What I've Been Up to In July 2022
While the world continues to spin in chaos, of COVID and the resurfacing of monkeypox, of Russian invasion of Ukraine, of hyperinflation with a unique quasi-recession situation, and of the global heatwave and wildfires… I am just cherishing the fortune of my family not being too impacted by all that. Everyone is fairly happy and healthy, and the weather in our part of the Bay Area seems to remain chill while other parts heated up above 90 degrees fahrenheit. To wrap up the summer for the kids, we took a weekend trip to north Lake Tahoe and enjoyed the wonderful water (first time jet skiing!) and the activities (tree top adventure~)
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 - I’ve seen to run into a sort of mental block on this project - last month I studied GDevelop's function, extensions, behavior systems, and decided it would take too much time to try to convert things into completely reusable codes. So I moved on telling myself that I will just apply these principles as I go. This month I spent most of my time studying the ‘YARN’ system to make character dialogues, and it is taking too much time without any results… :p Hopefully there will be something to show for in August. I also reflected and deduced that my recent lack of progress in this area could be due to lack of specific goal-setting (or the lack of time specifics of set goals)
Drawing - I continue to develop my skill and style, for both drawing and calligraphy. I am happy to see that my art started to change style, taking a voice by itself…
Writing - Last month I started a new project to write something about each of the Chinese poem drawings I’ve been doing. This month I’ve formulated a plan to write 2 to 3 pieces a week. This will likely go into my Patreon’s paid tier’s weekly release, and also eventually become a book.
Merch Store - I went back in and created one new merch, check it out if you like an artsy pillow/ poster!
Etc - the website (heta.link) is updated with some maintenance and also I’ve finally removed the ‘this is a parking page’ line at the front, formally out of Beta ;) Also starting to post on ArtStation. Originally this month I wanted to launch a paid membership tier on Patreon, but I decided to push that out a bit since I don’t feel like I’ve got the overall production schedule down yet.
Consuming Stuffs
Reading - started volume 2 of the epic historical novel of the Eastern Zhou dynasty (“帝國曙光”); finished audiobook 'Proto by Shane Drummy' and Take Back Your Time by Morgan Tyree; started Annihilation By Jeff VanderMeer
TV/Movies - finished Love, Death, Robots Season 3; Detention (the TV series inspired by the horror game); started Westworld Season 4; 刻在你心底的名字 (Your Name Engraved Herein) - I love the title song but the movie has some rough corners so maybe 6.5 of 10;
Gaming - picked up and started Children of Morta (lovely, but realized I will need to get back to this when done with one of the latter two); Tomb Raider (2013) 17%; Batman: Arkham Knight 28%;
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).