Diary Update – 4th August 2021

Welcome to August and it’s newsletter with the two prior months in its review and future plans going forwards – Let’s go!

TL;DR – June; quieter, good and essential month for the break when it happened. July was busy but issues with illness + heat and also new timed responsibilities but managed to keep head above water - just. August plans are to use more prepared outlined content and as more settled with hopes to keep on pumping out material! Thanks, keep being awesome!

To begin as always; I want to thank you all for the support and hanging around! This stuff won’t be crafted by me like this and made like it is with all this time spent on it without you backing me up and know I don’t take any support for granted in the slightest! - I know I'm not the fastest in producing this content so your patience means all the more. Thank you all!

Anyhow, I’ll go into great detail shortly for both months have been pending a report but a rough end of June meant this is late again and so thank you for your patience regrading this for sure! So let’s break this whole thing down by the months and say what’s been done…

/// JUNE ////

June was an interesting month. For anybody who wasn’t there or forgot it was a time I had to do a ‘no pay’ but ‘limited work catchup’ month and tried to focus on other outstanding tasks but also prepare for a big change up to my work schedule and tasks and a moment of transition.

Well that partly happened, partly didn’t. As always some of the big plans just don’t quite happen as you’d hoped they would do but mostly I really managed to do good with that time and catch up where I needed too however there where some things unable to be completed which was a shame.

One of them was the Released Reactions website update, which had a few days work on it and had started off quite nicely – hopefully you saw the images of what was planned. However, after starting it and getting the layout mostly finalised, I moved onto finishing art off for a change, onto other projects and just didn’t return to it in July. August I’ll look to continue this.

June also saw changes to society where we were able to get out, see friends / family and get back to exercising, seeing the outside world and honestly, really started to feel much more human. While we can’t get back the time we lost in the lost covid months in its height it has felt liberating knowing we are slowly returning to some normality.

You see; in June and one of the main reasons for allowing extra time off and taking the month off was that one of the core responsibilities I deal with in real life was changing once again. I had planned to allow time to adjust and get used to it… only to find that it’d be moved back a month to July. More on this below. Needless to say plans where scuffed pretty badly here.

A major hang up for me has been releasing art with limited [bad] colouring. Something deep inside me just HATES seeing my art with cell shading or limited colour range, just hate it.

While I’ve done some ‘quicker’ image tests and more limited CG colouring in the past it’s been a mixed bag. Some I’ve been pleased with, others not at all and some results the time saved wasn’t major in any way honestly and is a whole thing.

I tested out some greyscale shading with colour tinting (colour bleed) and found this was not only quick’ish (not lightening, but much much faster than HD CG colouring) but the results looked good and people didn’t mind too much. Finally, I have found this place smaller or quicker art can get released to you and a much timelier manor and still has solid results. Took long enough.

At the end of June I just HAD do use this technique to get some art out and save my bacon and felt it really did do just that. So there maybe more art coming out as a result of this. While the full CG colouring will still exist, and appear as main images, this maybe used from time to time – but content will be released and produced and this is another tool I think really works out. Took along time to come to peace with this I’ll be honest.

//// JULY ////

As an overview July was both great, and horrid. HSE’s and manips had more love and more content from me as I was on a roll with them, but being ill and heatstroke and fatigue from crazy weather really did a number on me and my art creations near the end of the month.

Regarding the Photomanips and the HSE’s had more love than usual and was able to produce a more than usual but I’m glad they were well received. Crafting the photomanipulations some months can be a challenge while trying not to be too repetitive, but when I’m feeling it, they are pretty fun to make and nice and quick work too.

The HSE’s also received a load of extra love and attention. The Futa ended up with 2 versions of quite some girth and substance and the iG content had a small growth sequence which was a bit of work, but glad I’d done it. I am glad I gave it the extra love at the time for sure.

While doing the iG HSE content I reintroduced a small narrative with captions, which had been mostly overlooked with recent works. While it added more time (more time than I’d like to admit to in this case) I feel it can add value to the context and characters in the images. 

Reminded of this extra effort gives some fun results I’ll try and add text for images about whats going on, how she changed and more just beyond the webpage text. I’ll consider more of this as we go soon as I maybe able to have a touch more time to type and do admin things going forwards.

Trouble - Honestly I was gutted as my perfect week / several days off for CG colouring and catchup ended up just melting away, similar to me. A covid shot made me feel rotten for a little bit, mixed with insanely draining heat just destroyed my art creation time and really buggered it all up. It was the worst and I hated it.

The result was there several days worth of work that I’d hoped to CG colour couldn’t get done and would have been for nicer results with more time. Luckily the prepared art just needed some finishing and the quicker shading colour bleed style gave me enough time to get the 2 futa and 2 gaper images out, even if it wasn’t quite as I’d hoped.

Wasn’t my finest moment (but really the quality would have been total arse and not worth your time) but at the end I still managed to mostly get content out to you all in some shape or form and mixed with the earlier content in the month somewhat filled in that hole.

Other responsibilities - In June I had the month set to low burn, not only to catch up but also there was an expectation that things would be changing for me due to the world slowly returning to normal from the madness of this virus.

However these change of events just didn’t go ahead and where put off as mentioned – a little awkward as it scuppered my plans. It’s now happened since with the end of July. I’m a few days into it as time of writing and has been telling what the future holds.

What will this mean? Slight changes, where I’m not quite as free to be creative from a design POV but will allow more time for things like captions and other surprisingly time draining activities (such as this post) to be done as a compromise – so I’ll adapt and make this work ^_^

//// AUGUST – HOPED PLANS ////

Which leads me to the current month and where I would like it to do, what I’d like to achieve – but as always subject to change. Mostly the usual material as normal – iG and futa of extreme excessive and obscene levels and scales and mess (because why go half with your pleasures huh?) but some highlights to note below on my mind.

Commissions – pulling back the curtain here I have several commissions piling up that where pending time to work on them and lack of focus meant I’m pretty behind where I need to be (bad Sius). Many of my commission clients allow the art to be posted here on patreon (saving me no end of trouble and they are wonderful for allowing it) but this will be on my docket all being well – likely they will also be kinks you’ll all enjoy equally.

Promotion – I could do with dedicating a little time also to some promotion, I don’t do enough and think it’s a shame others maybe overlooking some works they may enjoy. This will probably mean a little time doing new banners as well as the websites iGAPES and Released Reactions will be getting some love and updates too when I have a little time.

iGAPES Transformation Sets – this is still the weakness of this year, hoped to do more sets of these, and while I’ve done a few image packs with Honey Select images and would rather have the art telling the tale here, this maybe something I stick with HSE’s for a little longer, but hopefully you enjoy the transformations.

Captions writing – Because of the extra time I can have to type this kind of material I will try and add captions to image sets or go back to content that required it but didn’t get the full treatment and will be added to the art pack in retroactive content.

//// OTHER ////

Only other thing to mention is in myself, I’m in good spirits but after 16 months of mostly heavy inactivity am trying to get back on track once more. Keep healthy, active and going as best you can in these hard times folks.

Games – I always like to comment on things played in spare time and you may find  gem or something to look at or be aware of if you’re the gamer type of person too.

SNKRX (Snake RX) – This little indie gem is a fun little distraction and costs buttons to buy. It controls like snake but has RPG classes, auto firing but also some auto chess leveling up your pain train action and is only very fun. Get a video up, see if it looks like a fun time and I'd recommend this arcade little action time waster!

Environmental Station Alpha – A low pixel but well paced metroidvania. Doesn't look great, works with too few pixels to be anything special but animates and moves nicely and generally makes for a bigger game. Tricky as you go on, I'm at the traditional end boss after many hours with much more to get after. Cheap during sales too....

Warpips – Interesting 'card' tug-o-war like strategy game. Hoped for more, even if this is early access. If it evolves it'll be quite good, but I think it really needs to open up much more, its too simple (narrow focused) and coming from a traditional RTS love background, this isn't horrid, but hopefully it'll do more as development continues. Tentative recommendation.

Monsterboy and the cursed kingdom - Aka Furry boy and the cursed yiff porn. I jest, I joke – but heavy furry design in characters in the world. Beautiful art, old style wonderboy gameplay and really fun world / gameplay loop. Highly recommend it. An evolution over the Dotemu wonderboy I played a few months back, so maybe consider this one first.

Bloodstained: curse of the moon – Old castlevania style game that isn't as amazing as everybody says, but is still a very good game. Solid art and feel to it and a good challenge plus the alt paths can be worth doing too. Not breath taking, but a fun few hours for sure.

R-type Final 2 – The name into itself is a joke, but I've old long time love for this type of game. It's great it's on PC as there maybe room for mods and levels and such down the road. As it is. It's.... okay. A fun game, but could have been more – or that's how I feel from the level design, for the ‘final’ games it feels like much much more needs to be added to some levels in truth. When Delta has you pegged from the PS1 days... Fan only really should invest (an I own an A9 arrowhead ship model, so I'm just about licenced enough to be considered) but you’ll dig it if you like this game and style.

The Room 4, old sins – Look if you like escape rooms, this is the premium game for it in my humble opinion and this one is great like all the others. If you like puzzle room exploration then franchise is A number one baby. Worth every penny if this is your jam?

Streets of Rage 4 DLC, Mr X Nightmare – I really loved the SoR4 base game after a small lifetime of waiting for a game and while SoR ‘remake’ is still the better game, this adds some rouge like survival mode that is just perfect and exactly what the game needed for replay ability. It will hold a loving place in my heart for years to come. Essential upgrade DLC

Dungeon of Dragon knight – old school 1st person dungeon crawler. Love this genre, and while unlike RTS which needs bringing back from the dead, I do love to play this type of game every so often. It’s solid and while not as polished and clean as Grimrock, this is still worth a play, not that you have masses of other options to experience this genre. Worth a look on discount.

Rimworld Ideology DLC – Always down for more Rimworld, and some fun ideas here I guess, but feels like you install it to make more conflicts appear with your colony and while I understand it feels almost the more meme like or twisted cults have big fun, but playing it ‘straight’ you get punished. Still, I support this game and the new extra bits are welcome, but still is a conflicting game at times and more so with some nonsense this throws at you. Hmmmm.

Luck be a landlord – an early access slot machine simulator? Crazy sounding, and limited skill (note much R&G) but if you want to waste time in a mindless fashion, hell yeah its stupid dumb luck.

RIGHT, that was a whole lot of words for a creative weirdo, but you now know whats going on more, what plans happened, what didn’t and where we are going. I’ll be back to working on new material very shortly and will release it as soon as it’s ready!

You’re all legends for your incredible support and kind words. As always I’m around if you want to message / comment feedback on anything posted and otherwise hope to get some funky content to you soon. Cheers all, Sius