Updates: Projects and Life

Greetings! And thanks for your interest on how things are going on my side!

As there are multiple projects going simultaneously and some life stuff happening that encouraged me to take them more seriously, I felt it's appropriate to share what's been going on on my side, especially for you Patreon donors so you won't feel like you're wasting your money, and some drafts that's been going that I've been wanting to share (some of them for months!).

Arts first:

Collaborations

So, I've started two collaboration just out of whim basically and seeing what happen.

One is a 3D flesh pit thing where I work on the monster design and rig and animating it with the downloaded female model while another artist works on a spaceship interior and texture options.

Another collaboration is a written story about smoochy snails in a temple where the monks used to worshiped those things while making love to them. The main character is now finding their relics that have been abandoned for centuries while some mysterous things happen as she explore. Both me and the othe writer are writing.

I'm keen to credit them fully once these collab works are released. Though at the moment, I haven't asked for their permissions to share since this is just a quick update.

The works themselves are more for fun and to connect, maybe to get some inspirations and motivations for our own personal works, and not really serious works that need to be released. So they may not get to see the light of day. But I definitely want them to. And I'll say those artists have certainly inspired me a few ideas for the future projects.

Among the two collab works, the 3D one, I'm still figuring out how to rig and model the creatures for it before I get into compositions and animations. But I kept hitting the weird programming quirks that I can't solve, mostly textures and rigs. And I had some other urgent things going on with life at the time, so this had to be paused.

But if you were following me on Twitter (and somehow my post appeared on your feed over all that noise there), you might have seen my experimental images that I was working on.

I don't know what that is but I'd like to see what it does.

Originally the model was a normal human tongue and it just happened to be one of the few models that allowed me to paint on top of the existing texture in ways that made sense to me with my basic knowledge of how Blender (the 3D program I'm using) works. And it for some reason had enough polygons enough to let me warp its shape around without getting too mangled. So I played around with it and now it looks like a horse penis with a mouth.

I've also designed a tongue that was supposed to come out of that mouth. Though this was one of the things that I had rigging problems with, especifically with how to attach it to the mouth. I know how to do that now. But I still have an issue with the tongue's flexibility. And I still don't know what is the keyword to search the tutorial for the types of riggings I want.

The idea was that, once the girl gets in the flesh pit, a bunch of these things give her oral massages. Though, I don't know how my PC would have handled the number of polygons on that thing x10.

The tongue, however, got to see the light of day.

This was a full release work and it helped me understand the composition better and see how my models work with each other.

The skin looks a bit dry, especially for a character that has a "wetness slider". These were options that I didn't know about until much later.

After that image, I started learning more about animation. And without animating anything manually and completely with animation graph noises, this happened:

It's uncanny as hell to me and I don't know how I can make loops with this. But for how quickly it was put together, it looked pretty good!

I don't really see how I'll use it on the main characters. Though, it'll probably help me save a lot of time with some background stuff.

The other written story collab work, I don't really see how I can just quickly share some bits of it here. And I don't want to spoil it too much. It'll probably be fully released at some point.

But there were some images I made to give visual references for both of us with what was happening.

And I thought they turned out pretty good too!

That tongue is used again. And that's about as curved as it gets with the current rig. Go any further and it flips the other way around. And I have no idea why. I have very little control over how it bends too.

I need it to flex, swerve, wiggle, tug, and clench, maybe even stretch and partially enlarge around the woman's body. But, oh well. That's how far I got. No way I'm animating with that rig.

You also might notice her skin's a bit wetter. This was just from a graphic setting. I still haven't found out how to use that "wetness slider" at this point. But she looked way wetter than the other one even in her default setting.

The tile and tub are free assets. The visuals of the black snails are mine, though it was on top of another free asset's rig because I like how it's rigged and I have no idea how to rig like that.

The original model for that rig before I warped it around is the same one I used all over the "Record #10309".

The story at the time was a girl falling asleep in a tub, mildly mind-controlled, and have these things going for her, and she's loving it and thinks it's a dream.

Since this was a temporary reference images, I just used the model I've already been using to practice other works. Meaning the build of the women in the story is different from model I used. Even the hairstyle or the color are different.

The story was also changed a bit while I was making this 3D scene. Now that part of the story is happening in a natural underground spring instead of a luxury bathroom.

But regardless of the differences, it still helped us to get the idea of how we should describe the creatures and what they do. And made me want to use those snails for my own projects later.

Another (or two) Comic Attempt (s)

And it looks like this at the moment:

She looks like she's having fun! I certainly want to see what she's playing with and what's going to happen next! But how am I going to follow this up?

My mind goes blank when I look at blank spaces, I'm still struggling with anatomy, and often the reference images I find aren't exactly what I need.

But now I can do 3D images. So I decided to make some 3D images to make my own reference images for my 2D art practices. Then I'll get to practice both worlds!.

Then this happened:

Oh boy. Now I just want to keep making this instead.

So I make another page, and...

Which is still pretty good at a glimpse. But for me, a bit too many things happening, got overexcited. I don't think those tentacles are communicating well with what they're doing. So I lost connection and burnt out with this too. I'll probably re-do this image later. 

Motivation is such a fickle one for me.

This image is quite recent. So we'll see.

It's also been a sculpting practice / sculpted series of images that I've been wanting to do. Basically, instead of rigging a complex shapeshifting monster, I'll just keep sculpting new shapes every page. So this turned into a good exercise for that.

I still don't know if that's the best way. But it's still kind of fun.

For the comics themselves, I still want to keep making both the 2D sketched one and the 3D sculpted one. They're just fun scenarios!

Snail Situation

So, remember the prototype snails from earlier?

I started making an animation out of that some while back (figured it's easier than the full vore scene that I haven't even rigged properly). The one I animated is a sexual scene with the snail. Not quite the climax, but sort of mid-arousal.

The "build up" scene still images were made later when my interest was high enough and figured I'll animate those scenes too if they feel important enough.

For the dramatic effect, let me show you the "build up" scene drafts first then the animation:

The scenes were planned to be animated later with mostly the same composition.

To, eventually, lead to a scene like this:

Which then, out of curiosity, refined further into this:

You can probably tell that I finally figured out how to use the "wetness slider".

Oh, sorry, not the most important thing right now, you say? XD

Hey, took me months finding that slider, ok? It's important to me.

Changed the floor to a juicier one (I want to turn it into a nest later), added a light, got the hair longer, animated the hair and breasts physics, made the snail animation faster, made the woman animation slower, extended the length of the scene due to the woman's now longer animation, added the belly clenching, added some subtle mouth movements, and reshuffling things around until it felt right.

Little over 3 seconds video, 24 frames per second, total 80 frames, and that took several hours to make. Oh boy.

I do think the amount of effort went into it pays off for the quality. But how am I going to make even half a minute one? That's 70 hours with the current pace! 140 hours per minute! I can't even math the 3 minutes! And did someone wanted 30 minutes? Are you insane?

Few more hours per each additional snail. Probably more so with tentacles and different appendages. And the living organism environment? And that's all before the prep works like making models and composing the set. Oof.

You know, there's creativity for exciting new stories. And there's creativity for doing cheeky tricks for work.

I'm going to have to be very creative with camera angles, loops, and asset libraries.
Though, I guess it's called, "working smarter," which sounds much nicer than whatever I just called it.

I'm particularly proud of the hair and breast animations, probably because I've never done those before outside of pixel animations. They were surprisingly simple to make (in comparison to the rest) and turned out more natural than I thought I'd be able to make! And that hair makes such good ambience!

The newer updated model that I can download should have the breast, belly, butt, thighs physics working, which would save me quite a lot of time for the quality.

No physic programmed for the hair, though. Them hair and I will be very well acquainted in the future.

Unforgotten Pixels

While I was going through this, I remembered a pixel animation prototype I was making. Some of it has been shared on Twitter at the time, but not much.

What I got so far looks like this:

Just one position for now and various reactions of her depending on what happens to her.

One of the situations could be this:

Background would be also be similar meat walls and veins.

After that would be a climax scene. But I wasn't so happy about how it looked in the current drafts. So I've been doing some experiments:

After a couple rounds of these, she would sink into the meat below her and a vore scene happens.

Then I burnt out and stopped. The number of scenarios and the amount of time I spent for each animation were kept getting longer as they became more complex and it was overwhelming.

That was about 2 years ago.

I actually might get back into this. These actually don't look so bad!

Hopefully the things I've been learning about animation in the past couple of years could help me make progress feel easier.

It would be ideal for a simple platformer game (eventually) if I can figure out how to make one or if someone can help me with it.

I was studying Godot. Then I thought, 'This is getting ridiculous. I'm spreading way too thin. I need to prioritize.'

But, I don't know, ambition keeps taking over?

Some Significant Events In My Life

As mentioned above, some events are happening in my life that I need to take them more seriously.

New Zealand Life, The End of It

In the past 4 years, I've been working on a Residency Visa in New Zealand to get away from my home country's standardized toxic social expectations and environmental issues that didn't agree with me or my health. Sadly, after all that time and effort, it ended in a failure.

Due to my preference of a humbler lifestyle, I was too unqualified for any solid job that many governments want an immigration for, including that of New Zealand (regardless of worker shortage throughout all fields in that country), meaning both my savings and Visa were running out. It has been a very stressful and uncertain time, which felt like it defeated the purpose of leaving my country.

Eventually, I've made up my mind to return home and said goodbyes to my friends, along with friendly strangers and scenery that New Zealand is known for, to enjoy them with the time I have left there. It was an emotional rollercoaster for a month, both the joy of finally reconnecting with my friends and experiencing the beauty of the country without the stress of just trying to survive there, followed by the sadness that those may be the last time I'll ever see them. The mundane and relatively sketchy town I've been living in for half of my time in New Zealand suddenly felt beautiful and rich with outstanding events, almost feeling like it was walking me out to the door after an awkward evening then suddenly coming up with all sorts of spontaneous exciting stories just as we were saying goodbyes to each other.

I left New Zealand in early March, 2024.

Although the reason for why I had to leave was bitter, if I get to go back in time and do it all over, I wouldn't change a thing for all the beautiful moments I did have in there. I am rather glad that I got to experience the highly contrasting experiences of life as a visitor of New Zealand instead of a fairy tale version of it.

Transitioning In Between (multiple) Countries

Upon returning home, I got both sick and homesick for about 3 weeks quite badly. Feeling trapped, can't go outside, miss the birds, panic attack, etc. Not an experience I recommend.

Some friends overseas and a relative helped me a lot and eventually I got over it. Then I started looking into what awaited me in this chapter of my life.

The country where I'm now in is a fair bit worse when it comes to work & life balance and living conditions in comparison to what I've recently become accustomed to.

For example, according to a couple of my immediate elders, 10 hours work a day and 6 work days a week is considered normal for them, and that's not including all the chores before and after work such as grooming or commute.

It's not the worse living conditions I've seen and I'm sure I could be content doing that too if I see no alternative and fully dedicate myself to living that life. But after all the lessons from New Zealand, all I can see are better ways to live than this out there. And I'm not going to have much energy for art with that kind of hour. This didn't feel like the last stop for me.

So I looked outward again.

The Netherlands has been giving me butterflies in my stomach. So I began to investigate that and their neighboring countries.

There's been a dozen countries I've been studying their cultures of to see which ones complement my personality the most, and another dozen that I'm curious about but still haven't gotten into.

Two of those countries, I went deep dive into their immigration conditions up to Citizenship.

The Netherlands is still on top after weighing everything I found that I'll have to fight for. Sweden was the other one, though it was stricter, a little bit too dangerously, and for longer, at least if Citizenship is the goal. So now that's more of a holiday destination than a place to live.

But I'm still not qualified to get any job as an immigrant in either of those countries or New Zealand.

I need above certain amount of income from the job, often at or above median wage of these countries, which seem pretty high for my usually comfortable minimum-wage lifestyle.

Then the companies will likely ask above certain number of years of experience for that job, which was the dead-end for me in New Zealand even after I had one qualification that would pay above median wage and I have over a dozen different professional experiences in that country.

So, what are the jobs that are in high demand in these countries and will likely go above those salary requirements?

The Desired Job

There are a few familiar ones. Doctors, engineers, truck drivers, accomplished and stable artists, etc.

One job kept getting my eyes fixated.

Information Technology.

Oh, that thing that I have a bachelor's degree on but I hated it because I wanted art and express feelings and never got a job with it because everyone in there work so hard and stressed basically for 24/7 and I couldn't understand why I would want to live like that?

GrrrrrRRRR

That's a decade ago. I would have gotten a higher job and Master's degree by now if I -

No, I don't regret not doing that job. I lived my life well so far and I wouldn't trade it for that. Most people in my culture don't have the kind of life experiences and world view that I have at my age because they're all working all the time in little boxes (if they didn't jump off from a bridge yet).

FINE. I'll (re)learn coding, make a tower of money, turn it into a middle finger, see how high I can make it, and point it at the world.

Or something.

Dutch don't boast. Neither are most Europeans living North of them. It's frowned upon. Like, a Ferrari would get bad stares. It's why I want to live those places. So I probably won't. But I'm going to be thinking about it.

IT is also a decent career even if I don't get to leave my country. So it's a good bet for a stable life. And even if that doesn't work out, what else have I got to lose? I'll just go back to living an overworked humble life.

So that's where I am. Getting ready to seriously study IT. Committing to a career (all to commit to another country and a similar career).

And that brings us to, 'What's going to happen to my art?'

Best of Both Worlds

With so many high-stake gambling going on with my life in the next couple of decades, I can't tell you that I'll be able to increase my output.

Or, can I?

A baseline and a couple of things to explain:

I won't stop making these until my arms fall off and heart withers. This is a huge part of who I am, all the scattered frequency and quality of the posts, and the subtle but sincere feelings within those posts, and just taking it off of my life sounds utterly ridiculous.

From there, I see two things relating to that happening from pursuing IT careers that may keep the quality and the growth of my gallery the way they already are, if not making them more interesting.

One potential is that this new career will force me to optimize and organize my life, health, and work balance. Routines develop, things become more stable, sleep better, less chaotic hobbies, less worried about getting broke again, I'll know what year this is when someone asks my birthday, and who's to say I won't have more focused time to couple ladies and monsters in between things?

Ideally, after culling some less important hobbies and organizing what's left, art can become part of my routine. Then this is an opportunity for a more stable growth with my art.

Another potential is because the IT paths that I want to take are web designer and software developer types (in between now and the very high director positions with ridiculous salaries).

I make a website, I make my own rules, meaning I make a proper gallery for my works. I'll still probably have to rent a server to run that. But with the money I can make with that skill, I'd say it'll be more than a fair trade.

Software Developer? How about an interactive art? I think they're still usually called video games today. But some of the products that come out of that industry are becoming increasingly acknowledged as arts. And I've been wanting to pitch in since I was a kid. It might as well be this!

Some of you might be familiar with Valve's Half-Life series. Guess what kind of people got together to make the first game?

This isn't something that will come out imminently since I'll want to make some portfolios for those jobs and I cannot use the type of contents I make here to use as a portfolio for most job opportunities.

Once I get in one of those jobs, we'll see what happens.

And who knows? I get enough industry experiences up to director positions and save enough money in a couple of decades, I might even be able to start my own erotic content studio with a group of like-minded skilled workers.

Easier said than done, surely. But it's something I can keep my eyes on, helps me focus.