Friday Update #11 (THAT scene) (Patreon)

Content Warning: this is going to be a particularly NSFW Friday Update talking about explicit content with lots of URLs linking to examples of that explicit content.

I hope you guys have realized by now that "Friday Update" doesn't mean it's something that comes out on Friday because the days of the week stopped meaning anything to most people in this COVID-19 world that exists between the grains of sand in an hourglass.

So as our record-high 106 Patrons (!!!) should already know, a patron-only poll is running right now that is going to be determining our art focus for the next month or two.

While it's not final because the poll closes on Friday, March 12, 2021 at midnight EST, and only 40 of the 106 patrons (about 38%) have voted, the results are pretty clearly in favor of the Zach-to-Zoey transformation HCGS, and I'm proceeding with the assumption that it will win the poll.

And before you ask, the results are almost identical in the weighted poll calculated with voting strength based on tier levels.

I've written this out in the post for the poll post, but since that's patron-only (I probably need to start making separate posts with public text about the poll and the patron-only poll itself), here is the section of that post about what that scene would entail, and why it is going to be such a challenge to make real:

This is it's own separate poll option from 3.2 because it's a very delicate matter that requires as much attention to detail from Espeon and I to realize as the other options, if not more. To put it bluntly, the problem arises from a gender bender transformation HCG set being fetish content that probably needs a specialized artist who is comfortable with making that content to realize. A lot of western gender bender artists have great focus on the transformative act, but with a conflicting art style to this game and a level of quality that isn't up to par with what Espeon and I want, while most Japanese/SE Asian artists focus much more on the aftermath of a transformation than the process, and the language barrier between us would be a very significant hurdle to overcome (we got lucky with TiltSHIFT and Myumi both knowing English).

The third option, using an artist we've worked with before for this HCG set, has the issue of potentially driving a wedge into our working business relationship. Again, it's fetish content.

Consider that this HCG set is going to be the one of the first things a reader sees in the game. With that in mind, I'm personally of the opinion that this HCG set has to be absolutely stellar in quality, and the little details I'd like to see as Zach turns into a voluptuous girl would require an artist with a decent level of savviness with gender bender content. Incrementally showing that transformation with the right details gender bender fans crave in a high level of quality is a tall order for any artist, and I don't think anyone we've worked with is capable of doing that. Plus, we'd be taking a gamble on a dozen revisions with our artists hoping that we can fine-tune their work to that level.

This is something we are committed to getting into the game, but since we're going to do it, we're going to do it right.

I've been giving this careful thought, and the only way to truly do this right is to have the transformation HCG and the subsequent masturbation HCG drawn by the same artist in the same relative timeframe to ensure compatibility (more on that scene in the next Friday Update). These scenes take place mere minutes from each other, so any differences in art style are going to be especially noticeable.

As always, TiltSHIFT is our top preference for HCG art. Earlier preliminary talks with him to gauge his interest in drawing fetish transformation content (which I did by not explicitly stating that Espeon and I are interest in him drawing the HCG for that but rather the sprites for Zach pre-transformation) were clear indicators that while he's not comfortable drawing male genitalia for something like a nude sprite, he's not against drawing sprites for a rather effeminate boy (though he definitely says male subjects are not his area of interest or familiarity).

This is actually good news. Zach is clothed in his university-mandated uniform at the start of the game, so any genital transformation would be very obscured by the slacks. By the time skin is visible with the ripped pants and burst dress shirt buttons at the chest, Zach is most of the way through being turned into Zoey.

Anyways, let's talk about THAT scene in detail. Get some coffee or something, because this is going to be a detailed breakdown.

The Zach-to-Zoey Transformation

This may seem like the wrong thing to focus on in a HCG specifically about Zach's male body changing into that of a voluptuous woman's, but one of the things I really want to accomplish with this scene is to give a sense of space as Zach flails about his tiny dorm room and transforms into Zoey. One of my favorite gender bender manga of the past year has been Shiki Takuto's TS Revolution 1 + TS Revolution 2 (a third part is allegedly coming out in the next few months, but I've not confirmed this myself, so take this with a grain of salt).

As you can see in the links (which you should be able to access without logging in to the E-Hentai system), the manga does an incredible job of showing the space of the apartment from a static camera angle across several panels as the characters move about and have sex. They're zoomed out, but the overall effect makes on the characters feels significantly more personal and human than a close-up of a character in a typical visual novel HCG, and that personality is something I really want to emulate with this scene.

To that end, let's talk about Zach's dorm room and how the transformation is going to happen in it.

As a disclaimer, this detailed outline may not be the final version of this scene that appears in-game because of how TiltSHIFT and I have to reach an agreement based on what he's comfortable drawing and the volume he is capable of delivering.

Zach's transformation is planned to take place in 6 positions over roughly 10 minutes (though the scaling undergoes something I think of as "anime time" so the scene might take longer to read):

1. Sitting.
2. Standing.
3. On Knees.
4. Leaning Back and Looking Forwards.
5. On Back.
6. On Side.

The locations these happen in are labeled below on this floor plan of Zach's dorm room.

Please bear in mind that this is a slightly inaccurate floor plan of Zach's dorm from an earlier draft, but it is the only one I have that is from directly overhead. The biggest difference from the ones in-game is that the bureau on the left wall is shorter and takes up more floor space, but it also lacks the clothing hamper in the extreme bottom left corner of the room that you can't currently see in the in-game backgrounds.

On a slightly unrelated note, I eventually need to find an artist to commission to draw 1 to 3 wall posters with somewhat distastefully lewd anime girls like these who look vaguely like Zoey (preferably with high-end modern race cars and race queens since Zach is a bit of a car nut) and give them to our background artist to make variations of the room with and without posters.

So let's talk about what happens in each spot, as well as the percentage values of how much Zach has been turned into Zoey at each step: 

1 (0-5%). Zach starts off the transformation at his desk. He's just hit the finalize button on the re:Dreamer editor and his vision goes from pure white to pitch black.

2 (5-10%). In his confused panic, he gets up and tries to wander out into the hallway to get help, but he hits his shin on the kotatsu that he forgot to put away.

3 (10-25%). Stumbling, Zach briefly manages to place one had down on his kotatsu in a half-kneeling position, but it's not enough to hold his weight. He quickly falls to both of his knees.

His vision slowly returns, but it's still blurry and covered with dark spots and thin black lines. He soon realizes that those black lines are his growing forehead bangs. He grabs one of them with a perplexed look that turns into shock once he realizes that his hands are now much smaller with long, womanly fingernails.

Zach's hip bones expand, his collarbone retracts, and his spine contorts into a position better suited for the curvy girl with giant breasts he is becoming. His more flexible legs splay out to the side from underneath his wider and lower hips; unable to remain kneeling, his hips descend to contact the floor (Pages 5-7 of the Chirimozuku Cha (Aji Pontarou)'s Otsukaresama desu Nyotaika-chan! | The Possessed Genderbender-chan! have a particularly good sequence of this motion).

4 (25-80%). By now, Zach has a fairly good idea what's going on. He's read more than his fair share of gender bender porn but he's in such a confused daze from the shock that he's convincing himself this is just a weird pleasant wet dream.

Well, he might as well enjoy it, right?

Using his feet as the force of contact with his floor, he scoots backwards on his slightly enlarged butt until he's got enough space to diagonally spread out over the most open part of the floor in his room.

His slender shoulders are touching the ground, but he's craning his head forwards to look at his chest in wonder as his breasts start to grow underneath his dress shirt and blazer.

This view is where the bulk of the budget is going. A few things happen simultaneously over 2 to 4 unique visual steps (the exact number is going to be determined by our budget and what TiltSHIFT is willing to draw):

• Zach begins to grow breasts that swell into the H-Cups we all know and love from Zoey.
• His hair grows to the length of the loose hair sprites, pooling around his shoulders and on the floor.
• Underneath his slacks (which become dangerously tight), his dick become painfully erect.
• His ass expands, pushing him off the ground.
• His waist shrinks inwards to hourglass proportions with his hips.
• His legs shrink an inch or two, and his shoes become loose around his feet, with one of them being kicked off as he writhes around in pleasure.

This is a Danbooru pool of way too many references, but there are a few key things I want to show in this scene:

• All of Zach's body needs to be on screen. I want nothing cropped as he changes so you see his legs shrink and his toes curl. This image is largely what I am looking for, but it needs to be rotated to fit the 16:9 aspect ratio and from a camera angle that is similar to the one in this image. 
• Zach's shrinking legs need to be slightly spread. His bent knees are not making contact with the floor, but his heels are. Over time, Zach slowly draws back one foot towards his body (pulling off the shoe in the process) until his foot is roughly even with the knee on his opposite leg while the knee on this leg is pointing straight up.
• Once his shoe is off, his visible foot and toes need to be curling in pleasure like this image because this transformation is by the most sensual thing Zach has ever felt in his life, and I really want the art to show that (and c'mon, it's not like I don't know people are going to masturbate to this, so I want people to get the feedback loop from seeing someone in a maddening amount of pleasure). As a note, I don't actually have a fetish for feet, but I know it is well-documented as the most common fetish across both sexes, so I'm willing to throw a bone to that demographic.
• While Zach is squirming around on his growing ass and rubbing his thighs together, his new feminine hands never actually touch his dick here. Those hands are either groping one of his breasts while covering his mouth as he moans in arousal, squeezing his swelling breasts together, or groping one of his breasts as he reaches towards his crotch with trepidation.
• As Zach's breasts swell underneath his dress shirt, they start to put a strain on the fabric and buttons around his chest. When they're at about 80% of their final size, Zach can either choose to rip the shirt open to get as the bare skin of his breasts, or he can choose to not do that and keep groping them through the fabric, though the buttons will pop off on their own when his breasts reach their full H-Cup size.
• This is going to get me in a lot of hot water with the tomboy fans of this game, but I have strong preference towards Zoey's longer hairstyle stemming from a bit of a long hair kink, and I really want Zach's hair to gradually grow and pool around his shoulders and back as he fidgets and writhes about. This image is a bit of an extreme example, and this image isn't extreme enough, but I want the hair to feel like it's either flowing like it's made of water or floating across the surface of water.

5 (80-85%). Zach has finally worked up the resolve to masturbate, but as he reaches a hand towards the gap between his belt-supported pants and shrunken waist, the posture change puts too much of a strain on the stretched fabric at his hips, ass, and thighs, causing his pants to catastrophically rip in these places with a loud tearing sound.

Zach is someone who has consumed an ungodly amount of gender bender porn, but he's never heard of such an inopportunely timed moment in a transformation, and he thinks it's the funniest thing in the world.

Zach relaxes his posture and rest his head back on the floor as he breaks out into uncontrollable bouts of feminine giggles.

To some, this scene might seem distracting from the context of this extremely erotic sex transformation that is likely the selling point to a number of potential readers, but consider this: Zach's body is developing female sex hormones that are replacing his male sex hormones, and as some of the trans women readers of this game have told me, estrogen has a noticeable effect on a person's mood while they're aroused. But Zach didn't just take spironolactone or estradiol; his androgens are being converted into antiandrogens in a way that is outside the realm of modern medical science, and that is producing an extreme effect on his mood.

Plus, this feminine action serves as foreshadowing to not just his more feminine mannerisms in the future, but to the final changes he is about to experience before turning into a woman.

6 (85-100%). This is the moment that this scene has building up to. Zach feels a sudden twitch in his painfully erect dick, and he experiences an orgasm so strong that it makes his back arch upwards and his mind go blank for a few moments.

But the orgasm doesn't stop because he's essentially purging all of his semen from his prostate as his organs and every last part of his body becomes fully female.

The specifics of this angle are going to depend on what TiltSHIFT is comfortable drawing(either Zach is facing the camera like in this image or he's turning his back to the camera), but my ideal version of this HCG is that Zach turns over to his side and starts stroking his dick though his boxers like there's no tomorrow (for his dick, there isn't). He cums and cums and cums until his boxers are soiled and his dick turns into a vagina. In the meantime, any final transformation that haven't been explicitly stated occur.

Aftermath (100%). Zach drags himself off the floor into the sprite animations that you see in-game.

And there you have it. I think this is a pretty damned spicy transformation scenario that doesn't compromise very much on the details while still being generally acceptable to an artist not specialized with drawing transformation art. This still needs to be drafted into a formalized design document to send TiltSHIFT for approval, but I'm optimistic that most of what's here is going to wind up in-game.

By the way, you may have noticed something missing from the above transformation process: the face. Zoey's face barely changed and is shockingly similar to Zach's face. Some details might be very subtly different (e.g., eyelash length, jaw angle, lip plumpness, ability to grow facial hair) but Zach had a very feminine face to begin with, so there wasn't much for the re:Dreamer editor to change. Remember, Zach only really messed around with the sex change option, his breast slider, ass slider, and hair length slider; everything else he deferred to the editor defaults past the sex change.

Writing all of this out was a very nice break from the mind-numbing drudgery of putting the entire 180k+ word script through Microsoft 365's grammar, style, and spelling checker, then making manual changes and edits to any errors it points out.

Until next time!