"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #21

Another self-portrait, very work-in-progress (as in, barely got started), but the holidays have a tendency to derail so whatevs.

 

Righty-o, then.  See you over the weekend for a chapter update!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #20

Yeah, so it just kinda hit me now that this self-portraiture doesn't really have much to do with the story of P:S, but it's something low-stakes that I can pick away at over the high-activity of the holidays, so I'm fine with it.  I got this one done at last!

Click for huge!

I like the grayscale one better than the full-color, and part of that is probably because my color-sampling method isn't the best - I literally pick an area of skin which I think "looks normal," use the smudge tool a whole bunch, then use the eyedropper tool and start over if I don't like it.  This is, of course, in keeping with my only real art technique of "fuck with it until it looks right."  But I'm sure I'll improve with practice.

Anyway, that's all for today.  Cheers!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #19

Sliding this one in under the door!  Look, between the tutoring gig I took on (which just recently ended), holiday activities, arguing with fascists and proto-fascists on the internet, and mental health stuff, I actually haven't been able to do more than 20 hours of work on P:S in the last two months.  This is me getting back on track.  I had a bunch of written material ready to go, but it has all run out, and now it's friggin' Christmas.  ANYWAY.  I'm just writing off the last three weeks of missed updates, because I love myself and sometimes I just fall off the map like most authors and artists do from time to time.  Here's some work on my self-portrait, trying to just bang out the solid color fields:

Click for huge.  I haven't blacked in the lace on the dress,but that's a whole fkn thing and it's my bedtime, so whatevs.

That is all for now.  I'll see you on Saturday for a chapter update.  I've been struggling with this one, because Chapter 11 (Journey to Salinas) is forked in three different directions for most of it, and there are plot points from each of them that I want to include, which makes it way too long.  But if Chapter 11 is split into two, then Chapter 12 (Over the Sands and Along the Coast) becomes Chapter 13 (Hope's End), and Chapter 13 is supposed to be when Pannych dies.  So... uhh... I mean, that was just a happy numerological coincidence, and I'm willing to let it go.  But I spent way too long staring at the screen and trying to decide.  I'm decided now, though, and Pannych dies in Chapter 14 now.  Oh, well.  Maybe I'll smash together a couple chapters earlier on when it's committed to paper.  We'll see.  Cheers!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #18

I have missed a couple of art updates while everything else has been on autopilot during this busy time.  Rather than backdate a make-up post, I'm just gonna leave 'em like that to rub my nose in it.  And here's a self-portrait I'm working on, because I don't feel like doing Tom's cabin right now.

I realized at some point that this is the first time I've ever tried to draw myself, unless you count a thing I did when I was fifteen:

I still like that drawing, kinda.  Hey, it's just a couple weeks away from being twenty years old!

Anyway, here's the sketch overlaid on the photo, because I always think that looks neat:

OK.  Time to get back on these art updates!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #17

Today's art update is more from the archive; this time, characters I cut entirely.

Back in the day, I had intended Project:  Spiral to branch out into different layers of consciousness.  Each part of the story would be progressively more removed from my past and more concerned with my executive functioning.  It was very psychological, and it got way too crazy (probably because I got most of my ideas during manic phases).  The end of it was basically I'm Transgender And I'm Free To Do What I Want - which is a fantastic moral for any eggs out there, but not much of a payoff for that long of a story.  So I made the titular Spiral about time instead of layers, and accordingly, the character of Dharmakaya Amber Hart no longer made sense.

The rest of her story is below the cut... and to be honest, I'm only sharing this because I'm too busy to create new art right now, and so I'm digging deep into the archive.  I'm not proud of what this content says about my past.

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #16

Hi!  This has been a crazy busy week, and today was a rough day, so I've got more art from the archive (art-chive?  Maybe.) behind the cut.  This time, it's sundries and miscellanies.  Enjoy!  (And don't forget to click for huge!)

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #15

This was supposed to go up last Thursday (and that's where I'm putting it, by the stars), but I got way busier than I expected.  It's a good thing:  I'm booking more jobs, and more kinds of jobs, which means more financial stability but also less time to do this blogging stuff.  Fortunately, I have the P:S chapters and stories about my life on autopilot for the next month and a half - I just have to figure out what to do about the art updates.  I'm thinking a "retrospective" theme.  This week's retrospective is on Alice.

Everyone's favorite snarky zombie elf!

Back in the days of Project:  Suck the comic, Alice was a palette-swapped Roll sprite:

 

Project:  Suck strips featuring Alice.  Click for huge!

Her illustrations were also fairly by-the-numbers, unlike Pannych and Phyr who had their sprites changed to match their jaunty garb (though Alice did get costume changes that the others did not, outside of their power forms).

Over the following years, I redesigned her a bit to make her less like Roll - but I still kept her super-skinny, so meh.

When it came time for the reboot, I decided she needed a new build.  As Alice had previously been a love interest for Vulcan (now Rayla) and Pannych, and I had since axed that angle, I thought it would be thematically symmetrical to model her after Lady M's physique.  If that doesn't make sense to you, then it at least makes sense in my head.

OK, that's all for now!  Stay tuned for... Jegus, it's only three days until I have to come up with an actual plan for this shit!  Wish me luck!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #14

Made some good progress on Tom the Prophet's cabin!

OK, that's all for now.  Just happy to get this in on the actual day it's supposed to be.  Cheers!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #13.5

I completely forgot that yesterday was Thursday!  Nothing bad happened, just a busy week.  Here's the sketch of HellPhyr, finally complete with ENERGY LEGS!  (Any Picnicface fans here?  Anyone?  Bueller?)

I'm actually not too happy with how the energy stuff came out, but I need to A. be done with this, and B. do other arts; and this has been kinda holding me back.  Hopefully, I'll figure out what I did to make other magicalnesses look so good decent, and do that again.  My modus operandi is mostly "fuck with it until it looks right," and that time-honored technique is suddenly failing me... sad face.  Wish me luck!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #13

Right, so... still working on this one, haven't made any progress this past week.  There's been illness, doctor appointments, and we have a dead mouse in our oven and are taking increasingly-involved steps to try and get it out - just tonight, we determined that this is beyond us and we need a professional 'cuz we can't even find the fucker, only smell him.  Also, Lady M looked up hantavirus because of course she did, so now every cough has me wondering if it was wetter than the last, since Mickey or Jerry or whatever his stupid name was had been in the house for several weeks, eating and pooping, before he decided to probably die in a fire.  Grumble, grumble.  So I'm putting this out just to have something up on time, and some previous sketches from years past are below the cut.

Land's sake, why couldn't that mouse die somewhere convenient for us?

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #12.5

Labor Day is part of Labor Day Weekend, so there.

This is a half-assed one because I got a winning inspiration for how to fix the first chapter and get where I want the story to go but then I had to go and scrub any references to Chapter 1 shenanigans from the rest of the book and I didn't really mean to edit the whole fkn thing this weekend but yup that's how it goes sometimes.

Anyway, here are some sketches I'm working on of HellPhyr:

I don't seem to be able to draw him with a consistent volume of hair, but they're sketches anyway, so I didn't bother with erasing.  The main thing is the outfit design, anyway.  I'll be working on getting the edits all posted up, because it turns out I call back to the first chapter a lot, and maybe I need to stop.

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #12

Today I've got some costume design for Pandaemonium.  It was a bit of a process, so I wanted to share it.

This is the final design, the process is below the cut.

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #11

OK, the tavern scene for Chapter 8 (and the prologue) is donesies!

It took longer than I wanted it to, but I'm proud of it, so whatever.  Cheers!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #10

This one is not as good as I want it to be.  However, I have made some progress!  And also, I have been busy:  Lady M is out of town attending to her own matters, while I've been doing house-sitting, dog-sitting, and care-giving for my folks, and I've got the annual family poker tournament coming up tomorrow.  So this is as far as I've gotten.

Phyr and Vector have their shading done, but no highlights.  Pannych and Alice are yet forthcoming.  I temporarily removed most of the lighting effects, so you can see the illusory planet and the lamp, which I think  look pretty good.

Anyway, it's an art update, if not an art completed.  But that's the point of these art updates, so yeah!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #9

The scene at the Loaded Die is coming along, all that's left is the shadings on the peoples.  I'm actually really happy with how Alice's Illusion spell looks - the hurricane lamp ain't half-bad, either.  I like how the lighting is already giving texture to things, even though they're still just blobs of color beneath.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to finishing this, but also to having it done.  There were so many finicky little things that I had to tweak over and over until they looked acceptable.  I think it's paying off, though.  Stay tuned!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #8

Got some colors laid down, but no shading or background yet.  That's when the magic happens, so stay tuned!

And here it is without the sketch overlaid.  Clearly the hands all still need work, but I'll be doing those things after I get the characters all blocked out.

Ta-ta for now!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #7

Wa-hoo!  Finally got this sucker done:

And it's been put where it goes in Chapter 5.  In case there are any compression issues, here is a detail of the actual cool part of the picture:

OK, that's all for today!  Cheers!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #6

Got the main characters colored in for the Noob Cave Grayl fight.

Lots of stupid fine details on the background characters, and even more to go.  But I'm getting faster at arriving somewhere I'm happy with, and not needing to spend as much time futzing with every little edge and corner.  Here's what it looks like without the lines:

Cheers for now!

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #5

IT... IS FINISHED!  No, but seriously, I am so effing glad to finally have this one done.  Or at least "done enough."  I finally feel like I'm back in my drawing groove - the shading on the noob went loads faster than the rest before it - so hopefully I can keep up this momentum!

I've got it inserted into Chapter 4.  Next is... well, I should've done Tom's Cabin Meeting before this one, but I kinda don't care about that right now.  I think I wanna do the Noob Cave Fight first, then maybe the Goblin Fort Ambush, then Tom's Cabin Meeting... ooh, but after the Goblin Fort Ambush is the Loaded Die Roundtable... ugh, we'll see!  I'm just happy this is done.

"Project: Spiral" - Art Update #4

I didn't get any work done on the noob attack this week, because I had an unexpectedly big writing week.  I don't really like everything about how it went, though, so to the Revise-O-Tron I go.  However, M said that my descriptions of Big Money HQ were confusing - this is perfectly understandable, as Edric is the capitalist villain and so I just had to throw in some quasi-Randian architecture descriptions.  But I banged out a sketch of what I had in mind, and probably one of these is going to make it into the illustrations.

Obviously (I hope?) the top is an exterior shot and the bottom is interior.  Anyway, Tuesday is more words, and I'll see you then!