My family and I just returned from Cancun - our first time visiting the east side beauty of Mexico. There are a lot of differences from last year’s experience at Cabo San Lucas but I will highlight the goods and the bads:
Goods: 1) The Mayan temple, Chichen Itza, was a mysterious beauty. And it feels especially relevant since not long ago I played through the Shadow of the Tomb Raider - the story takes place in this very culture and geography; 2) beautiful beaches and I can’t get enough time to just lay by the beach and read…; 3) super fun jumping into a “cenote” and also enjoyed the Xplor (water/ziplining) park.
Bads: each of us seem to take turns coming down with some issues everyday - food poisoning for my 6yo, then my wife too, the teenager came down with a fever. I am lucky to walk away almost unscathed… yet also started some stomach issues on the very last day. I blame the water.
Looking back at 2023 - my first game, Qin, finally made ‘Generally Available’ (GA) pre-released on web & Google Play; my book #2 went through a long and arduous editing process, and it is extending into 2024; I have settled down on a 3 drawings a week schedule and I’ve been pretty happy with it, plus Inktober in October was again a rewarding success. I’ve also revamped the website and most of the social accounts. I read a few books this year: “The Dead Are Arising”, “Tracers in the Dark”, “Attack on Titan” manga… all in all, a pretty busy year.
Going into 2024 - again, I hope to wrap up the book #2 editing, and publish it in 3 volumes; also accelerate the cadence of game development to release game #2; all this while continuing to churn out more drawings, comics and maybe other projects.
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
Again… Most of the month passed through in other things IRL and my game dev tasks were put off through the whole month. Can’t really blame the holiday season for this creative block…
Feel free to play the pre-released game Qin - on Google Play store (playable on Android phones and Chromebooks), Itch.io & gd.games.
Drawing
Weekly project drawing (comics) - here is a taste of the comics I’ve done this month - full 3-panel versions are on most of my social feeds, Artstation, and of course, my (paid) Patreon page.
Easiest way to make sure not to miss them is to follow the social links on the LinkTree profile)
Study drawings - I’ve switched from the study drawing to follow the one prompt word a week rule of #inktober52 and here they are:
#FanArt (always fun to do!)
Writing
Book#2 project -“100 Drawings of Tang Dynasty Poems” (唐詩一百畫) - the editing is done but it’s gotten too many pages for one single book, so I will break it down into 3 volumes.
The pre-released drafts of this book will continue to be published/shared with my Patreon members every week!
The Web
Not much updates this month, so just the usual shoutouts for Heta Studio:
Consuming Stuffs
Reading - finished reading “Tracers in the Dark” (I’d give it a… 3.5 out of 5, as the plots feels a bit redundant after the 1st two segments, and it lacks a bit more on the emotional dramas); finished A Song of Ice and Fire book 1 “A Game of Thrones” and moved on to book 2 “A Clash of Kings”
Gaming - I stopped playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (it’s my son’s Switch, and the controllers are getting too wacky…) and also Falconeer; started playing Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince
TV/Movies
The Sopranos (S1-S5): This show ran through my college days, and I completely missed it. It is just so good!
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).