He's coming for you!

If he's not coming for Kamiko, then who??

Her new best bud?

I used a bunch of reference of dogs jumping at a camera to help me draw this image. In Procreate, I superimposed two dogs side-by-side lunging at the camera and used it to draw my monstrous mutt. I like the chibi version of Kamiko in this image too.

Clip Paint Studio helped me with the speed lines and the text, which I got off Blambot.

What's New?

You know I actually don't have much new to say this week. In my spare time, I've mostly been working on my novella series, The Mechanical Bird this past week. One of my goals was to map out the books on a spreadsheet timeline and break each book down.

I wanted to build a timeline based on what I had created so I can use it as a roadmap to formulate how I should proceed as I move forward.

Here's an image from the first novella:

Along the top I have the name of the novella and a break down of it by chapter. Since these books are done and published, I'm using the chapters as markers for the timeline. In the first column I have all the names of the characters -- first, secondary, and tertiary -- listed. Then in each cell I can write what the character did in that. From there I can build a timeline for each character.

I did this for the first two books I published, and then continued on with the third book, which is a work in progress.

The point of the exercise was to create a visual of where characters are at certain parts of the story. Further down, I have locations listed in the first column, and I added information about what's happened in each location when there's something pertinent in the chapter related to the setting.

The main characters obviously show up a great deal. Secondary characters on down show up here and there where it's relevant. I'm hoping that it helps me flesh out parts of the third book.

The third book feels like a bit of a mess right now. At this point I am going off my own caprice when writing and expanding the world how I please. Some parts are fast, others seem prolonged. I want to figure out what's missing in the middle to help smooth it out and make it coherent.

When I started writing the third book, I had some very strong notions about where the story should go by the end of the third book, but it's become something else. The timeline's helped visualize that and one notable thing that's come out of it -- at least for me -- is that I think there's a natural stopping point and a place where the fourth book can begin. It's far from where I want it to be. I don't know if its okay, but Mechanical Bird has become my foray into self-publishing. So I reserve the right to make as many mistakes as I please with the serial. There's much to learn on my end.

From the timeline, I feel that the major movements on the third book are done, and there's some chapters that need to be written to bridge areas, but there's a draft and it seems complete-able.

This is one project I hope to work on to completion before the end of the year.

Another thing I started doing was brain storming the name of the third book. I won't reveal any of those details here, but that's what I'm working.

Aside from that, I've been playing a lot of Noita and enjoying it. I must have put 24+ hours into the over the week. Inbetween I've been catching up on anime -- and enjoying the new series Shimamura and Adachi.