Dev log starts here. Skip down below for just the shop update. Current Wordcount: 14,125 This time around I wound up getting the urge to work more on my main sprites. Since I added the first scene in the game into my Ren'py file and started messing with the general placeholders, it's made me a little anxious to see how the scenes actually play out when not laid out in script form. I feel like it gives me a better idea of pacing and it's nice that the program has placeholders built in. But the placeholders are... pretty distracting. So I'm not at the point of having scene samples to share just yet but I might in the near future if I keep up my sprite work. Until then, I'm going to be the only one subjected to Twintail Girl AU. I originally considered doing sectioned sprites similar to those for Doki Doki Literature Club, where each base sprite simply has an image of the character's head/face overlaid on top and lined up to match. However, in one of my previous projects, I used Ren'py's dynamic images system for my sprites and enjoyed the freedom to mix and match face pieces for various one-off or rare expressions without having to render and export every possible option with every possible outfit. At the time I mainly used it because the characters had animated eyes that blinked, but since these characters have different outfits with a lot of layers, I feel dynamic sprites will be easiest for me. The way this works is the sprite is sectioned up into pieces and displayed with the layers placed over top of each other. This allows things like Odd's bangs falling over the front of their eyes rather than the eye having to be drawn to clip around the hair. For pose one, they currently have 5 brow shapes, 4 eye shapes, and 6 mouth shapes, all of which can be used interchangeably. Currently I have their outfit and body on their own layers as well, but this is mainly to make edits easier. If I want to change something on the body layer of a pose, I only need to edit one image and not every outfit that uses that body base. Fawn is the other sprite I got a notable amount done on, but I'm not entirely happy with her yet so I haven't exported the layers yet like I have for Odd. It's a good start, but there's just some adjustments to be made to her face and some color adjusting to do. Her apron in particular bothers me as I write this now that I've uploaded the image haha. On a quick sidenote, the day after tomorrow is the first day of NaNoRenO. I feel there's no way that I could finish In Your Nature within the month but I do want to participate. Looking at the other VNs on my itch.io page, they feel pretty lacking. So progress for the next couple weeks might actually be dedicated to a short side project. Concepts for the Dollhouse characters. I don't expect to spend the entire month on it, mainly because my hope is just to make a very quick project that I feel can better display my writing and my style of horror. But if it ends up that way, it is how it is. I hope anyone who has been keeping an eye on my progress here will consider also reading this VN if I manage to make it work for the game jam. Last thing for this devlog is these two promo images I made for Fawn and Odd. I felt like I hadn't quite told enough in these updates about them as people, so at least now I have the main outline of their characters and their place in the story for you. Devlog over. Thank you for reading and continue on if you're looking for the sticker info. Stickers / Store / Etsy / Ko-fi updateOkay so anybody who's been around on twitter has probably seen the Etsy change that added a bunch of extra fees and charges onto things. For big sellers, that's probably not an issue. For me, not having even started and mainly offering items under $5 each? Big problem. I can't afford to pay Etsy like %50 of my profits on each sticker.
So! Here's the plan. Ko-fi has the option to sell physical goods through their platform. The downside is they don't seem to have consolidated shipping options like Etsy did, though their shipping pricing is a lot more clear. I'm going to look at how Ko-fi's shipping situation works and most likely will be going with them for my homemade merch. On the flip side, I think I'll be opening a Redbubble store too as an alternative and so I can offer designs on things that I can't personally make myself. As much as I would love to offer more options like acrylic keychains and the like, stickers are currently what I can make at home and will likely be the only thing in the shop for a while. Thus Redbubble can offer anything else with my designs. I don't think they offer kisscut stickers anyway which is what I'd like to mainly focus on until I've made enough sales to justify buying some sleek vinyl sticker paper that doesn't require me to hand laminate every diecut sticker. When is this gonna happen? Ssssoon I hope. Honestly I've had a lot going on lately and my main concern with the shop's opening isn't making a big splash but instead making a good first impression by ensuring nothing could possibly go wrong with the shipping and etc. Maybe the perfectionist side of me is biting myself in the butt but I honestly feel a delayed opening is better than a botched opening. This update has been pretty long so we'll leave it at that. Thank you for checking this and I hope when I do open the store(s) you'll consider checking out what I have to offer! -Karma
0 Comments
A bit of a bittersweet update this week! On one hand, I didn't get much done this week because I was working on another project. In this case, an animation tips tutorial video which I'll link here because hey, it's my blog so I can.
But on the other hand, last week I feel like I made some decent progress! I finally hit the 10k wordcount which felt like it was just not going to happen for a little while. Finding I haven't made any progress this week is a little bit of a let down but meeting that milestone and completing a smaller project (the video) are both pretty encouraging for me!
Since I'm a little lacking in new updates to give beyond that wordcount update, I'll mention I'm considering some ideas for future things to post about on these devlogs up until I have more visuals to share.
I know currently only a small handful of people look at my blog going by the site info but know I really appreciate the support. It's a genuine motivation for me in continuing with the project, ha. I almost didn't write one this time since I felt strange about not having done anything this week but I'd like to avoid that and keep people in the loop. Hoping to have something big for the next update! Thank you so much for reading. -Karma It's that time again! Or at least it's been two weeks so I need to update here to ensure people know this project is still chugging. The mini update:
Rotating shop! Since the flower shop is an important location in the story, I've decided I'll definitely need to be able to do the background myself. And so I decided to make use of Clip Studio Paint's new Primitives 3d tools for the layout. It took a little figuring out but it has the nice plus of being usable with CSP's "manga perspective" setting for some flexibility in how it's displayed. No longer bald and naked! I started on the default appearances for each of the main characters as well as sketched a sprite for the shop owner. Pickles Perkins is another old character of mine seeing new use here but given he was always a florist it made sense to use him as the shop owner. Since he's just a minor character, he doesn't as need as complex a clothing treatment as my main characters. Fawn in particular has coats and scarves and the like that she needs to be able to unlayer from her outfit as needed so she's shown here in her vest and skirt outfit without any of those. This also applies for both she and Lily's work aprons. Frilly but also protected from potting soil! Planning out all this stuff at this stage will save me a lot of pain down the road when it comes to adding more poses and the like. This goes for the backgrounds as well since certain ones, like the planned view of the flower shop, will require some masking to make sure characters are in locations that make sense. This is only a mock-up, not in engine yet. I'll be leaning back into writing as much as I can after this update so expect next update to potentially feature less visuals but hopefully a wordcount that breaks my first milestone goal. I hope this peek into the process was at least interesting for those keeping track!
Until next time. -Karma |
Archives
June 2022
Categories |