This is a crosspost from my Substack 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.

Have a good one,

-Hydro