Hiatus Roundup (Patreon)

Whew, hey everybody! I'm finally here to share some of what I've been working on during my 3 months of hiatus. Thank you all for your patience with this feed; I know many of you were probably expecting more posts sooner, since I'd finally gotten time to work on side projects and sharing sneak previews of those is a lot of what this Patreon is for. I wanted to get everything into a state worth sharing, where I had the confidence in each to know I was going to continue with them! These are the things that got the closest to that state, though all of them have a long way to go. Making stuff solo takes forever, it turns out. Go figure.

Anyways, without further ado, here's a peek at what I've got brewing.

1) Animal Star

My first and biggest project that I've worked on during my break from Paranatural is a visual novel that I'm tentatively calling Animal Star. It's a sort of swashbuckling science fantasy rags to ill-gotten riches story, with a focus on character relationships and political intrigue. It's a kinetic visual novel, which means it's read like fiction instead of played like a choose-your-own-adventure. I'm planning to release it for sale in small chunks, like issues of a floppy comic. I'm excited about it! It's more serious than Paranatural and more PG-13 than PG, but still full of a lot of stuff I already know people like in my existing work.

I came up with the idea for the story a while ago, spent the first month and a half of my hiatus writing the introduction, among other projects, and then started working on art assets for it. So far I've finished the sprites of the two characters you see below, a pair of villains who feature prominently in the first episode, but I still have three simpler characters, backgrounds (the one below is only half finished), music, and special cut-in art to make, so it will probably be a while before the game's released. I'll do more updates here as I make progress!

I'm excited about the format. Being able to reuse assets and write as much dialogue as I want is a dream.

2) Untitled Comic

I don't have a title for this one yet, but it's a comedy comic from the perspective of the torch and pitchfork-wielding peasant mob you see frequently in monster movies. It's been really really fun writing something that's pure comedy, instead of comedy and drama combined like Paranatural. Also PG-13, for swears and gallows humor. I'm having a ton of fun with it! I've done a lot of writing for it and there's still more to go, but here's some concept art of some of the characters I've done in my free time.

I'm excited for you to meet these characters and the rest of the cast, I honestly get giddy about some of the jokes in it sometimes. My plan is to either do it with simpler art than usual, like those Lupin III comics I've done in the past, and release it as a PDF like I do with my sketchbooks, or to take a little more time with it and try to pitch it as a floppy comic or graphic novel to a publisher. I haven't decided yet! For now, I'll try to post updates on it when I can.

3) Another Untitled Comic

The last thing I'm ready to sort-of half share is a sci-fi comic about bodies and imagination. It's a slow and personal sort of story, similar to Terraform. I'm excited to share it for entirely different reasons than the other two projects in this post, but I mostly want it seen as one complete work instead of in bits as sneak previews, so I'm keeping it closer to my chest than the others for now! The writing's almost done and I've done some concept art and thumbnails... see the tiny tiny sample preview below! I hope some of you like it when it's finally completed!

Besides these projects, I've also done a lot of work for chapter 6 of Paranatural, which I'm very very excited to start! It's going to be a unique one, that's for sure. I hope you're looking forward to it, because there's lots in it to look forward to!

That's all for now, thank you all again for your support! It is literally my lifeblood, and the reason I was able to take this time off and get a foothold in so many projects I'm excited about. I'll save more of what I want to say for Paranatural's return, but it's also been so good and, in hindsight, super important that I've been able to REST during this time as well. Having time to breathe after the massive undertaking that was chapter 5 has been an incredible relief, so... thank you so, so much!

You'll hear from me again soon, I hope you have a lovely day ahead!