Paper Stars

Oops

2011-11-16T11:07:00.001-08:00

Isn't amazing how real life and other internet oddities can swallow you up?

Anyways, long story short, I was cleaning up computer and then lost some PSDs most of them Forest of Noir art assets. I wasn't too upset. Much. The art was old and I was taking forever to work on it.

I still have the Ren' Py files. Maybe this is a sign for me to focus on the story rather than art?

Time Flies By...

2011-08-04T00:40:00.000-07:00

Life sure makes me feel like not working on visual novels.

But somehow I get back to it one way or another.

Beware of the boogie man

2011-05-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

MONTHLY PROGRESS!!!

Statistics:

The game contains 53 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 1,041 words,
for an average of 19.6 words per screen.
The game contains 1 menus.

Sharing is Caring

2011-04-11T18:55:00.001-07:00

PHEW skipped March, there goes my blogging once a month streak.

School and the uncertain future ahead of me has been keeping me from my love of VN development and making me rethink about my skills. Oh the uncertainty.

I feel tempted to throw up an open development thread for Forest of Noir because honestly, I think I just need to be critiqued on everything I do. Art, writing, etc... That and I really do love sharing my work on LSF. Forest of Noir is supposed to be a short VN with just three endings, but somehow my twisted mind keeps thinking of making it episodic to continue the adventures of Belinda and Friends. Maybe I will make a thread, maybe I won't. Still indecisive at this point.

In any case, sprite above is finished, just needs more expressions. Camille looks sort of gruff, but he's an all around nice guy.

Make her a member of the midnight crew

2011-02-14T11:00:00.001-08:00

Thanks to certain people I've been hooked on MS Paint Adventures. Daily updates, epic story, hilarious characters and writing? I'm totally addicted.

Listening to the soundtracks for the webcomic has actually helped me get some things done for Forest of Noir though. As indicated by the CG-in-progress above, there's going to be a fair share of action within this short story.

I would like to take this time and say that Forest of Noir is NOT A GXB GAME. Yes, the main character is a girl and the rest are guys. The premise and focus is NOT romance. I mean c'mon, look at that CG preview. I don't think bearing your shadowy wolf-arms against a lady is gonna get you a date dude. Especially if I'm listening to this track while working on the lineart (it's from Homestuck of course all of their albums sold here).

Speaking of music, I was able to collect all the needed pieces needed for this game. Also, Camille's sprite has also been completed. Huzzah for progress. Man with all this progress, I'll just put down a lint.

Statistics:

The game contains 24 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 409 words,
for an average of 17.0 words per screen.
The game contains 1 menus.

... Could be worse ;A;

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

2011-01-28T15:26:00.001-08:00

Still working on Forest of Noir. I really am determined to finish it and not make it a complicated story even though I'm using this to practice branching. Kinda sorta.

Yes, the main character will be a cleaver wielding girl. I hope MSPA Homestuck doesn't keep distracting me though... Or college. I only have four classes this semester so I'll have more time to work on this project.

I have been thinking about officially getting help on Lemmasoft, but... Eh, I have my reservations and anyone who's been on LSF long enough know what I'm talking about (unless I'm being too vague), but yeah.

Whoo, I'm so good at this once a month posting. Wish me luck!

Belinda is angry at me for being such a slowpoke :'(

Been a long while

2010-12-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Deji's blog I can usually tell how long it's been since I've updated my blog. Her latest post inspired me to put up something that showed my improvement in VN sprite related art.

2008: This is when I first got my tablet. Messing around in Photoshop was fun, but it proved to be frustrating in its own right. It didn't have a nice fluid way to work with. In any case, it's still the first time I released a sprite and made a short kinetic novel using the sprite.

2008-2009: Started working on Stained One, but this is where it's obvious I am a lazy bum who doesn't know how to manage time with art. (Also Deji helped color this sprite that's why it looks very nice compared to the others). I was still struggling on how to color hair because my style and way of coloring kept changing like you wouldn't believe.

2009: /SCREAMS FOREVER

2009-2010: Okay, this is where I actually did stuff with CG and it looked okay. I was experimenting in Paint Tool SAI and it was wonderful. I loved the blending and adjusting of tools so much. And the hair on this looks GREAT! Problem-- the way I did it was too time consuming and argh.

2010: I drew a LOT this year and as you can tell I still have no idea what I want to do with hair and I have too many ideas I want to try out. Still, drawing is fun no matter how frustrating it can be and I honestly hope I will produce something of value in the near future :)

Black and White

2010-11-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

Forest of Noir is a project that is going to help me practice my art and programming Ren'Py. It will be short. I will be working on this and juggling college at the same time. You won't see me putting up much progress posts until I do an obligatory once or twice a month post.

I will stop blathering and get some dinner and prepare my essay and then rest.

THIS. IS. COLLEGE. Where the VN side is

2010-10-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

I think what I like about having a blog is that I have been, for the most part, faithful in updating with an image.

So yeah. College. Busy, busy, busy. I've had four exams in the past two weeks and I am exhausted and already I have gotten an email about signing up for spring classes. Geez. Real life stuff like this means that my fun in making VNs is halted because I see it as a low priority of what I have to get done. So no real progress has been made since I finished the Briar sprite.

Unfortunately, what I'm finding out as I keep drawing is that my style has been constantly changing. Or my coloring style at any rate. But I just keep drawing because if I stop and doubt, no progress of any kind will be made.

It will be hard to get back onto the VN wagon and find time to put more love into Magic Memoir, but by god will I try.

I need a writer

2010-07-26T02:53:00.000-07:00

It's sort of a bad time to try and work on a visual novel when college is coming up soon. Gah. That and I think I really just need a writer who is superior to me to help me on this project. I love drawing more than writing even though drafting is also extremely fun.

But yeah, some promo art for the game and I'm planning on finishing up writing the prologue at least. I did finish the first guy's sprite, but now that I'm giving it another look, I really hate it so I'm planning to redo the whole thing.

Priorities, priorities...

New Project- Magic Memoir

2010-06-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

A project where I actually want to finish since remaking Phase Shift is proving to be dull. =A= I AM SO INDECISIVE. But I've made progress on both side sprites for the main character and the main sprite for the first guy. Yup, lots of otome games this summer season, but the real test is to see if anyone will be able to release their games. Hopefully, one of them will be me.

A bump in the road

2010-05-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

With school work, graduation, and college coming up, it's a wonder I have time to draw at all. In fact, that's all I've been doing instead of actually writing my script for Phase Shift.

It occurred to me that although I'm decent at writing, when it comes to visual novels, I'm much more adept at drawing. So far, it's my character sprite art that has shown improvement. Next, I would need to improve on larger CGs like the one above... CGs that express action, emotion, something happening basically. I still have a co-writer at least, but otherwise, you still have difficulties in making a VN without much incentive except for the fact that it's fun. And I do have fun drawing and coloring my own characters to make my own stories.

I'll just keep chugging along in any case. I've had some thoughts about helping out with other projects, but that will be put aside for now unless something comes up. I'll have more progress on Phase Shift next month.

Also, I should make my blog prettier instead of having this stupid plain white background. Bleh.

LOOK I'M DOING STUFF

2010-05-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

and

It's a wonder I can finish these with a test coming up and my presentation to do on Tuesday. CAN THIS WEEK BE OVER YET. TAT

Once in the land of VNS...

2010-04-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

I am strangely motivated to work for some odd reason. Two poses done for Ai Thao and one more is done with coloring, just needs eyes and expressions. Maybe I'm more cut out to be an artist than a writer, but I really do love writing as well.

There are going to be at least six new scenes in the remake of Phase Shift and one scene has already finished it's writing stage. Now to insert it into the script and switch around an old scene.

Weapon of Choice

2010-04-03T16:38:00.001-07:00

It's always the second half of the year that's the busiest at school which is why I haven't been posting any progress lately with the remake of Phase Shift. Thankfully, I do have my friend helping me rewrite again so I'm awfully glad for that. I'm being a bit too ambitious again, however, since I am actually going to add event CGs to make this a more substantial story to read through. My CG skills aren't THAT top notch yet, but hopefully I can add the event CGs I want to the game.

That is if school and entering college doesn't kill me first.

A Shift Backwards

2010-03-11T20:49:00.000-08:00

I've been wondering for the past few weeks. Is it really worth it to work on Stained One? Would it be giving up if I set it aside for a while to rework on my first kinetic novel that is nearest to my heart?

Stained One is by far a more complex storyline then any ideas I've had. I have a complete outline of what is to happen in all six endings. But now I'm not only stuck writing wise, but art wise as well. It's not that I can't draw the girls or even the guys.

But I wonder if I even had a connection to my characters in the first place. I already had given them personalities, but... Maybe this whole time I thought they were developed fully, but they actually were far from that. I thought about it some more and I realized that the characters with the weakest personalities were the boys, Zac and Aiden. Emily is a dear, I love her character traits, but I never could focus on the boys like I could with the girls. And without a strong cast...

I really am way in over my head.

Ever since I released Phase Shift I've gotten rather positive responses, at least for the story and characterization. Now that I've improved on art, I would love to make a remake of it and expand on the story much more. I read the story on my own and realize how many nuances and little parts that seem to make the story worthwhile, something that will be difficult to reflect in Stained One. So I probably will go back to it and sculpt it lovingly into a more beautiful kinetic novel that I want it to be.

ART SPAM DUMP 2

2010-03-07T23:48:00.000-08:00

I like putting pictures in my blog, so I'll put up pictures that I've been able to work on. My CGing has gotten WAY better.

Old character of mine that I wanted to doodle. She has a twin...

Who I frankly did not give any justice to. ;;

Quickly colored in this lineart I had months ago.

Gift for a friend.

An updated version of this picture. My first attempt at using a tablet. It hasn't even been a year since I've gotten my first tablet and I was able to improve leaps and bounds from that point.

I'll have another spam dumping tomorrow.

Falling over, getting back up

2010-02-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

Been awhile since I've written in this huh? Not a surprise, but school has been kicking my butt horribly, so much so that I couldn't get the writing done for Crimson Midnight. No fancy language about this: I failed at finishing within the two month period. I probably was way in over my head when I thought I could get a full story done and I let down my dev team. *sigh*

(In other news, I got accepted into my first choice college and got all excellent grades last semester except for my government class. So RL itself is tough, but rewarding)

It's the experiences that count though.

Although it makes me think. Maybe I'm not suited for a writing position? I'm more of a co-writer. I mean, I RP in my spare time as a hobby along with drawing anime and manga. And maybe I'm not good at writing different branches of a story. I'm rather linear minded so to speak.

Even if I failed at finishing a project, there is always a good thing that comes out of the bad. I was able to write a more substantial piece of work even if it is unfinished. (It will be finished sometime in the future however) I'm learning how to brainstorm better thanks to working with other people and how to be more consistent in my writing. Collaborating with people is also an important skill that was put into practice.

Thankfully in life and in visual novels, failure is not the end unless you let it be. I'll be going back to the art production of Stained One before tackling the writing. In fact, that was what I should have been focusing on before being absorbed in my storyline for it. In any case, over the past two months my CGing has improved if the WIP above is any indication. I'm not backing off from making VNs yet!

Now to download the games that HAVE been finished for the two month challenge and write a letter and draw a sketch for Deji.

Jogging towards the finish line...

2010-01-26T00:04:00.001-08:00

I'M ALIVE. And still writing and progress is being made for Crimson Midnight. Each day I am writing parts of the story so Chrono and Deji can look it over, give their inputs and then Chrono can convert the script for Ren Py'. Busy, busy, busy and I have finals this week not fun. *___*

But even with the worst obstacles, one must go on! Therefore, have a moe Robin in cute clothing stare at you while this blog begins to yellow with age after my sporadic VN progress report.

Route 1!

2010-01-12T18:33:00.000-08:00

WHY MUST THIS MONTH BE SO BUSY IN SCHOOL. (Which is why I procrastinate on French homework by finishing this CG that did not take me too long surprisingly.)

Anyways, no matter how much school work looms on the horizon, I will not let that stop me from writing at LEAST one third of Tristan's route in Crimson Moon. GO GO GO

Run, run, run

2010-01-08T19:17:00.001-08:00

Because I've been working on Crimson Midnight with Deji and Chrono, I have had absolutely no time to post in my blog!

/end lie.

No, I've had time, but I didn't have anything of real interest to put up and therefore I made this sketch just to make my blog look interesting. :B I'm about halfway done with the prologue for Crimson Midnight and planning to write half of one characters route next week or maybe the whole thing so I can work on the last route the following week and that's when I can make major revisions. I feel so blessed to be working with Deji who also gives me good tips on writing. It just reminds me how much I need to improve if I want to even get going with Stained One on my own.

I feel it's a good thing I'm working on Crimson Midnight as the writer. I have other people on the team depending on me. If I let them down, I'm letting myself down.

Anyways, enough rambling, I am finishing this.

Fall inside, slave of my love

2009-12-16T21:19:00.000-08:00

Stained One will be on hiatus. For now, enjoy this sub-par image of Emily eating pizza which I have been craving for a while now.

If any of you follow Deji's blog, you know that I am collaborating on a short VN along with chrnoluminare. I'm the writer, Deji is the artist and chronluminaire will be our programmer. Of course this means, I'm putting Stained One on hiatus, but it's not like as if I had a set date for it like I did with [Phase Shift.] I'm very excited to be working the the very talented Deji and someone with programming experience like chrnoluminaire.

I just realized that I am the youngest person on our team. Yikes.

This means that as the writer, I will have to write diligently and clearly despite this story's shortness. Hell, if I can write essays in a span of forty minutes, I know I can at least write parts of a story with all the time I have.

I should get a rough draft of the beginning of the story done since I will be away for three days starting Monday and THEN there's Christmas after that. I'm a busy student after all. But time management is the key and I will not only be writing on my computer, I will be writing parts of the story in my handy notebooks while I'm away so I don't come back empty handed.

Right now, I'm listening to some Kanon Wakeshima music to get me into the mood of our story's genre (which btw we planned to be otome/supernatural/with a side of delicious macabre :)

Back to finishing the outline!

ART SPAM DUMP

2009-12-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

Wow, 18 days since I've last updated. Such a lonely, lonely blog. Well, since last month, I was busy getting college applications in which was a nightmare in itself and now it's December! I just have to worry about keeping up with schoolwork and grades so I will for sure have more time to work on Stained One. No work was done last month besides development sketches AND some extra help on sprucing up the character sprites... ;) So I will just humor myself by putting up doodles I've been able to bust out.

A doodle of a possible otome game heroine for a future game I've thought of. I've been reading about a lot of otome games and I've noticed that in most of them, you can see the girl's face in contrast with typical eroges with a male as a main charcter. (Although I've been reading Accany's blog and noticed that the faceless protagonist trend has considerably faded with recent VNs or it could be just me.) But yeah, I like this design for the main girl. I'm not quite sure what her story will be about yet even though I rambled to my friends about what it might be. :3

Drawing this and looking at the art for my kinetic novel [Phase Shift] makes me really, really, really, really, REALLY want to redo the art and make CG events for it, but TAT I can't wait to make a sequel for Ai Thao, she's one of my favorite OCs.

OCs that belong to me and my friend. Just wanted to play around with SD expressions :B

And finally, ANOTHER OC of mine. She's supposed to be a tomboy, but lately, she's been dressing in a more feminine manner. I really like how the braids turned out as well as that top. I'd so wear it.

That's the end for this dump! Next time, I will definitely update with progress on Stained One.

In a rut

2009-11-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

Not much to update storywise, but I've been redesigning Bianca's outfit so I can figure out how to fix my event CGs that involve her in them. Doodling in SAI is fun, adjusting the stabilizer and turning on pen pressure gives nice sketchiness :)

I'm making doodles and sketches of Bianca mostly to develop her character even though I'm still stuck on chapter one with her. She's supposed to have a complex perspective on life as a result of her childhood. She's not particularly depressing when she starts out, but she's not a very happy person either. She worries about clothes and boys like almost any other girl, but only to a point where it seems like she just does so out of obligation.

I should draw Zac and Aiden more.

And it was all yellow

2009-11-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

I'm not dead yet! Stained One feels like it's dying off though... It's hard being the writer and illustrator for my own visual novel. It's mostly Deji who's helped me continue art for Stained One.

She is a sweetie who took the time to give me advice on what to do for Emily's dress. I really hated the outfit I put on her in the last entry that had her, but this is a design and color scheme suggested by Deji. I believe this will be Emily's official outfit.

And now, back to stressing out about college apps and AP classes.

Reset

2009-10-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

Whooo, SAT and more than half of my volunteer work done. BUT. Although I said I would work on Stained One this week, guess what?

COLLEGE APPLICATIONS. So yeah, no story or art development yet.

And yet I have time to CG this image, I'm such a hypocrite.

Hnnnnnn

2009-10-05T19:15:00.000-07:00

For us senior kids in the good ol' US of A, this is the month where we start filling in college applications, cram for last minute SAT tests, make sure we have all our class credits...

Meaning there won't be any progress on Stained One for quite a while. Not much to comment on, on that note, but I'll be back on it sometime in November probably. Here's a CG to ponder at. It's the biggest CG I've done yet. These are OCs made up by me and a friend of mine. If you recognize where the plushies are from, then you might have an idea of where these girls game from. And a good idea of how twisted I am :B

:333

2009-09-22T18:36:00.001-07:00

:333333

I must be getting annoying with all this posting with Emily. I just can't help, but be fortunate to have free time on my hands though. I have three expressions finished including this neutral one right here.

Needs more tsuntsun. Now to be a responsible student and go read for my civics class.

Someone's face was eaten

2009-09-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

Lineart for the second pose is done! I really should start drawing in some expressions so I don't have freaky faceless women in my blog.

The main poses themselves are bases so I can adjust the lineart so the characters have different positions to appear in. I think I need one more main pose for Emily and I'll bet set. Probably. Now to color it in... Maybe I can get the base colors in before ten o'clock.

Character Art has finally begun!

2009-09-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

For Stained One, I'm finally beginning on Emily Maxwell's character sprite. I'm being rather particular about the lineart more than I am about the coloring. Both good and bad although I do have a friend (Chimiko) who is willing to help me color the sprites. I'm going to have several different poses for each character, but so far this is the only pose that has complete lineart and base art. I will see if I can make several expressions tomorrow.

So far, I think making VNs purely as a hobby is difficult. If you just want to tell a good story, simple visuals are enough to hold up the story. Being more of an arist than a writer however, you tend to try and focus more on the visuals than you do story. A balance of both is what makes a good visual novel. Visual novels tend to be a group effort and not a one man (or woman) job. (Not including azurextwilight's amazing effort for Fantasia, Realm of Thanos project.)

I wish I could recruit the help of people besides close friends who I know would do an awesome job of helping me write and touch up my art... But then I feel like I'm imposing something on them and this project is rather personal. For my first short story, [Phase Shift] I was able to co-write with a friend because he knew my main heroine Ai Thao well and we shared the same wavelengths when it came to ideas. He has his own stories he wants to develop (and I want to see so he better get to it >( ) so I can't be taking up anymore of his time.

Better /end rabbling here before the time flies and I forget to do my French homework.

Stained One Lint

2009-09-17T20:31:00.000-07:00

The game contains 226 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 4251 words,
for an average of 18.8 words per screen.
The game contains 0 menus.

Not much progress. School, school, damn it all school. But I'm working on art since I've been able to finish all my homework on time. Expect to see more updates. Sorry, but no new art for today's post.

Nobody knows...

2009-09-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

Ah, it's been awhile since I posted stuff hm? School has started and Stained One is probably never going to see the light of day for a while. For the sake of visuals though, here's a picture of the unnamed redhead from [Phase Shift].

I'm still don't have much confidence in my CG skills enough to handle event CGs in Stained One alone. Sprites should be fine, but yeah... This is a messy CG at best, but it looks better than my last attempt.

School starts soon...

2009-08-23T00:05:00.000-07:00

And I still have homework to finish. Thankfully, it's not impossible. However, I'm going to limit myself working on Stained One for the weekends. If this was an actual serious project, I'd spend more time, but seeing as how I'm going to be a senior this year, I probably can't afford it. I have an SAT test in October, applications to fill... Sigh. As for progress on Stained One, just waiting for my editor to pop up so they can edit the 95% I've written for chapter one. In the meantime, proof I've been reading the pet project on LSF too much.

Looks a bit like Taokaka from BlazBlu, but lamer :B

Stained One Chapter 1- 95% done!

2009-08-18T13:29:00.001-07:00

Whooooo I got a lot of writing done on Sunday for chapter one and omitted some parts I meant to add in, but found unnecessary. So Just a bit more to write and I'll be able to work on character sprites and special event CGs to put in the updated demo. Anyways, a CG of Madoka from my next project A Minute to Midnight.

=A=

2009-08-15T01:23:00.000-07:00

Still having trouble writing chapter one for Stained One even though I have a complete outline. Actually writing is always the hard part. =A=;

Which is why I make pictures like this when I don't have inspiration. I really miss writing for Ai Thao, she's just so mysterious. People on LSF have expressed interest in a sequel to [Phase Shift] as I might've mentioned before... Have I? Dunno.

Anyways, Happy Birthday Deji!!!!! Will be thinking up of a sketch to give as a birthday gift to one of my favorite and most helpful CG artists ever :DD

Hm, I'll force myself to write something so that my volunteer editor can have something to poke at. THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING.

Derp :B

2009-08-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

I am feeling very 'DERP' today. I don't have any inspiration to write or draw for my project. Go me. Also, there is AP homework to be done.

...

...

HA.

Girl Talk

2009-08-07T15:10:00.001-07:00

Just a simple CG made in SAI of my character Yuzuki Nanase and Hiyoko Ryuuzaki. They'll be appearing in my project A Minute to Midnight after I finish Stained One.

I like how this turned out. I'm still learning more fancier techniques for cging, but sometimes, less is more.

I am SAI-ing. Haha get it?!

2009-08-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

Whooooo, I like this new blog! Background is boring really, but it's actually not that bad. I prefer it to be simple unless I decide to try and code some nice stars to fit my blog title.

Orz, my trial version of PaintTool SAI expired today. Back to making lineart in Photoshop. TAT Not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily a good thing either. Making lineart in SAI is so much easier because of the pressure sensitivity and the lines come out so much more smoothly. Working on CG events for STAINED ONE is going to be a tad bit more difficult :(

Hrm. I'm going to use this blog to keep track of my art projects and to show more WIPs of STAINED ONE. And maybe talk about upcoming projects as well. The good news is, someone at Lemma Soft Forums is interested in editing my script. Thank goodness. So many nice people on the forums willing to help out.