PROJECT LOG #2 (ok for real this time..)

BACK ALREADY long time no project log  

so I've taken a slight detour and downloaded RPGMaker MV in order to take advantage of its ability to HTML5 browser export!! I have decided to use this as my dress-up game client for better longevity, responsiveness and accessibility ^o^ 

in other words: didn't wanna wrestle with mobile vs desktop responsiveness webcode LMFAO work smarter not harder right..... O_O RIGHT 

so ya that being said I've been trying to refamiliarize myself through working away at a remaster of my old game Crystal Confines!! it was a 2017 self-challenge to complete a full rpgmaker narrative game and its assets in the span of about 2 weeks.. 

 

 

stole these screenshots from the russian translation page bc I'm lazy < / 3 tbh I'm kinda embarrassed it's translated into so many languages but thankful to translators who bothered to do that themselves ^_T 

there's much more I wanted to do and say since the beginning, and my desire to rewrite it has grown especially due to irl events I've been going through; I want to enhance the themes with my own personal experiences.. 

the idea of logging progress in a zero-expectation unviewed place like this is relaxing~ the focus of this entry will be sharing characters redesigns-- feel like rambling away my inspirations 

orphrey's design has always heavily drawn from SANAE♥chan KSDJKFSDJ ^Q^ but who can blame me.. she's the best (top 10 fave popn characters.. others r: milk, polepole, minit, smile, mary, gijiri, roki, boy & akemi-- bet there's someone missing.. )

 

satara's heavily inspired by klonoa2's king of sorrow and night on the galactic railroad's campanella .. he's wise and stoic, so I tried to mature his appearance a bit 

I'm excited to explore albedo's childlike excitement via more expressive posing ~ 3 ~ I luv snot bubble characters idk, no doubt thanks to the windwaker child (remembers my old son shen too--).. 

nimbus has a bit more plot involvement than being a tiny salute to my love for rpgmaker horror .. he's not really inspired by anything specific, just my longstanding intrigue at the contrast of carnivore vampire bats V/S herbivore fruit bats

lastly, a new edition to the cast; this is jenka, albedo's mother ^_^ loving, blunt & outspoken.. inspired by my grandma 

Crystal Confines itself was a storyboarding assignment I made for my visual development class back in college! two medias fueled me:

Gabriel Garzón-Montano "Naeja"'s  lyrics..

As far as I can see
Air like water rippling heat
Praying for a breeze
For some water to rain on me
Reaching for a hand
Searching for my caravan
Thought I saw the man
Just my own footsteps in the sand
She rode a hummingbird
Blew a kiss of colored leaves
An unbelievable queen
From the depths of my fantasy
And beckoning to me
Scootched up and she made a seat
Take me to your stream
Show me the meaning of my dream

it alone inspired the sandy hourglass Galimatias lives in LOL.. Gabriel's lyrics have a biotic feeling to it and I've loved it since 2015 :-) "Moonless" and "Long Ears" are two other favorites from his discography  

secondly is Mio Isayama's "Tsuki no Waltz" 

being one of my favorite music videos and songs, the love story has such a transient nature to it.. p.s. pls nhk don't copyright strike this video like u did the others orz o(-<

FINALLY speaking of music, one of my close rl friends is kindly allowing me to use their old compositions for a revamped ost (luv u janglez) so nobody will have to experience the cursed fruits bore from my midimaker days LMAO

manifesting my deeprooted friendships into personal projects one gal at a time.. 

this janglez song will be amongst the tracklist..  

tbh friends aside, there's so much music I want to pay homage to in projects of mine, especially after experiencing the greatness that is moon RPG's diverse OST-- the bar I want to set for myself when it comes to integrating old obscure musicians I enjoy into projects

I guess to end things for this log, I FINALLY played a game I've been meaning to for myself.. so I'd like to talk about it!

Idiot Maiden ... (which I implore the 2 ppl who check my blog to play).. it's so charming and the ending made me weirdly nostalgic of my teenage otome phase with jen KSDKJSDkjfdsjks

 

the portrait art and dialogue are simply gold.. 

"..First of all, it's vampire prince."

while I love the exploration of psyche/shock that's so common to see in games of this format, I think introspective dramas and playful, honest stories with something to say albeit how small remain inspirations for my own projects..  

imo rana probably ranted her fake friend drama to her new Vampire Boyfriend while waiting for the bus.. 

the main character struck a chord with me because it reminded me of an even more naive and yes-man past version of myself Rofl X^D stuff I still struggle with but have come a long way from Thank Da Lord.. 

also: this chinese indie track is their theme song imo...... still luv this & "di da di"

I have my hands full with work but gonna try to my best to continue squeezing this and my dress-up prospects in some free time.. next project log will focus on that ^_^ UNTIL THEN 

had a rare dream LOL so I will recall it here

I was on an elevator with a friend.. we reached our floor and she stepped off, but the elevator dropped as I was stepping off LMAO? and it cartoonishly dropped to the bottom and then went to the top and then went down again..

I got off and looked up to see a bunch of busy construction workers working on the elevator's infrastructure, so I had to find my way to the top via hard to find staircases (kinda reminded me of finding staircases in Gauntlet games). I had to stop and ask for help a lot and every stranger was friendly ^p^

I passed a flashy but abandoned arcade, a huge library divided into religious material and children's adventure books, a young man's runway show where the girls dressed like clouds and the boys dressed like stars.. I asked two teacher's where to go next and they were as clueless as I was and my dream ended shortly after--

it reminded me of the time me and my friend zach got lost in the huge new york macy's shopping center trying to buy towels.. 1932490 floors !!!

hmm.. I want go swimming..  

 

daiso whiteboard coming in handy.. also look at my sweet gurl, imma photodump her next entry 

what makes a webdoll appealing? ..to me LOL

soooo I've been toying around.. 

..with my dollmaker ideas!! I don't think there are quite enough pixel webdoll makers that are animesque  gaiaonline and otaku avatar maker are the two that come to mind.. many modern-day makers like everskies are amazing, but with a majority realistic-leaning faces (which are beautiful, but lesser my taste and I'm always digging for user-made anime ones instead xP). 

candybar and neowiz are great examples of what I envision (that're unfortunately getting more lost to time).. >_< that being said, I've made a guideline of what I find valuable in them from example! 

most importantly: it's cute 

now that I have a pretty confident idea of the approach I'd like for the base, I'm still studying the type of site format I'd like to do ^ 3 ^ 

I think these kinds of layouts follows design principals nicely, making both the categories easily accessible at the top and displaying enough items per page so it doesn't feel like a slog to go through them all. 

as an aside this gal's channel is so cool LOL luv that they play stuff like houchou shoujo gensoukyoku randomly

just for fun and because it's relevant, I thought it'd be neat to share a very casual pitch I made for my friend a few years ago *_* she develops ai filters on instagram; it's something purely for fun but if you ever see it float around somewhere someday, here's some initial concepts LOL 

something very important to me is to make things as customizable as possible within reason.. I think palette swapping is such a convenient and fast way to mix things up considering how quickly programs allow you to do it nowadays!! in the above example, skintone has no excuse to be limited by anything but space or effort restrictions 

 

basically u make a pixel doll based on yourself via the filter.. it's amazing how interactive they are these days o.O

websites with HTML-customizable areas to display various widgets like pixels are few and far between nowadays, but I still think there is something I like about people creating what they want and saving it into their image rolls forever! I still have my old ones from 2007 in my photobucket.. 

these are all old AWOLnow friends LOL I made dolls based on them.. yes even Ichigo (only 4 ppl will.. understand.. >_> u know who u are)

and who knows.. maybe someday websites will let its users have some visual fun again and let them customize more freely (ie. myspace, tumblr profiles, forum signatures). :-D that's something I sure can look forward to!! 

PROJECT LOG #5564352 (sike I WISH)........

one of my resolutions this year is to resume planning personal projects *_* I decided my blog would be a good idea to share initial plans without feeling like a spectacle LOL 

no promises but this IS indeed the year I'd like to make progress on these roadmaps....... I have so little time lately on top of commercial projects BUT I want to try to MAKE time !!

that being said let me break things down a little.. 

PROJECT GLIM&GLAM 

a web-based dressup/avatar game!! I've been studying the likes of existing dollmaker codes online and feel a bit more equipped to know where to start :-D it's gonna take a LOT of trial and error, especially considering web/mobile compatibility.. glim & glam are actually from another project of mine "Salon Glim & Glam" centric around my reaper child Ginnie.. anyway the sister duo will be serving as mascots for this project :-D they are deceased in my other project (k I know it sounds really grim but ITS NOT THAT DEEP or relevant here)-- that being said these are their "living" forms before they passed away!

currently I'm trying to develop a cute but cohesive UI based on some childhood inspirations of mine..

how to hit the perfect balance of cute and functional.. these sites did it well imo ^p^ 

the standard of web design has gotten a lot more uninteresting in pursuit of a "standardized" look, so I'm trying to find ways to undo the strictness and make something fun!!! 

NIBIRU LANDING 

after figuring out the general gist of this game, I'm finally starting to figure out a graphical style I'd like to go for!! I'm very keen on having default, nicely animated pixel sprites (wips below) in an environment that is psuedo 2D-3D..

essentially, I would like a 3D plane to move on, with 2D assets for the environment :-D hoshi de hakken!! tamagotchi for ps1 demonstrates it perfectly (and I'm sure by extension, paper mario LOL but I prefer the stricter camera of the latter)

just observe how mikachu moves and the world around her passes her by!!

if the poster looks familiar I was just mashing roommania into this mockup LOLZ

I'm not sure if I've ever noted a summary behind these characters, but they are basically a weird little family LOL; you control carefree rhaz (the child), you have an angry tech-obsessed older sister named nero, and ma & pa are busy scientist/engineer parents who try their best, but fall short a lot. she becomes best friends with an alien kiddo and works together to collect trash for her parent's current project, while hiding their identity.

it's something personal to my experiences and isn't meant to be serious !! I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from moon rpg's strange but charming dialogue, as well as hamtaro game's lighthearted dialogue ^o^ 

speaking of hamtaro.. I replayed heartbreak !! I haven't had much free time to animate for myself, but here's a wip!

 

and some of my screenies to end things off................  

my favorite relationships in the game ^p^/// ..

runner up is the mama/son and the last couple u save 

(PLAY TO FIND OUT) 

meet the artist BREAKDOWN

I finished this and thought it'd be fun to break down the details a bit cus WHY NOT-- I made it very personal to me this time around!

gross but I drool a lot especially with my braces, wondering if it'll stop once they're off in october... HM

 friends & family 

tried to put meaningful friends and family in my life everywhere via stickers/doodles :-D

 collectables 

 

everything drawn in here is stuff I own ^p^ 

think these are my top collectables (FOR NOW)..

 book

quote on the last page is from le petit prince! ^^ it resonates a lot with me..

besides "photo" memories in the book, I also doodled my ocs LOL too lazy to link em all tho-

 outfit 

 

stuff from my wardrobe  vivienne westwood vest+ rocking horse shoes, beauty:beast hoodie..

 backgrounds

my favorite place to visit is the beach and ocean !! I'd live by it if it felt safer..

pics from 2019 I can't be bothered to take new ones LMAO 

(imagine there's double the CDs, clothing and toys)

 

have I ever shared these WIP pics of my painting job? o.O

  

  

some pics from beach trips ^.^

speaking of ocean, SMFJ also was made in 2007.. the story is, Ichigo found him at the sea   he was inspired by mesousa from pani poni dash!

 

first and old pic I drew of him LOL on the oekaki SSO!! he's gotten a lot smaller and squishier over the years

mesousa for reference--

dunno why I read this face as "manly" as a kid LMAOO

mmmhmmmmm >:-)

last thing; a HUGE inspiration for my "journal" format is this pixel art here!! I wish I can find the source >_<

BIG wip dump

uhhh I am going to look like a lil freak exposing how much I like sketching out new ideas, particularly animations Kfdskjfdsjk- I tend to hop around a lot ^Q^;; the cool thing is I rarely get a chance to post my pixel art at it's ACTUAL scale  so here goes nothing!

 I've mostly been focusing on oc stuff lately, so I'll start with that: 

I designed some mascots for my updated site! ^o^ I have more to share about them, but I'll do that in a later post.. they aren't really serious ocs LOL they just exist to look cute

     

this is maybe one of my newest oc artworks!! I decided to name this project Nibiru Landing.. my scientist family is meant to have a bold, bright palette :-D

     

top is a gift for my friend rooby, bottom is a WIP of my sled doggy Kikky with her lil sister (designed by rooby)

     

ummm both of these are actually pretty old WIPS (2021) X^D I have a very "completionist" mentality with my art so it's hard to move past "scrapped" things.. so I WILL finish

I updated Glim's hair to be longer but I kinda like the idea of her just having hair extensions since she's a salon owner anyway?? WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN-

     

THIS AGAIN? ya I am taking forever to finish this but I also need to finish it to launch with my updated portfolio site... *Cries* .. I like how SMFJ is looking in this, stupid and squishy

     

OK now we'll dive into some fanart I've sketched up lately.. mostly game stuff since I'm a gamer

far left is my newest WIP; I finished Haunting Ground literally 2 days ago and the need to draw my girl Fiona and her baby Hewie is too strong.. (gonna sneak Daniella in here too cus she's a horrifyingly good horror villain).. 

middle is MOON RPG, which I still need to finish after getting really busy again!! I LOVE this game.. these are my favorite characters who have the best music (which you should experience in-game, but I'll link anyway);

Clis, Saike and Lady Techno. 

and lastly uhh mayura is just there LMFAO I sketched her on impulse so idk if I'll finish

prioritizing what to finish for me is always a russian roulette LOLOL.. I will always try to avoid timestamping my stuff! ofc though it leads to a pretty big backlog  O WELL.. it's just the christy way *wink*

I had to take a long break to catch up on work after vacation and being sick, so back to it!