Wednesday, February 24, 2010

So...Eroge in Academia?

So besides working on my own Ren'Ai games as strictly a hobby, I've also managed to bring them in to my academics.

I'm developing a performance piece (I'm a theater student) that uses Eroge/Ren'Ai games as an element. I won't bore you with the details.

But hey - here are some pretties in progress.

BTW - I SERIOUSLY need an actual version of Paint Tool Sai. I love this thing, but the trial only lasts 31 days. ;_; $57... Well, my birthday's coming up.

This is a picture of one of my actresses as a Ren'ai game character. ^^ She thinks it's awesome, I'm really excited for how it's going to turn out. She really looks like she could belong in any Ren'ai game!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Killing Babies

Not literally, of course. I mean making cuts and edits.

Someone once said that to be a writer, you have to be willing to kill your children. This weekend is definitely proof of that.

I'm working on a project - the script reached 406 pages (the page count of my last project) and was close to 1/3 completed. This, I decided, was unacceptably long. With a page count of 1200 (as would've been the projected final product) the logistics of creating such a monster would be a nightmare. Not to mention the undeniable reality that the game would just be too damn long for anyone to actually sit and read all the way through. I'm not J.K. Rowling - I'm not sure I could get my fans to sit through an 800 page novel.

So after deciding last night that the script was too long, I went about making cuts this morning. Cutting is a depressing process, let me tell you. How many hours of work am I stripping away? How many great pieces of dialogue? There were scenes that I would've rather died than parted with... But then I realized they didn't add to the story I really wanted to tell, so they had to go.

I've found a much more quick and manageable way of writing the rest of the game. I'm hoping that with these cuts I'll get down to around 275 pages before continuing. (I know! Cutting over 125 pages? It's scary). I hope the rest will go much smoother/quicker.

Heh. I guess I could always shove a "deleted scenes" section in the extras of my game. There's some really cute stuff that I'm sad had to go.

Oh well - off to kill more babies.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

A. R. T.

Art.

Let's face it - without visuals, you ain't got much of a visual novel, now do you?

Being a one-woman studio, I provide all the art for my projects as well as doing all the writing. And coding, and designing, etc...

For my thirteenth birthday my parents bought me a sketchbook - the Strathmore Recycled Paper Series, size 9x12, retail value $11.75 at most art stores. I now have nineteen of those sketchbooks piled under my computer desk at home; one with a proud "20" sharpied on the front cover is sitting next to me. (And yes, it's the exact same brand and size! Hey, you know what they say: if it ain't broke...)

Along with my writing, art has been one of my most passionate hobbies for a long time. I sketch probably every day and have spent years developing my style. My greatest influences have probably been Yusuke Murata (Eyeshield 21) and most recently the artist for the Otome Game Starry Sky, who uses a pen name that I haven't found out.

I've been drawing for nearly five years, but I've only seriously begun practice in the art of digital coloring this past year. My current weapon of choice is Paint Tool Sai. It's sorta fabulous. :3

These past few days have been very serious studies for me in terms of developing techniques and style for my CGing. I'm still so all over the place when it comes to my style and what I really want to achieve.
That's something I threw together while practicing. Not my most recent - but I'm pretty happy with it. (As for who he is...well, that may be revealed a bit down the road. ^_~)

When it comes to art, I feel like I'm at that frustrating "not quite pro" quality. In terms of my drawings, my coloring, everything. I'm trying my hardest, but it never seems to achieve the beautiful quality of pro artists. I guess I can hack this up to lack of experience and practice.

So I'll keep working! I have a goal of uploading a new piece to my devArt every three weeks (I'm a busy college student, so as much as I'll try to keep up with this, it may eventually fall by the wayside.) Practice makes perfect, as the so overused phrase seems to go! Wish me luck!