#bsumo's creator blog

[bulgariansumo]

Back at it again, editing Episode 1 of Galactiquest. Version 3.0 patch notes:

-Removed all unnecessary epithets (Hopefully. I found one instance of brunet that I thought I deleted the last time around)

-Toned down the amount of exclamation points

-I think I slightly pared down a scene in Chapter 4? But I added a new one over it, so that probably cancels out

-Gave other characters a little more dialogue, especially Leon

-Changed descriptions around to be more concise, less repetitive, and less verbose (For these being Leon's chapters, I got weirdly fancy with some of the prose)

-New scene 1: In Chapter 1, a girl talks to Leon while he's waiting in the spaceport, eventually leading to him realizing he's late. This finally gave me a chance to explain why the Interstellar Forces is called that and set up that it is struggling somewhat. I think this also the first time I've gotten to mention that the IF was banned from having weapons.

-New scene 2: In Chapter 4, Jun questions why the IF would let such an inexperienced group go to Neptune (in nicer wording, but still). It sets the tone for the trip in a way that was lacking before.

As much as it stung to realize those chapters were a little rougher than I thought, I'm glad I did this. It's not a complete overhaul, but it brought the quality a little closer to my current stuff. I'm grateful some people were still able enjoy them despite rough edges.

In the times that I've asked for feedback, a few people mentioned Chapters 3 and 4 being a bit of a slog. I... did not trim them down as much as I intended. Every time I tried, it went something like this:

Hopefully, adding that section to Chapter 4 will help it feel a little more worthwhile. That being said, if I'm compelled to edit again, I know there's a few scenes in Chapter 4 that probably should go.

For people who want to see the new scenes without reading the whole episode again, I'll post them down below. If you do want to read the full thing, here's a link.

---

New Scene 1 [Bon Voyage, Celestion-5] Ch 1. Boarding for Takeoff

A monitor nearby played an informational video about Earth’s one and only moon colony: Lunaria, the city of his dreams. Though so far away, he felt like it lay within his grasp for the first time. What choice did he have but to be captivated by it?

“Are you heading to your first deployment?” The girl a few seats over might as well have appeared from thin air.

“Hm? How’d you know?” He shook his head out of a daze. Only now did he realize his mouth had been hanging open for who knew how long.

“You seemed pretty enthralled by that video for a star ranger.”

“Oh yeah. Some nights, I spent so long looking at the dome through my telescope, I’d dream about it.” He sighed. “Even now, I can almost breathe that artificial air.”

“I’ve heard it’s cool. My aunt’s paying my way. I bet you’re glad you don’t have to pay those ticket prices either, huh?” She had a pretty laugh.

“Gosh, I thought I’d have to spend my life savings just for a visit. Thank goodness for the IF.”

“You know,” she tilted her head, “I’ve always wondered, why’s it called the Interstellar Forces when we haven’t gone past Mars yet?”

“We’re supposed to dream big now and grow into it later. It worked for me, so…!” he ended with a shrug. “And who knows,” he knew, “we might be going past Mars soon.”

“That’s cute. Sorry about the budget cuts, though. No more weapons, I get, but you guys don’t even have your own ships anymore? They’re just deploying you with us civilians?”

“My ship’s kind of a special case.” Out of curiosity he decided to check his phone. “But I guess it wouldn’t hurt to che–”

His eyes widened in horror at what time it displayed. It was 25 minutes past when he should have boarded.

“Is something wrong?” asked the girl.

“Sorry, I gotta go.” He gathered his bags and hurried over to the receptionist. “Excuse me. This is the boarding area for the Celestion ships, right?” Maybe everyone else was just late. “I was supposed to be boarding a ship 25 minutes ago.”

“Oh, no sir. Are you with the Interstellar Forces? All military spacecraft are located on the opposite end.” The receptionist motioned directly behind him.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” He shook the receptionist’s hand vigorously. “Seriously, my career is in your hands. And yours too,” he sped past the girl, “have a nice trip, bye!”

New Scene 2 [Bon Voyage, Celestion-5] Ch 4. Tour's End

“Quick question.” The oddly familiar one smoothed dark, wavy bangs out of her face… or his face? Leon couldn’t tell at this angle. The androgynous voice didn’t help. “The Celestion crews were chosen by chance, yeah?”

“There’s a coupla exceptions as you’re no doubt aware,” Emil winked, “not to mention the captains, but yeah, most of us are random picks.”

“Right, cool. So, like, not to harsh the vibes, but I noticed that none of us except you and the captain are ranked higher than rangers.”

“I almost ascended to corporal~” Allen spoke up.

“I know, Rox.” The familiar one addressed Emil again. “I dunno, I kinda assumed we’d get stationed on each ship based on our experience and ability level.”

That did surprise Leon when he first heard about the opportunity. Described by his old warrant officer as ‘remarkably average in all abilities,’ he never dreamed he’d be offered the chance to go to Neptune. No one from his base deployed to space in years. He hadn’t even earned the star on his uniform yet. No way would he let such good luck pass him by.

“Huh,” Emil pinched one of his curls, “that does make sense.”

A click from the ceiling brought with it Captain Galhardo’s voice. “Randomized crews are a key element of the Celestion Project. Though each captain, including myself, went through a series of tests to ensure our capability.”

“Well, there you have it. Besides, as long as my brother’s piloting, we’ll make it back a-ok. Nothin’ to worry about.” In only a few strides, Emil made his way to the cooking area. “Over here we have a microwave, an oven, dishes, other kitchen-y stuff–Oooh, guys, I gotta show you something!”

He stuck his arm over the stove, to the confusion of Leon and most of the others, and to their horror, turned it on.

[bulgariansumo]

Me, unaware: "Oh, this unfinished Hinimato story is really fun. I should write a little more of it before I get back to Galactiquest."

And then I wrote 60 pages in the span of a month.

There's times where i go months without writing regularly for one thing. There's times where I'm able to work on one thing sporadically. And then there's those special times where I get so into a project that I can't do anything but work on it.

This story originally wasn't going to be canon, but now I can easily see it being Hinimato's "Birth of a Pilot," where part of my motivation for writing the rest of the series is to get to that point.

On a related note, the Hinimato cast is just really funny to work with.

[bulgariansumo]

Today marks 10 years of Hinimato! I don’t have nearly as much to show for it storywise, but I have a whole lot of love for these characters. They’re fun and really play well off of each other. I imagine that Hinimato overall is going to be a little more lighthearted than Galactiquest, but it’s meaningful in its own way. 

I can’t wait to get to share it! :D 

In the meantime, I’m working on a little something... Wish I could’ve had it out before today ends, but oh well.

[bulgariansumo]

It’s been 10 years since I posted the first picture of Galactiquest online. My first non-fandom characters. I had an action sci-fi story in mind when I created them, but I got so interested in them that it morphed into the fluffy slice-of-life/slow burn(?) character drama hybrid thing that it’s become. It’s definitely a story!

These characters turned into floating plot points. Those plot points turned into little scenes I’d write. I wrote more just to play with the characters. These were all supposed to turn into a webcomic, but that turned out to not be sustainable for me. Still, I kept writing them, and the scenes became short stories. This led to a much longer story that I was so proud of that I thought “Well, now I have to write everything leading up to this.”

As of now, I’m most of the way there. I’m in the process of closing out of an episode with scenes I’ve had in mind for 10 years. After that, I’ll be working on the “season” finale. A few more episodes, and I’ll be rewriting the story that spurred me into writing this series. But I have more planned after that. ;D

Making long-form stories is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, longer than I’ve had OCs. My dream was to have an animated series, but I knew I couldn’t do that on my own, so I settled for webcomics, and later web novels. Making it this far into a story means so much to me! 

A lot of the short stories I had written for Galactiquest before making it into a novel were pretty sparse, but putting them together led to a lot of fleshing out that surprises me to this day. It adds a new element of fun to writing, because even I’m not 100% sure what’s going to happen next.

My characters make me the proudest of all, though. 10 years of having these characters in my brain, and now I have a vehicle to make people feel the same things for them that I’ve been feeling. It’s great to look at my own writing and think, “Oh yeah, if this were a TV series, someone on Tumblr would be analyzing this character for days.” I wanna work on and polish my series so I can attract those people.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I can’t wait to have a similar experience with Hinimato!

[bulgariansumo]

Just passed the 200K word mark on Galactiquest. 🎉At this rate, I estimate the entirety of Arc 1 is going to be around 250-270K words or something like that.

I don't think that the later arcs are going to be quite this long, but given how I underestimate how long chapters are going to be, that's subject to change. Ultimately, Galactiquest is just gonna be however long it's gonna be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you everyone who's read so far!

I should probably make a pinned post to direct people to it.

[bulgariansumo]

Feeling mildly disappointed in my art as of late. I still like it, but on a scale of "Yeah, this is great! I'm sure other people will, too!" and "I can't see anyone else being interested in this but me. There's so many artists I don't measure up to..." I feel on the latter side right now.

I think it's one of those slumps that tend to happen before I find a way to sharpen my skills, but also it's kind of silly to be concerned with how my art may or may not appeal to other people. I can't control that. So I'm going back through my sketch pages for this year and looking for stuff I haven't posted yet that makes me happy.

February: I was watching a playthrough of a Professor Layton game and wanted to see if I could recreate Hinimato characters in my style. I did this about two or three time, but these of Toni and Nicky are the ones that I liked the most.

March: Here's Kenji being a little goofy, a little serious. He can do both. Sometimes. I posted these on Twitter, but I'm not sure if I posted them here.

May: Higgy's sister unintentionally asking him to collab with his rival. Anyone else asking this would've immediately gotten shot down, but her...? He'll think about it. Also, Toni in a cute sweater. I think I drew that on his birthday.

June: Unfinished sketch of an older Angelo and Emil.

July: A Leon, full of love. And some cute Roxies.

September: Toni.

October: I watched a little bit of the game Boku no Natsuyasumi. It's very quaint and reminded me of Toni, so I tried to draw him in that style. There's also a sketch of him with Angelo. I feel like if they were friends, maybe Angelo wouldn't have turned out quite the way he is. And finally, a sketch of Toni and Mai. They could not be more different, yet their friendship is so sweet.

November: Honestly, there's so many sketches here that I love and haven't posted yet, so I think I'm just gonna post them all.

A Maxy I sketched after rediscovering that "Wicked Witch of the East, Bro!" video, an argument he would absolutely start with someone, complete with the aggressive hair bouncing.

I think someone suggested that Leon seemed like a character who would wear goggles, so I drew them on him. Very cute! So cute, that I drew Roxie hugging him.

Every few years, I draw Angelo as Ron DeLite, the most Angelo-like character in all of the Ace Attorney games (as far as I know.) It's truly unreal how much they were cut from the same cloth. Also, there's an extra doodle of Leon consoling Angelo.

Finally, doodles of some of the Hinimato gang as adults, featuring Higgy trying his best to act annoyed that the people he respects most are in his personal space.

These aren't the best things I've made this year. I can't see these standing out to anyone except me, maybe some close friends, but that in itself means a lot. My characters, my art, and my writing make me happy and they will continue to do so even if I'm the only one.

[bulgariansumo]

As someone who often tags art as "80's anime style," "90's anime style," or "retro anime style" when uploading to DeviantArt or Pixiv, I often feel like kind of a fraud for doing so.

People have told me that my art looks like 80's/90's anime, but when I look at other people who go for that kind of style, they nail the vibe so much better.

My most recent picture makes me feel like I've nailed it. At least for now! 😅

[bulgariansumo]

As I’m nearing the end of Galactiquest’s first arc, it seems like the starting point for Hinimato is getting pushed further and further away. I meant to start on Hinimato after finishing Episode 11, but then I realized Episode 11 and 12 are kind of a two-parter, and there’s some stuff in Episode 12 (actually the very next chapter I plan to work on) that I’ve been itching to write for years. Episode 13 is the final episode of the Moon arc. There’s also a short side thing I have planned after that.

It’s so tempting to finish 13 first before getting to Hinimato. I’ve tried to do long-form story projects before, including the comic versions of Galactiquest and Hinimato, and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to finishing such a big portion of the story.

But I miss Hinimato so much. I think about the characters often, and I feel so bad seemingly prioritizing one series so much over the other. As if I don’t love them both! Whenever I’m posting art on a gallery site (or something similar) and I see how much more art the Galactiquest characters have than the Hinimato ones, I feel like it’s such an injustice.

So I really need to work on those Galactiquest chapters! For Hinimato...

[bulgariansumo]

I want to get more into talking about my own writing. Let’s see how long I keep this up.

I was thinking about the main goals of Galactiquest and Hinimato. Sometimes I forget they have one because I’m so focused on character development, but both are pretty straightforward.

Galactiquest: Get to Neptune (and back).

Hinimato: Get Higgy’s band more famous.

Between the two, Hinimato’s is more prominent than Galactiquest’s, at least for now. The Celestion-5 crew are mostly just cruising in the first arc. They don’t have to actively think about the steps they’re taking to get to Neptune. Higgy, on the other hand, is almost always on the grind. Most band-focused episodes in Hinimato are probably going to involve Higgy or his bandmates actively taking some step toward getting his band more famous.

I sometimes get a little worried about Episodes 3-7 of Galactiquest having relatively little going on compared to the episodes before and after it. But when I look at the wordcount, those episodes combined are about equal to any one of the later ones. They also do some character-establishing work that ends up being majorly built upon in the most recent episodes.