doodlemancy

i've kind of been in brain freefall since The Big Important Wrist Surgery so here's a general housekeeping post of what i've been doing the last month and a half. it's a lot of things, none of which are the thing i've really meant to be doing, which is finishing Potion Stand Story DX-- that requires an amount of Think and Daily Committment i just haven't had available since my brain got blasted with KO drugs and painkillers and then my hand became able to play video games without severe pain for the first time in years. i'm trying to get this ship back on course though!! keeping myself on task right now is just still a little bit... herding cats.

recent art & doodles

clockwise:
• my first kinda-finished drawing post-surgery! i drew this like... 9 days afterward?
• you guys ever think about how the Oracle of Ages/Seasons Princess Zelda sprite has... odango...
• Petra/Ryfka doodle i really liked (i wanted to draw Petra wearing something more feminine than usual for funsies)
• Chiyo Sakura from Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is my daughter and i love her

posting images here is kind of a big pain in the ass at scale so here are some links to more things:
• MakoAmi sketch
• ReiNako sketch
(i basically re-learned how to draw by drawing sailor moon yuri lol)
• Sailor Senshi from Dungeon Meshi dlsfkjghfdlsjgfds i really need to clean this up and make it a sticker or something
• Elly (Fields of Mistria version)
obligatory Easter bunny costume art of Petra and Sykes (and costume switch)
• Cardcaptor Petra
• a comic i made while playing Echoes of Wisdom
• Kell/Sykes brainrot doodles
• a thread of Sykes Backstory Doodles that are very cute imo

newwwwwwww shop stuff

new stickers: birdhouse sticker and milk sticker!

and there's a new shop section... ZINES! my friend HikaTamika gave me zine cooties! i got a long-arm stapler and so far i've made 2.5 zines. free shipping in the US on these babies. not every zine i make will be available digitally but the ones that are will be in my ko-fi shop or, if you prefer, itch.io.

and just for fun, here's some brief rambling on anime and manga and tokusatsu i've touched recently

Yowamushi Pedal - i'm only like 7 episodes into this but i love when an anime is extremely passionately excited and factual about a topic (in this case bikes). cant wait to dig further into this thing and find out why that one kid's face is Like That

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun - it is a crime that this thing got 1 twelve-episode season. gonna start collecting the manga. just a really solid comedy, i relate to Nozaki so much as an artist who cannot EVER turn off "that's good reference" brain and also as a neurodivergent dingdong who is frustratingly impossible to flirt with

Monster - we're getting close to the end and i love this fucking series so much. i love Kenzo Tenma and all of his funny friends. i love extremely average looking middle aged dude character designs. i love anime characters with distinct noses. i love to be scared and afraid and tense and very very worried. i think my fav lil arc so far was the one with Grimmer, i have big feelings about a guy whose feelings literally don't work right who chooses to be good and kind and gentle and empathetic even though he's not sure he's doing it right

Skip and Loafer - i've been working on collecting the manga and im so excited for this to get a second season soon. "i'm an adult i'm kinda done with school life teen drama stuff" bitch no you aren't you just want the good stuff. this is the good stuff. extremely My Daughter Whomst I Love series

Claymore - it wants to be Lady Berserk so bad. extremely self-serious, relentlessly edgy, it's got that B-movie charm. honestly A+ character choice to make your main character the absolute bottom of the barrel lowest-grade at the Badass Lady Organization, we love an underdog.

Gintama - we finally started this one. long running/comedy anime like this tend to be really hit-or-miss for me, and it definitely has a lot of dated humor and impenetrable-without-a-translator's-note kinda stuff, but when the jokes hit, they hit, and it's slowly growing on me. i find it comforting. it's "weird thing i would have watched on a friend's laptop in 2007" kinda stuff. i'm interested to see how this one evolves as it goes on.

Kamen Rider Kiva - it's a Kamen Rider with Castlevania vibes and 80s fashion. a funny bat tells you fun facts at the beginning of every episode. what the absolute fuck else could you possibly want in your life. theres a flying dragon castle and i still don't know why. i don't even care. i've accepted dragon castle into my life.

Gurren Lagann - i'm finally watching this one as i continue winding my way through the Gainax/Trigger back catalog. it has every Expected Problem (please Trigger. i love a boob but sexual harassment is not good comedy) and yet just like everything else they make, it's compelling and goofy and relentlessly appealing. i already know What Happens and im watching them stick death flags into You Know Who like a pincushion and screaming and crying and kicking my feet

Current Mood: bouncy

Kairosoft's Game Dev Story is my go-to for when everything is bad. the first time i played it was when i was in the middle of a complete mental breakdown in 2014, and i discovered it was just the right amount of interactive. like it doesn't take a ton of mental effort but it takes juuuuuust enough attention to sort of dissociate from some sort of miserable status like "Ongoing Panic Attack" or "Body Crying Out For Death Due To Period Cramps" or "(Gun-Cocking Noise From Stomach) You Don't Wanna Know What Happens If You Leave This Bathroom Today" kinda situations, and its gameplay loop is just addictive enough (without being evil) to keep me invested. it's a mobile game done extremely right. you pay for it once and it rewards you for years, because every new game is a little different.

anyway, since i've had I Can't Believe It's Not Covid, i've been playing it every night while i wait for the coughing to stop. (you know how it is. you lie down and everything... has to... you know... uuughhh.) half the fun of it, for me, is the part where you name your game before you release it. i can't come up with serious titles to save my life a lot of the time but coming up with parody titles is my bread and butter. here are some of my best titles so far:

• Samurai Shitstorm
• a Game Dev/Simulator game called GameGame DevDev StoryStory
• FPS/War game called Fieldbattle
• plane sim named Mr. Planes
• follow-up ship sim called Mr. Ships (i'm imagining these as mascots sort of in the vein of Dr. Wright of SimCity fame)
• Toot Ninja, and sequel: Toot Ninja Retooted
• Checkers game that i named "Chess". welcome to my twisted mind
• Frontyard Faceball (a baseball game, obvi)
• i forgot to name my first game that made it into the Hall of Fame this round and it just went out as Game #23. so i made a sequel to it called Game #24. i think eventually i'll sequel it again like. Game #24 II, or something
• Seven Eleven Story (convenience store simulator game)
• a golf game i couldn't think of a good pun for so i just called it Better Golf

P.S. i had NO FUCKIN IDEA until i looked at the Wikipedia page that this game is actually from 1997, it just wasn't released until 2010 in the US. it's a keeper. i've never had a phone without it installed since 2014. it's apparently on Steam too!

i have also been playing:
Metal Slug Tactics - finally, a Metal Slug game made for me! great little tactics game i could nitpick but won't. my non-nitpick picking that i feel is much more important than any criticism of the gameplay is that i wish that the enemy units weren't made up of so many uhhhhh unfortunate cartoon stereotypes, like, please just use the funny aliens or something lol, it is 2024 we don't need to be doing this

Slay the Princess - i'm a year late to this party, but holy shit. my friend got me this on the condition of "merry early christmas, please talk to me about this, i need to talk to someone about this" and i see exactly why. incredible little puzzle box of a game, and made in Ren'py so i can't wait to eventually ~~cut it open and look at its insides~~ take a peek at the code and see how it's built once i'm done playing it.

today's life update is that i've been allowed to breathe through both nostrils 75% of the time since last night! maybe by 2025 i'll stop coughing. ALSO: i'm halfway through editing a first draft of Chapter 2 of Iron Company. i've been a miserable wretch all month but i've been getting some good writing done regardless. hoping i can get back to properly drawing soon too.

Current Mood: silly

no more bullshit, universe, i am tired

after i dusted out my PC i felt Bad. real bad. thought i had accidentally inhaled a lot of dust. like... i wore a mask and opened the windows and turned on the air purifiers (my PC case is so heavy i literally cannot get it outside to dust it bc i will shatter my spine). turns out no, i was in fact coming down with the caught-it-from-mom illness. i thought maybe i'd managed to fend it off but my immune system always disappoints tbh

it's not covid, apparently, but it did do some really exciting things like completely prevent me from sleeping the first night (i got like 2 hours of... Aware-Sleep) because i had indigestion from hell (just felt like i'd chugged a whole bowl of soup in 10 seconds for like 30 hours). and then it made me partially deaf for most of yesterday. all i've really been able to do between periods of lying in bed listening to podcasts through whichever ear is working is play a little bit of video game or watch a little bit of anime (and then get tired after 20 minutes)

but i do have some cool news: Potion Stand Story will be in Indiepocalypse #60 (coming out in January). mario_wahoo.wav

im finally alive enough to sort of do tasks again for the first time since Sunday so i'm working on my pages for that and trying feebly to fill Etsy orders auuauuauahhhgh. there's a lot of just. stopping. to play more vampire survivors or lie down

also i re-learned something i technically already knew but kinda forgot. do you use a wireless mouse (or keyboard)? do you have intermittent issues with baffling mouse (or keyboard) lag on your PC? have you thought "it's not a hardware issue, bc it happens most with specific software?" YEAH I THOUGHT THAT TOO. BUT. guess fuckin what, usb 3.0 ports (the pretty blue ones) with literally anything plugged into them, wireless or not, can quietly emit a signal that sometimes interferes with other wireless signals. literally all i had to do this entire time to get my mouse to work better was swap the port i had the receiver in with the port where i usually plugged in my game controller. to be clear these ports are directly adjacent, it was literally a matter of which one was in front and which one was in back. so the rule of thumb, i guess, is Transmitter On Port Closest To Its Device Always, no matter how within-range you think you are.

before i swapped the ports i was having a terrible time trying out Metal Slug Tactics (pretty cool so far; im too stupefied to play much of it but it's a neat and unique tactics game imo) bc my mouse kept lagging out and skipping around. after the port swap? suddenly everything is FUCKING FINE. i found this out by buying a new mouse (which turned out to be too small), plugging it into a different port bc i was tired and lazy, thinking "guess my old mouse was just dying," realizing the new mouse was too small and was Hurting Me, swapping the old mouse back into the new port, remembering a post i'd seen on cohost a while back and then screaming

if i had done this earlier this year making Potion Stand Story would have been like 500% easier (VRM Posing Desktop is the software i used to pose the sprites, and i could only have it open for about 10-15 minutes at a time before the mouse lag got so bad i had to alt-F4 out). SIGH. at least if/when i do extra content again it'll be easier. even most of my Ws this month are kinda Ls. kinda wanna turn on noclip irl and descend into the earth's firey core, but i have to finish Iron Company, sooooooooooooo

Current Mood: cranky

some things that have happened this last week-ish:

• my mom got a new job! so we are in less financial peril. for now. the car almost decided to ruin that by having a tire pressure issue the day before her first day but it was super fixable so it's fine. it's fine. it's fine. IT'S FINE

• i started cleaning up 7 months' worth of "i'm scared and depressed and i never get enough time to myself so i have no energy literally ever" mess. got through the first layer of kitchen gunk. pulled some things out of the back of the fridge that were, frankly, unidentifiable and trending toward sentience. i haven't done this much laundry and cleaning in one day since literally last year. it's a race now to get things deep-cleaned (or at least better-than-surface-cleaned) before the seasonal depression comes crashing through my brain like the kool-aid man lol

• i submitted my first round of Faire listings for review and they got approved, so i'm officially open for business there. highly specific call to action: do you own a brick-and-mortar business in the united states, or do you work at one where you have some sway over what products are stocked? do you need cute stickers? well just click this here handy dandy hyperlink: https://faire.com/direct/doodlemancy

• wrote down my out-of-control to-do list now that i finally have more brain again. i have so much to do before mid-november. a taste of not even all of it:

☐ schedule November/December shop social media posts
☐ fill Pink/Shiny Envelopes for ko-fi
☐ hard drive & phone storage cleanup
☐ more merch photos
☐ process vograce/acornpress charm orders
☐ clean all the things
☐ replace computer chair (seriously) (you've been putting this off all year) (why do you love back pain)
☐ shop restocks
☐ use up the 60 eggs you accidentally purchased

• no but for real. due to the Car Incident, we could not go grocery shopping that day as planned. so i had to doordash our groceries (sigh) and i was stressed out and tired and i didn't look hard enough. the price didn't tip me off because shit's always stupid expensive on doordash, so over a dollar more than usual for what i thought was going to be 18 eggs rang no alarm bells. and that's how i ended up with sixty eggs. sixty of them. SIXTY!!! i guess i'm going to be making quiche. (and a lot of other things. people on bluesky had many suggestions.)

• my carpal tunnel syndrome has been trying to ruin OC-tober for me but i'm back at it... this one's gonna take me a few days though ;D (poor Carson is still bald here because i keep re-drawing him and Maddie dsflkghfds)

• i'm working on a Fun Secret Entry. it's Sailor Moon related. you'll see it eventually.

• i finally updated the main graphic on doodlemancy.com to a fun slideshow.

• oh also: here's the packaging/display design i did for the Mystery Sticker Bags (Retail Version). very pleased with how these came out. i'm really learning as i go with this stuff, always, but my 7 years in retail helped with a lot of Considerations.

sorry i haven't been very good about responding to comments here IT IS THE CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME LMAOOOOOO

Current Mood: accomplished

last week, after seeing a couple of other artists in my orbit talking about it, i applied for Faire on a whim. i was like... ehhhhhh. i dunno. i don't think this is gonna go anywhere but i might as well try. i linked my etsy shop, talked up my good seller rating and my 3 years of experience selling cute stuff online, submitted the application, and promptly forgot about it.

so imagine my surprise when i woke up this morning to find out i'd been accepted. holy shit.

i haven't launched my shop there yet (there's still some administrative overhead i need to deal with) but holy shit. having done the math this morning, this could go really well for me if it takes off. being able to get my products into actual brick-and-mortar stores is something i've wanted to pursue, but i just had no idea how to go about it. being able to make larger sales to retailers could put me on a path to like... not being quite as dirt poor!

i've been trying to design some mini cardboard shelf/countertop displays for some of my items.

also i got my covid shot today so i'm probably about to crash and burn for 24 to 48 hours LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO we'll see

Current Mood: surprised

FUNDRAISING: The Adventure Continues
slapping this right at the top: my friend Poppy, who is very cool and rescues stray cats, is going through a similarly desperate financial situation to mine this month and could use some help if you can spare it. posts to share: bluesky / cohost / tumblr

my own emergency fundraiser is still on, but the immediate crisis of not being able to pay the rent in October is now over. i'd still like to try to raise the rest to keep us safer for a while/pay off debts when my mom does manage to find a job. i'm so incredibly grateful to everyone who's shown their support through donations, shares and kind comments.

Periodic Anime/Manga Roundup
yesterday was my weekly anime day. for the last 2 years, an AFK friend (who is also an artist) and i have been spending 6 hours almost every week watching a buttload of anime, usually a mix of new releases and something older we either missed out on or want to rewatch. we've also been collecting manga and lending volumes to each other a lot. i also attend online meetings with what i call the Anime UN (me and a couple of international friends spend another 2 hours every Sunday watching anime and tokusatsu). it's great. it's been really, really good for me as an artist and a writer; i fully believe in the Power Of Goofing Off now. mainlining this many stories and episodes per week has been a crash course in story structure, composition, etc. etc. etc. (i take a lot of screenshots)

lately we've been making our way through some early 2000s stuff. our current lineup / my impressions so far:

• Dead Dead Demon's DeDeDeDe Destruction (anime/manga) - i've been read-alonging this one. visually a lavish adaptation but oh my god they cut out so much stuff from the manga, re-arranged it and made it so confusing to figure out what we were supposed to be watching. i guess there are always tradeoffs when you're making it into a movie. i think it stands best as a companion piece to the manga lmao

• Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex (anime) - to me, it is The Batou Show. also The Tachikoma Show. love that technology in this imagined future has stayed chunky and clicky and there are still discs and stuff. i wish Ghost In the Shell were real kinda. the action sequences are pretty great and i've been trying to absorb what i can from them in order to write that kind of stuff better lol

• No Guns Life (anime) - i don't know what to think of this one yet. our general consensus so far is that it seems like it's probably on the slop side; we're several episodes in and it hasn't really impressed me with much. but also a guy has a gun for a head? and he smokes a lot? which is an extremely funny joke. it's fun, but i'm kinda waiting for it to have something to say.

• Monster (anime) - OOOOAUGH I LOVE IT. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. i'm very excited to finally finish this one, after ADHD-falling-off-the-wagon years and years ago. it seems really slow-paced compared to more recent anime but that works in its favor. Dr. Tenma is my babygirl who has gone through the horrors of life. i wish that real doctors were good.

• Hare + Guu (anime) - i can't even summarize whatever's going on with this one. it's a hell of a thing. a 2000s comedy anime that is doing some stuff. sometimes we go "aaah nooo anime please" but when it hits it hits

• Hellsing Ultimate (anime) - the manga is a longtime Problematic Fav™; this is less a recommendation and more of a confession. i had never bothered with the anime (or finished the manga, but it made an impression lol). Ultimate seems to have done a respectable job of scraping the manga's storyline off the pavement and molding it into something that flows well onscreen. it is hyperviolent, stupid, edgy, and beautiful. thanks Integra Hellsing for making me a little gayer.

• Dai Dark (manga, i just finished volume 7) - Q Hayashida finished Dorohedoro and said "what if i did that again, but in space and kinda sillier" and i love it very much. i hope someday to reach her level.

• Kamen Rider OOO (tokusatsu) - this is my second Kamen Rider, after watching Zero-One earlier this year. both of them rock ass. i didn't know if tokusatsu would be my thing and it turns out it's extremely my shit and i love it.

• Sailor Moon (90s anime) - my friend Shift has foolishly allowed me to drag her into this pit with me. i may have started a journey here where i finally watch the entirety of Sailor Moon in order, over a period of god-knows-how-long. i am largely incapable of being normal about Sailor Moon, it is a decades-long fixation. i am a walking Sailor Moon wiki and i love telling people about it the same way JJBA fans love showing people out of context scenes. there's a high chance of me just doing sailormoonposting here when i need an outlet lmfao

incidentally, my favorite stuff i've finished in 2024 so far are Dungeon Meshi, Brave Bang Bravern, and Pluto.

if you are interested in peeping on what anime/manga i am watching/reading, i have an AniList account.

other adventures
i managed to get my ADHD meds on time again this month. even with a dosage increase that required another prior authorization. i guess PacificSource decided to behave this time. i did have a nightmare that i opened the bottle and it was all just cheerios, which is a very funny way for the trauma of the last year to be expressing itself.

i've been doing steady work on the Iron Company demo. that'll be its own post. maybe right after this one. maybe later. we'll see. i don't know. i'm waiting for that 50MG Vyvanse to hit as i type LMAOOOO

Current Mood: anime
Current Location: anime
Current Music: anime (il vento d'oro)

that's TWO POSTS in one evening. you're welcome! or i'm sorry? whichever works for you. here's some stuff i did this week:

• fixed up my dreamwidth blog (wow! that's this blog!) to not look like hot garbage on mobile.

• started trying to get comfy over on Pillowfort. their photo uploader is fucking awful (literally made me seasick! I DO NOT EVEN GET SEASICK ON ACTUAL BOATS) but i found/was kindly informed of some workarounds. i cohost-color-themed my blog as best as i could because bwaaaaaaaaaah abloohoo etc.

• i've been working on my Hype Board™-- a canvas i keep in Obsidian, which is what i use to organize all my notes and lore documents and drawing references and stuff for Iron Company. every time someone says something really nice to me about my work that makes me feel sparkly and glowy and wobbly, i screenshot it and put it there. every time someone cool whose work i admire follows me on a website, i screenshot it and put it there. it also has Motivational Images i've collected over the year. basically, due to anxiety and self-doubt, my ego is like one of those floppy arms car lot guys, i need to pump air into it constantly in order to not be a husk. this is either a healthy coping strategy or my first step toward a dark path.

• i drawed. (this is notable. i have not drawed much. due to i did so much writed for a while) as previously mentioned it was mostly stuff for the Iron Company Chapter 1 demo.

• i fucked up my sleep schedule because it's colder now and Tia sat on my chest first thing in the morning after i had already turned off my alarm, and, out of sheer hubris, i assumed i could lie there all cozy with a kitty purring on me and NOT just fall back asleep. i mean fucking look at this shit:

Current Mood: sleepy

i've been reading "Creative Perspective For Artists and Illustrators" by Ernest Watson, which i think was written in the 50s (my used copy is from the 90s), and his approach is so natural tbh, it's like, "here's the technical stuff but i'm gonna keep gently reminding you that Vibes Are The Most Important". it's very affirming, haha. this was written in a time with fewer tools and probably less pressure to be so exacting and i think that's what i needed. other books have a lot of cool info for people smarter and less dyscalculia-having than me but this is the advice i needed i think

i have a lot of cool digital tools at my disposal, and in some ways learning to draw has never been easier, but in some ways it has also never been higher pressure. this is chilling my brain out. a used copy of this book is dirt cheap, so i highly recommend it. (also my copy seems to have been aging gracefully since the early 90s and it has a delightful old/library book smell now; i cannot help but stop and take the occasional whiff while reading. this is just the sort of creature that i am)

the full list of books here:

Figure Drawing Without A Model, by Ron Tiner
Creative Perspective for Artists and Illustrators, by Ernest Watson
Drawing From Your Imagination, by Ron Tiner
How To Draw Manga, by Katy Coope
How To Draw Manga: Compiling Characters, by the Society for the Study Of Manga Techniques
Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud
Perspective! For Comic Book Artists, by David Chelsea
Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain, by Betty Edwards
Point Character Drawing AND Secret Character Drawing, by Taco _{(these are the ones with the titles in Korean; i highly recommend buying these even if you can't read Korean, the drawings really do speak for themselves and there's so little text that like... if you really need to know what it says you can Google Lens it)}

Current Mood: artistic

PHYSICAL THERAPY, MOSTLY.

it's been a hell of a year. right after i got back to dreamwidth my wrist finally exploded badly enough that like, i just couldn't do stuff. turns out i have carpal tunnel syndrome (which a doctor wrote down as "psychosomatic" 10 years ago-- ain't sexism fun?). waited a few months to see a specialist and then waited another couple of months to actually get into PT... for a few months... and here we are. i'm not back to 100%, but i'm no longer at 0%.

and, well, now cohost, my home on the internet for the last couple of years, is about to shut down. that's where i've done all my longer-form blogging for the past few years. i'm sad. i'm really sad.

so. idk. i need somewhere to ramble, and i also need to be RSS-accessible to former cohost followers who don't want to keep up with me on bluesky or tumblr or any of the other places.

i honestly don't know how things will settle with me. we'll just have to see.

Current Mood: gloomy

Style Credit

Style: Starflower for Mobility by branchandroot
Resources: Rounded Star 005

Page generated Jun. 23rd, 2025 07:40 am

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Entries tagged with life update

this one's a real mishmash

i've been playing Game Dev Story again (and other things)

okay this is the last thing that's allowed

dark souls font: humanity restored

shop milestone!

anime day and other adventures

it's a roundup

a new book has joined the collection

where has doodlemancy been?

Style Credit