XMACX Monthly | September 2024
September is here! I always think of this month as my sister’s month because she was born in September lol. Anyway, I was lowkey happy Beau won the character poll because it means I get to dedicate September’s cover art to my sister’s fave color: yellow. Happy Birth Month, lil bro~ Big Love!
What’s Happening in September?
Well, the poll this month will be a little different. Usually, we vote on who next month’s cover model will be. This month, however, I was thinking — since the whole month of October is basically Halloween and peeps dress up — we could vote for Kaimana’s Halloween costume this year? Last year I put ‘em in an ATSV Spider-Man 2099 costume, hehehe. This year, IT’S UP TO YOU! It’ll be fun. It’ll be GREAT. To the left are the options, all tsunderes because I’m so weak for tsunderes and I consider Kai to be one as well lol. Poll drops this Friday, September 6.
A) MCU Wolverine (zaddy u///u)
B) Vegeta (my prince u///u)
C) Bakugou (my hero u///u)
D) Asuka (my queen u///u)
Other than that, I’ll be continuing to stitch Froot Basket White together and draw Ippon! pages. I’m hoping to finish adding all the voiced lines so I can work on drawing/cleaning stuff up in the coming months! You can read about my progress below!
VN Dev | Froot Basket White
I now have all the voiced lines for Sutoro and Azrael! I’ve been inputting them into the current build. Check out a preview of Sutoro’s voiced lines!
I also received some track samples from our composer! I can’t show you right now, but, trust me. It’s a banger and a chill cafe bop for sure! The composer I’m working with went to town on it! I’m so happy with how it’s turning out! It’s got lyrics and vocals too!
I adjusted one of Sutoro’s poses because the anatomy seemed off. BUT! I also wanted to add more poses to make Sutoro a little more lively to match Jesse’s performance. Here’s some of those new sprites I’m working on!
Comic Creation | Ippon!
I haven’t talked about Ippon! in a while, mostly because I haven’t been spending a lot of time on it. I… went back and adjusted some previous panels, and I keep going back and forth between adding more pages to adjust the pace or not…
One of the things I changed, for example, are the shape of the panels on page 4 (above). I noticed as I was drawing that I tend to have a lot of dynamic panels. There were so many, that I thought it became hard to read or even look at the pages… It bummed me out a bit, so I had to stop drawing for a bit lol.
Another thing I learned: having to really think about how two pages sit next to each other. I saw online somewhere that comic artists plan out their page turns. That’s something I’d like to keep in mind too.
Other than that, I’m trying to learn to pace myself better. Some pages take longer to complete than others. For me right now, this action page (right) is taking a lot out of me. I expected it would because I’m trying to figure out where everything is situated — the anatomy, whether or not the action makes sense, etc.
I was thinking about adding the name of the move somewhere, kinda like how in shounen action series characters name their moves and whatnot or have it written out on the page or something. But I’m not too sure exactly how I’m going to go about doing that…
Cover Story | Meet Beau!
Sweet, energetic, loving Beau. In the Froot Basket series, he’s the player character Jordan’s childhood friend and neighbor! They played basketball together in baby days and continued hanging out and growing together in high school! Beau loves eating, gaming, reading comics, and playing basketball with his pals! He also has a big crush on Jordan and a big dislike of bananas — they’re mushy!
Along with Sutoro, Beau was one of the first characters I doodled when I came up with this lil series. He and Sutoro were best friends. He was meant to be a sorta delinquent character, hence the piercings and dyed undercut hairstyle. But as I developed him more and more, he just seemed like a sweetheart through and through.
I tried to include a bunch of yellow things in the background and in the illustration’s design. I’m hoping it displays Beau’s fun-loving personality! A few Easter Eggs: Beau’s playing Froot Basket Valentine on his handheld console and Froot Basket: Dark Chocolate on his desktop.
Other News…
Momotarou Post-Mortem
Momotarou was the micro-visual novel I impulsively made in July for O2A2 Jam. I managed to write the post-mortem for it late last month! If you’re interested in my thought process for the project’s creation, read it here!
I can’t believe it’s already been 50 days since I released the micro-visual novel! Time flies… A few peeps have play-throughs that I’ve very much enjoyed! Thank you so much for playing! I also received some really great feedback and observed some peeps getting confused. I’ll be updating the game with a few sentences referring to Froot Basket Valentine, the game whose events immediately precede the events of Momotarou.
Thank you again to everyone who played, commented, and left reviews! I really appreciate it!
Kaimana Zine
I released a Kaimana Zine filled with sketches and illustrations of Kai between 2019 and 2024! It’s 5 USD or pay-what-you-want and you can find it both here in my shop or on Itch! It contains explicit images not meant for minors, so please be responsible.
Next Month?
I will be in Japan the second half of October! I’m excited and can’t wait to have a bunch of fun and eat a lot of food! I’m planning to wear pink every day! I hope I’ll remember to take OOTD pics instead of just food pics… I’ll try to have the cover art for November done before I leave, but whatever will be will be.
Anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s instead have a relaxing September!
Aloha nui,
xxAri
