Gracious Anthracite @anthracite@dragon.style

Woo. Got FOUR more pages roughed out today, plus some first-draft dialogue for a spot in the end of the Mixolyne story we've decided needs a little bit of conversation. Nick dislikes parts of that dialogue but that's perfectly fine, it's there to give him something to fix.

There's about five or six more pages left to rough out (2-3 on each side) and then both sides of the whole story will be in rough form. I am pretty excited about that! Then I get to ask patrons and a few pro friends if they're willing to have a look at it all and tell us what's working and what isn't.

And *then* we get to throw together a proposal and try approaching some YA publishers with it...

This evening’s office: bench under oak tree with GIANT wind chimes hanging from it. A nearby plaque says they are all tuned to the same scale, but only one is making much noise right now.

Hah, I got the screen all set up *just* in time for the sun to get low enough that its rays start really coming through the window. Oh no, video games and media (WHICH ARE NOW ART) are only a nighttime thing until I get a curtain, oh no.

But the "are video games art" debate is OVER in my home now. Because EVERYTHING inside this frame is most assuredly An Art.

(Photo taken while holding something over the window, it’s completely unphotographable otherwise right now.)

Oh geez yes this is perfect. The incongruity of the endless rotation of my FA favorites with this ornate frame. That’s art right there. Everything inside this frame is now Art. *chef kiss*

So if I put the projector in the center of the room, and prop it up on this copy of the I Ching, it almost fills the ornate picture frame I found at the furniture shop. THE MAGIC PAINTING IS HAPPENING.

It’s really awkward right now, I am gonna need a rug to hide the cables under or we will break something (possibly ourselves) tripping on them.

Also maybe I want curtains, this place is FULL of gorgeous light.

I am ALMOST DONE roughing out the space hippie goth dryad side of the first Parallax story! If you're a patron, you can see my messy roughs for it.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/27751934

This morning’s office.

So yesterday and today I ended up cancelling my backups because it was estimating like 9h and I wanted to go out to a cafe to work, but when I got home I let the computer just grind away on backups and now it is about 2/3 of the way through and estimating about an hour left. Woo!

I just had this thought. What if I used the shelves as a desk?

Turns out there’s two problems with this: I worry the monitor is too heavy for the shelf, plus I end up standing with my face wayyyy too close to the screen for comfort. It was real nice to ALMOST have my studio setup back for a few minutes, though.

These folks were having a pretty nice picnic in the park. But then the rain started. And it became apparent that their awnings just weren’t up to the task.

They seem to have relocated to the bandstand, and are having a fine, if slightly moist, time.

Chicken and waffles. With praline sauce. It smells just like beignets.

Roughing out some KAIJU BATTLES today.

guess I better get my ass to the office and start drawing.

oh good morning, graph of the arctic ice cap size with a line for this year that's a serious outlier from the historical data.

https://mashable.com/article/arctic-melting-records/

enjoy new orleans while it lasts, peggy

I agree. This is an odd profession. But hey, it's what this game is about doing, so...

Every time I go to the hardware store I keep on thinking “that bit of flaking paint by the bike rack looks like a unicorn” and today I did something about it.

Somehow I feel that Dana is to blame here.

So hey I just posted like sixteen rough pages of Parallax to the secret Patreon-only place, for anyone who wants a peek at where the story is going. We have the whole script down and finally have something like a page count for the whole first chapter!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/roughs-roughs-27564345

I think this may be the first time I have seen an AI character in a game whose facial structure is not lilly-white. (Third island CEO, Into The Breach.)

Oh wait the AI in Exapunks was an Asian androgyne.

Time to start laying out the spread where the VX10 use their superior tactics to pin down two scared fungus boys in much larger mecha.

"Hex grid with little tokens moving around" feels appropriate on multiple levels. I figure some inset panels to show a few key moments with less abstraction should make it all work.

This sculpture doesn’t feel as powerful as it did when I first saw it as a kid. Maybe I’ve aged. Maybe it’s mellowed. Maybe it’s jusr not oriented correctly any more, it used to be out on the K&B Plaza absorbing all the bustle of a nearby freeway and now it’s resting in a shady grove.

(A Battle: For the Resistance Fighters. Arnaldo Pomodoro, 1971.)