Update 56: Goals

Many people tell me that, when I write these updates I must always project an image of success, that I must treat this like I'm a PR representative making an announcement on the company's behalf, Using words that say but not say, bending the truth and hiding the warts to keep everyone happy.

But, that was never what I set out to do when I started on this project, This was always just me, wanting to see a scene I'd imagined in my mind, put to some form of screen, It was always about telling a story, and exploring my own impossible fantasies.

It was never about the money, however, at a certain point, it showed potential to exist as a viable business that I could use to provide for my future, and highlight the talents of other skilled individuals that chose to work in this field, this set me up in a position that represented something of a conflict of interest, when I was creating a piece, It wasn't just a 'I want to do this' It was also 'But is it going to sell?'

I firmly believe that's when people start loosing the soul behind their work, It's how we end up with Assassins creed #20, and I didn't want to end up in that place, but here I was, thinking about what the quickest, easiest animation I could create was going to be.

Telling myself that, it was a necessity of modern life, I sat down to finish the next Juno piece, but came across some major issues...

I really wasn't happy with the scene

Now, this isn't exactly a unique or... new situation for me to be in. I've been here a few times before, it is the nature of the artist to question and challenge everything they do.

It's what makes us better artists, that push to always improve things, to always get better, for the latest piece to always be a step forward in some way.

This presented a problem as I attempted to finish the next episode in the Juno Arc because, to be frank, I didn't have much of a plan about how the episode would go down.

That's not to say that I don't 'plan' episodes as such, but there are varying levels of clarity I have when going into a project, It's very normal to have an original vision for the scene, and for that vision to change as I continue development and work on it.

I quite often make major cuts of sections, bits that sound good on paper but turn out to be a bit boring when put to the screen, pauses that seemed to make sense in the audio editing software but didn't really pan out when it came to putting the scene together visually.

In this case, I went from Visiting Cirimani, which was a polished and iterated script that I spent at least a few weeks on before I even ordered voice work, and the follow up, which was a shower thought 'I know, let's have AIMEE continue to milk the subject through the night'

It's a nice idea, it allows multiple orgasms, but without the 'forced' element, it's the wholesome version of complete draining, all the fun, none of the sinister overtones.

But I wasn't exactly sure how it was going to play out, how do I communicate the lore elements I wanted to, without AIMEE having her usual conversation with the subject, AIMEE is a crucial character, but it didn't fit for her to have full blown conversations with a semi-conscious Juno

I mean if the subject is sleeping between milking's, it's not like they're going to be in a state to parse any information given to them in any meaningful way, that might match the intentionally obfuscated delivery of terms and conditions that I like to employ in the more 'dub-con' scenes I make, but that wasn't the intention with this project/arc, It was meant to be all about consent, It was meant to show the legitimate side of the businesses that exist in this world. But equally It wouldn't 'fit' for AIMEE to be having full blown conversations with Juno, so how to do it?

I did find a solution for this eventually (again, it came to me in the shower) and decided on an approach, but it screwed with the pacing of the scene.

I'd originally planned for this scene to have 3 orgasms, I'd done 2 of them already (the ones featured in the preview) , and I'd targeted a time of about my usual length of production, around 8-10 minutes.

So as I looked for ways to 'stretch' the scene out (I had enough voice work for juno for it to work) but as I looked at it visually, for lack of a better way to put it:

It was boring.

Not only boring to animate, but boring to watch, at least for me.

And whether a scene 'does it' for me has always been my internal barometer for whether it's ready for delivery, So I found myself with a 60% complete presentation that, at least in it's current state, I hated.

So, I pivoted

I decided to table the scene for the moment until inspiration returned in enough viscosity to give me the missing piece, and took an idea that had been mentioned a few times already for a prostate only milking.

Thinking about who would be best to enact this on, I chose to do a revisit to DVA where she was left, It made thematic sense for this treatment to be acted upon her (as she serves out her recalibration in the high yield section) and all the equipment was in place in that scene, with a mature set of sims and solutions in place to turn around a quick scene in there.

I was able to rapidly animate this scene and get it done over the month, it is currently in sound design/post production, It should be out sometime this week, appropriately timed for NNN!

But similarly, this was difficult work to get through! I found motivation hard to obtain, something else was afoot.

There's a few things that I think I can put this down to, for one, I know for a fact that, I really struggle to -not- do the absolute best work I can.

Despite the blessing from many of you that my standards -could- afford to slip, I found it -very- hard to put my stamp on something that, -I knew I could do better-

I base a large amount of my own personal worth on the quality of my work, and in particular, the most recent piece of work I've done.

I considered it a cop out to have done all this work on tech, renovations and improvements, and then to not be making the best work I could.

So to summarise

I'd spent 3-4 months not working on animations, in order to fix my office such that I could solve all of the issues that had plagued me, only for none of those solutions to work, leaving me with a, albeit slightly improved but ultimately just as complicated workflow, but with a big old bill of materials left to pay off, so I could do better work, only to find that, upon returning to try and create that work, I struggled to do so.

This all culminated in a bubbling crockpot of stress that I've been sat in trying to find my way clear of over this month, and creativity is fleeting to those under such pressures.

Many people told me -not- to say this stuff to you all, for the reasons I mentioned at the beginning of the update, But my belief is that people are better than that, I can't lie to you all and say that everything is OK because as it stands, it's really not.

Despite everything I've learned about myself it seems anxiety is not done with me yet.

My current plan involves making some cuts to the Juno piece so it's focusing on telling the story, rather than existing for lengths sake, so it might end up being a good deal shorter than I'd originally planned for. (probably 4-5 mins)

I also feel the need for a palate cleanser, A female or male person in the chair, more than a few people have been requesting some male videos, and it's been long enough between visiting A414 that a fresh look at the episode that caused me so many headaches might be what's needed, I had a unique idea pop into my head the other day about another way I might approach it.

These projects are part of the 'this is my legacy' subset of animations though so, they need to be done right, as I said at the beginning, these are extremely story centric, they cannot be rushed.

I'm also going to look at a remaster of 'mechanically insistent pleasure' as that has been speaking to me recently, I think I'm going to try doing the mocap myself first, then getting the voice acting done to my animation, I'm hoping that will put more of the focus on the visual presentation and pacing rather than trying to hit an arbitrary timer of some kind.

Or, honestly, I might just abandon the idea of placing a piece within the world entirely! And just make something fun for the sake of it! Particularly with the male scenes, I love that everything I make has a shared world, but it does sometimes remove some of the impulsive nature of just cranking a scene out because it seems like it would be a fun ideal!

I'm going to give those irons some time in the fire to warm up before I act on many more of them, but most importantly, it's become very clear to me that I need to take some time to address my mental health, something is needing to be explored here somewhere within this mess, and I am going to find it!

With that said, as mentioned, DVA will be out sometime this week, and Juno as soon as I figure out how to put it together, then it's going to be whatever speaks to me so I can find my passion again.

Please do continue to provide ideas, I got a tremendous amount out of the comments you all left on last months update.

That's it for now!

Ciao