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August Newsletter

To get the ball rolling...

Though we're just starting, there's been a lot happening with regards to the creative construct that is antonymZoo Studios. Having started the planning process in May 2020, antonymZoo aspires to provide a wide variety of products and services to an eclectic community of gaming, art, and roleplay enthusiasts. Earlier this month, antonymZoo suddenly went from a "planned sole-proprietorship" to a "planned LLC."  Gaining five unique team members, antonymZoo Now has a total of creators: ACN, AmbiLati, Lebi, Dapper, Kaien, and Faelen.  All of whom first met each other on the Crystal Data Center of Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV). All of us here hope you like what we create and stick around to see how antonymZoo continues to develop.

So began a nostalgicEscapade...

Starting anything online can be a long and arduous journey. With such a broad medium as the internet, we have to ask: How do you get your content noticed by the right people? And how can you stand out from others who are doing the same or similar things? For antonymZoo, it means supporting each other's interests and ideas within the team and fostering a welcoming environment for our prospective community members. We won't be putting our eggs in one basket, so to speak. To account for this, we're arranging our business structure to fit our products and services into themed groups.

The nostalgicEscapade project consists of two different Twitch streams and a group roleplay that will be turned into a Webtoon comic called, Beneath a Withered Moon. We'll post detailed updates and information on the nostalgicEscapade project and any new additions to it through the changeLog Archive on Tumblr.

Upcoming nostalgicEscapades

08/07 - There's noScape! In our next post, we'll give you detailed information on the various nostalgicEscapade projects we're planning and the current stage of each.

08/09 - August Screenshot Dump The antonymZoo creators love playing FFXIV, and here on noScape, we've got a little screenshot army to share from our time in-game.

08/11 - aZoo of Introductions Get to know the creators of antonymZoo Studios and learn more about them through the About page on our website.

08/13 - Gettin' Twitch-y Learn more about what we stream and why. We're starting with introducing our hosts and the two major portrayed by our streams.

08/15 - August Free Write We're gonna take something random. We're gonna make it a prompt. And then we're gonna post it! We cannot guarantee that fictional characters will not be harmed in the making of this post.

08/17 - Getting Organized with ClickUp So, I forced the team to use an app called ClickUp for all our scheduling and project management. Here's why.

08/19 - nostalgicEscapade: Beneath a Withered Moon Let's make a webcomic! Find out what we're planning, how you can get involved in the roleplay behind it, and what to expect from the first few episodes as we introduce our characters and cast.

08/21 - Code w/ Us: Basic HTML Page Structure ACN will create an accessible copy of the base HTML page structure that she uses.  The post will include a version of the base file that can easily be edited and duplicated for easy page creation. For beginners, the blog post will explain all the parts that make up the overall basic structure with a list of free, online resources she references regularly.

08/23 - August Art Feature The antonymZoo art team is starting strong, and this time, they come bearing selfies. Get ready to see what we've decided represents us.

08/25 - Building a Website and Putting it Online We'll finally make our website! By the time this post goes up, hopefully, it won't still look like this:

08/27 - Draw w/ Us: Anatomy In this post, we're going to go over the basic structure behind the anatomy of the body.  Starting with the basics and then stretching and distorting specific characteristics to turn that into a well-defined, original character.

08/29 - Learning Online: Go to platforms Over the length of 2020, ACN has been learning on multiple online platforms such as StackSkills, Udemy, and so on. Check out the full list of what she's been using and her experiences with each.

08/31 - August Highlights Let's take a look back on what happened in August and see how far antonymZoo has gotten over the last 31 days. Have we made much progress? Are we in debt yet? Find out on the 31st!

Thanks for reading!

We, the antonymZoo team, really appreciate our readers and community. If you want to keep up with all the things we're doing here, check out antonymZoo Studios or one of our creators by liking/following/subscribing to us on:

Patreon | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | AmbiLati@Twitch | ACN@Twitch

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aZS Returns:  Getting a Fresh Start

Introduction

When I began the ChangeLog Archive on March 7th of this year, things started relatively well with regular posts and a lot of promises, either to myself or to my new readers. But since my last post on March 21st, I've let this project fall off to the wayside as I dealt with several personal struggles that I've had a hard time overcoming. In November of last year, I left a great job due to depression and anxiety that affected my work and health. No matter how much I loved working there, my emotional state only continued to worsen over time. I finally had to decide that it would be best that I leave, both for myself and the people around me.

Since then, I've not had any form of consistent or substantial income. I spent the rest of 2019 dealing with my depression. By the time I thought I'd sorted myself out, we were experiencing the effects of quarantine. Finding a job suddenly became much more difficult for a black, Asian female with no degree or notable certifications to back up her skills. It took me roughly six months to push past the mental blockades that had dragged me down so completely and rediscover what I wanted to do.

My initial starting point was disorganized and vague, and the number of different accounts I'd chosen to work with immediately became overwhelming and unrealistic. It didn't help that I made a lot of plans and promises as well, that I never delivered. I didn't begin publishing the webcomic I wanted to make, I didn't complete and publish the commissions I was working on consistently or at all, and the list goes on.

ChangeLog Going Forward

Going forward, I want to reignite antonymZoo Studios and the ChangeLog Archive with a more organized approach than the vague idea I had started with earlier this year. To start small, I'll be focusing on creating written content for the ChangeLog Archive as I redefine, restructure, and reorganize everything I had planned to do in the beginning. There will still be a webcomic, I will continue to offer art commissions, and there will be many other projects I have planned in the future. I'll just be focusing on getting them completed in an organized manner, which I'll explain more in a future post.

First thing's first:  I want to keep my process transparent, responsive, and engaging.  Just as before, the ChangeLog archive will continue to focus on sharing and documenting my creative and business progresses as I go along.  To ease the start-up workload, and stay on track, I'll focus my first posts on what I've been up to since May when I first began re-thinking this process and planning out how to fix what I'd done wrong in the first place.  To do this, I'll share information about the programs and apps I've tried out, the ones I've chosen, and a basic organized timeline of the overarching projects I want to complete.

I have plans to make use of my different accounts.  All of my social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), will announce updates.  I'll post snippets and shorter content that don't necessarily need to show up here on Tumblr.  For my artwork and creative content screenshots, I'll always post it on my Instagram.  For all my other social media, each one will have an overarching purpose.  Facebook will focus on my business-related updates.  I'll share what's happening with my Fiverr or new changes to my Patreon subscriptions and any other products or services I might provide in the future.  Through my Patreon, subscribers will be able to participate in the first-run testing and gain access to all of my creations before they become available anywhere else.  Even new products and services I create will be available there before I put them up anywhere else.

The Takeaway

TL;DR:  I want to acknowledge my shortcomings.  I've not been motivated, I've not been consistent, and I have a lot of improvements to make both for myself and for what I want to do.  I have a lot of things to work on, and I want to share that process with my friends, my family, and anyone who might be interested in reading about it.  I want to work and focus on maintaining a consistent routine and keeping my motivation up.

Up Next

I'll be sharing upcoming blog posts for the month of August, the topic of each, and why.  You'll be able to find the announcement on my Facebook page.

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COMMISSION [03-2020]:  Ashen Mountain

It’s a bit belated, but I completed this commission for a friend of mine on Monday of their lovely FFXIV Roegadyn, Ashen Mountain.  Her short hair was definitely a challenge, but all in all, I think it came out great.

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Progress Report:  Webtoon’s Contest, Step 1.1

Besides my own usual writing techniques, I quickly began to realize that aside from illustrating my characters, I’m going to need to beef up a few of my weak points.  To complete and hopefully succeed in my goals, I’m going to have to improve my art, adapt my writing skills and heavily work on my time management skills.  Looking for a place to start, I took a peek at Webtoon’s Creators 101 page.

Besides learning that even if I don’t win, I could still make money with comics on Webtoons, I found a number of videos that gave me a direction and idea of the procedures I could take to get this done.  Webtoon has a number of viewable and downloadable resources that have given me a clear idea of what they expect from their creators as well as what direction I should take with planning and technical details.

While continuing my hunt for inspiration, I found the Studio Binder website’s article on TV Loglines and began taking notes.  From there I traveled down a rabbit hole of information, footnotes and movie clips and decided to adapt bits and pieces of what they described in their Free TV Writing and Development Master Class for this project.  If I’ve learned anything from browsing Webtoon’s Creator 101 page and tutorials, writing and story boarding will be a big part of the process.

So today, I’ve prepared a number of Loglines and/or working titles for the sake of my own brainstorming process:

Project Dive | Dedicated to my dear friend Julie.

Inciting Incident:  Assigned a large, new project that requires them to dive deep into the ocean on a minimal budget and little time to complete it

Protagonist(s): 3 office workers (?)

Action:  Learn new skills together and troubleshoot various problems

Antagonist(s):  Their indecisive boss

Goal:  To complete the assignment on time

Stake:  Or lose their job

Taint and Purity

Inciting Incident:  Find out their village isn’t who they say they are

Protagonist(s):  A young heiress (Danau, Aunu), her closest friend (Ahenau, Akane) and her two half-brothers (Aninheri, Naketta & Naida, Biroyn)

Action:  Escape their village and run away

Antagonist(s):  “The Pale Lady”

Goal:  To find out where they really belong and save their village

Stake:  No one is who they appear to be

The Living Weapon

Inciting Incident:  Are faced with a difficult upcoming tournament

Protagonist(s):  Two petite young girls (Bai, Xinri and Neriza Lezh’Mai)

Action:  Team up and train together

Antagonist(s):  Other competitors

Blood and Water

Inciting Incident:  Arrive in a strange world and gain unexpected powers

Protagonist(s):  Lillian and Damien Smallwood

Action:  Make friends with some of the locals to learn to control their new powers and find a way home

Antagonist(s):  The architect of their arrival

Earth & Stone

Inciting Incident:  Gets into a fight with her mother

Protagonist(s):  Hezheuken, Nanau

Action:  Runs away from home

Antagonist(s):  Hezheuken, Nanase

Weatherer

Inciting Incident:  Mysterious visitor

Protagonist(s):  The Wellet Sisters

Action:  Protect their bookshop

Antagonist(s):  Unwelcome guests

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These are some recent drawings I’ve been working on from screenshots my friends have been taking on FFXIV.  It’s been rather fun to do, though this is mostly because I’ve been cheating it.  I put the image in the background layer to about 25% and sketch on top of that.  Not the best use of my skills but it’s been helping with my confidence and the block I’ve been in for the past few years.

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I just RSVP’d for Patreon’s Weird Stream-a-thon which is a virtual get-together in light of recent event cancellations due to the current state of the world.  Check out their page for more information.  I’ll be watching it, that’s for sure.

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Cylense: The Story of Creation

In the beginning, there was only Cylense and they were curious, naive and they were alone. With time, they became aware of their loneliness and discovered the concept of creation with which they created their first ten children from the darkness around them. These first ten were wrong, like empty, shambling husks that did little more than obey or react. Time passed and they tried to teach them, but they seemed slow to do so, and so they tried to offer them each their own will.

This worked only briefly, as such contact with her essence only served to burn them from the inside out. They tried again and again, altering their method each time only to repeatedly fail until only two of their first children remained. Fearful that they might one day harm them as well, Cylense sent them away where their essence would not reach them.

Discouraged by their first failure, they did not try again for quite some time. When they finally gathered the courage to create again, they chose from their own essence and through it, three children were born. To them, these three were perfect. Curious and sweet, much like they had been in the beginning, Cylense named them, Muon Kukeki, Alteir Caaes, and Libana Gitta. These bright, animated children were taught by Cylense and learned and discovered with them and so, they discovered joy. Together, the four expanded and designed three universe of Cylense, including the first three planets and all upon them.

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Still working on this one, but so far, so good right?  Debating on redoing her eyelashes, but I think I’ll wait until I’ve filled in more of the picture.  Started working on this one earlier this year when I dusted off my tablet and started drawing again.  Once I’m done with this, I’ll likely start on a picture that is much less stiff.

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Progress Report: Webtoon’s Contest, Step 1.0

Since I found out about the contest, I’ve been struggling with writer’s block.  Regardless of my determination and the supportive reinforcement of my friends and family for me to get this done, the question remains:  What sort of story should I do?  To push past this, I’m changing my approach from my usual “write it a million times” method.  I seem to come up with ideas rather easily when I’m roleplaying, playing a pen and paper game, etc.  So let’s do some “one woman roleplaying!”  (That sounded better in my head, but I’m sticking with it!)

The first thing I do when entering any roleplay is to explore the setting.  For the contest, I plan to use a setting I’ve been imagining since middle school.  This would be the Cylent Universe that I mentioned in the introductory post of this blog.  The world quite literally centers around the sun itself, for which the universe is named.  The concept of Cylense is that the sun is sentient.  It is alive, it breathes, and so on.  I imagine it to be an androgynous/hermaphroditic being made up of some sort of universal energy.

This being creates the planets and stars in the solar system, resulting in worlds with beings start out with the ability to harness their own essence and essences in similar ways to herself.  As a fantasy setting, it will only have a small number of native species unique to it and I want it to hold a flexibility that allows for more well known fantasy creatures to enter in as outside, extra dimensional beings.  There will be a total of 3 known planets in the beginning, Muon Kukeki, Altteir Caaes, and Libana Gitta with Cylense being an unofficial fourth.

That’s all I have for now, hopefully I’ll have more details soon.

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An old drawing of my D&D character next to a new one.  Lairena Eitery was original a CN Tiefling Hexblade I created as a back-up character in the first 3.5E campaign I ever played.  She was fun and interesting to design so I eventually remade her as a warlock on a NWN2 roleplay server and now I currently play her in a 5E campaign I play every Sunday.  Needless to say, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this character.

Left:  Original Concept Art from 2012 Right:  Current Character Token from 2020

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Let’s Do a Contest

So I’ve been reading a lot of webcomics on Webtoon lately and so far I’m loving what I’ve found there.  So far, my three top favorites include:

Purple Hyacinth by Ephemerys and Sophism

Midnight Poppy Land by Lilydusk

Swimming Lessons for a Mermaid by YONGCHAN

There have been a few days this year already where I’ve spent an unhealthy night and morning binge reading or browsing the content on Webtoon.  But, because of this new, wonderful and probably very unhealthy habit of mine, I noticed the announcement of their Short Story Contest.

Webtoon’s Short Story Contest has two categories:  Brain and Heart and ten winners will be selected for each.  Contestants can enter as an individual or a group and there is no limit which category you submit to nor the number of entries.  For the next three months, between all my other daily tasks and side projects, I’m planning to participate in the contest and document my progress here on the CLA.  New posts will occur at least weekly, so look forward to it!

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I worked on this a long time back, then lost it due to my hardware giving out on me.  These pictures are now the closest thing I have to a back-up.  I may bring them in my editor one day and finish them off, but without my layers, I find the idea rather daunting at the moment as I don’t want to lose the detail I put into her hair.

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Update:

Made a quick update to the blog.  I’ve added an about page and a page for commissions, which are open now!

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Welcome to the CLA

The ChangeLog Archive is a sort of blog and development journal where I’ll generally post on a number of topics including: updates regarding my work on antonymZoo Studios, new art and creations I’m working on, “progress reports” on various projects, my hobbies and interests, and more.  Currently you can expect to see posts regarding my current projects:  the antonymZoo Website and commissions page, Cylent Worlds setting and character development, and Webtoon’s Short Story Contest I’m planning to participate in.  I also love games and roleplay, so you can expect some posts on that front as well.

This “Archive” of sorts, is also a project I would eventually like to expand upon in the future.  So as time goes on, I’ve plans to begin documenting my learning and creative process in a post series called, “antonymZoo Studios:  What, Why and How” and I’ll tag as, “aZS-WWH” if you want to look at those specifically.