Golden Plains and New Art!
Well, this came along a LOT faster than it felt like it should have! Welcome back to another weekly blog, and holy cow am I having trouble keeping up with things! It feels like last week when we were releasing Adecial, and now here we are with yet ANOTHER short story release and A LOT of new art. Told you I was working hard over the holidays! There’s a lot for me to talk about this week, so let’s hop right into this blog and kick things off with the Golden Plains!
The Golden Plains
Situated in the northern region of Falador, the Golden Plains are a vast stretch of golden fields. Dominated by a type of tall, golden grass, its easy to see how this region got its name, but its equally known for its fierce windstorms and rather unique wildlife! After leaving Adecial behind, Tearna and her expedition are now set to brave this large and vast frontier, though the going will be a little rough. They will have to brave the windstorms the region is known for, document all the strange creatures that practically live in the sky, and delve further into the history of the Crisis as well as its lingering legacy for the people that were at its epicenter! So, get ready for a much clearer look at what the Crisis meant for the people of Kryshendar and a clear look at all the Golden Plains has to offer!
Getting the Golden Plains out is exciting for me because it means fulfilling the promise I made so long ago. Short Stories will now be on a bi-weekly basis without fail until Tearna’s journal is finally finished, which will probably take at least six months based on what I currently see on my end. This particular story is exciting as well, because we are fully out of the introductory dossier chapters! Starting with this short, we really start to analyze the Clockwork Crisis, a small journey that will culminate in… Shadow of the Eclipse! Yes, I’m spoiling a short this early, and no, I’m not telling you when it drops. You’ll just have to wait and see all that the Crisis was and continues to be!
Faladorian Mountains
As mentioned at the end of the short, the next short story will be set in the fabled mountains of Falador. Tearna and her expedition will march into the heart of the continent and face extreme weather conditions! They’ll fight through blizzards, traverse precarious cliffs, and face off with some of the more aggressive denizens of the world. Get your coats on for this one, because its going to get cold!
Twitch/Youtube
With the short stories out of the way for the week, I want to talk a little about some of the stuff going on with the live streams! This week we swapped back over to Ark, and although I borked my setup horrifically, we were still quite successful! Outreach continues to grow at a steady pace, and content is starting to actually get lined up for release. In fact, the first Youtube video will most likely be going up before the end of the week! I’ve never done a video before, but I’m quite proud of what I’ve been able to edit together considering the monstrosity I had to work with! This is the first of my Ark youtube series, and there will probably be… thirty more, before this is done? Hard to tell right now since it’s still in progress, but you can definitely count on a lot more where that came from! Oh, and if you don’t believe me, say hello to our thumbnail frame!
Pretty nifty right?! I’m excited to show it off because it’s something I made myself and showcase that I’m actually coming along as a less-than amateur artist! Expect this thumbnail frame to be on all the thumbnails going forward, though the expression of the Flying Fennec may change as time progresses.
Next up, we’ve got… a stream layout! I’ve been teasing this on stream a lot lately, and now it’s basically done and ready to be used… when I’m not playing a game like Ark! When we go back to pokemon, this is the layout that we will be using, and it’ll get used for any games where having myself and chat on screen is a problem. Take a gander!
Again, pretty nifty, right? This one took about eight hours to complete if I recall correctly? It was spread out over a few days and involved me learning some more methods to bring to life. There’s more that I could have done for this piece, and I might revamp it later, but, for now, it’s basically fully complete! Expect to see it in a future stream near you!
Sapphire Verdict
The Sapphire Verdict is still working on getting to a position where it can actually land an agent. Lately, that has meant a massive revamp to crunch the size even more. As I learned, hiring a developmental editor is… more expensive than I expected. As such, I’ve been working on crunching the first book down to make it more affordable, and I’ve already managed to take out about 15000 words from roughly five chapters. Not all that bad, but we’ve got a lot more to go. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that the wheels are turning, but it’s going to take more time before the Sapphire Verdict is ready for the public to sink its teeth into. If things go well on the streaming front, this timeline might actually increase, which would be great, but only time will tell!
Up next
I don’t want to talk about this one too much, so I will keep the details brief, but… Gale has been officially started! Her sketch is done, and her linework has been started. She is far enough along that I can say with certainty that she will be the next face in the gallery because I’m past the point of potential failure! She won’t be ready for next week, but I do believe we will see her get a face before the month is over. It would be pretty nice too, because I would really like to have at least one artpiece with each month so I can make a collage at the end of the year! It would make me feel like a real artist is what I’m saying…
Conclusion
That’s it for this week’s blog! Short, sweet, to the point, and packed full of content! I’m not sure what next week will bring, but I might start doing some fun break downs of characters or something else since I think I will have the capacity to by that point. We’ll see what I’m feeling, so, with all that out of the way… Cheers!
The Flying Fennec