03-02-2016, 06:30 AM
Time for the February status report!
Translation is progressing steadily, though I'm still in the beginning of the second chapter as far as writing additional exposition is concerned, so I'm a little behind on that one, but I think I'm doing a good job on it at least.
For backgrounds, coming up with good concepts and compositions has been a real challenge. I've figured out the character designs for the most part, though I'm not sure how muted or vibrant the colours should be, and some of the clothing isn't as distinctive as I'd want it to be. The biggest problem is the execution. The quality of my drawings and paintings just isn't consistent with what it was a month ago. I know that might be a stupid thing to complain about, but it's bothering the hell out of me. For programming I tried using Tyranobuilder for a while because it seemed like it might be more intuitive than other software, but the 'userfriendly' interface is actually more tedious than just putting in a line of code every now and then, so I've gone back to Renpy.
All in all, I am making progress, but there's too many unknown variables, and I'm not confident I'll be able to do a good job with the adaptation if I just keep going the way I am now. I guess the problem is that I'm trying too hard to do a good job, so I'm afraid of making mistakes.
I've thought about using NanoReno 2016 to do a test run with a much smaller story that I don't care about as much, and the idea is starting to sound pretty appealing. If art has taught me one thing it's that doing iterations of something is a much better way of learning than trying to do it perfectly the first time. As the name of the challenge implies, it'll be over in a month, at which point I'd stop working on that project and get back on track, even if it's not finished.
This would delay things further of course, but since I don't really have a deadline I'm not going to let that worry me too much. Generally, going forward in the way that seems to make sense is a better approach than ignoring problems you know exist and pressing on by force. It isn't something you can do when other people depend on you to deliver on time, but hey, I'm not in that position.
Translation is progressing steadily, though I'm still in the beginning of the second chapter as far as writing additional exposition is concerned, so I'm a little behind on that one, but I think I'm doing a good job on it at least.
For backgrounds, coming up with good concepts and compositions has been a real challenge. I've figured out the character designs for the most part, though I'm not sure how muted or vibrant the colours should be, and some of the clothing isn't as distinctive as I'd want it to be. The biggest problem is the execution. The quality of my drawings and paintings just isn't consistent with what it was a month ago. I know that might be a stupid thing to complain about, but it's bothering the hell out of me. For programming I tried using Tyranobuilder for a while because it seemed like it might be more intuitive than other software, but the 'userfriendly' interface is actually more tedious than just putting in a line of code every now and then, so I've gone back to Renpy.
All in all, I am making progress, but there's too many unknown variables, and I'm not confident I'll be able to do a good job with the adaptation if I just keep going the way I am now. I guess the problem is that I'm trying too hard to do a good job, so I'm afraid of making mistakes.
I've thought about using NanoReno 2016 to do a test run with a much smaller story that I don't care about as much, and the idea is starting to sound pretty appealing. If art has taught me one thing it's that doing iterations of something is a much better way of learning than trying to do it perfectly the first time. As the name of the challenge implies, it'll be over in a month, at which point I'd stop working on that project and get back on track, even if it's not finished.
This would delay things further of course, but since I don't really have a deadline I'm not going to let that worry me too much. Generally, going forward in the way that seems to make sense is a better approach than ignoring problems you know exist and pressing on by force. It isn't something you can do when other people depend on you to deliver on time, but hey, I'm not in that position.