Trial by Error

Been spending the last few weeks with my beak to the grindstone. I have not been the most confident person when it comes to using Blender and I have learned a lot of new things that have greatly improved my overall workflow in the future. Make no mistake, I am definitely into the stuff that I have been putting off, Mostly due to it being foreign to me and requiring so many things to go right in advance to minimize future turmoil.

I got another large Perler piece done just a few days ago- about 8 months overdue, but better late than never. I’ve actually made some changes to my table and even my lighting setup to boot. Here’s hoping that extra work will aid me in the long run.

Uploaded some more of the robot master perlers hanging on my walls, mostly just because they are easy to do, and don’t require long-winded statements from me. In retrospect, I may change the gallery as a whole. Simply put, it makes me feel very pretentious, especially since most of my work nowadays hasn’t been in drawing nor in photoshop.

Progress of some sort

So much for doing 1 hour a day of work… regardless, some small updates for what has been going on in my neck of the woods. Progress on my new avatar has been slow and tedious. Every time I look back at it, I wince as I realize how much hard work is still left to do. I’ve spent nearly 2 weeks working on a new arm for the character, just the arm. I also managed to add even more feature creep into the process. As fun as it is to design an avatar, the actual building of said dream can be quite painful, especially when you don’t know fully what you are doing.

Added a few more pics of the Mega Man wall and just finished another large perler project as well. I hope to show that off here in the future… just as soon as I get around to actually ironing it.

Changes for the better

Another Month has gone by; honestly, there was a good amount of work being done in the background toward my end goals. My current issues are always money, but that is true for the vast majority of individuals. I did wind up buying myself some little things this month, but my current end goals are still being pursued. My plans are moving forward, they just aren’t moving quickly due to lack of motivation.

New plan, set a side at least 1 hour a day to work on my hobbies, really get that dedication and a habit progressing forward until it becomes natural.

I completely forgot that I never uploaded any of my Mega Man trim that I have in my game room. I’ll have to start doing so over time.

Trying to be productive

Today, I spent some time adding some images to my gallery, just trying to get more of my work up here as I haven’t done so in nearly a year and a half. I definitely don’t have as much as I would like done, but it will suffice.

A year late and still saying nothin`

Wow, just wow. I need to stop stating an intent to work on this site more only to leave it for nearly a year!

In fact, I wasn’t certain that the site still existed as I didn’t check in on it. At this time, I’ve been working on repairing my life, getting it to a point where I’m able to live life without worrying about the roof caving in, but also that those who are significant aren’t going to end up on the streets.

After my panic and stress from my most recent perler art, of which I gave out as Christmas gifts, I have decided to try working on perlers that are less… insanely large. A part of me is intrigued in working on some smaller sprites. Meh, time will tell. I already have to find some extra funds as it turns out that there are some colors that Perler has available that I don’t have.

Avatar work, on the other hand, has been extremely slow. Simply put, my blender and unity knowledge isn’t as good as I would like. The things that I’m trying to do are heavily modular and require a stupid amount of planning ahead. Eventually, I’ll need to commit to a final design, but I fear that I will never be satisfied with the result. Perfection is a procrastinator’s greatest excuse. That, and my lack of confidence.

All I can do is strive to improve and make a solid effort to do so.

2nd half of the year, moving forward

Not a lot has changed with me since I last was on here, largely I have enjoyed some more time within VRChat and enjoying the company of others. I have also learned a little bit more about Blender and have finally started doing 3d art stuff myself. I have already stumbled and my design lacks a lot of… finesse. I am also seeing my motivation swinging wildly from wanting to go full bore into working on stuff to days where I lose the entire day to myself in bed. Hopefully, I can compel myself to maintain working on this website and actually update it for once.

Moving on.

It has been a month and a half since I started my goal of staying away from soda. Funnily enough, I have started drinking chocolate milk regularly, most likely just to get just the slightest bit of caffeine out of it. Other than that, life has been hit and miss.

My day to day finds me working at my job, or working on my avatar. The only alternative is me playing Tetris or Satisfactory for hours on end. I can’t keep working on a project for weeks, I burn myself out. The bad is that I lost two significant people in my life. One, I lost a relative that was expected to pass, but still came at a shock when it finally happened; but, the other one was the real shock.

A close friend of mine that was on VRChat committed suicide. I will never be able to see him again. I can’t express the pain I felt when I discovered this. I’ve been sitting on this information for multiple weeks, but now… I guess I’ve accepted that I will never see him again. I simply hope that he can rest in peace.

My avatar work is as chaotic as always, it reminds me from time to time that there is more to the world than just the avatar grind- I mean, this website gets set aside more often than I would like.

Meh, It can’t be helped, this is more therapeutic than entertaining for someone who stumbles upon this mess of a site.

Pain

For most of my life, I have often had a Mountain dew close at hand. I would on average drink around 2 liters of Mountain dew a day. As of March 13, 2023, I finally decided that this habit needed to be broken. Not only for my finances, but also for my well-being for the future. Rather than waning off of it by taking smaller amounts over time, I instead ripped the band-aid off and went cold turkey. Only a couple of days in and I am already having my body try to convince me to drink some without. It is the major thing on my mind at all times. If it isn’t that, it’s the perpetual headache I am being put through. I have lost all energy and motivation to do much of anything- and I’m only to day two. I can only imagine how much worse this could be had I been on something far more dangerous.

Beyond that, I finally moved my website stuff to an alternate computer. I did this as I found no motivation to work on it when I had Unity or Blender in front of me instead. This allows me to try to get more posts in, and who knows, maybe I’ll actually upload some of my work on this website… seeing as that was the intent in the first place.

I do hope that I can get past this funk I am in before I go insane, that won’t be fun.

A Mysterious new year.

2023 is already up and running. I have been working very heavily on improving my day to day life as well as overcoming my funk I get into during Christmas time as I worry about presents for my family far more than I should.

I have spent a lot of work on the preproduction of 2 new avatars that I am working on. To the point that I have their entire menus and animators laid out before even working on the animations or blender side of things. One is the complete overhaul of my plague doctor that will be the new look for me. My first avatar that I will try to build from scratch and also an attempt to steer away from using other people’s unpaid work to be able to say, “Yes, I built this avatar from scratch.” The problem… I am very bad at blender- competent, but slow. So, that’s where my second avatar comes in, a pet project for myself that uses a base model, but requires a lot of customization and added vertices. I’m torn, as I am working on this second project very intensely, but know that nobody will ever see it. My work is entirely for myself. Does that make me selfish? Am I wasting my time working on something so trivial? I ponder about these things as I have to fix a messed up weight paint for what feels like the fifth time.

Beyond that, I have completed a major push for a large perler art of a character called Cherubimon. I am too scared to try to tape it and start the iron process as I have had many a project go terribly wrong at this point in time. I have lost at least 2 projects due to the iron portion being done too much or too little.

One day, I would like to make some of my projects available to others… but for now, I keep them close to my chest. I see the polish of other projects and can see all the flaws in my own work plain as day. I do have a tendency to become too ambitious, my avatars and the size of my perler art is definitely indicative of that. It is that feature creep that leads my projects to feel “muddy” by the end of the process.

I do long for the days of old, yet I fear I would be better off looking toward the future. Who knows, I may have a brighter future ahead of me than even I realize.

Sincerely,

Ed.

Picking up the pieces.

It's been a long time... far too long. I have been through the wringer for the past 6 months. I have been in a mix of utter despair and disdain. I have ruined multiple friendships in a multitude of ways. I have reclused myself to the point that I get phone calls from people to ensure I am not dead.

There was a period of time where I simply could not function. I was overwhelmed with every emotion imaginable. I threw up more than I thought possible when one is not sick. I- I can't look myself in the mirror. I hate myself far too much for what I have done or not done to my friends. There was a period of time where I wanted to hang everything up. Close the website, walk away from the world and let myself wallow in my self-hatred. For far too long I tried to analyze what I had, what I wanted to do with my life, what I could do to make things right with people- or what would leave me worse off. I ran scenarios through my head of what could happen. It started to drive me mad. I analyzed for so long... that I fear I missed my opportunity to reconnect.

A part of me wants to say "Maybe it's for the best." How easy it could be to walk away and start up with a new group of friends... but then, I remember. I am not a sociopath. I can't burn a bridge and move on to the next person. I cannot allow that to happen.

To those who are reading this, know that 2022 has been terrible for me for several reasons. I am sorry that I could not be there for you when you needed me... That I disappeared. I find it kinda funny, I have always tried to keep an ear out when there are those that needed help; but, when I needed it most, I did the opposite and shut down. Heh, way to practice what I preach. Regardless, if you have somehow come across this post, I am sorry for my actions or inactions. You didn't deserve it. At the end of the day, I want you all to be happy... even if it is not with me.

Alas, I must pick this shambling corpse of a body back off the ground and move forward... I can't sit in my dark corner and just quietly work on VRChat Avatars for an audience of one as a means to ignore the massive hole in my chest.

And... to the one person I let down the most... you know who you are... thank you... for being my friend... I don't think that I will ever be truly happy again... but your actions and courage gives me... hope... something I could never have done alone.

I love you all.

Ed

One step at a time.

04/05/22

Today is the first day that I have started working on any of my projects that were not just VRChat Avatars. I’ve got the chance to get a few hours of work on a Perler and I intend to power through as much as possible. My feet on this body will hate me for this.

Getting in the Groove

03/31/2022

I pulled out my paper archives of my drawings recently to try to get a more accurate date for when I originally sketched it out. I have since realized I’ve gotten myself into a conundrum. I did keep a close eye on dating all my stuff; but, some did slip through the cracks and lack any dates. I can estimate a date based on quality and personal recollection of what else I drew around the same time, but that’s all I’ve got.

The other issue is archiving finished works. The core issue is that I did not finish the pictures in the same order that I originally sketched them. As a result, dating them chronologically by sketch dates won’t work. On top of that, if I have edited the image since the original completion, I have overwritten the completion date without recording it. I have decided as I have written this, sketches and unfinished work will be archived by the date of sketch completion/abandonment. Finished works will still have said sketch date, but also the most accurate file completion date, which will be the way they will be chronicled.

The Perlers… are not archived well. I have no real way of doing so without a ledger, but newer ones will be just fine. I will just have a long list of Perlers that will be listed as the same date even though they were over the course of several years.

Seems like I’ll be in photoshop for several more hours. I’m not enjoying the archiving, but I do enjoy seeing my work in one place and having easy access to show it to others.

… Now lay in it.

03/16/22

Been some time since I updated the site. Added a couple of archive pics from my seemingly never ending insanity that is my list of hobbies.

For the last 5 days, I have been hyper focused on working on a VRChat avatar that I had been meaning to make for quite some time. Granted, it is less of a new avatar, and more of update that cleans up a lot of the issues that I had with previous renditions. Something that I can feel proud of. Nearly 30 hours worth of work later, I think I’ve at finished the core of the avatar, now I just need to iron out the last bits, but I don’t know if I’m going too far with the superfluous stuff.

A lot of my work with the avatar has tested my prowess of 3D modeling with Blender, a feat I am still woefully a novice at, but I can do some fun things with it. I’ve done some minor things like adding models, blendshapes, visemes, or even a bit of rigging models up.

Working on said avatar means I left other things to the wayside; so hopefully, I can finish up and get back to things that con be seen on this site, rather than just those people who seek me out on VRChat.

Funnily enough, I wrote this post nearly 6 days ago on paper at this point. I need this to form as a habit if I want to maintain this.

The Post

3/4/22

So, here is how it all begins, not with uproarious applause, but with a quiet left click.

Truthfully, I knew I wanted a day like this to come, where I would finally step out of the shadows and present myself for all to see and judge horribly.

Am I expecting to make a massive impact on the world? No.

Do I expect to make all the monies? Not even remotely.

Funnily enough, I’m still not fully prepared to take this next step; but, at this point in time, this is by far the closest I’ve ever gotten to taking this monumental step in my life. That, and I’ve now put myself into a financial tailspin in preparation that I have effectively given myself a point of no return.

In a word, I am relieved. Relieved this weight of wanting to do something like this has been accomplished.

Is it the most opportune time? No.

Could I have pushed it back and improved things further? Absolutely, but I know I would never upload a single thing should I permit myself. My strives to be a perfectionist would be too great.

And so, it is done.

Now, to deal with these ramifications. I have a template for various things, I have a general plan. Can I be consistent? Can I be productive?

Well, only time will tell…

To those who have stumbled upon this lowly denizen of the Void’s blog, welcome. I hope you enjoy your stay.

Progress

02/20/2022

Okay, I’ve paid for the site at this point and I’ve been spending HOURS setting up the various galleries. I did not suspect this to take nearly as much work outside of the website itself, but it has. It really has. It also helped me realize that there are a number of works I’ve done that lack an image altogether. I haven’t had any time to work on any of my hobbies during this time. I’ve essentially created yet another hobby for myself out of trying to make my hobbies available to the public… go me.

It has been quite the uphill battle, but I can still see progress being made. I simply fear that I reach a point where the website is bloated with images. In retrospect, I don’t need to have EVERYTHING on the site upon it being made available, I simply need the framework and then just give myself the chance to pace myself rather than dump everything.

Been making a lot of major investments in order progress other ideas I intend to pursue. The question becomes if it will all be worth it, or will I wind up with egg on my mask and end up wasting a lot of time, effort and money… I gotta keep working on it. I must.

Day 1

02/16/2022

This is where it all began… I fear I may have gotten myself in over my head before I even began. My goals of leaving my mark on the internet has been a long… drawn-out calamity of indecisiveness and anxiety. Even now, writing this very first entry, portions of my mind scream to cease… to give it some more thought and come back later. Sadly, I’m afraid my options to delay have become exhausted. Should I choose vacate my advances now, I will never permit myself the opportunity to do so.

I’ve considered multiple avenues to start my misadventures… many got to the point of actually making a finished product. None got a point where I felt truly proud of my work. Even now, the work I’ve made prior to this entry certainly has improvements and ideas I haven’t put into effect.

When I started working toward this step, most of my attempts were mere imitation, seeing what came before and making my version of it. Circumstances and revelations have occurred time and time again that changed the direction I took… Now, I’m trying something a little different… something I’ve not seen others do. Something I feel makes sense for the strange set of skills I have chosen for myself.

Will it all pan out and end up being okay? No, but I will make full effort to minimize the hardships. I want this to succeed.