As always, there’s also a video edition of The Hydromecha Monthly for a quick rundown on the headlines:
The Waltz of False Life and Other Auditory Escapades
I got back to making music this past month and finished a new song called The Waltz of False Life. It was loosely inspired by a couple of songs from Galaktikon 2, one of my favorite albums, plus some other prog metal stuff.
Initially I made the song using the GZDoom soundfont so I could use it in ANTARCTICA, but then I started messing around with some other soundfonts I had laying around to make a less-compressed sounding version. I also went back to an older song I made, Catacomb March, and gave it the same treatment.
Lights, Camera, Scratchbuild!
I now have the means to make better scratchbuilding videos using this new setup. This way I can actually show the creation process of builds instead of just showing stills like in the Plague Machine video. The camcorder is hooked up to a tablet so I can see what the camera’s seeing without having to take my eyes off of the table (which I shamelessly copied from Greig Johnson Making’s setup).
I’ve got ideas for another build that I’m hoping to get started this month. ETA uhhh idk maybe a month or two from now? We’ll see.
Here’s an incredibly early vaguely proof of concept sneak peak at what I’m building next:
This is gonna be the mouth to a big robot scorpion sorta thing. I’m gonna use bread clips to make the Chelicerae (funky looking claw things scorpions have in their mouths).
Behold, The Cyberpenguin
This is a new monster I made for ANTARCTICA MUST FALL (Doom mod I’m working on). Right now it’s using some placeholder sprites but it’s functional in-game and has SFX. It attacks by ramming into the player at high speed, sending you flying backwards. It doesn’t deal a lot of damage, but its knockback can be pretty crazy.
At some point I gotta make a model and sprites for the Cyberpenguin like I did for the Snowdemon and Surprise Elemental.
Here’s a closeup of the placeholder sprite. It’s a photobash of a penguin (duh), a snowmobile, a jet engine, and a snowplow train. Expect the final model to look something kinda like this.
Cubeguy Crouching Normals
Cubeguy’s crouching normals are finished along with some jumping-related animations (see the video edition for those). There are a whole lotta other animations I gotta finish (like the air normals) that I’m hoping to get cranked out in November.
Bugalo & Blender
As is tradition, there’s a a new Bugalo page out. I wanted to include a funny panel with some funny perspective in this page so I used some Blender magic to make a reference. I set the focal length of the camera really low to get that super closeup look.
The gif above shows the camera going from a more normal focal length to a much lower one while also moving closer to the model. The images below give you a better look at what’s going on. You can read Bugalo on the Hydro website by clicking here. If the new page isn't loading for you try clearing your browser's cache.
That’s all for October. I’ll see you again next month with another newsletter.
Here’s the stuff I was working on this past September. I tried something little different for this month’s video edition. I’ll go into more details in a moment, but the main thing is that the videos will be used as quick headlines while these text posts will dive into more details on things. That way they occupy different niches in this multimedia ecosystem.
So, what were those other changes? Well for starters you might’ve noticed I sounded more alive compared to the previous videos. Instead of recording audio by myself I wanted to try a sort of studio setup. I hopped into a voice chat with a couple friends and they helped me not only sound more like a real conversating human being, but they also were a big help with things overall. I’ll definitely stick to this method for future videos.
Jank Fighter - Cubeguy Standing Normals
Cubeguy’s standing Normals are all done now! I made the movements much snappier this time around, which should hopefully help make the moves seem more impactful. The video above shows Cubeguy’s 5A/B/C/S and 6A. (If you don’t understand this notation, it’s using numpad keys as directions with 5 as neutral and 6 as forwards. A/B/C/S are the buttons in the game.) I might want to go back to refine these animations some more later, but I’ll wait till I’ve finished them all first.
The current plan is to give all characters a launcher on C (either standing or crouching), a standing overhead on 5S, and an anti-air on 6A. Cubeguy’s 5C looks like it might also function as an anti-air but we’ll see how things work once the hitboxes and frame data are all set up later down the line.
I’ve also started on some rough versions of his crouching Normals (2A and 2B so far) which you’ll have to check the video edition for. I’ll put those in their own standalone video like the one above once they’ve been completed.
My goal is to get at least rough versions of all the animations Cubeguy needs done sometime this month/early next month so I can hand off the .blend file to get things actually set up in-engine.
Comic Reader Updates
The Comic Reader saw some offline progress this past month, mostly within the realm of trying to make things more user-friendly and adding the features I talked about last time. Adding comics is a bit more intuitive now, but I still have some improvements to make there. In featuretown news, direct links to specific chapters/pages now work and I also added buttons showing the chapters of a comic with their covers/first pages. These changes aren’t live on the website as of writing. That might happen later this month depending on what I end up working on.
The URLs are formatted like this: #[Comic Name]#[Chapter Number]#[Page Number] where page 0 is the cover, usually.
If a comic doesn’t have a cover on a certain chapter, the first page will be shown instead, like with Bugalo below:
I still need to iron out some bugs and implement a few other changes before I’m comfortable with releasing it publicly. I also want to come up with a cool name for the project. I’ve got HydroReader as a placeholder idea but I’d rather have something a little less egotistical. :^)
HydroMonthly Set Models
The models I use on the set of The Hydromecha Monthly’s videos got a fresh new coat of texture painting in September. This includes the desk, monitor, and background. Everything got UV Unwrapped and then those UVs were painted in Krita.
Table Knight Module
I’ve got a good chunk of the detailed descriptions done for the various locations in the module last month. I’ll include a couple excerpts below. After I finish the rest of those I gotta get to work on the maps, NPC stat blocks, items, etc. I’ve got a couple friends working on the art front for this project so hopefully I’ll have some presentable sketches to show you in the coming months.
As promised here are those aforementioned snippets:
King Moe sits in his throne, dejectedly staring at the floor like a man who sold his soul …for a bag of peanuts.
And from later in the module:
All dragons need a hoard, that’s just common knowledge. But not all dragons can afford to hoard gold, especially in this economy.
The Making of The Plague Machine
In case you missed it, I finally got around to making that making-of video I talked about in the last edition of The Monthly. Back when I started working on this thing I hadn’t actually intended to make a video out of it. Luckily I was taking pictures of it to share with friends so I had something I could work with. I’ll have to record some proper footage the next time I make something like this.
Hazardous Materials - Comic Script
The HazMat script had some pretty good progress recently. I have a rough outline for the last bunch of scenes in Chapter 2 that I had looked over by some friends. After I refine that outline and process it into a proper script, I’ll have them take a look at it one more time before I can finally move on to Chapter 3.
Chapter 2 is definitely the longest one I’ve written so far. Its script is a little longer than the prologue and chapter 1 scripts put together, and it’ll only get longer when it’s finished. Chapter 1 is going to be mostly action without much dialogue so we’ll see how it stacks up to chapter 2 once I get to the layout/sketch phase.
For more information on Hazardous Materials, click here.
Bugalo
As is tradition, Bugalo got a new page with this new HydroMonthly edition. Click on the image above to read it on the website. I drew this page on a higher resolution canvas, which helped make the linework look a little neater.
Face Practice
I want to get better at drawing expressive faces (and just better at drawing in general) so here’s some practice from this past month. I was using some stuff from the Venture Bros artbook as reference for the digital drawing above. There are some useful drawing books I found on Internet Archive I’ve been looking through to hopefully help that process of better-getting.
Let Me Cook
We’ll wrap things up with some interesting foodstuff making I engaged in. The picture above shows some really nice loaded fries I threw together last month. It’s like a hamburger detonated over a field of french fries. It includes fries (duh) seasoned with garlic powder, ground beef seasoned with a bunch of stuff, sauteed onions (cooked with the beef), bbq sauce, hot sauce, pickles, cheese, and sundried tomatoes.
I might add a recipes section to my website later, especially if there’s interest. I’ve also been experimenting with a bulgogi recipe (modified from the one my Mom taught me) that uses cilantro (plus other herbs) in the marinade and has you caramelize onions in what’s left of the marinade after the beef has been cooked. I don’t usually measure things when I cook stuff like this but I’ll try to get some estimates if I do end up adding that recipes section.
That’s all for September. I’ll see you again next month with another newsletter.
The Hydromecha Monthly continues its foray into the world of moving visual media, this time with even more movement! Check out this month’s video edition below:
I gotta get those animations set up properly in the Non-Linear Animation editor later. I copypasted things across the timeline as I needed them like an ape xd. I’m also thinking of rendering the lip sync separately so I can just composite it over prerendered body animations. That could make the overall render time a lot faster. Currently the backgrounds are prerendered stills while the Hydro model is rendered separately (along with the table) with animations/lip sync. I’m also thinking of changing the dimensions on the monitor so 16:9 footage fits in it better.
The lip sync is done automatically by feeding audio into Blender, which changes the Value of a Shapekey depending on the volume of the input. If you want to learn how to do this yourself, check out this video (it’s the same one I followed to make my stuff):
Comic Reader Updates
The comic reader on Hydromecha.Website got a major overhaul recently. Instead of needing to go to a separate page to read each comic, everything now lives on a single .html file, using JavaScript to swap what comic is loaded. Individual comics can be linked to thanks to the hash system in the URL. I still need to get individual page URLs set up (so you can link to specific pages), among other things. I still have to go back through a bunch of stuff to swap out links to the old comic webpages.
Stay tuned for a Github release of the comic reader’s code once I get things cleaned up and a bit more user-friendly. If you really want to you can always trawl through the JS by Inspect Element-ing on the page. Check out the comic reader by clicking on the above image. Be warned, the site isn’t optimized for mobile browsers. That’s something I’ll have to mess with later.
ANTARCTICA MUST FALL Grayboxing
ANTARCTICA MUST FALL has been on ice for a little while now. I was messing around with the first map and started getting some ideas for things, which resulted in an expanded graybox. I have a playlist of progress videos, which are just uncommentated gameplay footage for now. Click here to see it. If there’s demand, I can do a video that goes into detail on stuff. I want to make another monster for this mod, so I could also do a video going over the process of going from a Blender model to sprites and such.
The video below is the latest progress showcase for MAP01:
I’m planning on grayboxing all the maps before even thinking about decorating stuff to make sure I can solidify all the gameplay. An even longer while ago I had started mapping with way too much focus on small details and making things look nice instead of trying to make a good Doom level. There are definitely things I’m thinking of changing in the current version of MAP01 which’ll be easier to do with a bunch of simple shapes.
Completion of The Plague Machine
The Plague Machine is done! I’m planning on doing a making-of video for this build sometime next month.
Bugalo et al.
I’m gonna talk about Bugalo along with a few projects that didn’t get a ton of progress this past month.
As is custom in these lands, Bugalo (Wonderful and Fancy High School Bait Club) got a new page this month. Check it out here. In a shocking twist of events, Bugalo may be starting a coherent plotline. The horror.
I made a little bit of progress on the Hazardous Materials Script and the Table Knight module but not enough to warrant talking about them in detail.
I also messed with a couple of Jank Fighter animations I had made last time, but I’ll show those off when I get more of them done.
Closing Thoughts
That’s all for August. The Plague Machine and my own nebulous time management took up a lot of my free time. I gotta try getting a better system in place to get more things done, especially on some of my more writing-intense projects. I usually struggle to get started on stuff like that but once I get into the swing of things it flows pretty quickly.
As always, I’ll see you next month with another wrapup.
I’ve made an amazing new breakthrough in technology this month: video! That’s right, The Hydromecha Monthly now exists as an audiovisual production you can consume with both your eyes and ears without having to undergo the strenuous task that is reading! Check it out here:
As the description says, this was an incredibly rushed production slapped together over a weekend. I had some semi-ambitious plans that had to be cut down a bunch. You’ll notice pretty quickly that my model doesn’t move or have lip sync. I originally wanted to go for a super limited, early Adult Swim sort of look, like Space Ghost CTC or ATHF, but instead I went even more limited. Perhaps even the superlative limited.
I’ll do a deeper dive on behind the scenes stuff in next month’s post. A lot of the models used here were things I had laying around with textures I also had laying around. The same thing can be said about the music. I had the soundtracks to Cruelty Squad and Baba is You on my computer and they fit well enough, I think.
If you’ve already watched the video, the following information should be very familiar:
Helicoprion Portrait
Last month was Shark Week. To commemorate the occasion I drew this: A Portrait of a Rather Dapper Fellow. It’s based off of a very outdated model of Helicoprion from the 19th century that I think looks really funny.
Helicoprion is technically only shark-like (according to Wikipedia anyways), but I remember seeing it in shark books as a kid, so it’s a shark to me, dammit!
Table Knight Module Progress
With all the major story beats outlined, I’ve started writing more detailed descriptions of things for the one-shot module. Below is an excerpt describing King Moe Narch’s castle:
The castle makes the word opulent look like it works minimum wage in a low-income housing environment. Its bricks are carved from lustrous marble with intricately inlaid gold patterns accenting the frame around the drawbridge door. Polished steel chains glisten in the sunlight as they hold a magnificent bridge made of petrified wood etched with the Oldhaven coat of arms.
Bugalo Page
As always, there was a new Bugalo page this month. You can check it out here.
Hazardous Materials Progress
I got a bit more done on chapter 2’s script this month, with more of my effort going into sketching some character designs. As-is they’re pretty rough and I definitely want to go back over these to futz with the proportions and whatnot, but they should give you a good idea of what the characters look like.
From left to right we have: Asbestos, Coal Dust, Lead, Ms. Chicken Wire, Dr. Concrete, Mr. Glass, Amber, Titania, and P.I. Periscope. Periscope’s design goes hard and I think I’ve peaked with him. All future designs will pale in comparison to his ocular majesty.
Jank Fighter Animations
You’ll have to check the video to see these. I finished the rest of Cubeguy’s standing normals so now he’s got a full set for all four buttons (A/B/C/S).
Plague Machine Progress
The Plague Machine saw a lot of progress this month, starting with something incredibly riveting: rivets! They take the form of tiny hemispherical beads I had to painstakingly glue all over the model. This was followed by a prime and zenithal highlight and then some basecoats. Check the newsletter for more pictures in higher resolution.
Closing Thoughts
I should’ve been in bed half an hour ago so I’ll keep this quick. Making the video was pretty fun despite having to cut a lot of corners. Hopefully I can make it look nicer for next month’s Wrapup.
I briefly showed this off in the video, but I also finally got back to making pizzas this month. Below we have a pesto, chicken, sun-dried tomato pizza along with a plain pizza.
I’m gonna keep on keeping on with the things I’m working on and I’ll see you in the next Wrapup.
A lot of my time this past month was taken up by travel and putting together a new 3D printer/enclosure but I was able to get a little bit done across a bunch of projects. I’ve also updated the about page on the website with the statuses of my major projects alongside some more website buttons of fellow Neocities users.
Plague Machine
Finally made some more progress on this scratchbuild. I still need to finish the terrain paste and I also want to try adding physical “rivets” to the thing using some small hemispheric beads. Previously I used an allen screwdriver to press some hexagonal divets into foam panels for bolts (see Kaiser Hedd Kannon) which are okay but don’t stand out all that well. It’ll be a grueling, tedious task to glue a crap ton of tiny beads all over this thing but it’ll definitely be worth it.
Jank Fighter
I should probably announce the name of that SECRET PROJECT I talked about last time. As written above, it’s called Jank Fighter, a 2D fighting game that’s super early in development so I won’t tell you too much about it. It’s a 4 button fighter (light/medium/heavy/special) being made in Godot. I’m working on the models/animations while a friend is in the gamedev mines.
Below are a couple of animations for Cubeguy, a playtesting character. Depending on how well he plays we might keep him in as a secret character. The first of the animations below is an old 5C (standing heavy) that I thought was trying to cram too much movement into too short a timeframe. It reads much more clearly when I scrub through it in the later part of the video. I do like the way the move looks so I’ll probably gonna recycle it into a super.
Next up is the new 5C. I’m a little iffy on the way the animation ends but other than that I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
I like how this move plays around with Cubeguy’s weird “anatomy” so I’d like to go back and redo the old 5A and 5B I showed off last month to be more like the below image.
I’m tempted to redo the walk cycle and other things but I’ll save that for after I’ve finished everything.
Hazardous Materials
HazMat (click here for more info on the comic) saw a bit of progress this month. I finished writing another scene for chapter 2 but I need to go over it with some friends since I’m kinda iffy on it. I feel like it kinda kills the tension I had been building up from the previous scenes but we’ll see.
Table Knight
I got a little bit of progress done on the Table Knight module I mentioned in last month’s Wrapup. More info on that on the Goblin Base website.
Time to Dye
Just yesterday (yeah that wasn’t June but whatever) I began dabbling in dying plastics for customized Transformers figures. The process involves boiling the plastic you want to recolor in water with dye. Some plastics took to the dye a lot more easily than others and I’m also going to have to go back and re-boil some parts in just water to try and undo some unintentional warping. Dying should help prevent paint chipping on parts like ball/friction joints, things that plug into other parts, and other tightly-toleranced stuff.
Last month I said I wanted to try and fix my sleep schedule and read more and uh yeah nah I don’t think I did either. I definitely want to get more animations for Cubeguy done this month alongside stuff for the Plague Machine.
Sometime last year I uploaded a recording of a labyrinth sorta game I made on a microcontroller. It was unlisted and only shared with a few friends but I figured I might as well share it to the public. It was made during a summer camp a good 7 or so years ago. If you want to take a look at the code let me know and I’ll throw it up on Github.
I gotta get back to doing more electronics projects at some point. I’ve got a funny microphone I need to finish and I also wanna try making animatronics. It would be really cool to make a big scratchbuild that can move around on its own but I gotta get some other stuff done first. I’ve got a massive backlog of stuff I’ve started and I’d like to start knocking things off that list.
A good chunk of my hobby time this month was spent on the new Tankman action figure I talked about in the last Wrapup. I got a new 3D printer recently and a lot of my time these past few days has been spent putting it together. I also need to assemble an enclosure for the thing which'll take some time. Most other projects kinda took a seat on the backburner except for one of the SECRET PROJECTS I've talked about previously. You'll get to see a sneak peak at that below.
Tankman Figure V2
Last year I made a 3D printed Tankman action figure for Pico Day. This year I made a new one that I think looks a lot nicer. I kinda rushed it in a few places and there are definitely things I wanna change. I plan on making those changes sometime later this year.
SECRET PROJECT
Hey look it's something from one of the SECRET PROJECTS I mentioned in the March '24 Wrapup. This is the Cubeguy, a demo/playtesting character for a game I'm working on with some friends. I'm handling the modeling/animation side of things. I have few other animations for this character finished that aren't in the above video and I've got a lot more I still need to get done. That's all I'll say about this project for now. More news to come as progress is made.
New Bugalo Page (COMING SOON)
I did finish drawing a new Bugalo page recently but I'm just waiting for the words and such to be added to it. That should happen sometime this week. If you're just tuning in for the first time, Bugalo (Wonderful and Fancy Highschool Bait Club) is a comic where I draw pages and then a friend adds all the dialogue, narration, etc. afterwards. You can read it by clicking here. Do be warned, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Closing Thoughts
This month I plan to mainly work on the Cubeguy animations along with the script to Hazardous Materials (more info on that comic here) and a one-shot module for Table Knight (more info at Goblinbase.com). I want to take a break from doing big printed/painted projects after finishing the Tankman figure (plus I wanna get my new printer up and running).
Last time I talked about how I wanted to spend less time on the computer and read more. I haven't done a lot of that but I did finish reading The Time Machine in a book I have of H.G. Wells stories. I should probably put a hard stop on how late I end up staying on the computer so I can get some reading done in bed and hopefully also go to sleep earlier. I've been up way too late this past month. The funny thing is I'm writing this up at almost a quarter to 11. I'm gonna go to sleep after I post this.
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I didn't end up finishing anything this past month, but I did make some pretty good progress on stuff. I started listening to Symphony X recently and holy shit do they make good music. I'm not sure how I hadn't heard of them before. I've also been rewatching Tentai Senshi Sunred, which I had forgotten about till I found out there were Figmas made of some of the characters a few weeks ago. The figures released in 2012 but I originally saw the show back in 2017/18. It's fucked up that I was a high school senior then. I'm not sure who thought it'd be okay for me to be an adult with a job now. I definitely don't feel like an actual adult but here I am a couple years out of college. I'm also starting to become rather unfond of that aforementioned job (I'll save you from my extended kvetching), which I'm told is also a part of being an adult. The passage of time needs to be stopped.
Anyways, you're here to read about stuff I'm working on, I think. If you're here to listen to me complain about work see me after class :^)
I posted a WIP pic of this thing last month, and here are some more. I said I'd probably have it done last month which, uh, clearly hasn't happened. I am pretty happy with how this is turning out. I need to finish up on the terrain paste (made from sand, glue/mod podge, paint, and a whole bunch of junk plastic from my 3d printer, among other things) and then glue a whole bunch more foam panels to The Plague Machine itself. I also have a thing of hemispherical beads I've been meaning to use for rivets/bolts. I also gotta paint it, of course. No clue when this'll be done seeing as the next thing I'm gonna talk about is taking priority this month.
Tankman Figure 2.0 Progress
Like I mentioned last month, I'm working on a new version of the Tankman action figure I made for Pico Day last year. So far I've got all the joints printed out and assembled. I also have a rough block-out of the figure itself in Blender. These new joints are made of Pro PLA (a more durable blend of PLA, pictured above in dark gray) and TPU (a flexible plastic). The old figure is printed entirely in PETG, and its joints have almost entirely gone loose over time. I've heard other accounts of 3d printed friction joints that're made of the same kind of plastic go loose over time for seemingly no reason. I'm hoping to avoid that by using different types of plastic in these joints and using tighter fits. I've also given myself way more time to work on this than last year's figure so I was able to print all of these parts with a smaller layer height (more precision). I've got a deadline for this, so it'll definitely get finished this month.
I did get a couple more animations for one of the SECRET PROJECTS I talked about last month, but then I shifted gears to focus on the Tankman figure. I'll probably get some more progress done on that after the figure is complete. I didn't really get a chance to work on a lot of other stuff.
In unrelated news I want to try and spend less time on the computer so I can catch up on my reading backlog. I find I end up wasting a lot of time on the computer and won't actually start reading any of the comics/novels/etc. I keep getting unless I turn the thing off. Right now I'm bouncing between The Illusion of Life (book on classic Disney animation), a collection of H.G. Welles' short stories (just finished The Time Machine), Mind Fields (Jacek Yerka/Harlan Ellison), and Chainsaw Man. There are a couple other books I started and need to get back to at some point.
In plastic robot news, I got the new Magmatron figure (pictured below) recently and it is probably one of my favorite things in my collection. I've been wanting to get some version of Magmatron ever since I saw his design in a comic when I was a kid. Now over a decade later I finally have my hands on it. If you don't think the idea of three dinosaurs (yes I know pterosaurs and plesiosaurs aren't actually dinosaurs but calling them all prehistoric reptiles doesn't have the same zing to it) combining into a giant evil robot isn't cool as fuck, I don't think we can be friends.
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Another month, another Wrapup. I've been watching a lot of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist lately. It's all up on Youtube so it's pretty easy to find. I also found Robotomy, a show I loved as a kid, on Youtube as well. In other news, I started playing 4D Golf this past month. It's a really interesting game, but I sometimes feel like Sisyphys rolling a boulder uphill while playing it. Anyways, let's get into this month's Wrapup:
Hydro Model Update
If you've been following my work for a while you've probably seen this model before. In its previous iteration, the Hydro model used some generic brushstroke textures that were procedurally applied to it. Now the textures are almost entirely hand-painted. Check out the art post for more info.
I'm planning on using this model, plus some other stuff, for a SECRET PROJECT. I have a bad habit of announcing projects way too early in their lifespans so I'm only gonna say what this is when it's really close to release. If I know you, there's a chance I've already told you what this is.
The Plague Machine
I haven't done a scratchbuild in a while, mostly because I wanted to clean up the space I use to make these things before I started a new one. I finally got that done so now I can make another cool robot creature. I've been wanting to make something out of a gallon jug with spindly legs and a proboscis for a little while and now I get to make it a reality. This should be done before the end of the month.
Hazardous Materials Progress
I didn't finish the script to Chapter 2 this month, but I did make some good progress. I'd say I'm a little under halfway done with it and have the rest blocked out pretty well.
If you don't know what this project is, click here for more info.
Parts for Crankcase
I started modeling/printig some new parts for Legacy Crankcase (a Transformers figure for those of you without plastic crack addictions) this month. They're mostly basic, blocky shapes at present so I didn't feel it was worth taking a picture of them. If I make significant progress (or finish them) this month I'll have some pics in the next Wrapup.
On top of all of this, I've also started working on another SECRET PROJECT with some friends. I'll be doing a whole bunch of animations for it, but I won't say anything else about it till later. Like with the other SECRET PROJECT, I might've told you about this one if we know each other.
This month I'll probably focus more on completing The Plague Machine, working on the animations for that second SECRET PROJECT, and getting started on a new version of the Tankman action figure I made for last year's Pico Day.
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February was definitely an interesting month. I started dabbling with making music some more and actually made some decent-sounding stuff. I also gave the website a pretty major update, got another Transformers custom done, and made a little bit of progress on ANTARCTICA MUST FALL.
In other news, I've been listening to a lot of Devin Townsend's live recordings recently. It's really interesting to hear him play his earlier stuff, with different instrumentation and whatnot. I'm no expert in music and I won't pretend to be, but I'm really liking what I'm hearing. I know he's got a few new projects in the works right now, but the attosecond he goes on tour in the states again I need to get tickets. If you've never heard of Devin Townsend (or Strapping Young Lad) you really need to check out his music, especially if you're into progressive metal. I started listening to SYL early-ish last year and quickly got hooked on it and Devin's other works through the rest of 2023.
Tangent aside, let's cover the stuff I've been working on:
Website Updates
I made a pretty big overhaul to the way the website works this month. For more details, check out the 2/20/2024 and 2/21/2024 update posts. The quick rundown on things goes like this: The website now stays on a single html page for most things, changing what's loaded into the central iFrame as you click on the nav buttons or on links within the iFrame itself. There's a TV static animation that plays whenever you click on one of those. The website tracks what page it's supposed to load into the iFrame using hashes in the URL, letting you take direct links to these iFrame'd pages. Opening things in new tabs should now work for all links across the website (this is a new feature for this update). Let me know if something is broken. As always, try clearing your browser's cache first if something doesn't seem to be working.
A whole bunch of project-related pages have been updated/created. The main features include text that shows up for things like comics or Doom mods when you mouse over relevant links/etc. There are now two new nav buttons below the iFrame: Plastic Robots and Downloads. Plastic Robots is for Transformers related stuff (still need to finish up a few things there) while Downloads should be pretty self-explanatory.
The About page now includes a small table showing my current major projects (currently Tablespess, Hazardous Materials, and ANTARCTICA MUST FALL) along with where to find more info on them. I've also added a couple more buttons for friends' websites and a whole bunch of buttons for other cool Neocities sites.
The comic reader also saw a small update this month. Pages now have a short fade-in on page turns. My Comic Reader Template on Archive.org has been updated to include this feature.
Music-ing
I've been trying to mess around with LMMS for a little while now, and made some decent-sounding stuff this past month. Currently the only song I've finished/published is called Catacomb March, which you can listen to by clicking on the above link. It and the other songs I still need to finish are all using the GZDoom soundfont (which I'm pretty sure is just the default Windows soundfont) and are things I'll probably end up using in ANTARCTICA. I'll have a page for music up on the site maybe by next month's Recap.
G2 Scourge
This wasn't published in February, but I had gotten a good chunk of it done then and also posted it before this Recap went live so I'm counting it. It's been a while since I've gotten a TF custom done and it feels good to get another one knocked out. I've got a massive backlog of stuff I wanna make which you can go gawk at over on the Plastic Robots page. This particular custom is based off of Scourge from G1 and from RiD01. I'm planning on making a whole crew of G2 Decepticons for Scourge here to lead, so stay tuned for that and other stuff. I still need to design/print some stuff for Toxitron and I also got started on designing some parts for Legacy Crankcase, which look like they'll be much simpler.
Hazardous Materials Progress
Unfortunately I didn't end up working on the HazMat script much. I'm gonna see if I can just focus on working on it this coming week. I just need to sit down and actually work on it and not get sidetracked by other stuff. I did do some more character sketches for HazMat, including a couple new headshots of the two protagonists. The HazMat about page has been updated to include these.
ANTARCTICA MUST FALL Progress
I got started reworking the first level this month. I want to try blocking everything out first before giving it all an art pass later. I've been messing around with portals a little and have also started changing the default swimming mechanics. I wanna include an underwater level using a diving suit that changes your movement in the water, so I gotta get that stuff sorted out.
I've been wanting to do another scratchbuild, but I also want to at least finish up those aforementioned parts for Crankcase and that Toxitron custom first. I've got a few other WIP TF customs but those can wait. The new scratchbuild will probably be another rusted up robot-looking thing, maybe with some organic elements thrown in. We'll see how it ends up. I need to get better about my time management in general. I was able to finish G2 Scourge in just a few days and I want to be able to use that sort of focus more often. At the same time I also don't want to stretch myself too thing between work, hobby stuff, and just generally taking care of myself. I've finally been able to keep a consistent workout schedule which is nice. I had some short, intermittent stretches of doing so during college and a little bit after graduation, but couldn't keep it up for more than maybe a month. The real trick is that I started in December last year so it technically wasn't a new year's resolution, which you're legally required to give up on at some point into the new year if it has anything to do with exercise. The realer trick is that I told some friends I'd post a message somewhere every time I was gonna work out and kept at it till it became a habit.
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