Candle Arc progress

I’m closing in on one minute of proof-of-concept first-pass-cleanup animatic, which is very pleasing! I do need to step up the pace if I’m to have five minutes locked even as a rough cut for my final project though. Promo stuff for Code and Codex (forthcoming October 2026 in the USA, Saga Press) has also been a “distraction.” XD

I had the pleasure of watching/working through webinars on character design by Alex Neonakis via Wacom’s Creativity Camp. I redid a two-character compare-contrast drawing on the character inventory she provided, which I found more useful than most of the ones that writers use for novels. (YMMV, probably, as with anything like this.)

Life has been busy, but our daughter has left left the nest; she graduated uni last year but was still living in town, and has now departed for her next adventures! We’re very proud of her (really, it was all her doing the work) but of course we miss her too.

My MFA program (ThinkSpace) generally gives us a choice of briefs for formatives and summatives so one can pick what one can do or feels beneficial. I’m endeavoring to target “useful practice for scoring animatic/animation projects of my own” right now alongside practical skills like boning up on production (improving my percussion writing has been a journey) and cue sheets (scoring to picture) and vertical composition (scoring for videogames). Here’s to hoping!

I sent in an entry for the narrative game challenge IntroComp, which opens for voting soon! As one of the entrants I am not permitted to vote or discuss this further (beyond, I guess, the fact of the comp’s existence), but I hope y’all will take a look and send the other entrants some feedback!

My latest gaming obsession is Helldivers 2 with ThinkSpacer and other friends! It falls squarely into the “AMERICA FSCK YEAH!!!” genre of third-person co-op shooter except as biting farce/satire. The intro cinematic is amazing!

Not very relatedly, I’m still handspinning and weaving on my floor looms, and trying to clear the deck so I can enjoy my August week of vacation guilt-free as I’m headed to Handweavers Guild of America’s Convergence fiber art conference in New Orleans this year! I signed up for a couple workshops I think will be all right for a novice. I do eventually want to create and weave Ninefoxy designs though; I’m looking at doubleweave, damask (I do have damask / dräll pulleys although I haven’t set them up yet, nor put heddles on the extra harnesses), split-shed weaving, inlay, and other techniques to see which I want to delve into first! In my copious free time.

Yours in calendrical heresy,
YHL