW and D&D content.

Exclusive combo tier art featuring crossover themes.

New D&D Tiers Breakdown:

🐉 Dungeon Delver - $2/month:

Exclusive homebrew content, polls, early access to D&D-themed art and lore.

⚔️ Heroic Adventurer - $5/month:

All Dungeon Delver perks plus detailed campaigns, adventure modules, pre-made characters...

🧙 Archmage of the Arcane - $10/month:

All Heroic Adventurer perks plus personalized content, and exclusive digital goodies.

NSFW posts will be reserved for the tiers peeps so no worries, if you picked, for example, the "Dungeon Delver" tiers, you won't see the nsfw content available for the spicy tiers.

For now, the dnd related content is mostly based on Star Wars (can be used for Star Wars 5e or directly for homebrew campaigns, players' wishes) but I am already working on pop culture/fandoms related campaigns (Fallout, Supernatural, Game of Thrones) and more and by subscribing to my patreon, you'll get early and exclusive access to all of this!!

Content will still be posted here of course, but some will be Patreon Exclusives and way early on there!!

In any case, thank you so much for taking the time to read this, I hope you have a good day and thank you so much for your support!✨

[duckydeathly]

Upcoming Patreon/General Art Plans

Hi all! I posted a public Patreon post going over some things I have in store for my art in the foreseeable future. I know Tumblr isn't kind to links, so I'll be copy+pasting the article under a cut.

The post goes over things relating to commissions, Patreon, a future online shop, and my art direction in general. So if any of that interests you, I'd suggest checking it out! Thanks in advance ^^

(Though the Patreon post has an exclusive WIP comic at the end, so check it out there if you wanna see it!)

Commission Pricing:

A couple of months ago, I announced that I would be increasing my commission prices in July. July has come and gone and I have yet to do so simply because I've been preoccupied with other work. I still intend to increase my prices but will do so sometime later this month instead. In the previous post I made, I attached a new commission sheet with the proposed price increase. The pricing on this sheet is NOT finalized. Unfortunately, with the cost of pretty much everything increasing, I may need to increase the prices a little more than what was stated in the sheet. Not by too much, of course, but it's still worth noting. It's important for me to be open and transparent about this decision to not catch anyone off guard. With me delaying the price increase, hopefully, it will give folks a chance to commission me with the current prices before I officially implement this change. Thank you for understanding! 

TL;DR: Commission prices were supposed to increase in July but have been delayed to later this month. 

New Patreon tiers/rewards coming soon!

For those who are already pledged to my Patreon or are considering doing so, I have some exciting news for you! I'm currently working on introducing some new tiers to my Patreon. In addition to this, I also intend to implement new rewards for those who are in certain tiers or higher. This includes physical rewards! I am still figuring out the specifics, but my goal is to have these new features implemented sometime within the next month or so (September-October.) One last thing: It's been a long while since I've done a Monthly Patreon Poll piece. I'm happy to announce that starting this month, I will be starting them up again. Expect a poll sometime this week ~ (For patrons only!)

TL;DR: I will introduce new Patreon tiers/rewards for current and new patrons. I will also be resuming my Patreon-exclusive monthly polls this month.

Online shop coming Fall 2023:

After years of wishing to do so, I'm at a place where I can finally start planning on reopening an online shop to sell merch! I'm gonna start off with a soft launch featuring a small selection of products at first to test the waters. I'm thinking I have a limited number of goods sold via Ko-Fi. If that goes well, then I could look into opening on Storenvy or Shopify with more products. I'd like to offer both fan work and original designs, so hopefully I can offer a little something for everyone ^^ I don't have an exact date in mind but my goal is to get this going sometime in the fall.

TL;DR: I am hoping to do a soft launch for a new online shop sometime this coming fall. It will feature original designs and fan art.

General Art Ideas:

The last thing I'd like to touch upon is some ideas I have in mind for my general art direction. Something I'd really like to do is develop my existing characters further, especially my personas. Just something to bring out me and my character's personalities more so that my pieces have more depth than just visual appeal. Comics, animations, and other experimental pieces come to mind. In general, I'd like to step out of my comfort zone more and make some more meaningful connections with other like-minded folks (while still maintaining boundaries.) One way I would especially like to do this is by streaming art and video games. I don't have a time frame on this stuff like the other sections mentioned but I'd love to get these things going sooner rather than later.

TL;DR: I'm aiming to develop my art and characters even further. I also want to step out of my comfort zone and put myself out there more with activities such as streaming. No date for these things yet but hopefully soon!

---

If you've managed to make it this far into the post, I'd like to thank you! Moving to my new living environment has opened up some opportunities for me that I'd like to take advantage of. I've been stuck in a rut for quite a while but am hoping to finally take a much-needed leap. This will hopefully bring me to even further heights. I hope you'll come along on this journey with me ^^ I'll do whatever I can to make sure it's worth it.

[vampirecatsw]

(cont)

And uh about my favourite animators and animations... hahaha oh now I'm embarrassed to share. Because most of them are stick figure animations and I'm replying them to such a beautifully articulated and thought-out reply 😭 I feel like a little amateur stumbling up the stairs, and saying "I just think they're neat" to a wonderful creator up on stage LMAO

Ok, so a quick rundown on RHG and Hyun's Dojo. So first was RHG. It ran for a while and introduced the concept of animators creating their own stickfigure characters, and 'fighting' each other in an animation battle where they would animate their own versions of the fight. In a forum, others would vote on which animation was better, and so a winner would be chosen. It unfortunately fell. But Hyun's Dojo was created independently by another animator who was inspired. And so he created a new website / forum which runs 'duels'. The best place if you're interested in this history is https://www.soppleboble.com/2012merger.html I think it's quite interesting.

The Hyun's Dojo channel also features lots of animations: https://t.co/77LuMMjmbD

Ok, so first, here's Resh: https://www.youtube.com/@ReshAnims I discovered him because of his roots in animating a RHG duelist, Umbrella. But now he's working on such wonderful animations that are more anime style focused. His animations and movements are truly top notch and he clearly puts a lot of efforts into his works. His has lots of documentations about his process too, it's awe inspiring, really. His older Umbrella content still holds up very well to this day.

C3WhiteRose, I especially adore his ShadowRose vs Jade: https://youtu.be/Tp5V4cqZUnE?si=RzTaDonZp90Vw2am The atmosphere in this is just majestic and he always puts so much effort into the fight choreography.

I've linked the original upload because I really love the original soundtrack, but here's also the resounded version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BqieHu6r1U&pp=ygUSc2hhZG93cm9zZSB2cyBqYWRl

It has its original music replaced with another one, but with lots of amazing sound effects and even the choreography being listed in the bottom right. It's so amazing to see them being presented as each character fights in their own styles. I'd of course, also highly recommend checking out more of his works too.

(sorry in advance for the weird formatting, I'm just struggling with tumblr-)

Gildedguy: https://www.youtube.com/@gildedguy He's just such a fun animator with his colours, synced animations and amazing creativity. He's a great story teller. Although I can admit they can get a little muddled at times without the context (looking at Story 7, a lot of people seemed confused about the message), but he's only human. Probably because a lot of people just joined his fanbase from Fortnite (yes Fortnite, it's insane, I actually choked on my cereal at his sponsorship reveal like how do you even react when an indie animator gets sponsored by fortnite and even gets a skin-)

His most famous series is the Gildedguy series about his own original character: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZO8-IAk24ts-k651wkF7019Qpr4zOC7i

It started as an independent thing but it's gotten to a production scale with lots of team members. The newest episode coming out is really ambitious and the teaser looks so exciting. It's coming out in 2024 so I think it's a good time to take a look.

Regarding his animation process, he shows scenes during the credits of his animations, in the community tab on youtube, and sometimes gifs on his twitter. It's probably best to look on his patreon (locked behind a small tier). I'd recommend that instead of looking through his twitch vlogs individually haha... um yeah they get deleted regularly too so... yeah (I was insane back then).

But I would highly recommend catching a stream to see his work in action anyways. And also joining his discord, you can find it in the discoverable servers section and searching 'gildedguy'. They're a great community too. 'Hyun's Dojo' is also really great.

I also love independent animators/animations! They're usually graduation films. (They will be sprinkled in throughout this hahah)

Diamond Jack: https://youtu.be/mRpiBvwKX6c?si=QjICfNtHh3DGE1bv WHAT CAN I SAY?? im truly in love with it + the music

Lackadaisy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vffu6FG4YP4&pp=ygUKbGFja2FkYWlzeQ%3D%3D Wow, I don't even know what to say about this project! This one is a pilot of a comic by the same name. It's a huge project and it's absolutely amazing. It has a very distinctive style too. Lots of people worked on this, so their processes and analyses will be scattered across the internet. If you search "Working on Lackadaisy" or adding "lackadaisy process" on youtube, lots of results should come up.

For instance, one is from https://www.youtube.com/@ManuMercurial They do lots of animation and digital art tips as well!

Detective Alice and the Inside Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpyOrwUY4MI

Fuelled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVzT6D-yhZg

Fernanda Dias makes the most gorgeous animations I've ever seen: https://www.youtube.com/@fernandadiasartwork

Cartoon Saloon makes very beautiful 2d animated movies with folklore. Here's a clip from Wolfwalkers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp6ehxZvvM4

Another movie I really love is Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Melly Vuong: https://www.youtube.com/@MellyVuong Really fun and great animations

SIAMES and Eve always feature such wonderful animations in their music videos

Toniko Pantoja is a great resource! https://www.youtube.com/@TonikoPantoja/featured

Chluaid: https://www.youtube.com/c/chluaid Well his channel is quite bare, but he streams a lot on twitch. He also has a free 2d effects animation course: https://bitey.com/fx

telepurte: https://www.youtube.com/c/telepurte

Jess the Dragoon: https://www.youtube.com/@JessTheDragoon/videos

SAD-ist: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv3Kk__aFcKKx_o2686uQcw

Sopple: https://www.youtube.com/@SoapyBubbles

Apocalypse Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vynRR4rC_7A THIS ANIMATION IS SO GREAT

Cudlil: https://www.youtube.com/@cudlil

Crunnchy: https://www.youtube.com/@Crunnchy/featured

BeautySnake (18+/mature) https://www.youtube.com/@BeautySnake/videos IDK WHAT TO EVEN SAY. THEIR WORK IS SO MESMERISING AND THE MOVEMENTS. Also... come on... who can so no to hot women LMAOOO

(I dug up a lot of my old watch history for this. Brought back a lot of memories. Oh I really need to save these hahahah. I have a few more but I can't really recall at the moment)

I wanted to say, I felt so happy to see the "woah this is so cool and smooth" I got from you, like it made my day, cause that's the second time I've animated something and I was so nervous posting it. I plan to learn more on how animation works, and wanted to say that reactions like that motivate me so much, I'm very thankful.

Waaa I'm so glad!! Please, be proud so of it <3 <3 You did such an amazing job! It flows so well and the movement is so nice (shaking your shoulders at his blinks). He's totally the type to read that fast HAHAHAH (pls look at him during ep 7 - the surgeon present threatening case one)

A while back I got really interested into animators (cause stick figures/Hyun's Dojo) and their processes but I haven't gotten the courage to do one yet actually... The last ones I did was a pixel animation many years ago haha but that doesn't really count. If I ever motivate myself to try it, I'll dedicate it to you!

Some animation resources I'd recommend watching is the 12 principles of animation by Alan Becker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDqjIdI4bF4 His animation series of Animator vs. is so fun!

And Crowne Prince: https://www.youtube.com/@CrownePrince/videos Her series Scribble Kibble also breaks down various animations and highlights and teaches techniques. It's great for learning and discovering cool animations: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYDh8mMwv-pPM8DPu-LsG6MQeIkKsHByb

Feel free to chat more if you want me to share some of my favourite animators and/or animations haha. I haven't really been that interested in animation for a while though so my memory right be a lil spotty

Cheers to our art journeys <3 <3

(Also, It's nice to meet you!! ^-^ Feel free to chat anytime. I also think it's funny how I'm planning to start on Astro Boy and you're starting on DCMK HAHAHA. Well it's more of a side thing rn but it might change - what anime would you recommend to start on? I was thinking the 2003 one. It's actually so gorgeous and I've heard good things about it)

[destiny-smasher]

DownRight Fierce Dev Update (9/2021)

Not sure if this is something folks here would want to see, but I'll share this update I shared with patrons for the original visual novel I've been working on, DownRight Fierce. It was conceived back in, like, 2014, but since just before the pandemic hit, I've been working on it as a visual novel. It's sort of like...if Street Fighter and Butterfly Soup had a kid? That was born before Butterfly Soup came out? And has been slacking off for a few years? There is a fully playable, mostly presentable demo of the prologue and first three chapters, feel free to contact me if you're interested in trying it out and providing feedback.

Thanks to the support I've received on Patreon lately, I've been able to commission more outfits for the main characters, new expressions, and was able to pay Hayley to re-organize the sprites so I have some more control over mixing and matching different things. We've also implemented a new pose for Nishiko's sprite when they're sending text messages (on their antiquated cell phone).

(all of the character art so far I have commissioned from my friend Hayley Sakura-Rose12)

I ended up deciding to have that sprite made when I implemented a whole text convo with Seiko near the end of Chapter 3. (or partway through the chapter, depending on what the reader chooses - OR they can even skip this conversation altogether, potentially)

The biggest updates to DRF lately have mostly been cosmetic: adding in more facial expressions and effects.

One example of this has been incorpating a more seamless and atmospheric effect for moments when Nishiko gets lost in thought.

There will be a recurring and increasingly important component tied to this, so I'm glad Jenny helped inspire me to pursue this kind of idea. You can also see here a version of Nishiko's sprite which has been visually updated with more texture, alternate color, etc., and that's something she intends to do with the other characters when time allows (she's been very busy for like, over a year now).

Fire and smoke are key visual symbols for Nishiko's character, so Jenny has been helping me figure out ways to express this more through the UI, etc.

(my wife Jenny has worked on the UI, giving it a more gritty look, and she's modified Nishiko's sprite in this image to give extra atmosphere to the character sprites; she also took a placeholder image and did work on it to showcase a potential art style for the backgrounds; we're considering something like this, though maybe including more color, perhaps intentionally depending on the setting)

But it's not just been visual stuff. I've also been adding in extra content, and incorporating more choices and elements that affect and are affected by the stats running in the background.

I've added in new short classroom scenes to help better illustrate Nishiko's experience inbetween social activities, while simultaneously using them to imply elements regarding Nishiko's attention span, as well as flesh out the lore of the world.

I've been a bit inspired by Tuca and Bertie in some weird ways, as well, trying to build lore within my own fighting game inspired world with references that double as, well, world building (like alluding to Street Fighter antagonist M. Bison via a political dictator who existed in this universe's history), including entire chunks of conversation that go in different branches based on weird Capcom humor that also serves to establish backstory.

Nishiko and Kayla bond over love of a dumb cheesy horror flick that's essentially one big meme featuring the 90's Street Fighter cartoon.  The drinks in the vending machines are all Capcom references, but serve as a means of letting the reader more manually increase a stat of their choosing - and since they're vending machines, they recur, so as the reader might get to know what each drink is, they might make a deliberate choice to increase a specific stat on purpose, in a similar way to choosing to exercise, or meditate, or study.

A convo about Nishiko's prior schoolyear incorporates Dark Stalkers references while also, again, letting the reader affect stats in a narratively retroactive way.

I've fleshed out conversations in Chapter 3 to have lots of dialogue most readers won't see in a single playthrough, as well as making more efforts to lean readers toward experiencing certain scenes or moments they might have missed earlier, while allowing the possibility of skipping or missing out on scenes entirely should they choose.

For example, the end of Chapter 3 is focused on Nishiko's relationship with Seiko. There is a text chat convo that can happen in one of two different parts of the chapter, and an in-person convo I'm currently working on (the last planned new content for the demo). Both can be experienced, or one or the other, or the can both be skipped. I don't want to make the entire social life something optional, but I do want to have there be parts like this where the reader can choose to skip interacting with a character if they truly don't want to, to help reinforce the idea that every interaction is, in a sense, a deliberate choice.

Even something like picking 'the BAD' choices is something I want to not just feel like, say, Undertale's infamous 'genocide run' but rather something that is an expression of anger at the world around the main character, which even has some specific benefits - because people don't just become jerks because they like to feel bad, but because it serves them in some beneficial way. As a slight example, if the reader pushes Nishiko to become aggressive, their 'Psycho' stat will increase, which can lead to them having even more aggressive choices later, which further increase that stat. But as that stat increase, Nishiko will become more physically perceptive to certain details about the world around them, but in material ways rather than social ways. For example, they might sense certain inklings of things that allude to later plot points earlier than someone who is more cooperative and might learn more social backstory elements. It's likely not going to be some huge, monumental difference, but it hopefully will make a second playthrough feel noticeably different and give the reader more insight into certain things.

The planned demo will feature the prologue and the first three chapters. By the end, all four main characters will be introduced, and the reader should get a pretty good idea through bits of writing and visual presentation that the choices they make won't change the primary narrative, but will affect certain details and aspects of how things play out. This is actually related to a big plot element itself that will become important later. But for now, it's been really fun adapting content I wrote over five years ago into this format, fleshing it out, and trying to work out ways to not only make that content function better in an interactive format, but also just how to lay more foundation and foreshadowing for what's to come.

While the visuals are still far from finalized even for this demo, I do have a private build uploaded for anyone genuinely interested, as I still haven't received much in the way of feedback so far. I'm planning on releasing a public demo to itchio later on when we can get the visuals to look more finalized.