The spooky month has begun!

Hey all! Time for an update!

Soooo... last time I wasn't certain what I wanted to do for the upcoming build. Would I make it a Halloween themed 18Titans build oooor try and squeeze in a Spooky-times in whatever time I'd have left after finishing up a normal Titans build? I didn't know. In the meantime I was making some normal Titans scenes and wasn't really "feeling it" (because I still hadn't made up my mind). But then I remembered something I already wanted to do for a future titans build which has some Halloween elements.

That was pretty much my Eureka moment and gave me that can-do attitude again. So, I decided to do that! A normal Titans build with some Halloween elements. I can even ham it up some more(which I might) but it's in essence still a regular build. I already did something like it with FET when I incorporated some Halloween stuff in the main game instead of making it a standalone version. Like I said, I wanted to do this anyway as a normal story element later on, but this is a good(better) moment for it.

As for how long it will take me... well I'd like to have it ready halfway through this month, but I might decide to take more time to add to it and make it bigger. Depends on how things go. Once the build is ready and I do have enough time left in the month I'll see if I can do something Extra for Halloween, but that's something I'll still have to decide. Just resetting my schedule with a build at the end of a month would be nice too because I simply work best that way.

And since I all of a sudden felt like drawing some June(it's been a while!) that's what I did for this update. I really should've let those two(Iroh and her) have a scene together in Book 3. A missed opportunity for certain.

Off- topic stuff!

Speaking of sudden urges to draw something, I've been looking for something simple which allows me to sketch and not waste a lot of paper in the process. I already mentioned something called an "lcd writing tablet" in an older update. If you're not aware of what those are, well it's not something expensive which the name might suggest. It's a sort of low tech whiteboard, but instead of it being white it's black and the lines you draw on it are a light blue/green color.

I never used it before and it seemed like a really fun and inexpensive thing to try so I got myself one to just doodle on and see if I'd like it. I don't. You can't draw anything too detailed, the whole reversed "white on black" setup is not pleasant to my eyes and you can't delete parts halfway through! It actually works with electricity, but it only has a battery to clear the entire board if you want to start anew. The drawing itself doesn't use any electricity. The downside of it is that you can't delete parts of the screen. It's an all or nothing kind of deal.

So that was fun to try, but instead I've gotten myself a super simplistic small whiteboard thingy. With that you can just erase parts with your finger if you don't like what you did.

My hand is still doing pretty well since I started using a pen-mouse in combination with the normal mice, but just in case I ever have/want to build my own mouse I got something called moldable thermoplastic. It's for if you want to shape something into plastic but don't want to go through the hassle of getting and learning how to work with a 3d printer! It's fun stuff to play with too.

There's these white little pellets which you drop into hot water after which it becomes moldable. It's strangely satisfying to play with. After shaping it you can just leave it to cool off and you'll have plastic in the shape you sculpted it to be. I doubt I'll ever use it to make my own hand shaped mouse, but if I have to I can now. In the past I tried using foam clay but that stuff isn't as pleasant to hold for a longer amount of time since it gets warm.

And finally, my intuos 2 wacom pens are slowly starting to degrade. The one I bought last time turned out to be suffering from lingering lines. Basically, when you lift the pen from the tablet it STILL registers as if it's pressed down, creating these thin lines which you'll have to erase afterwards. I think I got three pens with that problem now! Well... the intuos 2 IS more than two decades old and all the pens are all second hand purchases(because you can't buy new ones, or at least none that I know of)... So I got myself an Intuos 3 instead! Just in case my last working pen craps out on me. It's also old as balls, but what can I say... I just really love these old wacom drawing tablets and I'd rather have one(or two) too many as a fallback.

And that's about what I had to say. I hope you have better understanding of what I'm up to, but I'll let you know where I'm at again halfway through this month. Whether that'll be by me posting a new Titans build or something else is still something I need to find out myself, but once I know, you'll know.

Talk to you later, peace!

Marty