July is filled with travel for our family - started with my 14yo teenager’s volleyball tournament at Orlando, Florida. We planned things around it - Universal Studio Orlando, Kennedy Space Center, and almost everyday we went to a friend’s hotel that has a super fun activity center with video games and a water slide + pool; and of course, there are 4 days planned for Disney World.
The first week went through nicely despite the heat and humidity. But in the 2nd week, the only day the whole family got to go to the Disney World park together was day 1 for Epcot (Guardians of the Galaxy ride was great!). Then the 6yo caught COVID, then my wife - I went to the Magic Kingdom with my teenager (Tron ride was great!) and then also came down with COVID. By then, my 6yo already recovered with all of his energy. My wife and I tried to tough it out, masked up, and took both kids to Animal Kingdom, but ended up feeling so ill that we left the park after merely 2 hours. (it was a very hard decision to give up on the famous Avatar ride, which was already reserved). We rested for the day, and hoped to try again the following day for Hollywood Studio, but still didn’t feel well enough to do that (yeah… had to give up the “Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance” ride…)
All in all the trip was memorable! We all learned that summer time in Florida is probably a no-no for us from now on. :D (actually my wife took the teenager to Florida again a week after, and then Long Beach for a week, both for volleyball events. They came back without incidents)
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. M3 (Milestone 3) release is out! And also I’ve got the first Android build running - soon will be listing this game on Google Play Store (iOS will be longer… I don’t own a Mac to build/package)! With the game packaged and runnable on mobile also came the discovery of some new bugs, so will have to get them out of the way :)
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.
Study drawings - just two after we return from the trip for this month, but I’ve stayed true to the spirit of adding more ‘soul’ into these creations, and they came out nicely.
#FanArt - just two after we return from the trip for this month, but I rather like them (Fan Arts are always fun to do!)
Writing
Similar to last month for different reason, this month I’ve only managed a bit of the writing related tasks - editing my book#2 project, “100 Drawings of Tang Dynasty Poems” (唐詩一百畫) - This will continue to be published/shared with my Patreon members every week! Also a bit writing on the next book project: ‘Impressions’ stories.
The Web
My Patreon members continue to get all the full resolution arts and pre-released writing pieces 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 them out! Oh, and did I mention that I have a LinkTree page?
Hacking - I’ve been digging into system architecturing for the past months, this month I switched to look into a few interesting SaSS for building business (for reasons I will get into in the next issue) - AirTable, Zapier, Bubble.io
Consuming Stuffs
Reading - Continue to read “The Dead Are Arising - The Life of Malcolm X”, also I caught up quite a few queued up posts of my favorite philosophy blog site “The Marginalian"
Gaming - Continued to play Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and started The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - I know people already talked about this, but I am still very amazed by how they managed to make this game even more fun than the 1st one!
TV/Movies - Marvel's Secret Invasion (meh, it had some decent moments, but too few); LOTR Two Towers & Return of the King Extended edition;
Learning - Nothing much this month due to travel and all…
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).