Thursday, July 17, 2025

why webdev is cheaper than therapy

If you've followed me for a bit, you may have picked up on the fact I'm addicted to working on my website. I started it in Dreamweaver whilst in the psych ward and believe it for not, it was actually so cathartic to push this 'retro' aesthetic site to the world wide web. I've developed a strong enough grasp of HTML and CSS to just edit in VisualStudio Code from here on out. Most of the time it is barely refining what I've done or adding new content, but is usually me just goofing around seeing what I can get away with in HTML, JavaScript and CSS, such as making hovered links glow with a kaleidoscope of colors!

Two days ago however, I finally realised how much I needed to make two 'shrines' for my ultimate two favorite fandoms. I made one for Berserk and a second one for Touhou Project.


My term for 'shrine' is just my dorky term for a webpage galley for my fanart. Hmm, and now that I think about it, I may add some hairbrained headcanons potentially, but don't worry! I haven't written them, yet!

I included very ancient 2015-era work on the Berserk page specifically because I had been asked by a follower where my old Berserk comics had 'gotten to'. These followers is keenly eyed, as I had deleted my longtime Tumblr when manic - I know, tragic right? But I'm not being completely sarcastic here. I had deleted my many 2012-onwards fanart doodles by doing so, as this was before the time I started backing up my art to the Google cloud! I had been saving all my work on clunky physical hard drives before then, which even they have a lifespan. Not to mention, my trusty Calarts MacBook I had used to make all those digital fanarts died around 2017...

But quite auspiciously, my Berserk fixation started immediately after I had started uploading all my artworks to the Google cloud around late 2015, according to my techy dad's advice. So my Berserk doodles were preserved in my personal collection, and thus they have sat there for many years. 

I'm glad though, to air them out in the light of day. My website isn't as immortal as Blogger, but I want to have a place I can craft myself. I love learning JavaScript, CSS and HTML, it means way more than being beholden to posting my work to Instagram. I can craft the page to display them how I want, curating them essentially, and it brings me great pride to be able to refine my site along with my work.

This page will inevitably expire if I let my domain with GoDaddy expire, but for the rest of my living days, its most likely I'll keep chipping away on the Berserk (and Touhou too) shrines, as they both mean so much to me, in very different ways. I mean, the Berserk one has fanart from 2015, it's been a decade! 

Thanks to Touhou and Berserk, I've managed to stay damn prolific even over these recent years in which I've felt very unconfident with my art. Many of these works, I had initially dismissed as a bit too rough around the edges and therefore 'bad'. Although I have habit of sharing my art often on socials, many of these I simply grumpily scoffed at, and sadly dragged-n-dropped into a folder, never to look at again. 

I actually had a self-compassion breakthrough. The moment I revisited my abundance of 2023 Berserk fanarts, that I realised, they are decent actually! Good, even! With the flow of time, I saw suddenly with fresh eyes, and saw that my work, my efforts, are worthy of being displayed. 

That my friends, is why webdev is better (and cheaper) than therapy, and it's why I love it. End of story.

Monday, July 07, 2025

a spiritual experience from the other night

The other night, I had a dream in which I was dancing and being silly with my young daughter. It must've been a vision of the future, as she is just a baby right now. I woke up, mind still hazy and lost in dreamland, and smiled to myself. Then I smiled at my bub sleeping soundly right next to me. What a nice dream, I thought. But that wasn't the end of it...

Just hours before, I had attended a Zoom presentation that evening by the Jung Society of South Australia. In this talk, I learnt a lot about Jung's art and some of the 'characters' he developed from his experiments with the unconscious. I was struck by the 'character' of Phanes, an androgynous god-child born from an egg.  When I Googled later, I was struck by the the poetic description written below an artwork of Phanes, taken from 'The Red Book' (I think). In this Phanes is described in a very long chunk of text, the line that I remember the most is 'they are both mourning and consolation'. Essentially, Phanes promises a salvation that feels like a peace, when one finally feels a whole lot of 'opposites' of the human experience. Below is my own 'fanart' of Phanes in their funky yellow outfit..

Anyways, back to the story.

Right after my dream, I lay in bed and felt emotions surge into me from a familiar source. I recognised the sensation as I felt is most distinctly in 2021, when I was legitimately possessed by it and ran away from home! Essentially, honest to goodness-ly, since 2021 at least, I've been played with by some sort of entity. It is cheeky, childlike and good above all else. If it has a wrath, which is does seem to have sometimes, it is ultimately for the sake of some truthful good. I know it is impossibly farfetched and hard to believe, it may definitely make family worry that I'm not on my meds when I say these things, but I am on them, and the magical experience has persisted in a subtle way despite being consistently medicated. Perhaps the definite proof it is not a mental health condition? Hmm?

Anyways, back to the story now that you have this ridiculously unbelievable magical context in your head...

All the opposites, much like the poem above, flooded into me. Some included both shame and forgiveness for myself, for things which had haunted me. I felt such emotions pour into me, I pleaded to this entity - the spirit, which never gives me real tangible answers usually, but still, I tried.

I asked: 

What are you? You have been a part of my life for many years now, I need to know!

To this mental question, I felt an answer echo in my brain, which is the way this entity has always communicated. It said quite clearly, in a voice neutral but also with a childlike conviction:

I'm mom!

I knew then and there, what it meant.

This entity which was confiding in me was our god. A lowercase 'g' god, mind you, none of that uppercase 'G' Christian stuff, sorry. This entity, was simply mom - the entity which gave birth to this reality, and whom sits at the corners of the universe, loving its little creations like a mother would.

This entity however, has always spoken in a neutral but slightly childlike voice to me. The childlike aspect has been a particular cheekiness mostly, which isn't exclusive to children, I guess.

In this case however, the way it said 'I'm mom' was as if a young child which only now understands the concept of a mother for the first time. Yet, as the same time, it speaks with the wisdom of all of creation. Holding within it, a sense of complete opposites just like what was in the text about Phanes! In how I interpreted this moment, saying it's 'mom' is just how it expresses itself to me in terms that a human like me can understand.

It was here long before me. It gave birth to us all, and it watches on, lovingly. But the funny thing is, I don't think its necessarily gendered as female, as it is beyond that. So it feels particularly profound in that this entity values the meaning of 'the mom', without being female itself?

There was more to this moment, but it has evaded me, which is really damn frustrating. Everytime I have these epiphanies sent from this bewitching, sentient source, there is some deep wisdom which cannot be grasped and recorded, even with my nearby notebooks. They almost are like a letter that you must burn after reading, except your mind burns the information in mere seconds. I just know there was something much more important to be gleamed from this moment, but I cannot remember for the life of me! So frustrating!

I know its farfetched, and I know people have little ability in this day and age to believe in some weirdo online spouting that some cheeky god exists. But this god doesn't want, or need, to be proven. It is content with bugging me alone. I still needed to get this off my chest, because it was very profound. Because when I felt the voice saying 'I'm mom' echo in my heart, I somehow 'got' what it meant, I felt its love. I felt that those two words also explained the nature of god. Plain and simple.

I wept after hearing that beautiful words in my heart and head, because I somehow glimpsed some truth. Not trying to be pretentious, but I wonder if Jung himself ever felt this, despite all his searching within the unconscious?

As I've said, I stick to my meds and strange things continue to happen. It has been this way a very long time, but it has been awhile since very a distinctly magical moment has taken place as the entity has become very subdued in the years in which I've been 'sane'. It has always been in the background these last few years, however.

I will probably disturb some people by being open about spiritual experiences happening despite being sane for so long, but I just beg you to maybe open your mind a little bit? To believe just a teeny weeny lil bit, in some crazy (not so old yet) lady that only has her true stories to tell you...

Tuesday, July 01, 2025

The answer is NEVER to just 'get more hobbies'.

I knew that once I had a baby, there would start to be little time for doing superfluous leisurely things. I knew I would have to kiss goodbye to certain 'freedoms*'. I knew that life would get busy.

But believe it or not, that is precisely what I craved. 

Because I knew for the last few years, most the zany, time-consuming hobbies I kept forcing myself to do out of habit, started feeling insidiously dull. 

Whatever do I mean? 

Before I decided to pursue becoming a solo mum, I would force myself to work on creative projects daily, because that's all I knew, really.

From janky video game jams, to acrylic paintings left unfinished and discarded in cobwebbed corners of the craft room. From ambitious TV show scripts to sculptures, to short stories and edgy visual novels and even sewing stuffed toys and a Koishi Komeiji cosplay....oh, and don't even mention the hideous amount of blogging I did. I also kept typing up Google Documents with ambitious business ideas but still, committed to nothing. But more telling was the fact that I knew nothing scratched the unnameable itch that was tickling deep in my heart.

In the past, I turned to creative outlets to sate what I always presumed was a normal sort of boredom that hits when you don't have anything else pressing to do. It's probably fine in many case. When you're young, in early twenties and/or driven by a creative inner fire.

I was possessed by that flame. The solitary path of the painter was the way my life was going for the longest time but....

...and its a big but....

From 2020 until 2022, I experienced massive griefs and traumas.

I was coping with a world where my dearest mum wasn't around anymore. I was plagued with reoccurring mental health relapses year after year, until mid 2022.

I then was stuck in a vicious loop of trauma, bitterly trying to rationalise how my mindscape felt so changed by these experiences. In retrospect, the issues regarding my 'art brain' have just taken its sweet time to heal. It takes years to heal your body and mind from psychosis.

That wasn't the only thing that needed to heal, however. 

For some reason, I never faced the natural immense sadness and emptiness from losing one of the absolute most cherished people in my life, my mum. 

It is natural to feel lost and scared and empty from such grief. Grief is so powerful that is shakes up your life and puts a lot of silly things into perspective. I may have been an idiot and didn't realise how much I loved my mum, until it was too late...

In the years I spent trying to heal all over, many of the creative hobbies I kept getting distracted by felt not just indulgent, but scarily meaningless. They started feeling like guilty distractions which I did to silence some little voice of longing. None of the random projects I did really stuck anyways. If they had, I would've been prouder. I would've been braver in promoting these products as things I want to see get published. They mostly kinda sucked big time.

The truth is, I confess I have purposely wasted heaps of time with many non-drawing related pursuits, which I profess I am terrible at and absolutely do not have the knack for - like programming video games! Because I was so anxious about my art abilities being impaired following the mental health incident I mentioned in my earlier post, that I tried anything else besides sketching!

So, there have been different factors as to why I felt like I was hiding away from facing drawing. It most definately has not just been ageing, or letting biology and instinct have their way.

Its been many overlapping factors. 

I think I mainly owe it to the sobering nature of grief (and add in a sprinkle of mental derangement!) leading me hand-in-hand to the truth. 

The 'Truth' is a word and concept that has mystified me many times when manic. Here is an illustration to the theme of Truth. Its one of my favorites. I painted it in the ward.

Truth by Vela Noble (Photoshop, 2020)

One of my Capital-T Truths, which grief (and even mania) guided me hand-in-hand to, was that I didn't want to miss out on being a mum. Right here and now.

If I chased career now, at these vital fertile years of my life, it would be a sadly pathetic urge to fill some void, running from what I needed and craved.

The only thing that's still felt truly meaningful in proper doses, has been healing over my avoidance of drawing. As I said, it has been a long story, but I've started to face drawing again. I now approach drawing with more self compassion than ever before. I constantly have to remind myself to do what I mentally call 'low pressure' art, doodles on my folding phone, or in a tiny sketchbook. I remind myself, that my kid wont judge my art harshly, so why should I?

'Low pressure' art...mine on the right.

It has also felt somewhat meaningful to honing my writing. I live for good stories. Certain comics have inspired and soothed me immensely in recent years (Berserk, duh), so I even started trying my hand at comics since last year. 

Ah, but yes I will now have less (purely uninterrupted) stretches of time to crank out art. This leads me to my point. If you are keenly eyed and noticed at the start of this post, I put the word 'freedoms' in sarcastic quotes with a * next to it.

This is because, I think that people that proclaim having kids robs you of 'freedoms' have starkly different values to me. 

Whatever 'freedoms' do you mean? Nightclubbing, parties or boozing it up? Going on elaborate vacations in faraway countries? which personally I have zero interest in ever even setting foot in half those places not gonna lie . Don't people get a bit sick of that sort of life?

Alright, to each is his own, I guess.

Just quit making weird excuses that disparage people that enjoy the simple pleasures, like sunny seaside walks on a Sunday (Someday she will be old enough to play a round of DDR at the Beachouse arcade! I can't wait!)

I know I personally seem 'boring' to many, but I don't have must wanderlust for anything much outside of South Australian borders. I have seen enough. I am weirdly patriotic and live in the most beautiful corner of the world, sorry. Visiting heaps of dangerous countries isn't on my to-do list, nor do I believe countless stamps in a passport make for a more vibrant life compared to someone who maybe just appreciates their state, but I digress...

So...

Another truth for me, is my most cherished pastimes already are things that I seem to share in common with kids. It already has just amplified my joy to share my favorite musical playlists, stuffed toys, pictures books, Netflix kids, even video games (yes in moderation) and strolls by the seaside. To me, I have barely changed my lifestyle. 

So what maybe I never grew up myself? 

So dear weird acquaintances who have said snide things to me, to you I say, go ahead, keep your various freedoms. But if it threatens you that some youngish women choose Solo motherhood over partnering up for now, then you are the one with some hidden insecurities.

This is my path. 


I want to make more lovingly made kid-friendly stories and art. So, you could say I kind of have a more meaningful and pressing goal to channel my writing and art into, every time I have a free second, or more like, when I have free hand that's not cradling bub, of course.

My honest truth is that I probably wouldn't have unearthed such a new meaningful goal, if I was never shaken up such an impossibly difficult 2020s. Having conquered such a difficult period of my life, puts so much of life into a newfound context. 

So of course, art is something I want to share with my kid. I obviously can't wait till my lil' bub is old enough to start. She may not be capable of holding a crayon right now but all this good artistic taste is definitely soaking into her impressionable noggin'. ;)

Well, I have written enough for now. It is kind of a lot, but feels nice to get a fresh ramble off my chest while she's been sleeping. Now its back to solo mumming~ Over and out.

Saturday, June 28, 2025

My beautiful baby girl is here~

Hello, I've avoided blogging for the longest time. The reason is because I nearly always turn whatever topic into a big, fat, venting stream of consciousness... I really need to watch my blogging behaviour big time if I ever want to even dream of getting back into being a professional. Since life has been much better, I've started to dream of the avenues of artsy creations I can do in the future.

I'm always happier when I'm just making art. 

It's absolutely the most constructive, fulfilling and meaningful use of my time. But blogging however, is allowed to be about sharing art, with minimal amount of text, right?  I hope I can use the blog for sharing my endeavours with art as well as with comics and picture books creation?

But in terms of good news, my beautiful little baby girl is here! I have been over the moon! Getting used to Solo mumming has been a steep learning curve. I made a comic about the last few weeks and it's up on my site. I am definitely not sharing her name or any photos of her face as I have been urged by family to protect bubs identity, if I think I know what's best for her!

I have my hands very much full, but when she snoozes I have found the time to make little comics. I want to keep making comics as it satisfies my need to tell true stories as well as feel good about the little drawings I can do. I might try tidying up this hideous blog and get it more ship shape. I sure as heck haven't done any worthwhile posts in recent years.

This is my oldest artsy corner of the internet, my own blog dating back to 2011. It would be a shame to ruin it and private it, just because I have a bad habit of venting in recent years. 

But life has been looking up, lets hope I can just treat this as a more constructive corner of the internet from here on out.

Monday, December 04, 2023

Secret Santa Jam in progress!

I decided to do the Secret Santa Jam, just because I got a digest email from Itchio and thought it sounded cool. You send off a letter and get one in return, from an anonymous someone you are meant to craft a game for, and of course, someone crafts one based on your letter. Mine likes Resident Evil 7 but also mentioned Animal Crossing. They suggested a horror/Christmas story, which turned out to be a fantastic limitation to work with, in terms of storytelling especially. I feel like blogging to take a break from the coding mayhem that's got my mind whirling a bit too much. Mine so far is a bit of a walking simulator with a snapping camera that has defined the game's suspenseful vibe. Well, as suspenseful as pixel art can be. 

My game is mostly a walking sim so far, with some player options that will determine the final outcome. It is pretty obvious right now as my splash art, cheesy vibe and and temporary title spoils who the intruder is. But maybe that is for the best? Maybe it's ok to ham up the 'evil Santa' trope, and tell a story within a game the best you can. Currently, just focusing on dying if you get hit by Santa who roams a certain path. Then, hopefully will aim to have the character do a certain thing in order to defend herself and her wimpy partner.

I went into making this little house dumbly thinking I was be making a RPG, as I admit my terminology vocabulary is fairly limited. Then realised...the snapping camera my friend recommended, forms the core of the game! It is a walking sim mostly. Stuff happens around you, but the person whom I am making this for mentioned survival horror as something they liked, so I am still on-the-fly inventing things that could be programmed in to make for the stories climax. I mean, I kind of know, but it needs to be better.

Story is king. They used to spout that off at Pixar, but Pixar Story Internship didn't teach me that. Jojo's Bizzare Adventure and Berserk that same year did.

I am laughing a lot at my spontaneous use of royalty free music and SFX's recommended to me by people on Discord. Music and sound completely and absolutely can make the medium. I think it wouldn't be anywhere near as funny if I didn't have the capacity to get-in-the-storytelling-zone aka. creative flow state and come up with ideas. Ah, yes. Flow state. What I live for. Life has been painful without acess to flow state, and GML has been one heck of a steep learning curve. Only now I'm capable of understanding 'state machines', something which I was calling all this time  'sequentially getting from one thing to next' lmfao. Being self taught with code has been a long road, but with making this, I got into flow state more. I actually enjoy the challenges a bit more, instead of wanting to break down as past GML attempts have left me. I think this is just because I'm improving, also, because I'm making a simple game with a simple loop, and focusing on storytelling and art/animations once I have the game loop sorted.

I reakon I will get a smile out of my giftee with this. I mean, some things just make you smile. Dorky Christmas things sure make me smile. The game is in a very solid state and I have till 22nd 6:30am GMT, Greenwich time? Hope I don't goof up and miss it.
Blogging is still some form of venting, no matter how positive I attempt to be. This is because my mental health has been in the gutter since losing my art. I don't think it's that hideous a pastime now that I'm mellowed out and not questioning my gender anymore. God I wish I didn't do all that shit. God I just want to feel stable and normal and not get swept away by whims. Game dev is something I have done on and off during the years, in spurts, and usually all my content is broken, rough and ugly. Usually because my code isn't graceful and well thought out, but I think that is changing. 

I am trying to relish my improvements, as a feel like only midyear, I couldn't process so much of the code techniques that I'm FINALLY capable of doing on my own without my dad helping me. So my goal is to make a cute pixel art (mostly) games and learn and improve through my own resources, not getting stumped and crying. It's a language, it' a skill you need to approach a certain way and it's especially not like art, which I suggest to people is all about 'just jumping in and putting down some lines'. Programming is very different. So I have to slow down and plan what I want to happen. Anyways, I've waffled on enough, and am spoiling my game if I post too much. Self-taught-amateur-coder, over and out.

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

setbacks and getting back on your feet

I'm terrified that potential and past employers will read me saying I 'can't draw' and then will never consider me to storyboard or anything ever again. If that's the case, I should do better and shut the hell up everywhere. I'm afraid, because the most consistent I employers I have had, essentially the golden ticket of working in animation, never reached back out to me after my dad told them I was 'unwell' in 2020. Maybe they're just respecting that statement. That yeah, being 'unwell', or in the loonie bin more like it, means you just plain and simply can't produce the goods. Oh, I'd give anything to feel competent in my art again. Some days it shines through, people still seem to react to things I do. I'm not talking shit about any employer, they have all been awesome and give me opportunities to work my hardest and make cool stuff. More than an employer reading this, I am even more afraid that I'll never be able to do the high caliber work I used to. As despite attempting to sketch and paint and animate every damn day since my accident, I have yet to fully heal over this 'art brain' which causes me immeasurable anguish. In the meantime, I have tried to 'expand my horizons' as everyone keeps telling me. That's all coming from people that've never found such ecstasy from a pursuit, as I have with drawing.

I don't want to be at poopy Adelaide Uni any long. I have never wanted degree and am always sickened by people that assume degrees prove some worth. I don't need a degree from them, but am working towards one anyways. What hurts most is, I have been forced down this path since semester one 2021. As when you're like me and psychosis means you can't excel at your one lifetime passion, you are forced to painfully branch out and try new things. 

But art has always been breathing. So take that away that breath, and you're suffocating, miserable and close to death. I didn't realize how much this breath had spurred me on throughout the years, until I entered the Google Drive album from art from 2016. I don't feel like posting heaps, but I'll leave you with this Berserk comic. People used to message me asking for it after I made my Tumblr private.

Humorous, lighthearted doodles tended to blossom from my fingertips like spring flowers around this time. That's what you get when you're so enamored with series as powerful as both Berserk and Jojo. I realize the power of even this simple art, something that can make a fan smile, or anyone smile really, but mostly, they're doodly things that made me smile. It is indulgent in the end, maybe? I have felt so miserable about my artwork since my repeated psychosis, as it's been three psychoses. Woah, that's a fuck ton! It takes other people years to recover from one but, like a shonen protagonist after taking a brutal pummeling, I've bitterly stood back up on my feet. Again and again, bruised and smiling like Naruto.


I used to use a textured pen to draw these doodles most of the time, yet when I try that Photoshop tool again in the present day, it feels icky. These days I am too attached to generic 'hard round' which doesn't have any texture--- but what am I talking about? What tool you use in Photoshop doesn't freakin' matter, it's a banal conversation reserved for hobby artists, who always get into discussing layer modes and 'clean' lineart, ignorant to the fact that true art is all about something higher. Below is a weird drawing based on Enigma's Oxygen Red album which was released that year. I remember being back home with family because I had recently been laid off from a failure of a game company (it was another Adelaide flop, not my fault). I remember drawing this, immersed in the music because I goddamn love Enigma. The amount of gradient layer modes and clipping masks is proof of the big crutches I leant on with digital art.
Art will always be a 'higher' thing for me. Even if I'm just doodling Berserk, it's all about the storytelling behind every line. It's about my attachment to these characters, which is a emotional and human thing. Setbacks like I have experienced harm your inner pride more than anything, because just what am I without an ability to just be my best? A nothing. A broken person who can maybe eat, sleep, poop and... what else?
:( 
It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
I just want to be my (artistic) best. 
This 2016 art above was my best at that age, at that time. Below is a painting I didn't exactly hate, because I was trying to express something more than just painting a crappy fanart of a character that has zero emotional resonance with me. This is a painting featuring two of me, past and psychotic. I realize the PTSD of everything I've been through is still crippling me. So when people joke about PTSD they wouldn't know how disrespectful that is, it slices neatly through flesh and bone. It makes me stand up and walk away from the conversation, that's how bad it is. Luckily, I hate people in general and can get through many weeks with limited 'socializing', so it's all probably its for the better. As I said a few posts down, bozos everywhere are keen to 'critique' my art or assess why I'd be living with my dad but no, it's not 'still' living with him, as I thrived on my own for many years, buttheads. Soooo maybe I'm not ready for more goddamn 'socializing', which aka. means to be confronted and judged by absolute morons with no empathy for how many setbacks one little redheaded girl can have. 

This little redheaded girl has seen hell. It maybe hasn't all been without value and heavenly apparitions, but in the end, nobody wants to understand. I have been told to 'not expect to be understood' because that is naïve and narcissistic. Well fine, then these are my stories that I can barely can convey with the contemporary dance I do in the twilight at the back of the house, avoiding dads unused drum kit with every leap and bound. I don't want to focus in on art I did over 7 years ago, because it's sad to think I've had so much taken from me. I'm still myself. No matter what grief and psychosis life chucks at me, it can't steal this core. Doesn't matter if you have had setbacks that mean you can't work, you are still worthy and deserve to feel proud and happy. I guess I'll try drawing 'like me' right now. It may not be a textured brush-funny-Berserk-joke, because that isn't me as she exists in this present moment. Hope people aren't still reading this just out of curiosity of my gender-postings, I'm a woman. Leave me alone. Goodbye.

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Kangaroo Island farming game by a self taught dev

As I mentioned in previous recent posts I'm making a farming game. So I had my game working great for awhile but then made some tweaks in hopes of improving and BLAM. Something broke. Now I can barely water the plants and complete the growing crop cycle because somehow I altered one line that messed up another. I'm giving it a break for a few hours because I need to be fresh when I attempt programming, otherwise it all ends in a Vela tantrum.

I understand I sound really angry at the world in many of my recent posts and well, it's because life has been pretty damn hard and I can't find a semblance of normalcy due to all the weirdness I've experienced. Of course, I'm still animating, but it sure is hard. It's more the emotional hurdle of booting up my desktop computer and facing that Cintiq display. It reminds me of better days and to sit there often causes me great anguish. That is why I prefer my Surface Pro for game dev and even the Surface Pro pen comes in handy for pixel art.

I have never formally learnt how to code, so I tend to be a bit like a bull in a China shop in my approach to it. I've gotten better, I think. These last few days I really made a lot of progress, I think? Here's a screenie gif of the tediously watered plants in their second sprout stage. something is up with the watering not working, bah. I'm gonna fix it, I will just take my time and ask dad for help, lol. It looks a bit nicer as a screenie. The clumps of tall grass look a bit like the weeds on our property on Kangaroo Island, which is a landscape that I'm inspiring the game off of.

I started the game out with tiny 32x32 pixel character art, but since the recent Slam Jam 3, I realised larger pixel art is much easier for me and probably, something that gives my game more artistic charm. For that reason, I'm working on making 128x128 sized character sprites which will take heaps of effort but will probably make my game pop out from the hordes of pixel games. Nothing wrong with them, I personally adore tiny pixel art, but I think bigger is better for my style personally. I tried to observe well-sprited tilesets because you can't just larn pixel art in a void. My mouth fell agape in wonder at the detail in this one below. It's not like I can get that much skillful nuance into my own tileset but hey, you know what they say, shoot for the moon! 

Kangaroo Island is the predominant inspiration for this game, because we have vistas of the ocean and wide sprawling grasslands (of unwanted weeds) taking over native vegetation. In this game the player grows muntries, a native Australian berry.  On this property we get feral sheep which squeeze under the gaps in the fence between the neighbours farm. They are are pests and to be shoo-ed away. Native animals aka. kangaroos are of course somewhat welcome, but will still eat your crops! Same with possums, actually, especially possums. The wizened casuarina trees grow windswept to one side, their frail roots clinging to deal life in the sandy soil. It is a brutally tough landscape, but a poetic one that inspires me in countless ways, and we're headed over there tomorrow! I have attempted farming games miserably in the past, but this is the culmination of two other (broken) GameMaker Studio games that I never understood the core loop well enough. Here is a screenie of the predecessor, I admit, I put in the most effort with the relaxing hot tub feature rather than the crop growing. I will bring it back, but only if the player earns enough dough for it!
Well, I got my head around for loops, if statements, structs, arrays, arrays of structs, switches and assigning variables and whatnot. Finally, at long last, it appears all the programming has begun to sink in! I don't think it's that pretentious to say that a few years of dabbling in GameMaker could finally pay off.

Speaking of paying off, I just bought the newly announced one-time purchase Professional license, which I personally got discounted for $29 dollars because I had been paying $7 every month for so around a year. This means I can put my games up on my website and Itch.io as HTML and do ever more than before. Wow! Pretty pleased they have decided to create a one time purchase option that rewards creators who have been using GML for awhile. I think I'll be definitely stick to using GameMaker from now on, I mean, why not? It's so good. Thanks GameMaker, you're helping this lil' artist learn programming and game design!

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

On a panel at Avcon + met Hiroshi Nagahama!

So Avcon 2023 was super awesome for a few reasons! One of the guests was Hiroshi Nagahama, known for being the director of Mushishi. Just the mention of Mushishi takes me back to days spent in my room as a teen absorbing every anime I could get my hands on, always through early 2000s YouTube.

Its Saturday around 1:30pm. Nagahama-san is doing his first talk, creating a live drawing of Spiderman versus Venom and is aided by an interpreter. He obviously has ample respect for Western comics and culture, evidenced by his praise for American cartoons. I found it hard to relax and enjoy the moment, for I was scheduled to be on the panel directly after this legend!

We were instructed to be next to the stage 15 minutes beforehand for our "Women in Gaming" panel at 2:30. Before walking up on stage, the nerves hadn't really began to take effect of me just yet. A man in a blue Avcon volunteers tee then approached us. 

"Mics are on, you can go up there now."  

I teeter out as the second in line and took my seat. When the time came around to say my name into my mic, my hands began to shake despite my best attempts to stop them.

"Hi...I'm Vela."

The entire time, I found it hard to lift my head up and look at the audience, as honestly I was very awkward but hey......that ties into what I said on the panel.

(Photo credit: Rhomenka Vallance, Team Avcon)

The only things I felt like I was proud of mumbling was; my hopes that the industry can begin to accept the stories of people on the autism spectrum and/or with mental health conditions. Stories of neurodivergent people matter as they are usually quite vulnerable, and I'd love to see more characters and stories based directly off of these lived experiences. Basically, fresh outta' the mouths of people who've actually lived such things.

Also, I got a mention of Touhou Project in, which was fun to say. I'm certain I was zoning out staring at an Alley stall in the distance as I said everything in my strange American accent which seems to disarm everyone. After I stepped down from the platform, my friend hugs me.

"You we're amazing!"

I'm certain he was just being nice, as he always is. We scurried away and tried not to loiter, out of my sheer awkwardness. I was thrilled but also extremely anxious I might have said something wrong or held the mic the wrong way. When I get home that Saturday my dad immediately asks me:

"What? You need to get the anime director guys signature! Give him your business card!"
"There's a guest signing tomorrow afternoon! I don't think I should be handing him my business card..."

That night, I didn't sleep a wink. Over and over in my mind I thought, oh my god, I mentioned that company that flopped and maybe someone in the audience thinks I'm being a bitch. I didn't make eye contact when that girl in the audience who asked what our fave games were! Oh my god! I can't go an hour without being doofy and wrong!

Its 3pm Sunday the next day at the "Friends of Avcon" booth and Hiroshi Nagahama is there half an hour early. There is a non-existent line to get a signature from him, I can't believe it! I wait for the two people in front of me to get a custom drawing, the longest 10 minutes ever. He explains to the four or so people in line that one Sharpie was gifted to him by the late Stan Lee, so it is a precious Sharpie he must bring with him to conventions, or something along those lines. I prepared by muttering to myself the formal Japanese introduction I was told to say. Now its my turn, I swiftly bow and say:

"Dozoyoroshikuoneigaishimasu."

He mimics me but looks confused, maybe I said or timed it wrong. He readies his pen and gestures to the paper in front of him. I confess, I had just Googled the characters name, since it must have been decades since I first watched it. 
"Eehto...Ginko onegaishimasu.(Um, Ginko please)"
"Hai."
My friend nudges me to open my sketchbook so I do quickly. I brace myself and take the plunge.
"Watashi wa, sutoriboodo aetisuto desu.(Im a storyboard artist)"
"Honto?"(Really?)
He says so in typical exaggerated Japanese fashion. I flip through the pages of my drawings.
"What? It me?"
The other interpreter calls the Japanese interpreter over and they point to the lady in my sketches.
"Look it's you Hanako!*"
*I don't remember what the interpreter's name is but I'm 55% sure I overheard something similar. 
He turns back to me.
"Donna Sutoribodo desuka? (What sort of storyboards?)"
"Eeto...nettofurikkus (Um, Netflix)" 
"Honto!!!? Sugoi.(Really, awesome!)"
He then asked me what stuff on Netflix. I said in English: How to Train Your Dragon since I worked on a spinoff in series. The other guest, Lisle Wilkerson, who is bilingual, translated for him. His reaction was as expected, the equivalent of 'holy shit' in Japanese. I let them hold my sketchbook, of course. He points at the gesture I did of the crouching photographer.
"Umai desune...(Super good)"
He buckles down and starts drawing Ginko from Mushishi. The voice actress Lisle Wilkerson is sitting nearly right next to him so I show her the silly caricatured drawing I did of her. I wasn't expecting I'd ever be showing it to her!
"Sorry, sometimes I can't get peoples' faces right the first time."
She smiles coyly. 
"No problem, I'm a woman of a hundred faces."
She also seems to have a wealth of expertise so I ask her...
"What do you recommend for someone studying Japanese, other than just living there?"
"Hm. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Lots of Japanese people are really afraid, that's why they rarely leave Japan. You gotta' goof up a bit to learn!"
Nagahama now has finished the drawing by now, and signs it in English. 
"Sutori-aitisto ni Storiboardo-teki na e wo kaita. (For the story artist, I've drawn a storyboard-like picture"."
"Subarashi tomoimasu. arigatougozaimasu.(I think it's wonderful, thanks so much.)" 
"(Don't mention it)."

I leave the convention right after getting the drawing, since I had a family dinner that night. With my mind whirling and an original Sharpie drawing in my little clear bag, I slouch down into my well deserved train seat.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes, that is what that confident bilingual voice actress said, huh. Whether its through speaking Japanese to one man, or speaking English to an entire convention hall, I feel like I've started to conquer my fear of goofing up. What an awesome Avcon. Over and out~

Saturday, April 08, 2023

Drew 21 faces at the Willunga Artisan x Quarry market!

I busked at the Artisan x Quarry market Easter event from 8:30 to 12:15 and drew 21 faces! Wow! Mostly kids, only three adults out of all of them. Compared to last market where   As we had surprise social obligations x2 immediately after I was done with market, I was very exhausted.  

Before I get into the art, I need to say, life drawing is life. Caricatures are life. Sketching from life is life. Copying existing art will get you some draftsmanship, but you could always just be doing the ultimate copying, which is life drawing, like real classical artists always have done. The reason I say this is because a lot of people don't see value in life drawing. They can draw sparkly elf and orc concept art all they want, nothing beats giving a drawing to a little smiling girl who is over the moon with being cartoonified. Despite everything I've been through, I have always had a hankering for life drawing, and being capable of doing even the smallest sketches, whether its on the train into uni, or sketching a portrait for a cute little girl, means the world to me.























Sunday, March 26, 2023

First game jam in GameMaker AND all by myself!!!!!

The game is up here on my itch.io! It's a zip file but I promise it's not a virus! What do I have to say about this short project in which I only used thirds of the 9 day jam?

 

The post mortem from this project is, don't expect to do stellar with your school work AND do a fun jam, one will have to suffer. It could be maddening, watching the 'ball' hit around and spear itself onto spikes while you can only watch. Still, that's what the original game 'brick breaker' is about, enjoying the bricks breaking...It's only fair when the spikes can be avoided due to SKILL (moving left and right) soshite, it's a bit cruel. 

I struggled with the level progression, it's very clunky. I struggled with the 'resetting' of the rooms when dead and yadda yadda, all the linear stuff drove me batshit. I wonder why.


I enjoyed making the animated bricks and designing the strange levels. I admit for time reasons (and sanity) I didn't play all 5 stages through without dying (those ceiling spikes are brutal...) before submitting to jam. I removed ceiling spikes before submitting and hope that makes it more fair a game.

I wanted to focus on the delight of hitting the different bricks, so focused a lot on getting the corresponding color coming out of the exploding animation, wayyy too much time spent on that but hey, it's worth it. 

The local Adelaide game dev scene (AGD) has often made me self conscious, a bit of imposters syndrome involved there because of my trauma, but I'm really pleased with the vibe I felt on their discord and although it was a jam of only 14 games, that pretty great turnout for Adelaide. It makes me proud to be a part of something local.

Anyways, my hands are aching from all the coding and writing I've done today, that is a good sign. It's a familiar ache that says, you've worked pretty damn hard. Invertebreaker(s) may not look like much, but I hope someone enjoys it! Cheers!