What I've been up to (Patreon)

Hey guys. This month is gonna be a little slim on pieces on account of a few things, so I figured I'd make a post talking about it, and other stuff I've been up to. :>

The pieces

Aside from the usual commission work, I've tried a few of the recent poll winners, but sadly I didn't manage to settle on a promising sketch in time for the end of the month. I figured it was better not to rush it and let some of these bake more. I think my plan going forward is to get the new poll winner on the 15th, and then try to have it drawn by the 15th of the next month, when the next winner is picked. Here's some sketches of previous poll winners I've tried sketching. Let me know if you like any of these and want me to color them!!

Vtuber model

Last year I did a VTuber model for Chinatsu that you might recall I used in her reference sheet, but never actually animated. This month I went back and I've been sprucing it up. Back then I didn't even know how mouths and eyes work in Live2D, so those needed to be totally redone, and I took the chance to fix up a bunch of little things. I also added the duck! So the duck is gonna be sitting on Chinatsu's head. I'd like to be able to do a rigging stream here and there to see if I can get this thing fully working soonish.

Merch

Those who follow the stream know the ride it's been, but for those who haven't, I've spent the last few months trying to get some poster merch started. 

I started out, as you'd expect, by reaching out to local printing places. I got some test prints done, and unfortunately was not super pleased with the quality. You know me and my work. I'm super meticulous, and I want those gradients to look legit. And they did not look legit in the prints. So then I spent a good while contacting loads of places and talking with people and trying to figure out what to do. Apparently, regular printing places normally just don't have the kind of gear to do high quality prints like this, and to get some better stuff made I would have to look into places that do fancier HD and fine arts printing. So once again I went lookin.

Down here in the south of Portugal there was really only one of these places, and I drove down there and talked with the guy. The quotes they were giving me were crazy. They were asking almost 15 euros to print a single A3 poster - which looked amazing, but jesus. I was like no way, there's gotta be a better middle ground. So I went out searching again and increased my scope to the entire country, and sent emails to tons of places. The answers I got back were largely still pretty expensive, but I managed to find one place that seemed promising and we did some test prints. It wasn't until I got these test prints that I truly understood how bad my initial test prints were. This is taken with my poopy phone camera but you should still be able to tell what a huge difference it is. The definition, the color vibrancy. This is like night and day.

The old:

The new:

The prints from this place look awesome. The colors look super close to what I see on my monitor. And the price is pretty decent. They actually sent me tests in 2 kinds of paper, both awesome, but each with their pros and cons. It was really hard picking a winner. Paper A had slightly more intense colors and zero glossiness, which I liked, but was more textured against sunlight and was more fragile than paper B. It was also a good bit more expensive. Given all the factors I have decided I'll go with paper B. The difference is really very minor, and they are both awesome, but only paper B is affordable to me, and it'll withstand better in shipping. I'm excited for you guys to be able to get your hands on them.

I'm hoping to order my first batch of posters in October. For now I'm gonna print the Ramlethal piece and the Samus, in A3 and A4, and then hopefully print more and add more stuff to the store as I make more new pieces.

ps: If you have a favorite piece you'd like to see printed, let me know! I can get these made now. :>

pss: If you commissioned a piece from me and want a poster of it, hit me up. We might be able to make it happen.

Recruiting musician for the visual novel

Ever since I released Cuttlebone in 2015 I've kept doing visual novel work on the side. I worked on a big project, code named AikoVN, for a while, but it turned out to be bigger than I could chew and I put it aside. Then, in 2018 I began my current project, and last year managed to finish the script and got a fully playable game from start to finish. The only big bottleneck now is the lack of music - the one thing I have zero skill in. Last time with Cuttlebone I hated the experience of using free music, so this time I wanted to commission some custom songs, and after much anxiety and procrastination I've finally gone ahead and made a thread about it!

https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=65392 

I'll refrain from saying more cause the thread is pretty extensive. If you're interested in learning more, check it out.

Also! If you happen to be yourself a composer and would like to work with me, then you should definitely check it out!

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And that's a lot of what's been happening. I can't wait to finally check some of these projects off my list, or at least make some substantial progress.

Thanks for listening to my TED talk. I'll see you guys around.

ps: Look out for the post dump in the next 24h. :p