Saturday Update!

Hello everyone! It's Saturday morning, and you know what that means!

Current Art Finalization: 210/743 - 28%

Last week was fairly average in terms of productivity, I think. I finished off the rest of the standing Ren sprites, and with a bit of leftover time, I made the special higher-rez sprites needed for Strade's hammer or drill choice sequence :D

This might be kind of a long update though because I have some extra stuff to talk about [ don't worry, nothing bad! ]

Let's start with Ren!

Same as last week, these took a bit more time since there's a lot of variation in poses and such.

 [ the background's not done on this one just ignore it LMAO ]

 [ cropped because the text is too spoilery ]

Normally I would keep the really fun ones to myself but I think this is my favourite standing Ren sprite in the game so I'll be nice and share LMAO

Now, before I show you the Strade stuff, I wanted to take a min to chat about Ren.

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I've gotten quite a few questions about how he will act in the story. I get the sense that there's some anxiety about the writing direction with Ren, now that it's becoming pretty clear that his role in the story will be very different from the original version. Of couse, I'm not going to simply tell you how the new story goes 😂 But, I thought it might be good for me to open up a bit about my thought process behind the changes. And please do forgive me- because it's going to get a bit awkwardly personal.

When I wrote the original BTD Strade path script/story, I was deep in the middle of an abusive relationship. At the time, I suppose the image of a sniffling, crying, punching bag character that does no wrong and only wants to help people resonated with me.

However, it's now it's been 8 years and that relationship is long behind me. I've had to come to terms with what really happened, and how warped my perception of the situation was. Most of all, I've had to reckon with my own failures and shortcomings during that time. Back then, I was in pain. I was being lied to constantly- and I had no idea. I was so anxious and confused that I was sick and balding. But I was also selfish and cruel to people who meant me no harm. I was ignorant. I was blind to the needs of others. This is the unfortunate reality of a survival mentality.

Do I blame my abuser for the person I was back then? No. Certainly not directly or entirely. I think that does a disservice to my own autonomy.

So, when I was writing Ren now in this current time with all of the knowledge and clarity I've gained, I wanted to write something more complicated. Something less black and white than victim/perpetrator. Something that goes beyond 'good person' or 'bad person'. I wanted to honor that sense of animal fear mixed with human heart. And I wanted to give Ren a deeper struggle that includes his own sense of self.

I also want to tell his story in a way that connects more organically between the stages of his portrayals [ Strade's path Ren, Ren's own story/previously BTD2, TPOF Fox ]. I want to set up his own eventual YKMET game to be a natural result of this one, and for his darkest path in that game to be a natural 'prequel' to the TPOF DLC.

So, when people ask me 'Will he still be nice?' My answer is 'He can be. He is capable of that. He's capable of many things.'

I hope you'll trust me and take a chance on my new version of the story. I really do strongly feel that it's improved over the old version.

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Now! On to Strade! I didn't do too much with him, but I did draw the 6 higher rez images required for his hammer or drill choice. I really wanted this part to be special, since it was a highlight of the original game.

Here's a short clip of how it looks now :D

 [ very large gif, sorry LMAO. It also doesn't show my cursor, but the movement is based on where my mouse is ]

I'm really quite happy with the result! It's exactly what I imagined ^o^

Speaking of Strade, I have a bit of news regarding merch I wanted to briefly touch on as well!

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I've mentioned a few times that I plan to try and release a Strade plushie sometime after the release of the game. So far, my only idea has been to contact MakeShip and start a campaign.

The pros for MakeShip are:

• very nice quality

• I don't have to worry about shipping them myself

But there are cons as well:

• they only do limited time runs- I don't get to control how long the product is available for

• I do not control the pricing

The reason I'm bothering to mention this now is that I have learned of a new alternate possibility for plushies. My keychain and pin supplier who I trust very much, Vograce, is now pioneering plushies themselves.

[ https://vograce.com/products/custom-plushies-toys-plush-stuffed-dolls ]

This is a very new product, and they're still working on expanding it. For right now, it simply cannot serve my needs [ major issue: the plushie body cannot be customized. They only have white skin bodies for now ]

However! I have talked to my Vograce rep and asked her about their plans for the plushies in the future, and she told me that they will offer customized bodies in the future [ specifically mentioning that I should be able to get the skin color I want ], so I may very well be able to get something more appropriate for Strade by the time I need it >:3c

The plushie examples shown are also very uhhh.... cutesy baby style. I'll be talking with Vograce to see how much I can customize the look once the time comes.

I'm hoping that ultimately, I'll be able to do both [ Makeship AND Vograce ], so that I can offer fancy high quality plushies for a limited time from MakeShip, and also have Vograce send me custom plushies that I will ship out myself- which will be available for how long I decide and be priced according to my own whims [ I may be able to offer a cheaper price than MakeShip since another middleman company won't be involved ]

One other possible hitch in my plans is that I definitely need to move to a larger space to have boxes of plushies LMAO I am working on this very actively as well. [ obsessively checking realty websites every single day for something in my price range ]

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So those are my plans for now! Very busy!

I am actually feeling a bit burnt out on sprites at the moment, and my 9 year old wacom cintiq is finally shitting out hard enough that it has become difficult to work. I've ordered a new one, but it will take time to be shipped to me.

All of this leads me to one conclusion- Next week will be my first music week! I'm going to start by returning to my free youtube lessons and learning more about how to make music.

Hopefully next saturday update will be much much shorter [ LMAO ] and have a few music tracks I can show you!

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If you've actually read all that- wow!

Thank you so so much for your support, and for the opportunity to be working on this game. I'm absolutely loving the process and enjoying this so much.

Thank you as well for your financial support especially this week- it allowed me to buy a very nice new cintiq that I'm pretty excited for [ Wacom Cintiq Pro 16 2021 ]. I wanted something very similar to my old one, since it served me so faithfully for 9 years of constant hard use. I promise to use it to its full potential to make the game as good as I possibly can!

And of course, please stay safe and have a wonderful weekend <3 See you next week!