Scyphi

So I was indulging upon a guilty pleasure today and searching for some images this morning on DA, and...well...

You had one job here, DA! One!

What's even worse is that the one smollus pic it did bring up, towards the bottom of that first page of results, happened to be tagged with specifically "gallusxsmolder," and when I click on that tag so to have DA search by it, THEN it'll bring up the results I was actually looking for.

Not that there's anything wrong with gallstream, of course...it's just not what I was searching for.

But to be honest, I find the whole snafu more hilarious than anything.

So.

It's certainly been...interesting...to be here on DeviantArt as of late.

There's a lot of people not too happy about the site's handling of recent events, and without getting too into it, I too have my own issues concerning it that have left a...sour taste...in my mouth. It's also gotten me wondering about the writing on the wall it seems to have left behind.

So, after giving some thought on just how I personally want to respond to it, it's eventually gotten me to the point of questioning just what I do or do not want to continue posting on this site moving forward, for a variety of reasons that, again, I'm not going to get into here. This matter is still one in progress, meaning things will likely be subject to change as things continue to play out...but in the short term, I'm probably going to refrain from posting certain major projects, such as Super Pup or the WIP Changelings reboot, here on DeviantArt, in favor of posting them instead on another, yet-to-be-determined, site that I deem will be an adequate replacement. Other more minor works, however, will likely keep getting posted here for the time being (unless I find a better site to move to, which means, yes, I AM in the market for one currently, but I haven't found one yet, so...).

Finally, partly in light of all of this and partly for other unrelated reasons, I also want to add that a new Lady Reindeer post likely will not happen for this holiday season, which is somewhat disappointing as I do like that project...but I think it'll be for the better for me to hold off on that this year.

As always, I will post new updates on all of this as they become available.

Been a little bit since I talked about any major developments with me or my various ongoing projects, so here's a little update on where things stand and other things of note:

--It's the summertime again, and if you've been keeping tabs on me for awhile now, you may have picked up that summertime is generally when I'm least active around here. This is because summer is the busy time of year for my place of work, meaning I'm generally left with a lot less free time for my usual projects, meaning less getting completed, and thereby less gets posted.

Lately I've been trying to minimize this problem by finding ways to still keep posting something. Last year I did this by posting old or unfinished art that hadn't otherwise seen the light of day for whatever reason, which I would've liked to repeat again this year...but I'm realizing I used up most of that old art last year, and I never had that big a stash of it to begin with (apparently I'm better at seeing projects through than I first thought). So I'll have to see if I can come up with something different this year. I have a couple of ideas for some "lightweight" projects I might be able to do this summer, but we'll see--can't really promise anything there just yet until I've got something more definite settled.

--Meanwhile, work on the "Changelings" side of things is still ongoing, though sadly slowed. It doesn't help that one or two things remain standing in the way which still haven't been settled (hence why the remaining old style comics for "Changelings" I want to do before turning my attention in full to the ensuing reboot still haven't happened), as well as why I haven't posted any new development art for it. But really all that stands in my way is the development of some resources that I still need to finish first...I just haven't found the time for it.

Some of that is one of the things I could potentially work on over the summer, but as for the "Changelings" reboot specifically, I'm still refining the story, and so long as that's still in flux, I'm reluctant to commit to drawing the comic anyway, because I'd hate to get part way into that then realize the story isn't working and have to scrap it and start over. So that's an unexpected (but hopefully minor) delay, but I'd rather face that here and now than later down in the road when such a delay would be more...inconvenient.

Speaking of such, I've been considering how I want to go about posting said reboot when that time comes. Originally I had wanted to keep the story broken into self-contained episodes, so I could work at it an episode at a time, fully completing one episode then while that's getting posted, continue work on the next episode and hopefully minimize the amount of delay between episodes. However the need to reintroduce the universe has resulted in the need for episodes to storyarc, meaning they aren't dividing as cleanly as I'd hoped. As a result, I have a fear I could end up having to end an episode on a semi-cliffhanger, and end up leaving readers hanging for a frustrating amount of time before the next arrives. Unfortunately, I can't predict just how long such a delay might be with much accuracy (and thereby try to adapt) until I'm actually doing the comic--not exactly an ideal time to be figuring that all out.

Honestly, what I could use is a "practice run" so to get warmed up for it. So, to that end...

--"Super Pup" is getting bumped up on the itinerary again. When I last spoke about this project, I revealed it was getting seriously scaled back and overall rethought as a project. This is still ongoing even now. However, the first couple of planned entries to "Super Pup" needed minimal changes to begin with and thus already set to go (they have been for some time). Theoretically, I can commit to producing them any time I'm ready. Further, as "Super Pup" was always 100% episodic by design, there's much less danger of plot points needing to bleed from episode to the next like I would have to for the "Changelings" reboot, so it's not going to be anywhere as big a problem if I finish one episode and it's a lengthy stretch of time before I can produce another.

Which means "Super Pup" will be perfect for a "practice run" so to get a feel for how exactly I want to tackle projects such as this.

What that means is that the "Changelings" reboot will definitely still continue development, but I will likely produce at least one "Super Pup" adventure as something of a warm up first. In other words, when you see pages of a "Super Pup" comic getting consistently posted, then you know the "Changelings" reboot is going to be close by.

--Finally, I also just want to acknowledge that I'm still getting my "ducks in a row," as it were, for all of my ongoing projects in general. For years, I've been trying to tackle multiple at once, but this clearly hasn't been working out, so I've lately been trying to tackle them one at a time in order of priority as I see fit. This means that in order to be able to see through some of the projects mentioned here, it'll be best if I can get a few other projects out of the way first. Unfortunately, some of these are not ones that concern DeviantArt, meaning they won't be posted here.

But just because I don't appear to be posting anything for awhile, doesn't mean I'm not still working on things to post, nor that I don't have things that are still coming.

And of course, I'll relate additional details or other changes to plans as they come up.

(Beware of Spoilers, folks!)

I am again late to the game on this, but I had a good reason this time: in-between A New Generation and now, I lost ready access to a Netflix account, so it took time to work out a solution to that problem at least long enough to get it watched.

And so now watched it I have.

My thoughts? Well...

First off, I would still fully encourage G5 fans to give it a watch at least once, because it is still furthering the overarching story of G5, and indeed it seems like there's a more expansive arc planned here than we'd all initially gave G5 credit for. A New Generation was just setting the scene, but it's now clear Tell Your Tale (which I've been enjoying quite a bit, incidentally) has served to help transition from A New Generation to Make Your Mark, and indeed its first few episodes seemed to have the explicit goal of setting up for Make Your Mark (and I fully expect it will continue to do so as we build up to the next special later this year and the mainline TV series to follow shortly after that), and in turn, Make Your Mark is setting up for later still productions itself.

I mean...the ending did introduce us to a mystery mare who clearly seems to be something of a major baddie moving forward...I'm actually surprised I haven't seen fans discussing that more (particularly as it did not escape my attention this gal has both a horn and wings...real ones ). Point being, it seems the ride is only just beginning, with the implication that G5 will better explain just how it does fit in with G4 later down the line. So if for nothing else, it's worth watching for the sake of continuity and keeping yourself in the loop.

Beyond that, though...

It's by no means a bad little production, but you can tell this was not seen as a high stakes production like A New Generation had been. This was to be expected though, and I expect this is the level of production the forthcoming G5 series will probably feature. And producing a TV series isn't cheap or easy, particularly for CGI which, despite computing's many advances, still tends to be a bit labor (and processor) intensive. So I had figured and fully expected Make Your Mark to be done on a lower budget and a cheaper rendering, and admittedly this does show--the interiors of the new sets feel very spartan and empty (even the ones that are clearly working to match what Tell Your Tale introduced in fine detail, yet it's the latter which weirdly manages to feel the more lively and detailed still) and the character movements feel a bit...I won't go so far as to say "less expressive," but they do feel less...fluid. It's not a deal breaker for me (the animation, ultimately, isn't bad, and had this been the level G5 had started out with, I'd probably have no big issue with it, but Hasbro had already set the bar higher than that, so...), but I had loved A New Generation's level of animation so much I can't help but still secretly wish Make Your Mark could've done more to try and keep matching it.

Ultimately though the budget cuts to the animation isn't the real issue here, because I can live with that if the story's still good, and that's just it...the story's sort of...meh.

If you saw the trailer for Make Your Mark, then save a few finer details (and the aforementioned details about the ending) you really get all of the basics from just that...which just goes to show how poorly done of a trailer it was, first of all, (seriously, you're supposed to hook in viewers to make them want and come watch the teased production, not summarize it in full so much that they now don't have to in the end), but yeah, it's still a...pretty basic and straightforward plot. Very typical MLP fare, really, so much so it feels...paint by numbers.

There's still fun moments, still character development, and still things to praise about it, of course. One thing I did really like was that Make Your Mark put so much emphasis on how earth pony magic is not just a thing too, but also an important thing, enough to put the earth ponies on the same level as the other two tribes and conveys that it really shouldn't be treated as anything less. This is great because while FiM, as great as it was, always stressed that earth pony magic did indeed exist...it never really did anything with it, leaving the earth ponies feeling rather...left out. And then you had viewers making jokes about how this actually is rather discriminatory of it, defeating one of MLP's core points, so I have to praise G5 for both openly acknowledging that this is a problem, and then going forward and actually doing something to address it. And in so doing, showed that earth pony magic can be pretty cool too...and if Hitch is any example, it's not necessarily limited to just growing plants either. In fact, I'd gotten the impression they were implying that how it manifests can vary from pony to pony depending on their strengths, talents, and interests...but we'll see how this is handled moving forward.

Another thing I also liked is that Make Your Mark wasn't all just "magic's back, the tribes have reunited, and everything's hunk-dory again" but instead acknowledged there have been...teething problems...adjusting to magic being back in their lives, and there still lingered some pro-division mentalities as a result, amplified by the frustrations some of these magic problems were creating that everyone now had to deal with. But in so doing, it also taught that, while maintaining friendship and unity isn't always easy and that it'll come with its own set of frustrations along the way, it's worth one's while to fight and overcome those problems anyway, as the rewards for it are pretty darn good.

All in all, it'd be a pretty good TV episode, and I think this is where Make Your Mark...well...misses the mark. It's got this sense of trying to be both a lower budget TV episode, to set up for when said TV show does come to pass, but it's also still trying to keep the bar raised enough to pitch itself as being a, if not a feature film, then a TV movie, and it gives it a sort of "trying to have it both ways" sort of feel with its production, and it just doesn't quite succeed at that. It probably would've been better off just acknowledging that A New Generation was the major film release, not it, and just focused on being what it needed to be so to best tell its story, and not try so hard to try and keep the bar raised when it clearly wasn't given the resources to do so in terms of production and polished writing.

I also wish the film had just owned the fact that it's a Zipp-centric tale above all else (speaking of, Zipp's character development is something else I really liked--there's clearly more to the gal than just being G5's Rainbow Dash ) and just kept the focus more fully on her, rather than trying to squeeze in roughly equal screen time for all of the rest of the Mane 5 cast, even though their characters aren't the chief focus here and are really more just supplementary to Zipp's story at best. They still have their roles to play in the story, definitely, but Zipp's was the one that was taking the lead here, and it should've just been allowed to, even if that meant less screen time for the others as a result, as I think that would've allowed for a stronger story in the end.

But I digress. Despite Make Your Mark's shortcomings, it still does what it set out to do, and it was still a fun G5 tale. And above all else, it IS setting up for more G5 twists further down the road, so if nothing else, it's given us more to look forward to. And despite my lack of a Netflix account problem...I still intend to be there to see it.

So, it's 2022 now. We'll have to see how this one goes--there does seem to be something of an unfortunate trend with the 2020s thus far.

That said, 2021 seems to have been a mixed bag for everybody, but for me, it wasn't too bad of a year. It was definite improvement from the previous year at least.

Anyway, looking back, I'm pretty pleased with the amount of art I was able to produce this year (even though a lot of it was conceptual sketches), considering that in more recent years I've been able to produce scant little art for that respective year, so nice to know I was able to find the time to work a bit more consistently on those art projects.

And as a result, I'm feeling optimistic about that trend continuing and what the upcoming 2022 will bring in terms of art projects. Most of the specifics I have to say on what I have planned for the new year can still be found in this journal post from a couple months back, and I don't have much more to say than that, but here's a few quick updates to those plans:

-The biggest is that "Changelings" reboot that I'm still working towards and the prep getting ready to make it, which is going along very smoothly and I'm getting increasingly high hopes for. Assuming my rate of progress continues like it's been, that's a project I feel confident will start going live for reading some time in 2022, hopefully the earlier part of the year rather than the later...but there's still a few more resources I need to build for it first. Once that's done, I should be able to start in on it in full any time I like, so hopefully not too much longer. Once it is started, I expect it'll be my biggest and foremost active art project moving forward, so hopefully y'all like it once it starts posting.

-In regards to "Changelings" in of itself--I had said previously that I had hoped to get a few final comics for it that I had wanted to get done and out of the way before I did said reboot by the end of 2021...but obviously that didn't happen--it took longer to get some of things I needed to get squared away first than I first estimated. But I had a hunch that might happen anyway, so not too heartbroken that goal got missed. That all said, I think it likely I'll be able to get into those and have them all mostly finished and posted before summer 2022 (or at least I certainly hope so, considering summer is usually the busiest time of the year for me and when I have the hardest time getting work done on projects).

Beyond that, all other projects or goals I've previously mentioned working towards are still on track as previously discussed--it's really just the waiting out the time it'll take to get them finished and ready for your viewing now.

So here's hoping everything goes as planned in 2022, and that it's an overall better year for everyone too.