#...i need better workflow and more practice if i'm gonna keep doing this

[spacey-xannabelle]

Fateful Encounter...

Last month, at around April 10th, I decided to revisit an old project I started months prior which was to polish up a test sketch of a comic page about Lucy encountering Lumi in the dreamspace. And after slowly making progress on this, I'm finally finished with this!

I'm gonna leave some artist notes under the read more, but overall I'm super proud of how this turned out!! This is pretty much my first serious attempt at making comics in general so this has been a very interesting learning experience!

Artist notes: So this is what the original sketch for this whole thing was. It was just me scribbling out a scene I had in my head for Startrails that I wanted to put on paper:

This I'd say was made around 2020-2021 ish. At the time, I didn't really do much with it. Until several months ago, I thought of trying to redraw this page and expand upon it.

But my first attempt at doing this didn't quite lead anywhere. I barely got through the thumbnailing process and just gave up bc I lost motivation (and life/work stuff was Happening so yea I had to put this aside as I figured stuff out). Here's the first draft of the thumbnails:

It was just two pages at the time and was pretty simple. I left this project sitting in my files for a while until I one day just, started binging videos from Thestarfishface on YouTube, primarily her webcomic guide videos. And I decided I'd give this project another go.

It was here where I began making a second draft of the thumbnails and this was what I had to work with:

I wanted to experiment with the panels and get funky with the compositions this time around. The 2 page draft expanded to a 3 page thing. But I thought it would've been better if I added one more page at the end with Lucy waking up as a conclusion to wrap this whole thing together.

And in the middle of working on page 3, my friend had suggested to do a an impact frame page, which I hadn't considered during the thumbnailing, so 4 pages became 5. And this was the result!

I posted the pages as I finished them onto my deviantart so that's where a lot of my thoughts were journaled as I went along dfjsdh. To summarize my ramblings there, this project was a very fun (and a bit frustrating) learning experience! I'm hoping to keep practicing and improving my workflow, and hopefully one day make Startrails a full fledged webcomic :')

Additional ramblings:

The structure that Lucy finds Lumi in is inspired by an orrery.

For page 5, I initially didn't plan for much dialogue but as I drew it, it felt just a liiiitle bit empty, so I kinda just threw in some dialogue for Mira. But bc I was already in the inking process (and I just wanted to have this project completed), I didn't redo the page to even include Mira in it. So Mira's just out of frame sdfjskdh. If I had more time and energy to keep this up, I'd have made a revision of the page so I could include her.

This experience has taught me that I could seriously work on my rendering process a bit more, and that my layer management is just atrocious sdkfjksdfh

This has also taught me that while Medibang has the tools needed for me to draw these pages just fine, it also lacks some stuff that I personally need if I were to do a longer project like this. So I'll be experimenting with CSP next!

The dialogue throughout this whole thing wasn't all that planned out- I really just stuck close to what the initial doodle had which probably wasn't the best idea bc I just have like, 2 pages of Lucy's awkward sounding dialogue aaaa. I might do something a bit more dialogue heavy to help improve this skill next time.

Anyway, thank you for reading through my 1 am ramblings on this little project of mine shdkjhks

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - July 2024 Devlog

Howdy! Cobalt here, and wow, July really went by quick for me. Luckily, I also got a good amount of things done! In fact, I did a lot of things I've been holding off on for a while. Sorry the dev log is late,despite knowing I should, I didn't make notes on what I did this month nor did I start it earlier… Then I had a really bad time with my body (just cramps, dw!) the last few days of the month which made it hard to write. I swear I'll develop better habits for this as it goes on.

when it comes to programming, I've gotten a few minor things going on. I have a cut scene manager script now that keeps track of various things, including which cut scenes have already played but also which cut scenes you've seen between save files and stuff. This way it can make any cut scene you've already seen in any of your playthroughs skippable. I haven't actually gotten the skipping script to work yet nor stuff like triggering the cut scenes, but I'll need more placeholder sort of things to work on that stuff. The inventory also reorganizes itself after you use an item to make sure empty slots are at the bottom and filled ones are on the top. A lot, I mean a lot, of writing has been done this month. On Focuswriter [the program I use for all my writing] I hit the longest writing streak I ever had, 63 days in a row of meeting my daily goal [which is 500 words]! My in-depth/in-game writing doc has 16,783 words right now and my game design document [which contains the story summary] 20,764 words. [It actually shrank a bit because I made the story summary of chapter 1 like an actual summary, instead of being far too in-depth on a lot of parts. But that's still an improvement even if it seems weird on the word counts.] I've done a lot of writing out the story beats I've had in my head for a while but haven’t inserted it into my documents yet. I wanna focus on doing stuff like writing out the ending and more general story beats since I don't really want to go too far into development without way more of the story taken out of my mind and actually written down somewhere. Despite how excited I am to show more to the public. Since we will not be releasing It's Showtime through the chapters, I'm gonna try to make development less chapter focused, I don’t know how we’ll be releasing it, complete or in some other parts… But we’re not really far enough into development to be thinking of that yet. Luckily, I can say confidently I'm delighted with the speed of development so far. It's not much by most standards but for two queers making their first game of this scale while also balancing learning adult stuff, we've done way more than I thought we would so far! In terms of art, there's been both a lot done and not a lot. We've been doing a bit of concept art, getting references done, and speculating on things. But the place where the most progress has been made technically wasn't actually for the project itself… See, this month I think I finally started to really get the hang of blender. I finished a model for a friend of mine of their version of Evan from the Bendy Novels. It's fully rigged and I'm really happy with it. I'm also almost done with two other big models I'm making of someone's Bendy au designs and I'm sure when you guys see them, it'll make you excited for what the models in Showtime will look like. In general, I think I've finally found a workflow I'm happy with, and that allows me to make models both quickly but also to a quality I'm very happy with. I imagine very soon I'll be doing the first true collections of models for Showtime, whether they'll be the ones seen in the final release I don't know. But the practice alone will surely teach me a lot more about Blender.

As for other things… Ink Demonth is happening again and this time, I would love to create something for each prompt. They probably won't be posted daily, or in order, but still, I'd love for me and my partner to make something for each prompt within the month. Specifically related to Encore! and such. It'd be a good way to keep the blog alive and to stir up more attention on It's Showtime! This isn't a promise we will, but I thought I'd mention our hopes for Ink Demonth. Overall, I'd just advise all of you to be on the lookout for things going on with this game. I've got a lot of little plans for it that are almost ready to be put into motion and I'm super excited to show you guys more as things go on. Once again sorry it was late, but I hope this update was exciting! See you guys next month!

[1nk-ling]

What advice could you give for drawing???

I think I'm really bad ;-;

Ooh, that's hard. Take all of the following ramble with as much salt as you need because your workflow is gonna be different than mine. What worked for me might not work for you.

1: You probably know what sort of stuff you want do draw, right? But there's also probably that thing that you don't want to draw, yet you're better at it. Wanting to draw action poses but being better at drawing plants, for instance. Super frustrating.

You should still obviously practice your dificult dreams. But let yourself draw the easy/boring thing once in a while. It's good to feel like you're good at something even just by a tiny bit. Making easy art is not cheating.

2: Switch up mediums when you're getting frustrated. Want to draw with pencils but it's just not working out? Try dipping a paintbrush in ink and flinging it around. Because it's not the thing you specifically wanted, you wont want it to look a specific way. It loosens me up when I do that because "It's gonna look bad anyway." Also, if it's a permanent thing like a ballpoint pen you'll be forced to leave it be. Make bad art. It's good for you.

3: Music. That's it. Find music that makes you feel the way you need to feel to make art. It takes forever, but it's worth it.

4: Play around with art style options. Try wierd stuff knowing that you can leave it behind any time. Just because you tried drawing eyes a certain way one or three times doesn't mean you owe them your artstyle. Some of my favorite parts of my artstyle came from just slapping an aspect of someone else's art onto a drawing of mine and finding I liked it. But I left behind SO many more. Sometimes it just takes realizing you can't draw outlined eyes yet, but dot eyes can be plenty expressive and you can actually succeed at drawing them. (Very personal that last one to me)

5: Don't stop. It's basic but it's true. It's bloody war. It's probably the most horiffic thing you'll have to do in years. You gotta crank out pages and pages and PAGES of bad art. Awful, terrible, cringy art.

And I'm not going to give the "all art is good art" speech, because that doesn't help. If you think your art is bad it's because you want something better, and no ammount of me telling you that it's actually good will change that. It's good that you want something more. It means you'll get better. Just find some little thing to be pleased about so you don't give up, and keep at it.

It took me two full years to like my art, and it felt terrible the entire time. And then I started digital art and felt terrible all over again. You can do it.

Thanks for the ask.

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

LISTEN. I CLOSED OUT OF THIS FRICKING BANE OF MY EXISTENCE DOCUMENT WITHOUT SAVING JUST AS I FINISHED JUST NOW AND GOOD LORD. HEART ATTACK OF MY LIFE. ESPECIALLY WHEN I COULDN'T FIND ANY AUTOSAVED VERSIONS WITHOUT DIGGING. BUT I DID FIND IT SO IT'S FINE WE'RE GOOD

[genericpuff]

I really wanna make a comic like you did but I feel so discouraged and idk... I wish I had your motivation and discipline :(

how do you do it?

I mean - and I'm gonna try and phrase this as best as I can without sounding curt - 'motivation' as people tend to view it... isn't really how you get shit done. Like obviously I had to be motivated to take on projects like Time Gate and Rekindled but that initial motivation isn't what keeps me going each week. People tend to have the general idea that motivation comes first, action second, but you actually need to take action in order to gain motivation, as the motivation to continue comes best from seeing the results of your work. And those results can only happen if you take action.

Discipline isn't the same as motivation, either. Discipline is not beating yourself over the head to force yourself to "do the thing" - rather, discipline can only come from creating routine. It's what I've done with creating comics, but it only came after a long time doing it. And when I say a 'long time', I don't mean a week or a month or even a year, I mean a solid decade of work. Before Lore : Rekindled, I was working on Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH]; before that I drew Time Gate: Reaper; before Reaper I drew Uzuki; and before THAT I was in high school just doodling personal comics for myself (i.e. not for an audience). And every single project came with its own learning experience, audience, and results that motivated me to continue (though for some of them, I never did, a big part of growth and succeeding is knowing that failure is inevitable and some projects you just grow out of love with, even routine can't save you from not continuing a project that you're simply not enjoying doing anymore).

Drawing comics and writing is as routine to my day and life as going to work, eating, sleeping, showering, etc. even if I don't feel compelled to work, I'll still find myself picking away at a panel or two or coming up with a story beat to fill in where I'm going next. It's the kind of compulsion that comes not from internal motivation, but from not doing the thing that you usually do and that can only be gained from building habits and routine. I may not get the same amount of work done each day, some days I'll work on comics for 8 hours straight and others I'll only get a single panel done, but I still get something done (which is better than nothing, not getting anything done at ALL in the face of 'waiting' for motivation is where a lot of that discouragement can come from) and that's been reinforced into a routine that now feels effortless to do because I've been doing it so long. Just like building up any good habit like going to the gym or doing a skincare routine or drinking more water, it can feel impossible to do in the beginning, but the more you do it and commit to that routine - even when you don't 'feel' like doing it - the less overwhelming and impossible it feels and the easier it is to see it through.

As you fulfill those habits in the beginning and see the results of your work, THAT'S what gets turned into motivation to continue.

Take the motivation out of the equation in doing what you want to do, motivation is not the first step but the result of taking action. Don't wait until you "feel like it", take baby steps and start moving. If you're wanting to work on a comic, start with something small, like a single panel even. When I started out with Reaper, it would take me a month to get out an entire 18-22 page chapter; by the time I was finished, I was getting the same length of chapters out per week, and that was only possible after years of routine, practice, and polishing my workflow to the most efficient model possible (which only came with repetition and practice).

Of course, I wouldn't recommend people climb up to that output because it did take its toll on me, I'm actually currently in the middle of burnout from working on Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH] and outputting 60+ full color panels a week, that's not something that a single person is meant to do and now I'm paying the price for doing just that.

But my point is, I'm not where I started - just like everyone else, I had zero clue what I was doing in the beginning, but I stuck with it long enough to finally get to where I wanted to be. This is the same advice I'd give to people trying to write novels, or learn an instrument, or even learn how to draw.

I think the only other thing I can recommend beyond that is finding a support network. Have someone to share your results with, whether it's friends, family members, or other people partaking in your craft online. I'm in several comic creating Discords full of wonderful people who are open to giving me feedback and celebrating when I hit milestones. Think of it like having an accountability buddy - it's a lot easier to pick up new habits when you have someone else there for you to hold accountable and to hold you accountable. At the very least, it helps you feel less alone in that initial suffering of building a new routine from scratch.

It gets easier.

But the hard part is getting started and sticking to it.

And that's not gonna happen with motivation alone. You just gotta pick up your pencil (or whatever tool you're using) and start, even if it's just a little bit at a time. Some progress will make you feel a hell of a lot more motivated than no progress.

[junko-and-riri-domain]

exam season ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ ni-ki

“you aren't wasting my time, and you need rest. please, ___ this isn’t healthy.” riki pleaded, and he seemed so genuinely concerned for you.  “I know we’re labelled as rivals all the time but I want to get to know you better. as someone who ranked 1 consistently, I wanted to meet the one person who managed to achieve the same thing."

or 

you and nishimura riki are rivals under the same company. after all, being the same age and pretty much the same level of talent made you and him quite unstoppable. the company thought it’d be a good idea to let you two meet and get along, but it turned out to be quite the opposite ordeal. though, this always remained to be a respectful rivalry. nothing petty.

warnings : overworked reader, insecurities, fainting from exhaustion, hints at negative body image ( good ending ) 

note : this is also off the top of my head, please ignore any mistakes !

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ rest under the cut

what were you supposed to think?

you had to admit it to yourself though, similar age and practically same amount of skill in dance would mean that this unit would be pretty much unstoppable. it’s just ;; the unspoken consequences of young teamwork at play. 

training for about half a year at belift, you’ve become quite popular among the trainees. they describe you as a dance prodigy. if you were going to be honest, it was kind of embarrassing. the spotlight was okay depending on the circumstances but, to be described as something so honorable made you feel like you weren’t worthy of it. on top of that, your vocals were always stable while practicing, making you stand out and always place #1 on exams. 

and so you started to practice harder, with the same thought of

‘i have to prove that i’m worthy to be labeled as a prodigy, otherwise why else am i here?’ 

to ni-ki, you were always so hardworking. sometimes, he thought it was too much. he’d pass by the room you were practicing in during lunch breaks and he would see you dancing your heart out, sweat threatening to fall from your face. he could tell you were tired, but due to the rules, he wasn’t allowed to talk to you. he considered you his opponent in a way, but it wasn’t to the extent of ruining your workflow. 

and to you, ni-ki seemed like a charming rival. the way he danced had always mesmerized you, his snaps and swift moves are always close to perfect. this motivated you to practice even harder, despite already achieving extreme skill. you often nitpicked on yourself and keep saying that you’re not doing something well enough, and that you’re not good enough and you have to try harder. you honestly thought he was kind of annoying. not only is he literally so tall, he's a dancing machine. everything that you wanted to be. ni-ki may have been your unspoken rival, 

but overcoming your extreme feeling to be better than the previous day is your true rival. 

coming home after training, you were always exhausted. as much water you drank, it never felt as if it quenched the thirst you brought upon yourself from working so hard. while doing homework you always zoned out, your concentration nowhere to be found. at some point, you even stopped messaging your friends as much as before, ignoring any notification that popped up and practicing till the sun peeked above the horizon.

this feeling of wanting to slip away into well-deserved rest never sat right with you.

'if I have time to do something, then I'll do it now. rest can wait.'

---

the week before, an exam was assigned to all the trainees. the exam was to be separated by gender, but you thought this was kind of dumb. and so what did you do? you asked the choreographer if you could take both of the choreographies instead of being categorized into one section.

"that's a great idea, ___! I'll allow it this once, since you always rank 1 anyways. in fact, why don't I ask riki if he wants to do an co-op exam with you? you guys are the same age right?"

all you could do was let out a hum and nod.

'nishimura riki... I hope I don't mess anything up.'

"he always ranks 1 in exams as well so I think it'd be perfect!" he continued, a bright smile flashed across his face at the realization of a great performance in development.

he walks off, and briskly walks to where riki usually practiced.

phew

you let out a breath you didn't even know you were holding. you've done many exams before but it had never been with another person. trying to convince yourself everything would be okay, your intrusive thoughts came in again.

'what if i embarass myself? what if I can't learn the choreo and mess everything up? what if he doesn't like m- wait. that doesn't even matter- ugh.'

you stood there for so long thinking to yourself about the future that one of the trainees had to tap you on the shoulder to make sure you didn't see medusa or something. repeating your little sorries and thank yous, you left the practice room and went on your way home.

you'd think that after weeks of non-stop overworking you'd hit your limit by now. the thing is, you never learn your lesson until you have to learn it the hard way. and that's exactly what's gonna happen.

---

back to the present, riki was currently doing a run-over of what he thinks you guys should do to make the choreography better. if there was one thing you and him had in common, it's that you always wanted to be ranked 1 through hard work.

however, you disagreed with some of the steps he created, and respectfully asked if you could show him what you were thinking of. in all honesty, riki was quite impressed. he'd never seen you dance up close since all he was able to do was take quick glances, but seeing you pour your heart into what you love and being absolutely great at it, it kind of gave him the feels.

yes. the feels. the butterflies. 🦋🦋🦋

though, in the next moment, butterflies was far from what he felt. his stomach did a full 180 and his face in such a shocked state as he watched your eyes roll back as your body practically shut down in front of him. he sped down to your side quickly and shouted for help, as he tried to shake you awake.

"please please wake up, I'm not sure if you'd wake up at all if you fell asleep so please..."

was the last faint thing you heard before slipping into unconsciousness.

---

beep , beep , beep

your eyes flutter open to reveal that you were in the nurse's office in the same building. to say you were relieved was an understatement, hospitals scared you a lot more since they'd have to call your parents.

looking around the dim room, it still resembled a hospital room, monitor, needles, riki, IV, wait. riki?

your eyes practically shot back to where he sat, head bowed down in an awkward position, closed eyes with phone in hands.

honestly speaking, it was kind of cute. but you knew it was uncomfortable. and you also felt SUPER guilty making him wait for you and practically ruining practice. he stirred a bit, easy to wake up due to the uncomfy position his neck was in.

in a couple of seconds you hear him ask, "___? you're awake?"

"riki.. what happened?"

"the trainer, our choreographer and the building's medical team were all here. they said that you were overworking yourself. not only that, you didn't eat, drink, or sleep enough. which I can only assume is because you're constantly practicing."

"... I'm guessing that has to be true then, if I'm already here. riki, I'm sorry."

"sorry for what?"

"for wasting your time. you didn't have to be tangled up in my mess if I wasn't an idiot and asked them for a different exam. we could'v-"

he cut you off, “you aren't wasting my time, and you need rest. please, ___ this isn’t healthy.” riki pleaded, and he seemed so genuinely concerned for you.  “I know we’re labelled as rivals all the time but I want to get to know you better. as someone who ranked 1 consistently, I wanted to meet the one person who managed to achieve the same thing. you didn't disappoint me, you didn't waste my time, in fact, it was fun watching you disagree with the things I said. but then you fainted in front of me. I had no idea what to do, but thankfully Jungwon-hyung came in and helped me. but all that aside, your body needs rest. I've talked too much."

"it's okay, your voice seems to be making me sleepy anyways."

he didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.

you handed him a spare pillow from your bed though, so he'll just take it as a compliment for now.

he didn't know what took over him in the next few seconds but he slowly put his phone in his pocket and reached his hand out to you, his hand resting on the bed right next to your waistline. as if it was beckoning you, your hand gravitated towards his, and the warmth of his hand and his comforting presence was enough to lull you back to sleep.

---

all the trainees in the floor were gathered in practice room #1, awaiting the announcement to see who got rank 1.

of course, they were expecting you and riki, but not together at the same time.

"nishimura riki, ___ ___. rank #1"

you and riki looked at each other in excitement, you could do nothing but listen at the moment, but celebration was in order later.

celebration? oh did you mean cuddles, making sure you're rested well and eating okay, hand holding, and a whole lot of light-hearted teasing? yeah.

[end]

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ written by junko

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