Hello Everyone! Another Creator's Blog as a little musing for some of my works and content. I felt that I wanted to share a bit of how I work on things and how I "Think" about several points, just as an insight into my way of thinking. (And also to answer some questions indirectly.)

Stories are Hard. Really

Well, some of you know that I spent quite a bit of time back then writing "The Godless Age" (aka TGA), which was a take on Elden Ring, essentially giving it a plot. And one thing led to another, which led me to make more than I initially planned.

However, Most of you do not know that TGA's first draft was vastly different. Some details include:

Rags (A Guts Clone ) was the only main character

It takes place in the present with him as the Tarnished

It was really just "Berserk" in the Lands between.

It would have been much, much shorter

That, however, made me... Kinda skeptical of my own work. Like:

Did I really write this? This... is... Horrid.

Naturally, the first version of TGA was scrapped, down to the last detail. With Rags, our resident Guts clone, being the only one to survive the purge. At that point, there was a little point that I wanted to altogether, to never write TGA.

However, I sat for a bit to think. And think hard I did. I wanted to MAKE TGA, badly. So I started to turn those gears in my head, and really make the effort to research and come up with a good take.

Hence, why we have TGA in its current form. With changes that include:

The story is told in both the past and the present.

Lordan was created to serve as the present MC. I kinda dubbed him "The Canonical Tarnished," and there is a reason for that.

Rags was settled into the past and played a bigger role in getting to the present. And his story and character work were overhauled to make him more than a Guts Clone.

The Souls games and any other Souls-likes I liked are somewhat in the same universe/world, but at different points in time. (DS > KF > ER/NR > DeS > SSDT > BB > ???)

The Demi-gods were now actual characters, rather than simply enemies in some cases.

The Lands between have more life than in-game.

Lore can be, will be, must be, and shall be changed in accordance with my thoughts and takes.

With these changes, I proceeded and made a big effort to be creative for a change. And I enjoyed it a lot.

Hence, here are some rules I made for myself for storytelling:

Characters can and should suffer if there is a need for it. (Really. Even if they are a favorite)

Read your own works. Seriously, do it.

Take the risk to risk it all. Even if you need to start from scratch.

Ensure the rules of your world/story are followed to the letter, and explain/show when you break them.

Think of the Ending. Otherwise, it never ends.

This is not a guide meant for everyone, tho, as I understand it, everyone has different thoughts. But I hope it explains some of my choices in the story.

Create-a-Sim Arc

Now, as some of you have seen, I come up with designs for my takes of characters, both OC and canon. And the question I still ask myself is "How?"

At first, I had commissioned artists for the work, to give faces to my characters as I wrote them, as reference and inspiration.

But there were limitations to this, mostly time, as it is, and still is, a wait between artworks.

Hence, I first looked into rendering and found Blender. And that's when the fun began, with the first works of rendering coming to my videos, if you have seen them.

Soon, I started digging, finding more models, tools, locations, etc, etc, just to feed that creative urge to make things myself. Hell, rendering quite frankly took away my addiction to gaming since.

Then, I hit a roadblock due to one simple fact.

I do not have the models I want to use.

At first, I thought of the commission route, maybe ask a modeler to make my models for me in Blender, but that would cover a huge investment amount that I was not prepared to take.

But I stuck with Gold; I found another Rendering software, DAZ Studio.

Which did not have a good reputation due to the fact that many Lewd games use them to create scenes. (Can't blame them, the software makes good scenes)

But I did not care; I used them for one thing only: to adapt my characters to a usable state.

But for Elden Ring especially, I wanted to adapt the characters asap, and with the references from the portraits I commissioned from a favorite artist of mine, I did it quite fast.

Of course, there were some characters that could not be made into Models that were usable in the program, that's not to say that I would not find a way tho.

This gave me a chance to recreate and make characters on a scale I could not before. Making me a kid in the candy store :)

And the work is ever ongoing, I am still making models to my liking as we speak, changing them as I want, and more. Needless to say, the work continues.

DAZStudio Assets. Born out of NEED.

As most of you are aware, I have created a huge number of conversions of various game assets for DAZStudio.

Why? Simple. I wanted them.

I found myself at a crossroads in creating content and characters, and realized I needed a huge haul of game assets to make them as accurate as possible. So I started with the conversion of Soul's assets, then HD2, then TES for a bit, and now WH40K.

But to top it off, I made a small vow: the majority of the assets must be free for all to use. Hence, they are released after their Early Access period, except for models that require a ton more work to convert. The reasons behind this were simple:

Being behind a permanent paywall means less use. (And what would be the point of that?)

I wanted others to be able to do what I do

I don't want developers to disturb me >_<

Naturally, all the work that I have put into this Patreon so far in the creation of Assets? They were all for me.

To sum it up...

Making stuff is hard, guys. Seriously.

I kinda developed a permanent ache in my wrist from all the mouse usage for the past 2-3 years, but I do not regret it. I have so much fun and enjoyment in this hobby that I do not know when it will end.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk again. I hope you all have a great day ahead and have insights into the type of work I do behind the scenes. Maybe I will show more down the line? Who knows...

Cheers,

Ed