Lately, I Have Been Annoyed With How I Draw Faces, So I Figured, I Try Something New And Actually LEARN

Okay, I don't know how far I'll get this time, but I'm working on an animation.

I got one recommended on YouTube and the song is a banger and fits perfectly with the story I want to tell and since yesterday, I can't think of anything else.

Since my goal was anyways to master animation one day, I thought I'd use this inspirational boost for finally getting something done.

I had another animation I tried to continue after I think it's about a year ago but gave up since I had no song for it and I had trouble with deciding how long a frame should last.

I already storyboarded the first 30 seconds of that animation and I'm not sure how far I'll draw but what I have makes me even more thrilled to finish the rest!

This animation will be mostly centred on my OC Decay and the main incident in my story.

What also gets me really excited about my story is that I don't even know who's good or evil anymore. I think I'm evil for creating the horrible suffering my OCs need to go through XD but it's for entertainment, am I right? :)

Little update on the sketch:

I kinda have the feeling something's off ... maybe too much hair? Maybe it gets better once I put in some color ...

Here the links to the lineart and the colors.

Tips for writing

I already had another story which I never got to post, since I kept rewriting it into eternity. After forcing myself to take a break from it, I think I finally figured out a way to keep consistently writing a story. So, I thought maybe this post might stumble across a reader who struggles with similar things as I did and I could provide a possible solution without them needing to go through a year and over 10 different versions of a first chapter ending in a failed project. (and admitting that I needed to stop was what hurt the most since I really love the idea I had and maybe I might even try to restart that story, but that's a topic for another post in maybe 2 to 3 years.)

Also Disclaimer: This is only my opinion on the matter and what I figured to be helpful. In the end, it's up to you how you want to write your story and to decide what works for you. I'm just sharing my experiences.

I had a couple of problems which mixed up together until I needed to give up.

First off, I lacked structure. With my first bigger story, I had an idea, a beginning and I knew some major plot points that needed to happen. But what I never knew was when or how the story ended. I just wanted to tell an endless story or figure out an ending on the way. That didn't work for me.

With my current story (which you can check out here, if you're interested) I researched a couple of ways how to structure a story properly. (It was just for fun honestly, but so helpful in the end) I already had, like before a vague idea, and some plot points I wanted to happen. What I did: See if my story would fit into any of these structures and what would happen at which point until the end. And then I found a structure that fit my story (almost) perfectly. After that, I wrote down the plot in bullet points creating my outline for the story.

(Note: Of course, you can take any story structure you find and bend it a little. For example, I decided to go for a three act-structure and decided to skip the introduction part, since I wanted to plunge the reader into the story without heavily explaining what was going on. They would figure it out on the way … )

This means I knew what happened at which moment. And most importantly, I had an ending. Now I had to face my next challenge, fighting my constant urge to rewrite everything. After proceeding with my used-to-way of just writing what comes to my head, I quickly figured out that this wouldn't work. It didn't work earlier and it didn't work now. So, I needed to figure out what was wrong with my approach.

For that, there are multiple options to do so. Either you can ask others for their opinion of what is wrong with your text or try proofreading yourself. I recorded how I read my texts and heard afterwards to the footage while I was reading along (and yes, it sucks hearing your own voice on record, but if you imagine it's another person, it's not that painful anymore, after a while)

Then I had another important realization. I still had no structure in my chapters. The story was now well structured and I knew what I wanted to write the chapter about, but my thoughts were jumping from one thought to another and then back again. To solve this problem, I came up with an approach that still works for me.

Before writing the chapter, I think about what I want to happen in this chapter. For example, in my current story, I needed to introduce the two main characters and they needed to meet. I also wanted to hide some hints on backstory and needed to write about the event that starts the entire story. With that in mind, I just start loosely writing down what comes to my mind. It doesn't matter if it's good or not, since I'm going to rewrite it later on. Once I come to a point, where I completed all of my goals for that chapter, I take what I wrote down and structure the plot into bullet points. Then I take these and write a second version along with the bullet points. This makes sure that my thoughts are structured in the end and that I have a clear storyline to follow.

After that, the last step is proofreading. As already said before, you can ask others to give you feedback or record yourself. Maybe use a grammar program to fix obvious mistakes you've overseen (helps a lot. especially if you're writing in a language that you don't use everyday) In this stage I mostly find some sentences that are hard to read / speak or just some wordings that repeat or don't quite sound right. So I go ahead, mark them and fix them.

And after that, I was by now always satisfied with what I wrote. This method might be a little overkill but it works for me and the most important thing you need to keep in mind: If you'd like to write something, it's supposed to be fun. No matter the way you do it. The process of creating an own story and slowly watching it come alive, that's the feeling that makes me happy and why I keep writing.

Hope you had fun reading and maybe I was able to give you one or another idea on how to write a story. If you want more tips, you can send me an ask or just comment on this post.

Some time ago (It was only a couple of weeks, beginning of July) I played around a little with game developing. (Well yes. I am doing a lot because I cannot decide what I like the most.)

I just copied a player script from the Godot website and tried that a little. Then I copy pasted some Luigi-textures to represent the character sprites and it felt fun.

Next step, I wanted to make my own textures for a character but had no idea where really to start, so I started making the basic skeleton model in pixel art. (currently just 4-directional but I'll bother to add the other directions later. And I currently have no animations, just the model facing all 4 sides.)

Currently, I am trying to make a character sheet for one of my OCs from my story "In-Between" and of course, I'm struggling with that for unexplainable reasons. (as always)

BUT I just opened up a music video with a pixel-art-thumbnail and I was like, some time ago, I did something like that, didn't I? So, I went back to my old files and opened up my template and started causually painting out my character and OH BOY, THAT LOOKS GOOD AND I HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED SHADING YET!

And yeah, I didn't do the face yet XD

And here the old concept I based it on. I think I just changed the hair.

And some more information about him:

That's Blake, Guardian of Time. He can manipulate how time works for certain objects or living beings. Also, he can time travel but he's being careful with his powers since he's trying to avoid creating paradox timelines.

I wanted to write something more about his duty, but figured I have no idea why he needs to guard the time. I was just like, someone needs to make sure that we have no spacial interference between worlds. Why not add timelines to the mix? Blake was born.

Hi, it's me again

I am currently working on a little something which I'm not sure if I'll manage to make something out of it but I'm motivated to continue.

I wanted to maybe make a one-paged small teensy tiny comic about one of my OCs. Currently, I am still working on their designs and hopefully I'll get something done this time, but I'm confident 😁

PS: I am also currently amazed by animation again. I'll keep training a little and then I can share something with you.

(I am also trying to post more often, but let's see how that'll turn out 😂)

I decided to make a new blog for that 😁

Welcome to DesolateTale!

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog about my AU DesolateTale!

I already had the idea about a year ago, but never really got to make the actual story become reality at some point. (or gave up trying, but this time it's different. I have a plan!)

With this story, I wanted to take the approach of the genocide run and flip it 360° while also connecting it to the always-expanding multiverse.

I will try my best to keep this blog updated, but I cannot guarantee consistent updates. If you want to ask me anything about it or have any other things you want to tell me, feel free to ask me here or on my main blog @lostvi21. I would be happy to answer.

current mantra

I've always wanted to draw this tree and it was fun 😁

(and I get better at drawing backgrounds 😀)

Dreamtale by @jokublog

DTIYS

The bg was a pain in the butt but in the end i love it 😭

Rules:

- you can change the perspective however you want as long as it resembles the original

- most importantly; HAVE FUN, FOLKS !

- use the tag #xnzliandtiys so i can see it, or just tag me!

I forgot what other rules i usually put in my dtiys but just ask me if you're not sure about something :)

Dream and Nightmare belong to Jokublog

And now as I was scrolling through my older posts, I realised what my mistake here was ... I think the pacing of the animation is completley off. He's falling way too fast ... it feels weird. Maybe if I find the file I could try to continue ...

I am trying to animate again :D

but nothing too big this time.

I was thinking about, how one of my OC's powers would work, and I had a little idea for a loop (after watching a sick fighting animation on Youtube, just that I couldn't figure out how to make something like that, so I'll just make a loop)

Anyway, I wanted to animate my OC Kael (Guardian of Time) and even with the keyframes, I am already impressed with how that looks.

Sneak peek below :D but don't expect too much

Note: Roughing it out, setting basic proportions, and so on ... I don't know if my timings are fine or if I need to tweak something about it ...

More sneak peek

I'm currently really pushing through. Also realised, I don't use any in-betweens by now XD (at least for now, but the animation feels fluid enough) AND I also needed to figure out the rest of the character design. I guess for now, I have something I might stick with, but this could change in the end or become more detailed.

AND NOW I FINALLY REALIZED WHY A CERTAIN PART LOOKED WEIRD!!! I copied the pose right as he turns around and forgot to change the legs so suddenly they were swapped.

And now I am realising that this might take some more brain power to fix, than just change that one frame ................

I think, I fixed it ... I guess it was not that visible from the beginning anyway ... just the feeling that was bugging me.

Well, it's still wrong and feels wrong. But this clearly takes more brain capacity than I currently have left. Guess I'll roughly animate the rest and continue hopefully tomorrow.

So, current state for today: (and yes, I still need to fix that stupid frame, or isn't it even noticeable?)