Hey, everyone. It’s been a long time since my last update, and I’m afraid I’ve been off the radar for a while. I’ve not been able to focus on comics what with everything else going on in my life. Besides that I’ve been very busy with my game project which is coming along nicely. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling so burnt out I haven’t even been able to look at or read comics at all for a while. I haven’t been able to sit and write anything new on the story. It’s just part of my illness that it makes it difficult to work on some things. Even for my game I’ve only been working on getting the game engine together, but haven’t even been able to touch the story or artwork. It’s like I can’t even get myself to draw. But that happens when you’re bipolar. Actually I’ve been improving a lot thanks to changes in my medications. I went from being unable to do anything at all to being able to at least work on some programming and scripting for my game project.
The game has undergone a lot of changes as well. I’m using RPG Maker XP as my game engine as it’s seems the best for creating a story oriented game. The game is a scifi that takes place in a universe similar to TFR. Like Star Trek online, you get to be a Captain of a starship and start with a small ship and as a 2nd Lieutenant and can work your way up to fleet Admiral commanding a huge dreadnought ship. It takes a lot of the aspects that I like from Star Trek and adds a lot of cool stuff from Star Wars and other things. I’ve pretty much finished putting all the features into the game engine. You’ll get to explore alien worlds, great cities, and space stations, and battle aliens and monsters, and all that sort of rot. The game engine itself is very much like the old SNES Final Fantasy games, only in much higher resolution and full color. Right now the battles are turn-based and similar to early Japanese console RPGs. I’m still trying to work on ways I can make it more interesting.
Another idea I can’t seem to make up my mind is whether or not the player should be working for the Terran Star Navy or be more of a free agent for hire like a privateer or something of that sort that can except missions from the Terran Empire and gain in rank, much like in that old game Pirates! Gold. Still, I don’t want to make it too complicated, or I’ll never get anything done. Also I’ve been thinking of adding a bit of a Victorian steampunk flare to the futuristic scifi to give it some flavor and a unique look. I’m also looking at the various versions of the old tabletop RPG Traveller for inspiration. Let me know what you think.
So there you have it. I haven’t given up on comics entirely, but with bipolar it’s hard to keep up with everything. I still hope to release the second volume of TFR on pdf before too long.
Guest colorist confessional time… I can definitely understand the burnout problem, that’s why you haven’t gotten the next page from me yet. My portrait work has me so sick of art that I can’t even bring myself to do the fun stuff like coloring. But not to worry, I’ve decided to abandon my art career entirely and go back to college, which means before you know it I’ll be so sick of college (again) that I’ll want to quit to be an artist (again).
I totally understand that! After three and a half years of comics it gets really difficult to keep going unless it’s a passion and you’re making good money. But rest assured that I really appreciate all the hard work you put into helping me with your beautiful colors.
Sometimes an artist just needs a change of project or too pursue a different kind of work. But you two hard working guest colorists deserve a big hand for your help.