#also look at me finally starting to learn how to do digital art

[catzicorn]

Meant to do a quick sketch before bed then whoops my hand slipped and it was 2am

@salt-mouse <- my mcyt blog

Bonus! Grian-Scar-Impulse-Jimmy version of the lying together in a circle scene:

[stairset]

I decided I'm taking the L and applying for the car part assembly place that my former neighbor works at cause A) she can vouch for me which increases my chances of actually getting it, B) all the places I actually wanted to work at either aren't hiring or never got back to me but this place is always hiring, and C) it's full-time and pays $17.75 an hour and I've looked at the rent prices for nearby apartments and calculated that with that pay I should be able to move out in about a year give or take so even though I won't enjoy it it'll be worth it in the long run.

[limewatt]

hghghhh i did a bunch of shit today i’m tired. art stores are fun to look around in though

[factual-fantasy]

28 asks! Thank you!! :}} 🟩

Well as a beginner beginner I used MSpaint XDD But you don't have to start out that simple or primitive in your digital art journey-

The second program I started using was FireAlpaca, and I've used it ever since I first downloaded it years ago! Its a free program that's easy for beginners to learn but also has a lot of tools for the pros!

Keep in mind though that it can be a biiiit buggy at time and has some odd quirks you'll have to learn how to work around.. <XDD Other than that, I recommend it!

(Also thank you! :DD I seem to be approaching another art block but I'd like to post again soon! :)) )

Upon googling it, it looks familiar... but I'm afraid I don't really know what it is <:((

@ibelieveinahappilyeverafter (In response to this post(?))

XDD Thank you! I'm glad you liked it! Also sorry/you're welcome for the curse! XDDD

@gamesperger

Cool lizard! But if I saw it in real life I'd probably freak out XDD my brain would register that lizard as "Yup! That's a giant spider/creepy crawly and it will scurry towards your feet and crawl up your legs if you get too close". You know?? XDD

ARENT THEY?? I'm gonna keep mine as a little golden Nugget for a looong time. Probably forever tbh <XDD

AAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ENJOYING MY ARTWORK!!😭😭💞💞🥰😭💞💞💞

@writersblockhellsworld

XDD I get that a lot about the submas twins

@antisocial-bird

:DDDD THAANK YOU SO MUCH!! :]]]

I had plans to make a follow up comic that ends with Emmet finally having a genuine smile.. (and Ingo having a genuine frown..? 👀👀) But man, I got kicked in the teeth with art block suddenly 💀💀

I already knew about the scene before watching it, so it didn't effect me too much..

But dang, I love that scene. If I hadn't already seen it beforehand I probably would have started crying.. 🥺😭😭💞💞💞

@couchwow

I have seen them in meme compilations.. but that's all I know of them. :((

I haven't decided if there will be a scar or not..

Also its kind'a the opposite. Its not looking at Ingo that reminds them of the separation.. is not looking at him that brings the anxiety back..

If Elesa goes too long without seeing or hearing from Ingo, she'll start to feel uneasy and anxious. Only feeling better when she gives Ingo a call and hears his voice..

For Emmet, if Ingo is out of his sight for more than 30 minutes or so, anxiety will start to creep up his spine. Getting more and more anxious until he is physically reunited with him.

Sometimes even needing a hug or a gentle hand on the shoulder to physically ground him and remind him that Ingo is home now. he is safe..

@glitchhayden418

I do not.. <:(((

@kaxthatsme

I played Splatoon 3 for a time! :DD And I made some ocs for it! Though I never posted their refs.. at least I made some doodles for them! <:D

Wait!! Did it taste good at least??

1: Gregory might be a little spooked by Glamrock fredbear at first, considering he's so huge! :0

2: They would probably be afraid of somehow getting the virus too.. they'd stick close together and hide away from the animatronics..

3: They are either friends or acquaintances with the other animatronics. But their friendship with each other is most important :00

Also thank you!! I'm glad you like them! :))

@kermit-ydafrog

XDDD I'm glad you seem to like my slime rancher stuff! :)))

GIMMEGIMMEGIMMEGIMMEGIMME

(Humanoid slime rancher combo post)

AAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :DD I'm so glad you liked them!! :}}

And I'm not sure about the stan twins and the train twins,, Maybe Emmet and Stanley could be chaotic together? XDD

@chaotic-public-menace

I've never heard of outer wilds.. <:00 It looks beautiful though! :))

Also the "Snort Parmesan" was what got me XDDD

@holly-opal

I've never heard of it.. <:0 But upon googling it, it looks really pretty! :))

@yourstrulylightstar283

Thank you <:}}

@mimiocto

Oh boy, that would probably go poorly <XDD

@caronaro-flipaclip

I've seen the first one, and have heard a lot of chatter about the second one.. perhaps I should give it a watch! :000

@raven-bearden-the-interviewer42

Probably the moment when him and Seafoam got their pirate ship! :00

@keakruiser

AAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :}}}} 💞💞💞

@emailimagination

:DDD Thank you!! :}}}

@tallchest13-blog

XDDD These are great

[reallyhardydraws]

2023.

i hope any of you reading this will forgive the essay. i started posting to this art blog ten years ago in 2013 when i was just at the very end of high school, uploading short animations i'd made for one of my final projects, preparing myself for art school where i was gearing up to become an illustration/animation student.

i went into my art foundation course in 2014, still thinking i was going to be going into storybook illustration or with faint hopes of becoming like a concept artist for game/animation, although even then i'd started thinking about patterns...

and then in 2015 i did go into my BA, going in for that illustration with animation degree that... usually when i talk about it in real life, i say didn't really feel like the best place for me. if i think back, the best things i got out of it were two of my best friends, one of whom is now my partner. looking back on my BA era, there's some bits of sketchbook stuff...

and while i was at university my main fandoms were thunderbirds are go and x-men for a bit... these are from the end of 2015 into the beginning of 2016...

then for a little while i was doing this still sort of pastel-ish lineless situation:

and i alternated between that and this thin fineliner type work (pretty sure all of the linearted pieces were done on paper and scanned, and all the lineless were graphics-tablet-only) - it was in this style that i started to offer commissions for the first time too.

and i also had fineliner-lined work in sketchbooks that i coloured with marker and posca pens, the colours of which were generally a bit more intense just based on not being able to slide the hue/saturation around on paper:

also 2016 was when i discovered the spongebob musical just after it's trial run in chicago (which ended in july of 2016) and i started making fanart at that point... which would have the biggest effect on the way i drew (and i did end up handing in a piece of spongebob musical fanart as one of my art school homeworks lmao)

from summer 2016 until early 2017 things were still quite soft and pastelly in my digital art, colour-wise:

and then suddenly everything got whacked up to 100% on saturation. also i was using the binary tool to give everything really thin pixel lineart for some reason.

then i went on vacation in summer 2017 and didn't draw for maybe a month? just short of? and when i came back i decided to change everything up again... giving characters blobbier, more ugly-cute faces with large squinting eyes and big nostrils and i was worrying a lot less about making anything look smooth, lineart-wise. i turned off the pen stabiliser in SAI and let it wiggle.

then... the spongebob musical opened on broadway in late 2017, i went to see it live in person for the first time... and my whole brain was ENTIRELY consumed by my love of it. i was putting that david zinn inspired pattern explosion into everything, even if it wasn't sbm fanart.

as we go into 2018, i started colouring my lineart. my biggest interest was still broadway musicals (with spongebob at the top of the list)

i think summer 2017 - early 2018 is probably my favourite art era, i was at my most bright and colourful and exciting... although i know in my actual real life i was struggling a lot with my home situation and i had been for some time. art was definitely my escapism back then, and i think a lot of the time i drew really bright, joyful stuff to try and inject that feeling into myself.

as for my university work, i was putting my focus into 3D paper-mache puppets:

and i was also starting to do more repeat patterns, mostly inspired by things around me. i'd learned how to make patterns actually tile and repeat in 2017, so made a few during my time at uni just to accompany some of my projects, but never as the focus of them. one of my university tutors told me that maybe i should put more focus on doing surface pattern, and maybe applying it to textiles, but i said i wasn't interested.

i graduated from my BA in the summer of 2018, and immediately began volunteering at the whitworth art gallery doing anything i could - stewarding, helping with arts and crafts, dancing with families...

in 2019 i was still very colourful... i was trying out more chunky colouring on characters skintones that i think was def inspired by tumblr artist jadenvargen:

but the blobbyness and ugly-cute style of drawing faces was gone by here, and i think... the way i drew characters probably had better *anatomy*, proportions were maybe a bit more realistic...

in 2020 i started adding the black shading to under the chins and some other places on characters' bodies because i started watching the anime my hero academia with my brother, lmao (and i was starting to pastelise colours a bit again, these are the most pastel-ish examples) my lineart has really smoothed back out too, though i never turned my pen stabiliser back on in SAI. i think my hand just adjusted. probably seems a bit insane to miss that, but i do.

by the end of 2020, the almost-year of lockdown over cobid had... made me a bit insane, i think, and i moved out of my mother's house and into a flat with a friend from university.

in 2021 i think things were much the same... i think from this point on is where things have sort of settled. i don't want to say stagnated, but i do think things have been very... like this for a while.

2022 - got the most exciting examples out...

also i was very into these little frames in 2022.

and then on to 2023! in 2022, i did begin trying to shift gears a bit -- hoping to put more energy into sewing and making products (like my tutor has suggested back in uni, even though i'd really resisted the idea.) i sold at a few in-person markets during winter of 2022, but got disheartened by the amount of money i had to sink in up front to sign up for a spot...

which has made me VERY grateful for the people who have supported me via online sales. it has really helped me stay afloat in 2023 - AND it has felt more wonderful than i can describe that there have been people interested in my work... especially when a lot of it has been my original designs, rather than the fanart that i expect a lot of people initially followed me for.

i've also... in the past 2 years... branched out a bit more when it comes to 'being an artist' - and have had the opportunity to deliver arts & crafts workshops with local refugee & asylum seeker support charity, afrocats. it's taken me to their home base in a church to hotels across the city where asylum seekers were temporarily placed while waiting on their new homes, and of course to my beloved whitworth art gallery, where we welcomed visitors from all backgrounds: from the typical white middle class visitors the gallery usually expects, to all the refugee visitors coming into the space for the first time.

and through my volunteering at the whitworth, i showed up so often they decided they might as well pay me. so i've also become a facilitator of... creative play sessions, my favourites of which have been outdoors. monthly, year-round, we have 'outdoor art club', where i get to paint with mud and make potions from leaves with kids & families - here you can see me tell you a little bit about it in this video below with 'crempog' a puppet character that makes videos about activities for kids and families around manchester (my bit starts at 01:10 although i am in the intro and thumbnail haha)

and then of course the summer 'PLAYTIME' activities we've had the past two years: scrap studio in 2022, and play market in 2023. it's the best freelance gig ever -- just to hang out and encourage families to be creative and have fun.

in working more in these new avenues... outside of being - as i've called myself for a long time - "an internet artist"... i've found myself more interested in this sort of thing. in being a "real world artist" too. in doing surface pattern design, and being a workshop facilitator, i find myself wanting to put more energy into these sorts of projects.

in 2023 i've also dabbled a little bit more in youtube videos! i have had a channel for a while and have made videos in previous years, but 2023 has been the year i've done the most in. admittedly most of them haven't been about my art, and more just like... random things that interest me (the spongebob musical in particular) but i've really been enjoying video editing. that's kind of an art form too, so i'm including it here!

moving forward, want to keep putting even more of my energy into other things. my shop, with a bigger range of products to offer. workshops in real life, where i can make a difference.

as for my art blog... i feel like i've done the least drawing in many years in 2023, and... well, things have been weird and complicated for a bit in my real life. i hope to draw for fun a bit more again very soon, and to return to doing things in more of a wild and crazy way, to be more creative and exciting with the way i draw things. still, here's some of my favourites from 2023:

thank you so much to everyone who has borne witness to my art journey this past decade!!! i hope you will stick with me, who knows, maybe for another 10 years if tumblr holds out. especially a big thank you to everyone who has ever commissioned me, or bought anything from my store, you literally keep me able to make art at all and i cannot, cannot, cannot overstate how much it means to me.

i'm moving homes soon, possibly into very cramped temporary conditions for a little while before HOPEFULLY starting my real life with my partner. if i can take one more moment to plug my work, then [here is a link to my online shop] and [here is my ko-fi page too.]

cheers, cheers, cheers!

- LOREN 🌈🍍🎉

[indieyuugure]

How do u draw your characters bc I want make a comic series just like you but my art teacher isn't teaching me shit so I was wondering

Should I do paper comic (doing it on paper)

Or digital (which might be a bit hard to step as I wouldn't have the stuff on hand)

Ps art style is fantastic 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Lol, I’ll try to help the best I can!

Okay, so, I’m not exactly sure what you’re having trouble with specifically, so I’ll just try to keep it general.

For starters, drawing a person at all, typically I start with a sketch that looks something like one of these:

Notice the usage of circles as guides for the joints. I find that this helps me to understand where in 3D space the character’s elbow or knee or shoulder or wherever is and can also assist with proportions before the drawing is being finalized and would be a pain to fix/erase.

Not sure how helpful this is, but here’s showing how the drawing evolves as a sketch. The circles help to predict where things’ll be so when you go to draw a rough outline, you have a guide to help you.

I draw chests as usually a trapezoid-esk shape and the hips as triangles(however I recommend drawing it more like a heart when doing girls). The head is kept a circle or oval depending on the character’s face shape and things like hands and feet are basically just a mix of squares and triangles.

Something to keep in mind, is the lack of detail on basically everything. I know from experience how tempting it is to do the detail as you go, and it’s not a good habit to have. Always try to sketch everything in as little detail as possible.

Once you’re done with your sketch, though, you can go crazy!

Here’s the second picture I did with some details.

Unfortunately, I can’t really help you with detailing since this step starts incorporating your own art style, personal flourishes, clothing taste, even level of detailing, it’s really something you have to learn on your own.

But, GENERALLY, this is where you establish key characteristics like the face, anatomy, clothing, hair, etc. Aka make it pretty!

Again I’m not super sure where you’re struggling, so this is just a general how-to, though hopefully it was helpful!

As for what medium to do your comic on, I suggest doing it in whichever you’re the most comfortable in. If drawing on paper is better for you, sticking with it is perfectly fine. I will say though if you ever plan to post said comic on the internet, digital is a lot easier to upload on the internet. But as I said, which ever is most comfortable is probably best.

If you have anymore questions about this, feel free to message me, I’ll try my best to help you to the best of my ability!

Good questions! :]

[magic-is-something-we-create]

Writeblr Re(rere)intro that's a year late!

Hi! I'm Pax, and I write Big Books that keep getting darker and darker in subject matter 🎉🎉

Basics about me:

he/him or they/them, Mid 20s

Favorite genres: Fantasy, SciFi, Horror, Mystery

Favorite authors: N. K. Jemisin, Tamsyn Muir, Brandon Sanderson, Pierce Brown, Samantha Shannon

Other things I do: Digital art (including commissions!), Twitch streams (usually art or writing sprints, occasionally video games), digital art assets and fonts (PWYW on Ko-Fi!)

Basics about my WIPs:

THE MILLENNIUM SAGA

High fantasy/Steampunk epic, 8 books planned. Book one: Firebreathers (160k words; ~700 pages) Book two: Echoseers (148k words; ~600 pages) Book three: Goddess-Touched (15k as of posting; 3rd attempt at drafting) First person, Multi POV What starts as a simple rebellion against their local Citylord becomes a flight - and fight - for their lives, as Ember Timber, their family, and their newfound friends are forced to flee overseas from the vengeful general who will stop at nothing to earn her Eternal King's favor, and will in fact relish hunting her own son and grandchildren for sport. But along the way, the crew learns that the Eternal King's immortality was not granted in return for his success as the Chosen One long ago, as they have always been told - and the sacrifice for such a thing is not only paid dearly in blood, but on its way to being repeated.

WHISPERS

Dark fantasy Noir. Currently with beta readers. 172k words; ~750 pages. First person, Dual POV. Set in the same world as Millennium Saga, ~5 years after the series concludes. Marika Swiftfoot owes her life to the Shadow of Fowden, the sorceress leader of a terroristic crime syndicate based in the north pole. When the man she once loved finally comes to collect on that life debt ten years later, she plans to kill him the moment it's safe. Too soon, after all, and everyone else she's ever loved will join him beyond the Veil. But hate isn't the only feeling that lingers between them, and when they're offered another way out of their debts, the lives of a few innocents looks like a bargain compared to the life of cruelty ahead of them. Lorelei has been hunting the Shadow for twenty years, and looking for the sister who disappeared for thirty. And here, names are legacies: she wants to earn Hopebringer before her legs give out for good, to erase the stain her father's name has left with Vowbreaker. And for that, she sees one way forward: she must never break her vows, no matter how small. The Shadow must die, and the Whispers with her. Her sister must be found, even if all that's left to find is a story. She must find answers for every case she takes on, even if she doesn't know so much as the name of the man who's gone missing.

THE LOST

Space opera webcomic. First scene fully illustrated; will release once the first chapter is complete, a week after Patrons receive the final scene. In the far reaches of space, the term "Media Empire" is quite literal; the Watchers have extended their influence throughout their galaxy filament with the help of their beloved Coliseum, and the Champion therein. After all, having a shapeshifter capable of replicating anything leads to some gruesome, spectacular fights, made all the more heartrending when they are the last of their kind, trapped in the ship molded from their kin's corpse. But while the Watchers have total control over what happens in the pit, they cannot predict the audience. And they certainly cannot predict the malfunctioning psychic implant of an assassin in the front row, and the loss of both opponents and a long-time prisoner of war to the escape.

I also post art of all of these semi-regularly, including in-progress stuff, as well as excerpts and rambling braindumps!! I'm also a huge worldbuilding nerd, so if you ever want to learn more about the worlds I'm writing, don't be afraid to ask!! I love talking about them :D

Boosts are appreciated <3 tell me about your own WIPs in the tags/replies/wherever!! I love learning about what people are working on!

[petitepatateuwu]

I'm not late for my digital art challenge, time is actually extremely early. Also my sister allowed me to use her photoshop and I am just confused because I can't adapt after looking at the same one software for four years. Also I hurt myself in Paris subway and I'm unhappy.

Don't look at the colour palet thingy, it's 5:00 am and I don't know what I'm doing.

So I decided to use this challenge to develop my dumb au ideas without taking any time to introduce you to it 😈

But because I feel like I should give some context, I'm still gonna yap about it😈😈😈

So actually, Jay isn't the one I should start with, but I'm chaotic so here you go 🫠

But it originally started when I realised that Ninjago gave Cole so little screen time that I started to make my own Cole lore in my head (sometime my brain does this on its own). And basically, I went from "what if Cole had a backstory?" to "what if I gave Cole my childhood trauma because I relate to him way too much?"to "what if Jay had siblings?" to "what if Zane was the only one with a perfect childhood?". And before I knew it an alternate timeline came tickling my circuits at night.

This then became me being mad at season 7 for bringing back Kai and Nya's parents, and decided to give (almost) all the ninjas childhood traumas based on what I understood of their character.

So in this au, Jay doesn't really have any "childhood trauma", but I kinda designed his family to be problematic in a way that he would grow with many insecurities because he lacked parental attention. And this despite his parents being awfully nice and caring to him and his siblings. It's just something that can happen, especially in large families or when the parents are so invested in their work/hobby that they tend to unintentionally neglect their kids, and I think that both are happening in Jay's family.

I'm also thinking that his parents would have difficulties understanding most of their children exposing neurodivergent symptoms. I strongly believe that Jay is on the ADHD spectrum, and as a person with ADHD symptoms as well, I'm using my personal experience to explain how he could've grown with it. (I'm not very good when talking about neurodivergence, just know that I based most of Jay's childhood problems on this video, which I think explains very well how parents can have the best intentions but still hurt their children because they don't understand them)

So of course, the final personalities of the ninjas are a bit different from canon, but I did try to make them similar at best, or close from what I understand of them, which might not be correct X). In this au, Jay is very insecure about his abilities, which results in him hiding most of the time to build/model/create/whatever artistic stuff he said he did, but also in him having more difficulties to unlock some of his powers (like the elemental dragon). After spending some time with him, the other ninjas learn how to properly encourage him to open up and make him gain some self-confidence. When he is not in a stressing situation, Jay acts rather childishly, because he was used to be mothered by his parents and his older siblings, and he is more open about his emotions than others can be, he even has trouble hiding them when necessary.

[adyophene]

Hello ! I just have a little question, how do we start drawing ? I want go draw but idk how to start- any suggestion ? Or, if for starting it's better to do it with tutos, any tutorial to recommend ?

Have a great day !

Oooh, this is a tough question to answer! I suppose one the best pieces of advice I have is to figure out, before anything, what you are hoping to draw. What style, what tones, what media.

I have a feeling this might get long, so I will throw the rest under a readmore.

For me, when I started taking my art a little more seriously (I never went to art school or anything) I just focused on finding both tutorials on the fundamentals, and finding tutorials that focused on the aspects of art that interested me, which were animation and cartooning!

They go hand-in-hand, after all, and you'll find you end up honing in on the tutorials that coincide with your interests! IE- I ended up doing a lot of figure, and expression drawing because they would help me express emotion and movement better! I also spent so, so long just training my hand to be a bit more confident with drawing steady lines just because I loved the look of clean line-work!

So try to identify what your personal draw towards art is! By doing both something you like, as well as focusing the basics, I found that, at least in my personal experience, it put me in a positive feedback loop where I could keep seeing results in exactly the type of art I was interested in! And, once you start to feel confident, that is when you start adding in little bits of study from fields you might struggle with! A 90/10 split on what you're comfortable with and then what is new is usually a good way to go about it! Weirdly enough, though I don't watch him, I saw that the youtuber pewdiepie actually had a really good set of videos where he started from being a complete beginner and improving his art over 100 days. I believe its an absolutely great watch for a new artist, because he really does a great job in showing what a brand new journey into art can look like, and explains what he thinks each day. I think my favorite line was, 'after 24 days, I was finally having fun' because that can really sum up the new artist experience. It will absolutely be a slog at times, and can be really disheartening, but when you start to see progress, becomes so, SO fun.

Here is the link to the first vid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMLEudGbxQk and his second https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJDtQTTAogk

ALSO- this was just the first video that came to mind because I watched it recently. I would recommend finding other videos about people learning to draw, or doing 30-100-365 day challenge videos. As for my personal favorite channels for art tutorials (though keep in mind, I haven't watched them in a few years ;-;, I need to study again);

There were a number of others that I wish I could link as well, but I am struggling to remember them. I hope any of that is helpful. My own art journey has been very long, and non linear, and I have to say, I'm not even satisfied with my own art! Its a endless mountain to climb, but it is so worth it to do! And lastly, I want to say thank you so much for sending this ask, you've made me dig back in to artists I used to study, and made me want to really focus back in on my own improvement!

[xephia]

Hi, i hope this question doesn't bothers you, do you have any videos of your process?, im currently starting to learn how to do digital art and have trouble knowing where to start and what to do (im always like, should i start drawing this part first?, is it better to do clean lineart or just paint over the sketch?, do i work on the lights first or the shadows?, etc)

I can probs make you a video on this at some point based on something I'm currently working on, although I have a few on my tiktok already (@ xephia) if that helps!

My process is a bit messier than many other artists - I alternate between stages of sketch and colour before I even think about ‘final colour’. I’ll start with a sketch like the ones below, then slap some rough colour on. This is because IMO colour is an important part of the composition so I want to see what works before I line. They’re not meant to be pretty or social media ready. This stage can look super messy or tidy depending on how I feel or how complicated it is. And they can look wildly different; here’s some examples:

That stage also helps me decide if I want to finish the piece or if I should abandon it (I abandon a lot). Sometimes this stage takes 15min, sometimes 2 hours, it really depends on the piece. But for me personally, it’s crucial because otherwise I find it very hard to envision how it will look later, or forget what I was planning.

Then, I do at least one more layer of ‘sketch line art’, which is basically a first layer of line art to see what works and what needs changing. I colour the important bits relatively cleanly (usually character/s) and add might some subtle shadows/gradients and/or lighting to get a feel of what it will look like finished. Sometimes I repeat this process a couple of times if I’m not happy with how the first iteration looked. This stage usually looks a little like this character sheet I’m working on, and this slice from a Kiki delivery service sketch:

It’s usually not until I’ve done all that, that I go over and do the final lineart, making it thicker, colouring the lines, redoing the flat colours, tidying it up, and adjusting where needed. Essentially I don’t start ‘finishing’ a piece until I’m happy with where everything sits and what colours I’ve picked. It’s only at this point I feel like the sketch is ready to line, and lining and final colouring can actually take less time for me than all those layers of planning somehow haha.

At this point I keep tidying, cleaning, lining, colouring, until the piece feels complete. Sometimes complete for one piece is tidier than complete for another, it really depends.

I’ll also use Procreate’s push tool to adjust things as I go in all steps - it saves a lot of time and isn’t cheating.

Although as you can probably tell from my examples, I do change this procress up a lot depending on the piece! Sometimes I’ll even paint over parts of my final piece like I did in this magical girl street. I think find whatever works for you, everyone will work differently and things like mood, energy levels, how patient you feel, how stressed you are, if you have any hand pain or shaking, and how much free time you have that day to draw can all affect your process day to day, week to week.

Some days it will be easier and more comfortable to sketch messily, other days tidier. Some days you will draw well, other days not well at all. At least for me, I find consistency almost impossible.

So I think there's no right or wrong order to do things and it's great to switch it up and keep things interesting for yourself, and different processes work for different people. Hope this helps!

[mr-orion]

Um sorry if this is awkward but you are the first person to ever like my draws <:), i and want to thank you for that!! My question is..how did you became so good at draw??? :)

Of course, your draws are super nice! I'm excited to see where you'll be in a year or two or three!

I became good by being bad. I tried new things and hacked at it over and over. I failed so much! I practiced by drawing the things I'm interested in. It all comes down to practice, failure, and successes.

In fact... I didn't start drawing until I was 17... I've only drawn for 3 years now! Ive only been serious about digital for around 1. That's proof that the best time to start drawing is when you can and not to feel bad about being behind. Take your time, you only get to make so many drawings at your skill level before you get better.

I don't have a magic definitive thing that explains why I'm good, the answer is practice. Lots of practice.

Things that helped me improve though is:

line of action

Learning my art fundamentals (line, shape, value, etc....)

Pixel art for learning color theory

Magic poser

Tracing poses and drawing my characters over it

Enjoying the process over final product

Also. Accepting advice isn't a one fits all solution will help. Also recognzing that art advice you get from a simple graphic or tik tok is often bad/useless art advice. Learning to do things takes time, good tutorials will take time. A lot of easy to digest advice may work but it doesn't mean its the best way to go about it in the long run. Allow yourself patience to watch those long video tutorials when you want to learn something.

Additionally, please! Keep and organize your drawings! You don't have to keep them all but at least the ones you're proud of. Leave little notes about why you made the piece for yourself in the future. When you look back it will feel so awesome.

[greypetrel]

Fan Work Friday Saturday

Rules: If you're tagged, MAKE A NEW POST and showcase one fanartist or fanfic you recommend (with links), and tag someone to give their recs next! Don't forget to reblog the rec you were tagged in!

Thank you so much for the tag @dreadfutures! Saving the second for later on in the week. Listen I have a hard time choosing and I'll do these on repeat if I must.

Fanartist: @salsedinepicta

Starting with her, purely because it's litterally 10 years of me being 👀 at her art, and I do love the way she mixes pictorical techniques with swirly, 2D lines. I am not a fan of pink+green combination, BUT when she does it. Add a lot of historical references and clothing and an expressive use of colour. I'm an absolute sucker for all artstyles that just looks like three paintstrokes thrown at a paper (digital or traditional) and she does that. And, she's a wonderful human being too, which really helps. <3 (she'd hate the attention but let me Will Smith meme her.)

Fanfic: To The Bone, by @shivunin

Rating: M Words: 48,373 Pairing: Cullen/Inquisitor Lavellan Summary: Depending on who you ask, either Sylaise or Andraste set a mark of fire on those who are destined to find each other. No matter how curious each of them is, neither Lavellan nor Cullen are especially eager to actually go looking for this person. Either luck or fate draws them both to the Inquisition anyway.

I debated high and low what of her fics to start from. I chose To The Bone because it's a soulmate AU. And I generally don't like Soulmates AU. But this one? Mo has a way to turn tropes and clichès around in a way that just makes them relatable, visceral and real. The way she renders human fragility and vulnerability is really heart-clenching. I know I always fangirl over her work but it bears repeating. To the Bone is played more than a Soulmate AU -it is important, but not the main focus, which tricks me into loving this- as a big story of two hurt people who needs to learn to trust someone with their own vulnerability. It's all about learning that you can trust other people, and exactly how scary a decision it is, how much it feels like a jump in the blue.

It's relatable, it's gritty, it's not the peak angst Mo can reach (for that, get a lot of tissues and click on Wander the Drifting Roads.), but it was the first of her works I read and it has a special place in my heart. For its themes, for its main character (can I hug her?) and also and particularly because it's a trope I generally don't like. And I do like to be stand corrected.

Tags under the cut!

You two whom I mentioned, if you want consider this a tag too! :)

Also: @melisusthewee @dreadfutures @inquisimer @blarrghe @blightbear @star--nymph @pinayelf @dungeons-and-dragon-age @ndostairlyrium @hollytree33 @theluckywizard and YOU

[trashiis]

Ok this is a bit of a wordy post but bear with me. I've been reading up on the tech literacy discourse and I thought I'd add my two cents, and how it connects to piracy. LONG post under the cut!

I was born in the year 2000, which puts me on the border of being a digital native. I was brought up on tech, but only in my later childhood and teens. I've always considered myself "tech literate," but no more than the usual kid my age.

The first time I ever truly experienced tech illiteracy with my peers was when I was 23, when in one of my college classes a MacOS update rendered the software we used for said class unusable. After a few days a temporary patch was released, which by that point an assignment that utilized the software was due the next day. I followed the patch instructions, which involved navigating to the software files and substituting a designated file with the provided patch. A bit more complicated than a simple update, but the instructions were clear and intuitive enough to easily understand where the file went. The next day, during a class study session, I overheard multiple people come up to the professor complaining that the software wasn't working. After the second person complained with the professor being clueless, I asked the student what MacOS version they were on. Sure enough they were on the latest version, which as we already know is incompatible with the software. I then walked the student through the patching process step-by-step, with them needing to essentially be hand held through the entire process (almost to the point of me doing everything for them). After the patch was implemented, the student thanked me and said "Wow! How did you figure all of this out?" and to me that question was stupid- I just googled "[software] [version] MacOS [version] fix", went to the first result (which was the company website), downloaded the patch zip file, and followed the instructions on the README.txt file. It was so easy, and I couldn't comprehend that this was somehow complicated for other people, especially those my age. I mean we literally grew up using computers. It wasn't until I started learning about tech literacy and learned helplessness that I finally started connecting the dots.

Tech in general is becoming extremely user friendly, almost to a fault. UI and UX simplicity is taking away any critical thinking needed to use any sort of tech. My peers are so used to one-click and/or automatic updates, so the fact that this required slightly more effort than a simple update triggered their learned helplessness. The professor was no help in this case either, since he just extended the due date for those affected with no penalty. I actually ended up making a very detailed (and I mean idiot proof detailed) step by step picture guide with screenshots on how to install the patch for the software for the class. Anyways, back to the main point- How can I blame my peers for not knowing how to install a "complicated" update when they're so used to being spoon-fed simplicity?

But hang on- how was I the exception? I'm just as used to tech simplicity as anyone else, it's not like I'm using anything differently or making things harder for myself on purpose (I'm looking at you, linux users). So why was I the only one who knew how to install this update? It wasn't until I had a discussion many months later with my mom about this tech illiteracy epidemic that I finally thought it through. I acquired problem solving skills through piracy. To start off: not piracy but adjacent- learning to install mods in Minecraft when I was 11 taught me file navigation and what a README.txt file was, as well as the importance of version specificity/compatibility. Figuring out how to play Pokemon roms on the family computer and my iPod touch when I was 12? That's piracy, and it also taught me how to work with different platforms and the art of jailbreaking. Installing custom firmware on my 3ds so I could pirate games when I was 16 taught me how to follow written tech instructions without any visual guidance. Pirating Adobe software on my MacBook in high school taught me about patching files on MacOS. All of this knowledge and inherent googling that came with it made installing the patch for my class software look like a tiny drop in the bucket in terms of complexity.

So why am I saying all of this? Am I suggesting people learn to pirate to become tech literate?

yes.

With everything becoming pay-walled, subscription services running rampant, the proliferation of closed-source "ecosystems" *cough* Apple *cough*, and (arguably) most importantly media preservation, piracy is a skill that will serve you well in the long term. It will teach you critical thinking in the tech sphere, and if enough people learn then we can solve this ever growing epidemic of tech illiteracy. I'm not really sure how to end this post, so if anyone has anything else they'd like to add please feel free to.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[titanrpg]

how i learned ttrpg design, part 3

you can check out part 1 here and part 2 here

as always, this is about my personal experience learning ttrpg design, and i claim no particular expertise or authority on what constitutes "good" game design

3

so far, i've discussed the games i drew on for the start of my ttrpg education. now let's talk about how to improve (when you need to/if you want to). now, i'll say i don't think "improving" is a great way to think about it. i prefer to think about it as "how to be aware of the tools you need to accomplish your design goals"

for some people, the three games i've discussed are plenty for them to get started. these people tend to like experimenting for themselves and then doing more research when they need help. (i fall in this category.) other people may want to read more before starting in earnest. this is also a smart way to go. (obviously you can go overboard with researching so much that you never actually start, but we are far from that place here.) either way, at some point you'll need more information than you currently have.

how do you find the wisdom you seek? the best answer is simply asking for help from people you look up to/trust. but i've never been good at asking for help, so uhhh this post exists

quick story time. i recently visited maryland to go to my partner's sibling's wedding. in a local comic shop's manga section, i saw this book. i was like, oh fun, it's a manga about kids playing a goblin slayer ttrpg.

but then, when i opened the book...

mechanics!!

it's a TTRPG!! i don't know anything about goblin slayer, but now i'm combing through this book for cool tech. of note so far: at the end of every round of combat, each player has to make an attrition check. fail that, and your fatigue score goes up. at 4 fatigue, you fall unconscious. at 5, you die. punishes long fights and incentivizes players to find alternate solutions. it uses only d6s. and there are sections of fiction illustrated with beautiful manga art. these choices feel old school to me, but it came out in 2019. now i'm really excited. i'll get to see what japanese osr is like!

to me, this pursuit of ttrpg tech feels like discovering an ancient library and searching through old tomes for the power i seek. and there's an online version of this that anyone can dig through for ttrpg tech: osr blogs

old school renaissance/revival, or "osr," as far as i understand it, is a ttrpg genre/design paradigm, typically along the lines of old school d&d. i'm not the best person to explain this, but the way i think about this school of design is it tends to prioritize player skill over character skill. it's the difference between solving a puzzle and rolling to solve a puzzle. because of this, they often make really cool mechanics for challenging players that don't just amount to "roll a 20, do the thing." they also tend to share their thoughts on traditional blogs.

here's an amazing, meticulously catalogued library of keystone OSR posts

by marcia b., @/traversefantasy on twitter, who has an OSR blog of her own using marxist and freudian frameworks for analysis

rise up comus

by josh mcCroo, who's working on a game called his majesty the worm. pretty sure i don't have to say anything else

permanent cranial damage

by ava islam, whose assertion that "Armour Class and Hit Points are the same thing" blew my mind when i was starting out

goblin's henchman

which is where I found the hex flower tech that i adapted for HEXFALL's main mechanic

and one non-OSR blog, that of jay dragon

yes i am a possum creek fangirl. this blog is bananas good. if you haven't read up on playground theory, oh boy you're in for a treat

final takeaway: you never know where you'll find new tools and ideas!

obviously credit people and don't use what's not yours. but have fun and share cool tech with others when you find it!

hope this was helpful <3

p.s. another place that apparently used to have a ton of ttrpg activity was google+. every so often i hear whispers of digital libraries filled with all sorts of salvaged g+ ttrpg treasures. never seen an invite link with my own eyes though. if you hear anything, let me know, will ya?

[amadeusgame]

A Small Developer's Next Fest Retrospective

This write-up is mostly intended for people working on their first indie game who have no idea what to expect from an event like Steam Next Fest going in with a relatively small following and wishlist count. Almost all of the advice and available information I have seen is geared for games that have wishlists in the 4-5 digits, which is decidedly not me. So I am publishing my numbers for reference.

For full transparency and disclosure, Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz went in to Next Fest with 137 outstanding wishlists. This number was huge and hard-earned for my standards, even if it's a number that most studios consider "nothing." If there is one takeaway from this writeup, I hope it's that "nothing" is highly contextual, and any number you worked hard for is substantial.

As the Fest wraps up, the current outstanding count for Amadeus is....

259.

That is almost double what I started with. THAT'S HUGE!

It is incredibly important to keep perspective in mind when analyzing numbers like this. If you go in to Next Fest with 40k wishlists, getting ~120 more will feel like absolutely nothing. But if you go in with under 150, 120 is remarkable and significant. So whatever amount you have in anticipation of Next Fest, set your expectations based on that. Don't compare yourself to a super polished game made by a team of 30 people and a budget.

What follows is a lot of numbers and strategies and analysis of what I tried and how I think it went.

This write-up is going to be split into three sections.

The first is "Strikes Against Amadeus," in which I will outline all of the things I did that were not-optimal. You can decide whether to learn from that and avoid the same issues, or understand that doing them anyway means your numbers will suffer (as was my approach). This first part is very writing-heavy and has a lot of speculation and subjective commentary from a small solo dev POV.

The second section is "What Apparently Went Well," discussing the things that I think contributed to the game almost doubling its wishlists. Clearly, I did something right!

The final section is just numbers and data. Numbers on wishlists, wishlist deletions, correlations between stream viewership and wishlists/stream viewership and timeslots, etc. Feel free to skip directly to this part if you just want data.

I. Strikes Against Amadeus

Things that certainly contributed to it not doing as well as it might have.

Unpolished demo

Capsule art doesn't really show what the game looks like

Inconsistent gameplay

Streaming mistakes

1. Unpolished Demo

First things first—I ignored a very key piece of advice about getting the most out of Next Fest. Ignoring it was the correct choice for me, but I am aware it almost certainly had a negative impact on the numbers.

The advice: do not enter Next Fest until your demo is basically release-ready, as polished as it will ever be.

Next Fest is showing your game to a massive audience who are checking out hundreds of games. If you want your game to have a chance of standing out it should be the best it's going to be. And you only get one Next Fest for your game.

Why did I ignore it? Because I am a solo developer with limited time making a game that will never feel polished, and I wanted to focus on the big picture of my game's eventual release.

I am aiming to release the full game in October. If I waited until the following Next Fest, that festival would also be in October. I already know from releasing the demo that a release is MASSIVELY time-consuming and stressful. Do I want to deal with the stress of participating in a week-long festival while I am also dealing with the stress of a release? Absolutely not. I decided it was better to enter the June festival so when October comes my attention is not divided.

Given that I'd decided on the June festival, I was faced with another decision: I had already made many mechanical and writing improvements in my test build since the released demo. Should I update the demo build with those improvements before the Next Fest, so the demo feels better?

For similar reasons, I decided no.

Pushing an updated demo build would probably require a dedicated week just to test & troubleshoot all platforms in case something broke, and I am deep in the middle of development to finish the full game. Taking a week off of development to release a slightly more polished build for Next Fest felt like bad prioritizing.

I already know my game is a bit scrappy, and unlikely to do Big Numbers no matter what. More importantly, it doesn't matter HOW many wishlists I get if I don't actually finish the full game for release. So I focused on just continuing to work on my game.

If you choose to enter the Fest with an unpolished demo, as I did, you do need to accept that this means a lot of people will pass on it who may have given it a chance if it was more finished.

If you are anything like me, you might also need to prepare yourself for getting stressed out when you find yourself with 200+ people watching your unpolished game in real time, in silent judgement, causing you to become hyper-aware of every flaw and imperfection.

2. Capsule Art Doesn't Showcase Game

I knew that my game's store visual assets are not, shall we say... optimized. You can barely read the game's subtitle in it. It's also one of the only capsules in the whole Visual Novel category of the fest that doesn't clearly show what any of the characters actually look like.

I DO think that it looks unique, which is a large point in its favor, but I should probably consider making the protagonist or other discernible-at-a-glance art visible so people can see what the game actually looks like. There are so many hundreds upon hundreds of games in the Fest to scroll through, and a lot of people might scroll right past mine even if it's a game they would like because the thumbnail shows them nothing about how the game itself looks.

I'm not a graphic designer and my budget for this game is $0 + all my spare time, but it might have been pertinent to learn a little about graphic design principles in much the same way I have learned a little about animation principles to create Amadeus's walking animation, etc.

...That said, I am kind of attached to the non-optimal thumbnail just because it really does look different from all the others. Sometimes standing out isn't a good thing, but hey. This game exists because of unmarketably niche self-indulgence. I still feel that it suits it in a way.

3. Inconsistent Gameplay

This is something inherent to my game that I will absolutely not be fixing, but it is worth addressing.

Amadeus has scenes that are pure visual novel with minimal, if any, player input. These largely just feature text, character sprites and/or CGs, music/sound, and... that's really it. There are barely any choices or interactions to speak of.

It also has scenes where you control Amadeus and interact with the environment via point-and-click (or WASD) gameplay. These portions were inspired by my love of games like Zelda and Paper Mario, and for better or worse, I basically refused to compromise on the vision of actually walking around and controlling a little guy in my game.

These two gameplay experiences, in all honesty, have very little in common with each other.

Important note: I scripted every mechanic in the game myself, which means that neither of these very distinct scenarios feel polished (the visual novel scenes don't have pauses after punctuation in the shipped demo - I only figured out how to do this very recently; and the point-and-click scenes have janky pathing where Amadeus walks against walls not-infrequently). This means both gameplay types introduce potential friction/frustration because they're unpolished. This also makes the player experience very inconsistent between scenes.

The reason I draw attention to the inconsistency is that I noticed, during my livestreams throughout the week, a particular pattern in viewership.

It seemed at first that I would accumulate viewers during the point-and-click segments and they would drop off dramatically during VN segments. I attributed this to an elitist "VNs don't have GAMEPLAY" attitude and shrugged it off, until I noticed on a later stream that the exact opposite pattern was happening.

On that later stream, I accumulated viewers during long VN segments with no "gameplay," and they dropped off dramatically when it transitioned to a point-and-click gameplay segment.

That's when I realized that it's not a matter of one part of the game being Better To Market than the other; it's a matter of people generally valuing consistency. This bodes very well for people making pure visual novels, or otherwise hybrids that are more cohesive than mine is. The fact that my game feels like two different games awkwardly shoved together is, understandably, off-putting.

This is also not an aspect of my game I have any intention whatsoever to fix. The jarringly different gameplay experiences in it are a core part of its identity as a visual novel inspired by Sonic Adventure. However, it is probably worth noting that this doesn't make it very marketable.

(Maybe I should put Solea in a mech in Episode 2?)

4. Streaming Mistakes

This is probably the #1 thing to fix for next time I participate in a Next Fest, and the easiest adjustment to make now that I know better.

Before Next Fest, you are encouraged to sign up for 2 hour-long slots during which your game will receive a spotlight on the streaming schedule. This grants it a significant boost because the stream schedule is right there on the main page of Next Fest.

I've seen a lot of debates about when to schedule these and I do not have enough data points to draw any strong conclusions other than "definitely take advantage of this and schedule two, on two separate days." I've published my own numbers in the data section.

If you take no other advice from this write-up, take the following:

Test streaming to Steam before the Fest.

Publish your scheduled stream events before the Fest, so they appear on the schedule in advance.

Start streaming at least an hour before your spotlight time begins.

Continue streaming until you are back down to what an average, no-spotlight stream viewership for your game looks like.

My biggest "mistake" was really that I had no idea what average, no-spotlight stream viewership looked like because I scheduled my first stream at the start of the fest. I did start about an hour before the spotlight, and was steadily climbing in the double digits of viewers. I assumed this was with no boost (as my spotlight hour hadn't started). During the spotlight I averaged around 200 viewers, which felt insane. After the spotlight, I kept going for another half hour and it went back down to a little over 100, and since I was kind of exhausted and stressed I cut stream.

The next time I did a stream with no spotlight.... I averaged, um, maybe 8 viewers.

This was a very important lesson.

I still tried to do streams just about daily, mostly at night when I had time (and since there were fewer streams total, these seemed to do very marginally better anyway; maybe averaging closer to 10 viewers); but not very long ones. I didn't want to stress myself out trying to maximize exposure when I knew my game would never be a smash hit on release anyway, especially since the story won't be finished until all 5 episodes are out.

These smaller streams were really key in helping me figure out what viewers were looking for, though. I kept a close eye on viewer count while playing to look for patterns. More on that in the "What Went Well" section.

My second spotlight stream was on Saturday, and this time I started streaming about an hour and a half before it started. The beginning was pretty average, maybe slightly above average, but right on the hour-before mark I saw a pretty sizeable boost to an average of 30ish viewers (compared to 10ish, that's significant!), and then the hour itself saw a peak of around 400 viewers and an average of around 350, which is almost twice as good as the first stream, and just totally nuts. After the spotlight hour ended, I stayed live for another 2 hours because it was still in the triple digits and I knew that I would never get those numbers again. I eventually cut stream with still over 70 viewers because I was exhausted and needed food, but boy, was that a learning experience!

If I had kept going for another hour or so on Monday's stream (not that I knew better at the time), I really think the numbers from that day could have been even stronger.

II. What Went Well

This section covers the 4 major things that I think are working in my game's favor and helping it gain some interest.

Unique aesthetic identity

Additional marketing efforts

Good tagging

Adapting Livestream Approach

1. Unique Aesthetics

It's impossible to put a number on this, but I believe the fact I am a musician and an artist well before I am a programmer means the game has an aesthetic vision that stands out. It looks and sounds very unlike almost anything else I can immediately think of, including its clear influences. And because I have coded the mechanics myself instead of using an engine built for that purpose, I have made my life harder for no reason, and also made a game that feels unique.

If you can't be marketable, be memorable! Not a lot of people proportionately are going to find or be interested in Amadeus, but I like to think some of the people who saw it were captivated by the heart I've put into it and the clear vision I have for it.

2. Additional Marketing

This will be further outlined in the numbers section below, but on most days of the Fest I did some shilling elsewhere (mostly on Twitter) to try and get the most out of it. I have no way of knowing whether this was successful, but I will note which days I did which external shilling in case it is insightful.

I sincerely apologize to all of my Twitter followers for all that spam, by the way. You only get one Next Fest...

3. Good Tagging

This was almost certainly invaluable. There are SO MANY games participating in the Fest that anyone just scrolling through upcoming games will never see mine, as it's almost at the bottom in terms of wishlists. But the whole point of the Fest is to connect gamers with games they want to see, including really specific ones.

Steam has an awesome tagging wizard to tag your game on their store to identify really specific factors that people might look for. People browsing the Fest can use tags to filter for games that sound appealing to them in particular. So even if there are thousands of games, someone looking for a very specific type of VN/point-and-click that Amadeus fits the bill for should be able to find it.

(Even before the Fest, I am certain a nonzero number of wishlists came from my game being tagged "werewolf.")

4. Adapting Livestream Approach

Related to a point above, on what didn't go so well... in my second spotlight stream, I was able to get a lot more eyes on my game from knowing full well how much the spotlight hour mattered, by starting earlier and continuing later.

I had also learned from paying close attention to viewership patterns during the smaller streams over the week that certain behaviors on stream tended to drop viewers like flies. Opening menus too much instead of just letting VN scenes play out turned out to be a big no-no! I thought they'd want to see GAMEPLAY AND INTERACTION(TM), but it turns out viewers do not want to see adjustment of text speed sliders or opening of a backlog on someone else's pace; viewers want to see the game so they can decide if it's one they want to play or not.

I learned from this, so by the time my second major spotlight hour came around, I knew that the optimal way to play for viewers was just to toggle on the auto button and watch the Sonic Adventure 2: Battle 180 emblem speedrun world record VOD on another tab until a point-and-click segment came up.

III. The Numbers

Data from streams, wishlists, demo plays, etc.

I showed the overall total wishlist numbers from "demo launch on Steam store" to "right now" at the top to show just how much Next Fest has helped, but here is another view of that: wishlist adds and removals per day, since demo launch through Next Fest:

The big peak you see on the right, from Day 1 of Next Fest, is the single biggest day ever for wishlists the game has ever had. INCLUDING LAUNCH DAY.

I saw so many people say "Next Fest isn't going to help you if you're a tiny game with 50 wishlists," but, I mean.... I'm a tiny game with ~130 wishlists, and it has helped massively.

Zooming in on the Next Fest week:

I'll transcribe the exact numbers, for both wishlist adds and deletions, because the deletion number is interesting too:

Sun Jun 09 - 3 adds, 0 deletes Mon Jun 10 - 38 adds, 1 delete - Scheduled Stream 1 Tue Jun 11 - 19 adds, 4 deletes - Unscheduled Evening Stream Wed Jun 12 - 16 adds, 0 deletes - Unscheduled Evening Stream Thur Jun 13 - 9 adds, 1 delete - Unscheduled Daytime Stream Fri Jun 14 - 10 adds, 0 deletes - Unscheduled Evening Stream Sat Jun 15 - 24 adds, 4 deletes - Scheduled Stream 2 Sun Jun 16 - 16 adds, 0 deletes - No Stream

Adjusting for Additional Marketing:

It is probably worth noting that on the following days I made a lot of annoying Twitter posts shilling my game trailer on blue check accounts asking people to post their #indiegame. I have no idea if this influenced the numbers, but here is the amount of shilling per day:

Mon Jun 10 - 1 original post advertising the stream Tue Jun 11 - 2 original posts advertising Next Fest, 11 replies to "show me your indie game in Next Fest" blue check engagement bait posts (I am sorry) Wed Jun 12 - 1 reply to "show me your indie game in Next Fest" blue check engagement bait post Thu Jun 13 - 1 reply to "show me your indie game in Next Fest" blue check engagement bait post Fri Jun 14 - 1 original post advertising the stream Saturday. Lots of unrelated posting about Sonic the Hedgehog Sat Jun 15 - no posts Sun Jun 16 - 1 original post saying "it's my birthday play my game" that got more engagement than usual (5 RTs)

Important data points:

The two biggest days for wishlist deletions - ever - were Tuesday and Saturday. Presumably Tuesday is because it is the day following the most adds ever, and people got around to playing and decided "nah." Presumably Saturday is because it was the first weekend day where people got around to trying the demo and decided "nah."

The two biggest days for wishlist adds were Monday and Saturday. These correspond exactly with the days of my 2 scheduled streams. While I have heard that generally wishlists start high and taper off as the week goes on, the Saturday stream clearly had a massive impact on wishlists. That said, although it had almost twice as many viewers, it did not have nearly as many wishlists, implying the stream was far from the only factor.

Sunday performed above average and I did not stream at all that day.

Thursday performed the lowest throughout the week, and I streamed around midday (other days I streamed at night).

My extrapolations from these data points:

Small non-promoted daily streams... may not really matter; considering how well Sunday performed on a day I didn't stream at all, it seems that the boost I got from doing those small streams could be negligible.

That said, I recommend streaming late at night and not at midday if you are a smaller game for unscheduled streams.

It is difficult to tell if Thursday's low performance was due to the lower-than-average stream attendance from streaming at a more competitive time, or if that is just expected on a Thursday. Also, with numbers this small, some fluctuations may simply be statistically insignificant.

The "worst" day of the fest was still WAY above average for the game, and 4 days of the fest did better in wishlist adds than any other day except Day 1 of demo launch.

I obviously cannot say how well this scales to games that go in with 400-1000 wishlists, or games that go in with 50-100. But hopefully this helps!

I also want to show some metrics from the streams, including the times and whether they were spotlight streams or just extra streams. BEHOLD. DATA:

Mon Jun 10 - 278 max viewers | 7,213 total viewers | 2h16m Tue Jun 11 - 19 max viewers | 454 total viewers | 1h30m Wed Jun 12 - 10 max viewers | 161 total viewers | 1h00m Thur Jun 13 - 12 max viewers | 247 total viewers | 1h58m Fri Jun 14 - 18 max viewers | 481 total viewers | 2h30m Sat Jun 15 - 428 max viewers | 10,440 total viewers | 5h11m

That comes out to the following "average viewers" (total/length):

(All times in Pacific.)

Mon: 53.0 viewers/min - 1:15PM-3:33PM - spotlight 2PM-3PM Tue: 5.04 viewers/min - 9:00PM-10:31PM Wed: 2.68 viewers/min - 9:40PM-10:41PM Thu: 2.09 viewers/min - 10:54AM-12:53PM Fri: 3.21 viewers/min - 9:14PM - 11:45PM Sat: 33.6 viewers/min* - 9:34AM - 2:46PM - spotlight 11AM-12PM * this is much lower than monday only because the stream started well before spotlight and continued for another 2-3 hours after the spotlight ended, whereas Monday the stream only lasted a little longer than the spotlight hour.

Here's how the spotlight hour affected the Saturday stream, so you can see the boost in the hour before as well as how even with the drop-off after, it's a significant boost:

The boost at that first vertical boundary is it going from ~10 viewers to about ~30 viewers on average, then it is probably obvious where the spotlight hour itself starts. Notice that even with the sharp decline after it ends, it still tapers off to well above the average before the hour.

This is why I think it's essential to stream an hour before your stream starts, and continue well after the hour ends until viewers have truly tapered off to nothing significant. You'll get way more eyes on your game than you would any other time of the Fest!

I honestly have a lot more data points, but this post is getting long enough as it is. If you have any particular questions please feel free to send them my way. My primary goal is to put numbers out there for a game with a very small following, because I want small creators to have some data points on which they can base expectations for their own experience.

I hope you find this helpful or insightful! And if you're interested in a visual novel/point-and-click hybrid about a shithead teenager werewolf getting trolled by Witches in a super metanarrative-y game about memories and trauma, you know where to find it.

Good luck out there!

[concerningwolves]

There's a post I can't find now that was expressing frustration that a lot of writing advice on writeblr (don't edit as you write, try switching POV for a scene if it's not working, only write the dialogue/only write the action, etc.) is for first drafts and not subsequent drafts. And I do agree, at least in part; a lot of writeblr is focused on how to, y'know, write the story.

It did make me think, though, and what I thought was this: ogres are like onions.

Or, more accurately: stories are like onions (and ogres?), because they have layers, too.

Writers who use the drafting method write drafts, and with each draft, the story gains more layers (layers of meaning, plot coherency, more cohesive ideas, etc). By draft four or five, a story has enough layers that it looks both pretty and structurally sound. Ideally, the only changes you'd need to make at this point are upper-layer, superficial ones – reshuffle some paragraphs, cut some excess scene padding, smooth out some awkward prose. Maybe rewrite or reposition a couple of scenes. Mostly though, the story feels fixed in place and is semi-polished, which is often the biggest obstacle preventing a writer from solving a problem.

Early drafts typically come out kind of wonky and unstable, their component ideas still sludgy from the primordial creative soup. Writing them can feel like sticky, awkward work – but it's also when the ideas flow most freely! The prospect of going back into that sludge might suck, especially if you've already started to see the final version of your story take solid shape, but it might also be the answer to the problem. Sometimes you have to peel back the pretty layers to look at the uglier structure beneath to see what isn't working. Other times, you need to be more hands-on and pretend you're still in the primordial creative soup to get the brain gears properly lubricated again.

Digital art also has layers. Some artists start with a rough sketch, others with blocks of colour. As the layers build up, so does the picture, but every now and then there'll be something about the picture that just isn't right. If the problem is in the sketchy early layers, the usual options are to either a) go back down to that layer and fix it there, then correct the upper layers to match or b) start again, this time learning from the mistakes made before. If something isn't working for me when I'm doing a digital painting, I'll also sometimes open a fresh canvas and mess around with the same concept in different variations as if I'm starting from scratch, then return to the original piece and use whatever I learned to fix it. So long as I don't prematurely flatten the layers, I've got plenty of wiggle room to figure things out in.

So, yes, some writing advice is only going to work for specific stages of story-making. But also, the creative process is a dynamic one, and no part of a story needs to be set in stone until all the layers have been flattened into their final form, ready for sharing with other people.