Art and Other Things!

Did I really miss THREE WEEKS of blogposts?! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Well, it’s that time of the week again, except this time we’re actually doing it instead of missing it… again… Apologies for the lack of posts, but we’re at it again and picking up kinda sorta where we left off last time, and boy have things happened! We’ve had website updates, stream changes, art stuff completed, and art stuff completely abandoned because I refuse to ever try to draw a human ever again… LETS HOP INTO IT!

The Esterian Sea

Several weeks ago, the third chapter in Tearna’s story was released, The Esterian Sea. In this section of her journey, she set off to the continent of Falador, but first she had to cross the fabled sea. This segment of her journal obviously focuses on the ocean and all the life that it harbors, and she even has a runin with some of the largest creatures in the known world!

This update to the short stories segment went mostly unnoticed because I’m an idiot and I forgot to post the blog that I wrote for it. Woops! This short story really sees Tearna start to develop as a character, mostly because some of the characters around her begin to develop at long last. It was fun to actually bring her to life a little more, and it also marked a major shift in the story telling. For starters, instead of being strictly dossier style, the story began to focus more on Tearna and her interactions with her companions. This lets more of her personality shine and starts kinda laying the groundwork for future development with the expedition as a whole. Additionally, this was the first story written as a part of my new initiative to get ALL of the short stories in Tearna’s journal written, and after only two weeks, I’m almost done! What does that mean? Well, it means that starting next month, the short stories will be released on a bi weekly basis! More short stories, more content, and… MORE ART!

Adecial

With all that being said, it’s time to talk about the next location we’ll be visiting, Adecial! Adecial is the port city dominating the northern tip of Falador, and stands as a cultural center that influences massive parts of Tearna’s world. Visiting this city was a no-brainer since it helps illustrate Krysheek culture and paints more color into a prominent location on the map! Additionally, the art for this is already on the short story page, and can be seen below!

Pretty cool, right? This bookmarker, like the others, is an aerial view of Adecial. In it, you can barely see the harbor, some of the ship building warehouses, and the many white buildings flanking its maze-like streets. Adecial will be released on December 25th, and no, it has NOTHING to do with holidays. It’s just weird timing…

Revamped Short Story Section

For those with keen eyes, the Short Stories section of the website got a massive overhaul recently. New book spines were added to make navigation easier, and the Sapphire Verdict themed shorts were tucked away into their own little corner. This leaves space for new volumes to be added to this page in the future, so keep your eyes peeled for more short stories!

The first image that can be seen on the short story page, because this doesn’t scale right in here, is the volume used for the Sapphire Verdict. It was modeled to resemble the data capsules used to transfer information by hand in the Sapphire Eye, and features an obviously blue motif. The panel at the top is usually used to display data and things, and the bit in between the two caps is just some funky energy. What? Just because I write it doesn’t always mean I understand how things are wired up! That’s Sapphiria’s job, not mine!

The second image is, obviously, Tearna’s journal! It’s weathered, nicked, and stained by the various elements she encountered on her journey! You can see a couple of leaves that got stuck to it, some stand, and some damp spots from her journey on the ocean! Would anything else be staining this journal by the end? Just keep reading and fill in the gaps!

What Happened to Stockton

Unfortunately, I finally had to throw in the towel on this one. I kept dragging my feet on getting this done, and while I tried convincing myself it’s because humans are hard to draw, I finally just realized that I didn’t want to draw him! I don’t want to draw humans because my skill level is too low to flub it to the quality I want, so, we’ll have to send this to someone else eventually to make him real. For now, I’m going to continue arting on some other things in the background as I have time, which has been a little limited lately.

Streaming

I’ve been working to expand my streams, which has meant technical difficulties. I’ve been spending way too much time lately trying to get an elgato to work correctly, which was agonizing and may still not be resolved. Additionally, I’ve been working on setting up new Ark servers for future stream content, and the groundwork is starting to be laid for making actual youtube content, something that I hope does better than twitch streaming has. Suffice to say, I’m trying my hardest to overhaul all my content across the board, so hang tight and lets see where all this goes!

Conclusion

That’s really all I have for this week. Next week, I’m honestly not sure what the update will be. Perhaps we’ll talk about vidya games, or maybe do a more in depth analysis on some elements of the Sapphire Verdict. Either way, weekly blogs should be back in session, so, for now… CHEERS!

The Flying Fennec