My work-life-passion balance was definitely off in April, with one week I was heavily invested in a work event (conference at San Francisco) and many weekends were busy with house projects. I am just happy that at least I was still able to keep up with the drawing project’s cadence. So enjoy and have a wonderful May!
Here are the things that kept me busy this past month, aside from the day-to-day ‘job’ related stuff…
Creating and hacking stuffs
Game Dev
‘Qin’ - an action game based on the story of China’s first emperor…
I’ve decided it’s time to take a break from making this game…
This month I started to explore and learn about Godot engine. Its latest version 4 release seems to be well rounded and well reviewed.
Drawing
Weekly project drawing - drawing comics is getting more interesting and can get personal.
Study drawings - realizing I need to practice and study more about how to capture certain objects, backgrounds, I try to do one study drawing a week. Here are the ones from this month:
#FanArt - I am getting to enjoy this quite a bit…
Writing
My book#2 project, “100 Drawings of Tang Dynasty Poems” (唐詩一百畫) is almost done with 1st draft - I am at the last two pieces of the 100 where I am adding translation, reflection and additional notes for each poem. This is shared with my Patreon members every week!
‘Impressions’ book - This is a project that will last a while (probably 2 years) - it’s further being put into a back burner this month.
The Web
My Patreon members continue to get all the full resolution arts and pre-released book writing every week! I am also looking forward to providing soft copies of my books and games to my patrons later this year.
Website and Merch Store - no updates, but check it out!
Hacking - Occasionally I still hack around devops/linux stuffs - continue to play with my Raspberry Pi boxes - set up docker containers to run nginx for load balancing/reverse proxying (still at it)
Consuming Stuffs
Reading - Continue to read “The Dead Are Arising - The Life of Malcolm X”
Gaming - Shadow of Tomb Raider + Crusader: No Regret (sequel to my all time safe default / favorite game)
TV/Movies - Mandalorian S3 done (sorry, it’s not as good as previous seasons, 1st season was still the best); Kong vs Godzilla (what a waste of time. I fell asleep mid-way), Tár (love it!); The Invisible Man (it's 90% good!), The Super Mario Bros. Movie at the 4DX theater (kids love it, I feel… it tries to please a bit too much); Lucy; Under the Skin (both I don’t appreciate much); Cabin in the Wood (oh, I love this one!), Knock at the Cabin (OK sequel);
Learning - continuing with the Udemy course on Rust.
That’s it for this issue of my newsletter! If you really finished reading the above, I thank you, and wish that my sharing would either entertain you, or inspire you (if you’ve been thinking about your own creative projects).