Starting to Draw

I’ve started to draw.

Yesterday I watched a few Youtube videos about how to start to draw, then got out the drawing tablet I purchased a month or so ago.

I’ve went back to the basics, spending about 10 minutes hatching today.

Tuesdays are a bit difficult as my son is home from daycare, so I can’t focus too much on work or study. But yesterday I managed to watch a good group of videos about starting to draw.

• How to improve your art… had a good step by step guide, saying to start with Hatching, basic shapes and then tracing. Before moving onto quick sketching 1 hour a day for 100 days or so to build yp your observation and transfer skills.

As well as drawing, I rewatched a few videos on Monday and Tuesday about writing, and visual novels. I have a visual Novel in development hell - well I have some basic gameplay that I think is interesting, but can’t seem to write a story for the visual novel.

• LocalScriptMan has a really good clean system of writing good stories. You start with the Theme, then each character has a unique perspective on that theme, that causes the friction and drive for the story. He suggests using attachment theory for writing good relationships too.
• Also LocalScriptMan explains about how dialogue needs to be written based on the scenes, and in each scene the characters have priorities at that point.
• Visual Novel Design has some good basics on the feedback loop of character interactions, and explaining the basics of Visual Novels. i.e. my game is a SLG Stat Raiser - that I have the game mechanic for, just not the story…
• LegalKimchi goes into detail about how Politics is about Power - not normative political theory of ideals. He recomends using Empirical political theory to mechanically explain how and why people have power and why and when they use it. The video makes it clear Power always depends on the context in which the relationship exists, and how hard power of money and might need attraction and inspiration so others are influenced or perceive the stability of the power.

I should also just note here a few weeks ago I investigated stategy, and how strategy isn’t management - Strategy is an integrated set of choices that position you on a playing field of your choice in a way that you can win. Meaning stategy needs you to have a theory of why you chose the field, and how you are going to win.

My VN

By the way, my Visual Novel has a game mechanic where you choose what/how much to study, and some extra-circular activities each week. The game-mechanic I’ve build so far, has you memorise flash cards based on your feelings, and your feelings are based on how many flash cards you have in your deck, and how successful you feel.

My ideas is to package that game in a story where you travel to Japan and go to a language school. During the year of study, you will sit exams. With your aim to pass the JLPT 2 or 3 by the end of the year. But I sort of can’t figure out the story. Sometimes I get into a reflective state where I think too much about when I studied Japanese in Japan.

Originally I wanted the game to be comentary on how a lot of programs and books - like Duolingo and Heisig remembering the kanji are gimmics at best, and don’t really help you learn Japanese. But now I’m unsure.