With both kids out of school, we have formally entered sumertime in June. I have to keep reminding myself that this is the phase of my life to enjoy the precious time with the kids before they grow up and become more independent… But that also means there are more challenges to find time and do the things that I am passionate about. Coincidentally, the awesome Jake Parker recently also posted something encourage about this:
“The thinking is that you just need more time. You don't need more time, you just need to chip away at your dream project or dream scenario on little bit at a time.”
Perhaps this is something the near future AI assistants (sorry, not the currently imperfect ones, nor the overtly intimate, fictional one) can really help us meaty humans: Help us create a schedule that best balances our family/life, work & passion, as well as our mental happiness.
I am happy to report, sometimes we do find that balance in life, and sometimes it look like this (my older son gifted this to me on Father’s day, and all 3 of us built it together)
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
Nothing to report on this area this month…
Feel free to play my game#1 Qin (early access release)! Available on Google Play store (Android phones and Chromebooks), Itch.io & gd.games (web)
Drawing
Weekly comics - here is a taste of the comics I’ve done this month - full 3-panel versions are on all major social feeds. But of course, the best place to access this would be my (paid) Patreon page:
Study drawings (#inktober52 ) - can you guess what is the prompt word for each of these?
#FanArt (always fun to do!) This month I started to create illustrations for each of the 14 ‘wuxia’ novels by the legendary Jin Yong, yet his work is so rich with details and characters that it’s easy to fall into the feature creep trap…
Writing
Book#2 project -“100 Drawings of Tang Dynasty Poems” (唐詩一百畫) - continuing with editing…
The pre-released drafts of this book will continue to be published/shared with my Patreon members every week!
Almost every week I write a new short story to my substack “Echo of the Worlds”, subscribe and enjoy!
The Web
Updates on Heta Studio:
I continue to make one video a week for the series “Relax and Create” - Subscribe and/or Save the Playlist!
I continue to make more merch from my drawings on my store (hosted by Spring) and/or etsy shop (fulfilled by CustomCat)
Consuming Stuffs
Reading - completed “Stories of Your Life and Others” by Ted Chiang; Started The Dark Forest (Book 2 of “Three-body Problem”… not sure if I will stick to this book)
Gaming - Completed Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince with all secrets found!, Continued on A Plague Tale: Requiem;
TV/Movies - Completed True Detective S3 (liked it a lot, 8/10); finished Game of Thrones S5 (a bit messy towards the end, yet still a very strong season finale), started S6; House of Dragons Season 2 started~; Godzilla Minus One (omg, so good), Dune Part 2 (also, very good!); saw Inside Out 2 (saw it with my 7yo, but it seems to be made for my teenager LOL. it’s very good, I nearly cried)
Learning: lagging on learning more of Procreate Dreams…
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).