"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!

"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 12: Sailing to Salinas

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"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!

"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 11: Leaving Noob Isle

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"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!

"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 10: The Influences

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"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!

"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 9: Offender of the Gods

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 8: The Next Morning

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 7: The Loaded Die

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 6: The Catacombs

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"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.

"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 5: Fort Roguelike

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"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!)

"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 4: Grayl

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"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!

"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 3: Noob Valley

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"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!

"A Tale of Fire and Panic" - Chapter 2: Fite Nite

If you are new to Project:  Spiral, then click here to read the teaser, or click here to read from the Prologue.  Otherwise, welcome back!

Content Warning!

This story contains instances, descriptions, and frank discussions of:  depression, personality disorders, and other mental health issues; suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts; child abuse and neglect; graphic violence, war crimes, and institutional/systemic violence; gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia.  Reader discretion is advised.

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"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!