The H-Scene (Patreon)

Greetings! Work continues on the H-scene - the good news is that the art's done, but I'm still in the middle of writing. In celebration of the art being complete, I figured you might like to see a little of it :D

This has been a big scene, and the art has occupied most of my time since last post. There were a few reasons for this, first being that it has so many images. It may have been a mistake to give the scene 25 of 'em, but they seem to have turned out well enough, so no point worrying about it now. The other thing was the fact that I used a different photo editing software with this batch, and there was a bit of a learning curve with that. Previously I'd used Photoshop; I'd ended up with a subscription to all the Adobe stuff courtesy of my old school, and they'd neglected to cancel it for quite a while. I thought this may have been the school's way of apologizing for their exorbitant tuition, and was beginning to think quite well of them, but no, it seems it was just a bureaucratic oversight. One they've now remedied, sadly.

I've never really liked the idea of subscriptions for creative software. If you create something, and put a little of yourself in it, it becomes sort of like your kid, you know? And if you need subscription software to access it, it's sorta like it's being held hostage. Just like you wouldn't pay the shady guy in the "free candy" van money every month not to snatch your kid, it also seems kinda wrong to pay Adobe not to do the same thing to your creations.

Affinity Photo is the only real competitor to Photoshop, and it's not subscription-based. I decided to try it out when working on this H-scene's images to see if it really could replace Adobe's warhorse, and the answer seems to be "yes." Some stuff's a little different, but it's just as powerful. Affinity does a few things better, actually, particularly for 3D. I woulda coughed up Adobe's ransom fees if I had to, but I'm glad it isn't necessary.

Anyway, enough about software. The goal for this coming week is to finish up writing the H-scene and then to get back to finishing up the big quest for this release. I've been away from it for a little bit because of all the art stuff, but maybe that's a good thing. Seeing things with fresh eyes can sometimes highlight flaws you didn't notice - or give you new ideas! I hope you like the picture, and thank you for your support!