snail-legs: changelog feed

snail-legs — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

mathsisfun.com has come to my rescue over and over again recently!! seriously I don’t remember very much from maths GCSE at all. someone’s gotta remind me how adding and subtracting negative numbers works!!

snail-legs — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Okay y’know what?? Git commandline is not that scary!!! (I was having trouble authenticating github desktop bc it wouldn’t redirect back to the app for whatever reason? So I spent about an hour figuring out how to get SSH working on the commandline xD)

I'm all set up! :)

snail-legs — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

So it took like three days to back up all of my files ever. Mainly it took a long time because I wanted a fallback cloud backup tooo.

But!! I installed debian on my computer the other day, and I’m pretty much all set up and ready to go now?? I still have a lot of files to sort through, I think. But all of the most important ones have been reorganised now!

I’ve been bad and installed apps that weren’t in the debian packages/repos already, but. I don’t like installing packages from unknown authors*? KDE stuff feels pretty safe for example, because the packages are authored by KDE and debian approved! But for stuff like Steam, there don’t seem to be official packages? So I’ve kinda just followed the instructions on the Steam website. Hopefully this works out ok and doesn’t explode my machine???

The only other issue I’ve had is more of a hardware thing! Somewhat predictably, my NVIDIA graphics card doesn’t play nice with the new operating system :') The open source drivers don’t really work well enough for playing 3D games/working in 3D as far as I can tell, and when I tried the proprietary drivers, my… my computer stopped booting. So, I got rid of those! And I’m back on the open source drivers. My graphics card is pretty old anyways, so I’m planning to just buy an AMD card when I can, since I’ve heard those have much better compatibility? I’ve got my eye on the Radeon RX 6800, since as far as I can tell it predates the AI stuff I don’t want on my machine.

That said I was pretty impressed when my drawing tablet just worked out of the box with pen-pressure and everything! I didn’t even need to install the XPpen drivers so that was nice :)

But yeah! It’s all been faiiirly smooth sailing! I’m pretty happy with my new desktop :)

*I might be missing something and maybe this is a completely fine thing to do because of open source, but yeah idk. I’m just not too keen on it.

snail-legs — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

becoming so so. obsessive? re: cross-checking information between like at least 3 sources that as far as I can tell were written by real people with histories and track records. and I still feel like information I find online is dirty

seo farms that gunk up searches with ai-generated nonsense are the absolute bane of my existence lately :(

I don’t trust images I don’t trust videos I don’t trust text!! this feels really bad!!

linux timee baybee!!

snail-legs — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I think today’s the day!! I’m going to free myself of microsoftwindows and try to install debian on my main pc!

I’m comfortable enough with Krita now that like. Yeah. Yeah, this can be my main art software of choice. Some tools aren’t as good as the Clip Studio Paint equivalents, but other tools are way way better, so it’s kinda just swings and roundabouts. Yeah I’ll have to change my workflow. But I think I’m fine with the new workflow. I’ve time to adjust where I can easily access both softwares.

I’ve exported PSD versions of all the working files for my ongoing/unfinished projects, I’ve recreated my favourite brushes, set up my preferred keybinds and layout. I’m ready to switch over, and I don’t think it’ll be all that disruptive either.

I’m pretty excited for it! All we need to do now is create backups of all our files, and boot into the installation media we made!!!

We’ve been using Linux on our laptop for a good while now too, so I think that makes everything less scary? Started on Mint Cinnamon, and then tried Ubuntu GNOME and. I really liked GNOME actually?? Planning on starting with KDE’s desktop environment for my main PC though, since I’ll be working in Krita and it kinda makes sense. But I thiiink I’d be able to switch to GNOME later if I want to?

Anyway! I’m going to back up my files now :)

I’m sure I’ll report back later! Bye~!

~ not much later ~

Okaaaaayyy, there are a lot of files to back up! and according to file explorer it will take like. at least eight hours. to move them to my external hard drive (which doesn’t have enough storage free for everything either) so um. today might not be the day! we may have to content ourselves with just doing backups today.

Speaking of, I’d better not make more files now until I’ve finished switching! I guess I’ll come back with an update in a few days? :3

snail-legs — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

“is there any time you would like to be free from wearing your glasses?” I AM NOT PUTTING PLASTIC IN MY EYES!!! OR LAZERS!!! the options were “yes” and “not sure”!! the answer is no!!! raagh!!

anyways I was good and booked an eye test. don’t ask me how overdue it is

&

snail-legs — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I feel like I should address being plural here somewhere. so… I guess I will!

basically, I’m pretty sure we’re some flavour of plural. a bit like our transness, the feeling of “being plural” is something which has been present for years, and it hasn’t gone away, no matter how hard we’ve tried to ignore it.

maybe it’s disordered, maybe it’s not. maybe it’s something I made up in my head. but at a certain point, acknowledging it as part of my identity feels much better than pretending it isn’t there at all.

that said, I feel like it’s pretty covert? as in, I don’t think anyone really notices it.

most the time, we couldn’t really tell you who’s at the surface. heightened emotional states can help make it more obvious to us. but day-to-day we’re normally pretty vague. I couldn’t even tell you how many of us there are… at least 3? possibly more?

what I’m trying to say is that. I don’t really expect anyone outside to be able to tell us apart or to try to keep track of who’s who or anything. you don’t need to address us differently or anything, “alex” or “snail-legs” and he/fae pronouns are still fine! which is part of why I haven’t said anything about it to anyone.

the other part of why we’re not super open about it is um. ■■ is pretty private about it all? which is why I’m trying very hard not to go into too much detail.

like I said. I mostly just wanted to make space to acknowledge it. maybe one day we’ll talk about this stuff more! but for now, if you see us writing using plural first-person pronouns (we/us/our/ours), you know why :)

- ▨▨▨▨, 30 Nov 2025

spaghettiii~

snail-legs — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

ough. returning to code we wrote months and months ago like. wow, ok, how does this work again?? what is it doing??

ok. ok, nice. why did we write it like that, though?

soo we’ve ended up refactoring a lot! mainly because there was a bug we needed to fix! and I was struggling to read the script I needed to alter. it was… a bit of a mess? like, we had this one function trying to handle every possible time we’d need to change from one map to another.

but actually, “going through a door”, “loading a save”, “respawning the player”, and “starting a new game” all want slightly different things to happen?? so I broke everything down into smaller functions. it’s a little more repetitive, but also a little easier to navigate. I’m sure future me will go “wtf” and rearrange everything again but hey. it works well enough for now.

anyway! today I’m revisiting the turn-based battle script!

this one is less horrible to read, but also. um, we came up with an actual battle system design doc, and now I need to change the way the code is structured as a result! gah!

… ok, ok, I guess I can’t really complain. it feels nice to be making progress on nightmare_complex again :')

nhs

snail-legs — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 01:00:00 GMT

so apparently the average waiting time for trans healthcare on the NHS is uh. 25 years for a first appointment now? source

224 year waiting list in Glasgow… so fucked :((

Krita perspective rulers yay! yippie, even!

snail-legs — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Ohhhh my goodness?? I’m drawing environments for an HND art assignment, and Krita’s perspective tools are wonderful actually??

Like I think I like these a lot more than the Clip Studio ones (ironically, the reason I switched from FireAlpaca to CSP many years ago!)

In hindsight the sense of scale in this scene is definitely a little off in some places, and the lighting is 100% rule of cool, but overall I’m pretty happy with it :)

test post

snail-legs — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 01:00:00 GMT

testing testing. ok cool.

ee! microblog!

snail-legs — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 01:00:00 GMT

wahahahahaha it’s so fun to have a microblog again <3

not that either of the new posts on it are particularly short lmao

Krita..!

snail-legs — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Oh my god I’ve become such a Microsoft Hater. But I’m also a Clip Studio Paint user, and it’s the sole reason I still use Windows.

I guess I haven’t talked about this on our site at all, since I’ve not been very active on here for the past few years!! But we’ve been working on migrating to Linux.

Now. We were able to get CSP working via Bottles on our laptop (Linux) a few months ago, so I don’t think switching completely to Linux would make CSP fully inaccessible to us? But I also didn’t really like running it through Bottles.

I sent a feature request to Celsys asking for a Linux version of Clip Studio Paint, but I doubt anything will come of it unless they receive a lot of requests for a Linux port.

So because my hatred of Microsoft gets stronger every time I must use one of their products, and is steadily overpowering my love of Clip Studio Paint, I’ve started learning Krita.

I only began drawing stuff in Krita the other week. And this week I have continued to do so!! I’m starting to get the hang of it, I think.

Key differences so far:

Clipping/ layer masks seem to work completely differently. I’ve used this feature a few times now, and I don’t think I fully get it yet, but I’m getting there. It’s tied up in the way layer groups work, which feels intuitive enough.
The toolbar is way more cluttered… This is because Krita doesn’t let you hide/reorganise tool buttons. I think there might be a way to remove some of the buttons you don’t use via python scripting? But I haven’t looked too far into that side of things yet. Not too bad, since I mostly use keyboard shortcuts to switch tools anyways.
The eraser tool? It behaves more like drawing with transparency in CSP. Once I set my main brush to use “eraser switch size”, I got on fine. I used draw with transparency a lot in Clip, so if anything, eraser switch size makes this a slight improvement over CSP’s offerings.
Holy shit, Krita has so many layer blending modes??? Very cool, haven’t tested them out yet but… I’m looking respectfully. 👀
Brush settings (like brush size, opacity etc) live in the top bar, and can’t be moved to a docker… Once again, my reliance on keyboard shortcuts comes in clutch. ctrl+alt+drag to change brush size, my beloved.
The text tool is a bit worse… but for annotations, I can always just write directly on the canvas, and I guess I don’t mind the idea of lettering my comics/ zines in an external program that much.

I’ve tried Krita a few times over the years, and it seems to be a lot more stable/ feature-rich now than it was the first time I tried it. I think switching art programs will always be a bit of a struggle, though - how much of your old workflow/ preferences can be carried over? How many things do you need to learn to do in the new-software way?

Anyways, here’s some art I drew in Krita!! I haven’t drawn that much in it yet, so I’m fully expecting to run up against more things that work differently/don’t feel intuitive to me. For example, I’ve not looked into Krita’s halftone offerings, but I expect those are probably pretty different?

Drawn mooostly on one of my University Centre’s Cintiqs. I think I ultimately prefer pen tablets to screen tablets, but it was neat to get to try a Cintiq.

Inspired by this artfight attack by ElliotInfinity!! b/w + spot colours is such a nice combo for Phi. Miight do some further value tweaks + finishing touches later.

My current favourite brush pack works in lots of different art software, and being able to use brushes I’m already comfortable + familiar with is helping me a lot with adjusting to Krita! Thank you TOMB of NULL, you’re so cool.

You don’t get to see the full image for this one sorry. It came out really cute though!! This is where I started to explore the layer clipping/masking tools a little more.

I’ve also done some Uni work in Krita, but not a lot… it’s early days right now, so I think I’ll share when the project in question is more well-rounded/developed :)

I’ll try to keep further notes on the transition from CSP to Krita! That way I can talk about it more if I want to. Not sure how useful that’ll be to others, but it’s my blog, and I’ll talk about whatever I want!! Might be good for me to have a record of my thoughts as I move over, too.

wait. you make kink art???

snail-legs — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 01:00:00 GMT

So, lately I’ve been thinking about maybe sharing some of the kinky stuff I’ve made…? I’ve mostly been learning game programming this year, so the small amount of horny art I do just-for-me constitutes a larger-than-usual percentage of what I’ve made over the year. Oops.

I guess sharing it gets a lil complicated though, for a number of reasons!! Firstly, shame. we’re not really open about kink stuff with anyone, irl or online, so it all feels intensely personal and idk how safe we feel putting it on the internet for anyone to see.

Secondly, like 90% of it is doing double-duty as journalling, which only makes it even more personal and hard to share.

Thirdly, it’s just nice sometimes, to make stuff that is 100% for our eyes only. And posting any of it anywhere will change that dynamic.

Lastly, I’m pretty sure I’m aroace, so the art in question is… a little hard to categorise? Like, it’s not really SFW. But it’s also not exactly what you’d expect from something labelled NSFW, either? I feel like the line between what’s kinky/non-kinky could get a little blurry…

But, I guess the reason I’m contemplating sharing it is that it makes us really happy. Like I always feel so warm and fuzzy inside when I’m drawing/writing it, and when looking back at it too. Shame aside, I do really like some of the stuff I’ve made, to the point where it’s some of my favourite work to come out of this year. So it feels a little sad in some ways to not be able to share it.

Also, I kind of want this website to be as comprehensive as possible, and… I guess it’s kind of incomplete without the kink stuff here? I don’t know. I don’t know!! It’s become an important part of our creative practice.

I saw a post on tumblr the other day, along the lines of:

the author’s open fetish, which complements the themes of their work

And I don’t know. You probably don’t want to see my weird kink stuff, but being more open about it sounds kinda nice. Sorry.

A lot of the more journally stuff feels, um. 100% off-limits. But I think we’re about to hit a new phase with the kink stuff that’s less journally? Or at least a little more varied. Stuff we’d potentially be more comfortable sharing.

The question is, will you ever actually see any of it? xD

I’m going to stop digging myself a hole now. Even if we don’t make a kink corner for the site in the end, I feel like writing about it like this has helped me feel a bit less ashamed of it?

moon-jellyfish-kiss-9

snail-legs — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 01:00:00 GMT

I’ve been working on slowly editing moon jellyfish kiss act 1 recently, after having read through it with fresher eyes and noticing a lot of layout issues and style inconsistencies… I’d like to get the 1st act printed soon, so I can take it to prideCAF for real this year!

I’m very close to finishing the redraw and I want it to be as good as I can make it before I have it printed! so I keep alternating between drawing and editing ^^

a new panel I drew while editing (so far, the only new one), and the two panels I ended up scrapping :')

I’ve also started compiling the outtakes to archive them in a couple different ways haha. suffice to say, when I do a itch.io release of the comic there’s going to be a big ole outtakes/behind the scenes bonus pdf ^^’

jp-2

snail-legs — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 01:00:00 GMT

some more thoughts on learning japanese/a second language…

as a native english speaker, I guess the inevitable question is “why should I bother learning a second language at all?” to have learnt english as my first language puts me in a position of privilege in a lot of ways.

but the answer for me lies in a simple broadening of understanding, I guess? a lot of the media I consume in my downtime is in japanese, to the point that it’s the obvious choice for a second language. I guess if I were to consider candidates for a 3rd language, maybe spanish, chinese, thai, french or german?

I think language has a big influence on the way a person expresses things… unless I’m making a concious effort to be understood, I don’t think, or feel, I guess? in words? “understanding” is more abstract and intuitive than that. it’s in translating those thoughts and feelings to words or images that they gain a structure and expression.

to learn a second language is to open myself up to new understandings and expressions. it’s not unlike learning music, in some ways.

jp-1

snail-legs — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 01:00:00 GMT

I’ve been studying japanese lately. I’m not very good at it yet, but I am getting somewhere, I think? I’m really good at falling down rabbitholes and learning random stuff and that’s more or less how I got here… I learned hiragana so I’d have a better time doing UTAU stuff and then was like… why not just keep going? learning hiragana is already the first hurdle in terms of learning japanese as an english speaker, so like? bit of a waste if I only used it on UTAU stuff ^^’

I started in duolingo, but eventually decided I don’t really like it - I don’t like how “specific” my answers have to be… for example, typing in an answer only to find that they wanted me to give them the other translation of the phrase when there’s more than one way of saying it. or making a typo even if the answer I gave indicates that I understood. I think these would be less of a problem if I was willing to pay for the subscription version, where you can make mistakes without being penalised.

it was ultimately an anki deck that was most effective at teaching me hiragana, so I ended up trying a sentence-based N5 anki deck I found and am slowly slowly working my way through it.

that said, it’d be silly to try and learn a language without listening to it, so I try to listen to something every day even if I don’t understand much. if I’m feeling braver I’ll try reading, either from a free/online graded reader, or by looking more closely at the lyrics of songs I like, depending on the mood I’m in.

notes-18

snail-legs — Sun, 18 Sep 2022 01:00:00 GMT

saw a slow worm in the garden today! they are so cute, I love slow worms so much.

notes-17

snail-legs — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 01:00:00 GMT

so much of the media I consume is american that I actually get some sort of weird culture shock when I find something that’s british,

for example - I know, hypothetically, that 7/11 is a chain of american convenience shops, but I’ve never been to one. for all I know they don’t exist beyond the media that references them. but tesco? I have stepped foot in many a tesco. tesco feels real.

moon-jellyfish-kiss-8

snail-legs — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 01:00:00 GMT

I have updates on moon jellyfish kiss! in hopes of having act 1 ready for an event I’m tabling at in september, I made some decisions I regretted… I’ve got a video planned where I’ll hopefully talk more about it but tl:dr; I sacrificed sketch layers for colour layers, didn’t like the results, and am redrawing most of the 18 pages :'-)

but hey, sometimes you gotta learn things the hard way… RIP 2 weeks of work on the comic. (I’d taken those weeks off of work-work so when I say 2 weeks… we’re talking 80+ hours here)

work on jellyfish has slowed down a lot since, mostly bc of prep for aforementioned event (might have a short zine about gender in the works), but I should be able to focus on it a bit better after the event.

I picked up my mjk script again today though… writing act 2 and it’s been challenging! I feel like the beginning of a story is the easiest to write. then, I think the end is slightly easier than the middle? the middle is hard.

rambles aside, here’s a cute lil illustration I did for my business cards:

if you are reading this and will be in the south-west of england on 3rd september… come to [pridecaf]https://snail-legs.co.uk/the-snail-log/microblog/pridecaf.co.uk/) (bristol pride comic art festival) and say hi? it’s the event I mentioned tabling at above… I’m very nervous but also. excited!

moon-jellyfish-kiss-7

snail-legs — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 01:00:00 GMT

so I’ve finished my act 1 thumbnails!! (for now, it’s still an early draft)

my next step is asking other people to read them + give me feedback… I think I have some ideas for how I could improve the comic, but at this point some fresh eyes would be very helpful!

I do feel kinda anxious about it though! this comic is very precious to me and very rough in its current form… showing it to other people at this stage requires a type of vulnerability I’m not used to and so it’s a little scary.

but I shouldn’t let that stop me!! I really do want this comic to be the best that I can make it, and I think soliciting some concrit would help a lot!

on that note, if you’re reading this and would be interested in giving me some feedback on my act 1 thumbs please contact me! I’m snail-legs#0188 on discord, or alex@snail-legs.co.uk via email

moon-jellyfish-kiss-6

snail-legs — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 01:00:00 GMT

I’ve been continuing to thumbnail the first act of moon jellyfish kiss, and this one kept making me sympathy yawn!

I’m about 4 pages away from finishing this round of thumbnails now, and it’s been really surreal seeing the script I’ve spent about 3 months working on in comic form! I have a lot of work ahead of me yet, but still.

I find as much as I may write my scripts panel-by-panel and page-by-page, I almost always end up changing things and smoothing them over with my thumbnails! it’s very difficult to figure out how well a script will translate into a comic before I start, y’know. translating it.

I also ended up using blender to 3D model lilac’s bedroom! mostly because I know juuust enough 3D modelling to make something simple like this, and I didn’t want to draw proper thumbnails for it (was drawing a lot of environment thumbnails for work)

I later decided I didn’t like the materials I’d managed to hack together because they look a bit tacky, but took the render above before removing them. (it took long enough to make them that I felt a keepsake of some kind was necessary)

notes-16

snail-legs — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 01:00:00 GMT

concentric circles are THE WORST shape to draw by hand :'-)

DND-1

snail-legs — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 01:00:00 GMT

my notes on last night’s DND session were 100% doodles, so I figured I’d share them here!

the campaign I’m in is actually streamed, vods are here if you’d like to take a peek hehe

moon-jellyfish-kiss-5

snail-legs — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 01:00:00 GMT

some recent moon jellyfish kiss concept art!

not to get too ahead of myself, but I might be looking for beta readers soon 👀

I’m at a point where I want some outside feeback on act 1, so I’ve started thumbnailing it out! the first scene is fully thumbnailed, but there’s an environment I have to design before I can start thumbnailing the other two scenes.

HRT-3

snail-legs — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 01:00:00 GMT

I wasn’t expecting body hair to be my favourite change on HRT, but I think it might be? idk, something about seeing my hair start to grow in darker and thicker feels like a reclaimation of my own body. it’s oddly healing.

notes-15

snail-legs — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 01:00:00 GMT

I feel like webtoon is the instagram of webcomics…

sketchbook-6

snail-legs — Thu, 19 May 2022 01:00:00 GMT

some little doodles from my notebook that I liked!

notes-14

snail-legs — Thu, 19 May 2022 01:00:00 GMT

I’ve switched over to writing my comic scripts in the standard comic script format, and it’s very nice. Super legible, and once I figured out how I was going to adapt it to markdown, reasonably seamless for me to write in.

This is more-or-less the markdown I write:

### PAGE # ( R ) - # panels
PANEL #: panel description
> CHARACTER
> dialogue

And this is roughly how that ends up looking:

PAGE # ( R ) - # panels

PANEL #: panel description

CHARACTER
dialogue

It’s not shown in the example above, but I’m also using a h1 for the document title, a h2 to mark new scenes, and a hr to create a page-break after each page.

I use a little css snippet to format the blockquotes I’m using for dialogue/sfx - it removes the default formatting and centers the text.

All that to say that I think the standard comic script is a really good tool. While it may take a little time + thought to integrate it into your workflow, I’d reccomend giving it a go! (and thought I’d share how I’m using it, as someone who scripts his comics in markdown)

notes-13

snail-legs — Fri, 13 May 2022 01:00:00 GMT

I really thought that comics would be what got me drawing environments but nope, it’s been concept art!

Comics have definately helped me a bit, but yeah. I’ve been doing a lot of environment art for work these past ~5 months, and I’m a lot more confident drawing environments as a result!

moon-jellyfish-kiss-4

snail-legs — Mon, 09 May 2022 01:00:00 GMT

this is the first time I’ve gotten so invested in a story/ocs that I’m coming up with AUs in my head for them…

considering actually writing them down & making them as like. little tests/practices for the real thing

thinking about a human/cat cafe AU…

notes-12

snail-legs — Mon, 09 May 2022 01:00:00 GMT

pomodoro technique is useful but always ends up with me just sitting there, waiting for the breaks to end lol

notes-11

snail-legs — Tue, 03 May 2022 01:00:00 GMT

getting to the point of my comic script where the document is getting real long and intimidating to work on aha

thinking it might be smart to split the 3 acts into their own documents… will give it a go after I’m done with the current draft.

notes-10

snail-legs — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

I’m usually super tired after work, so I don’t often have the brainpower left to write! I took a nap after work today though, and it really helped :)

I was able to enjoy doing a little bit of writing before bed, and it feels nice!

it helps that I’m fairly excited for the comic I’m writing at the moment, too!! this one has a similar tone to the dragon knights, which was a bit of a breakthrough in discovering the type of story I enjoy telling :-)

sketchbook-5

snail-legs — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

some little doodles of genshin impact characters I made to sate my desire to draw fanart! these were drawn in pen from memory, so they’re not super accurate to any of the actual character designs lol

moon-jellyfish-kiss-3

snail-legs — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

started my second draft of moon jellyfish kiss!

it’s looking like it’ll be longer than I’d initially planned lol, but I think I’ve almost got the structure/pacing down now

I learnt a lot about the story from my first draft, and I’m looking forwards to learning more with this draft! :-)

notes-9

snail-legs — Sat, 16 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

just moved all of my moon jellyfish kiss stuff over to obsidian and man. I really like this editor, it feels so much better to write in!

notion was nice but it felt a little clunky to me? obsidian feels a little closer to writing in a code editor, and for whatever reason I find that a lot more intuitive lol

started editing my first draft today, and there’s A LOT to rewrite but. progress is being made!

sketchbook-4

snail-legs — Fri, 15 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

made some clip studio paint brushes! download link

they’re based on pens I have irl and it took a bit of faffing but they feel really nice to draw with :-)

it’s interesting to think about the phases I’ve gone through with my taste in brushes. I’ve used soft brushes, hard brushes, textured brushes, untextured brushes… a lot of it is about striking a balance that feels good to me, and what “feels good” is often mood-dependant!

notes-8

snail-legs — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

I went on a walk today and I’m feeling a lot better :-)

notes-7

snail-legs — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

starting to feel a lil burnt-out on drawing, I have a long weekend this week though, so hopefully that’ll give me some time to recharge :)

it may also be that I need to get better sleep or go outside. maybe I’ll go on a walk tomorrow.

sketchbook-3

snail-legs — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

cute lil doodle from my physical notebook~

notes-6

snail-legs — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

really enjoying the microblog lately :)

it’s been such a nice lil outlet! I can ramble about whatever I want with none of the anxieties I get from social media hehe

sketchbook-2

snail-legs — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

another study :)

moon-jellyfish-kiss-2

snail-legs — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

finished the first draft of moon jellyfish kiss the other day! 🎉

gonna let it marinate for a bit while I do some world and character building. I’ll come back to it later to figure out how I wanna restructure/rewrite things for the next draft :)

sketchbook-1

snail-legs — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 01:00:00 GMT

a lunchtime study - painted digitally from direct observation, with a focus on light + colour. I’m especially pleased with how the water in the vase came out :-)

TDOV2022

snail-legs — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 01:00:00 GMT

Happy trans day of visibility!

Before I came out, I spent a lot of time feeling alone and afraid and monstrous because of my gender. I still struggle with lingering fears from that time.

Since going on T, I’ve felt a lot more like myself, and it’s been terrifying!

For the majority of my life so far, my gender was my most closely-guarded secret. To be open about who I am puts me in a vulnerable position that I’m very much still adjusting to.

I was fully convinced, for a long time, that noone would recognise me as myself. that they would hate me, for being a stranger to them. it’s a specific and difficult type of fear to explain.

I don’t know how to properly articulate how much transmasculine visibility would’ve meant to me then.

All I had at the time were my daydreams, and even those would often turn sour.

I’m doing a lot better now, though I’m still working through some baggage. In part, that’s thanks to proud and visible trans men/transmasculine folks.

They showed me that I can be trans and happy. I didn’t know that was a possiblility for me, for the longest time.

notes-5

snail-legs — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 01:00:00 GMT

wanna get back into the habit of doing art for myself again… done lots of art for other people in my free time lately!

time to make stuff for me.

notes-4

snail-legs — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 01:00:00 GMT

been messing with the format of this page, now the lil tag in the top right of each entry is a link to that entry!

also tryna give this place a cosier vibe :-)

notes-3

snail-legs — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 01:00:00 GMT

accidentally started bullet journalling again and now my notebook is running out of pages :'-)

it has proved really good for keeping my thoughts organised though!

I know a lot of people have really aesthetically-pleasing journals but I think I like mine being a bit of a hot mess - it’s gotta be function > form for me, thank you very much

(as much as I love cute stationary, the idea of keeping my notebooks neat and tidy is intimidating… best not make things harder than they need to be!)

notes-2

snail-legs — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

sometimes self-care is hiding all your unnamed layers in named folders… if I can’t see the layer management nightmare, does it really exist?

moon-jellyfish-kiss-1

snail-legs — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

started writing another comic… after having made a number of comics with strong gay undertones I feel like it’s time. time to write something that is Overtly Gay.

the working title is Moon Jellyfish Kiss, which I think is a really cute name!! it’s a romance/fantasy and I am trying very hard to finish my first draft of it,

I want my script to feel real solid before I start drawing, so I have a lot of work ahead of me writing-wise haha

I really wanna draw this one… I am prepared for it to take A While though - I draw all day everyday for work, so I’m happy enough to chip away at the comic bit by bit as&when I feel like doing so.

work-2

snail-legs — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

been researching deserts for work and the third youtube search result for them is a minecraft video?? please. youtube. I know I watch a lot of minecraft videos but this is not what I was asking for when I searched “desert” hsdkfgjshg

notes-1

snail-legs — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

note to self that linear-burn is a really nice layer blending mode actually and I should use it more often.

work-1

snail-legs — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

so! I got a full-time job as a games artist!! :D

I started Monday last week and it’s been great so far! I don’t have much leftover art energy for personal work but I think I’m fine with that actually. I need to learn how to rest anyways.

but yeahh, comic/personal art is gonna slow down a fair bit! can’t say much about the game I’m working on because NDA, but it’s a real fun project :-)

cat-1

snail-legs — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

a baby:

HRT-2

snail-legs — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

I wake up every morning and apply my t gel, shirtless in the bathroom mirror. and in the process of slowly, slowly, becoming, I learn to like my body a little more.

(1 month on T!!)

python-1

snail-legs — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

ok ok so I touched on it in the changelog, but today I woke up and went “hmm. let’s get rid of the javascript on my comic pages.”

but the trouble with this is that the HTML alternative is to create individual .html files for each page of each comic. and I have a lot of comics on this site- factory town alone has 57 pages!! I did not want to edit all these by hand.

luckily for me, I remembered that I know Python! so I decided some automation was in order.

I haven’t programmed anything in like at least two years though?

it took a little trial and error, but in the end I came up with a script that looped through all of the comic images and created a HTML page for each one, adding the correct first/prev/next/last links and other info into a template file using .replace()

it’s not perfect and I still had to edit some things manually, but it definately saved some time and was much more entertaining than writing all the .html files by hand would’ve been.

anyways now I wanna program some more because I’d forgotten how fun it is!!

RIFT-2

snail-legs — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

and for my last drawing of the year, I present to you some more character concept art for the graphic novel I started writing by accident!

I’m still writing it! it’s going well. yesterday I worked on fleshing out the characters a bit more, and they all have names now :-)

I’ve also been putting a lil more thought into each character’s background and some of the worldbuilding.

I’ll make a proper page for this story at some point, but for now I’ll most likely just be sharing bits of concept art here and there.

xmas2021

snail-legs — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

we had a traditional Belizean christmas dinner this year (chimole for spice-lovers and wonton soup for me) and man. why we’ve been eating turkey roast all these years when the family recipes are so much tastier I have no idea,

happy holidays to people who celebrate!

knitting-1

snail-legs — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I knitted a cardigan!* I’m super happy with it, though the tension is a little uneven in places.

*I did not make the cardigan in one day, I made it over a couple months! I think I started it in October? also I haven’t blocked it yet

also today is my second day on T, feels good, feels good :-)

RIFT-1

snail-legs — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

so I may have accidentally started writing a graphic novel… here is some concept art.

long story summarised, I was going through old sketchbooks the other day and discovered some old OCs I’d forgotten about:

( there were a couple more sketches of them, but these are the main spreads )

this sketchbook is from 2019-2020, and I have no idea who these characters were, only the name of the story they were attatched to: RIFT.

I thought they were kinda neat though, so I started writing about them. and also redesigned them a bit. and now we’re here,

HRT-1

snail-legs — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been officially prescribed Testosterone!! Puberty 2, I’m coming for you.