Hiiii, everyone! Happy… Not-Halloween?
It’s high time for a new posting here, phew! But even though more than two months passed since the last one, there just wasn’t a whole lot to say until now? It’s not like I’ve been lazy, but the types of updates I could have made wouldn’t have been very exciting. “Still working on the manga, finished inking page X and shading page Y!” Stuff like that. So I just made a little update Tweet from time to time instead.
Anyway! I didn’t even mention it here (I think?), but I spent half of September and all October trying to finally finish my oneshot manga Hyoukyo Traitor. The original plan was to finish as much as possible until Halloween and upload the first batch of pages then, but alas, that didn’t quite work out. Once again, I miscalculated how much time everything would take and even though all the pages were already sketched (albeit in a VERY rough state, so I had to re-sketch them), I only managed to finish six pages until Halloween. So why didn’t I upload those then? Because it was a rather unfortunate place in the story for a break and to be honest, the thought of having to stop there really didn’t sit well with me at all…
Well, no use crying over spilled milk, so after a little break and finishing some important stuff for Gosatsu first, I got back to work. Since I already missed the deadline, I decided to not only finish two more pages so we can stop at a better point of the story, I also prettified the pages for both Hyoukyo manga. This was something I should’ve done at least a year ago (since that’s when they got their new Grawlix pages), but always put off because “Ugh, homepage work” :’D
Here’s a little rundown of the changes, all of them for Hyoukyo Mirror AND Hyoukyo Traitor:
– Made favicons (the little 16×16 icon thingies you see next to the homepage name)
– Created static homepages, so the last manga page (which might be spoilery) isn’t shown right away anymore
– Got rid of the About pages in the process, because that stuff is now on the static page
– Wrote transcripts for all the pages that have been uploaded so far
…writing transcripts is weird. Apparently it’s a good thing to add for SEO purposes and helps people with visual difficulties to understand things they couldn’t quite catch while looking at the page itself. But it really feels like writing a super compressed mini novel to me ;;; (I should probably look into toggling the transcripts on or off for the next manga project though, because it’s currently shown by default on every page.)
I’ve also written a short wrap-up for Hyoukyo Mirror (which you should only check out if you’ve read HM, obviously). That’s something I’ve wanted to do for two years now and I originally wanted it to be bigger and discuss more things, but…………. I forgot most of them. “orz
Lastly, and most importantly, page 13-20 of Hyoukyo Traitor have finally been uploaded! (But maybe you want to read it from the beginning because it’s been a loooooong time since the last update…) Page 20 only SEEMS like a bad place to stop, but it IS the last actual page of “that story” and there’s something else starting on page 21, so taking a break there was the best solution I could come up with. Nine pages are still missing for HT to be complete and I’ll try to get them done during November, but I’d rather not make any more promises, so yeah. (・・。)ゞ
Other than that, I also helped out with some beta-testing!
First, there’s Snowball Saves Summer by Goldbar Games, a 2D platformer featuring the titular snowball you can fling through various stages while trying to rescue the Snow Queen and save the North Pole! I actually can’t stand Summer so I wouldn’t really want to save it, but the platforming is a lot of fun – and right now is the best time for games with frosty settings and characters, so please check it out~!
Secondly, there’s Pitch Black Serenade by 97Circle, a super stylish Mystery VN with a lot of cool characters and an intriguing plot going on! Right now, only the demo featuring the first chapter is out, but it’s about three hours long and there’s already a lot to experience and discover, so please give it a try~! I’m eagerly awaiting the next chapter myself… with a pretty balanced reasoning. 50% “I want to learn more about the mystery” and 50% “I want to befriend the cute guys” wwww
Lastly, here’s a batch of new artworks I’ve only shown on Twitter so far!
Well, the left one isn’t exactly new, but it’s a differently colored, spooky version of the Senri avatar I used from August onwards. It’s the Halloween Special Edition! The right artwork was specifically drawn for Halloween (but only finished in November…) and shows jiangshi duo Reiji (the big one) and Aoki from Matsuri Magic, which is a manga that’s been in the planning phase for a long time. Their paper talismans say “Happy Halloween”~!
Speaking of Matsuri Magic! Here is Mana, one of the main characters, holding a big pumpkin. I just felt like working with autumn colors that day.
And here’s a little Azuma doodle because yesterday (11/11) was Pocky Day and I got inspired to draw an artwork too.
Alright then, I think that’s it. While I unfortunately won’t get to work on TTI:L this year, I plan to finish as many things as possible in these last seven weeks of 2018! Stuff I promised (like the Summer Special Artworks), stuff that should have been done long ago (like certain things for this homepage) and stuff in preparation for next year (like… wait, that’s spoilery). I’ll hopefully be back with the next batch of HT pages soon too.
Thank you for reading, everyone! Please take care and have a great week~! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°