It seems like I look away for a moment and a couple of days pass in the meantime.
But this time I need a timeline.
So there was quite some emotional turmoil over the past days, maybe the whole of January. It is not my month, and I still get a ton of work done. It just doesn‘t feel good and sometimes that is how growth happens. Nobody said it has to feel good.
23th of January, Saturday: I‘m making a short synthwave music clip with Rich „listening“ to the concrete, with minimal animation, flickering lights. This is my first video in Open Shot ever. And I also create a Youtube account to share the meme with friends.
24th of January, Sunday: To my own surprise I finish the first part of chapter 2. Usually I‘m just numb when something gets finally done, but this time I guess I must have felt some sort of metaphoric birth pains over the past days. And after I realized it is over I am very lost what to do now, so I decide to take a couple of days or probably all of the week off to sort myself, catch up with some other things and relax. I let the readers vote what flashback chapter we get next.
25th of January, Monday: I am surprised that the readers chose the tale of the death of Rich‘s father over how Rich fell in love with Willard. I had prepared for the latter. To my own surprise I write and finish the script for Father‘s Death the same day. The surprises do not end, I am making a little trailer for it on a whim, experimenting with title cards and setting the mood for what is to come.
Apparently making videos is a part of the toolkit now.
26 of January, Tuesday: I am still so emotionally overwhelmed by my own script and all the details that I now know about Willard, Rich and the world around them, that I shut off and focus on gamedev, namely a machine props concept art gig and work on „Your Land“.
The script is based on a shortened version of a standalone comic I wrote last year, how and why Rich left school at 10 years of age to become a freelancer. That script made me cry and why shouldn‘t the condensed version with a different angle not make me cry, too? I love Street Prey even more now, the more I know about my characters and their story. But apparently you can have too strong emotions that make you break down. I got into listening to Gunship at the same time which did not help, because their music is dripping in emotion. If love in all it‘s raw power and nuances was audible, it would be Gunship I‘m sure. I‘m exhausted,but inspired to improve Street Prey in the future, to translate and convey more of what I feel. I want it to be more like the synthwave music my comic is inspired by.
I get the machine gig done and start negotiating about some follow up work. I really love machines, I learned. But when I dedicate my time to design and tweak them, I‘m usually too tired to make sense in my comic the same day. Comic work needs vastly different creative muscles. So it was a really good call and great luxury to be able to do the machines in peace. I feel like I can explode and design anything now if I put in enough time to research. And I learned how to draw in isometric perspective which should come in handy for the rest of my life.
I also got a ton done for „Your Land“. Really can‘t complain how things are going, except for I‘m still very tired.
27 of January, Wednesday: Revenge of the workaholism. I crashed today after not being able to sleep at night. I respect that I have to pay some price for what I‘m doing, so I guess I am taking the few wake hours I have today off for good. The problem is, I‘m immediately bored and uneasy, yet too unfocussed to do meaningful work or reading. Or I‘m not done waking up yet. I‘m starting to suspect that some people have a hard time falling asleep and waking up and that is just a sleep type. But when they are fully awake and well, beware!
Today I also decided that I will not take part in the watercolor challenge I found. I am physically repulsed by the topic and it‘s humor and more than slightly amused about it. Yes, if forced I can do anything, but apparently I do not love everything as much as SPREY or prop concept art gigs. And that is okay. I‘m grateful for the reminder and also grateful that I might have a bit more of an idea who I am and who I am not now.
Throwing the cats out of the Styx formula, that means, my three Ms are Men, Machines and Monsters. With one of these or the combo of them I can never go wrong. Let‘s see what the future holds!
I feel the remnant of a need to justify why I take a week off and do not just continue uploading SPREY. Why should I? I have proven that I can work on it daily already, I don‘t even need daily blogs to document that anymore. In sum, I do a lot of work on the side, too, more than in the beginning of my intense blogging phase last year. Right now I‘m learning how important rest is as well. I bet this week here is helping a lot with that. I‘m exploring new land and doing my best to be grateful, even on the confused days. I want to give you an even better comic experience and thinking about what I can do for that. That might be worth a separate blog entry in the next days.
See you next time!
